Bill Gates, Elizabeth Warren, And Andrew Yang

Bill Gates is in news saying something like, I have already paid $10 billion in taxes, "more than anyone else," and you can have 10 billion more if you want, but if you want all of the 100 billion, I got a problem with that.

Now the media being what it is (they want a fight!) all sorts of brand name media outlets (this is not yellow, tabloid journalism, this is mainstream media, the kind that informs heads of state early in the morning) are saying Bill Gates prefers Donald Trump over Elizabeth Warren. After all, he is just another rich guy.

First off, Warren has never proposed taking all of Bill Gates' money. Her 2% wealth tax means Bill Gates would pay two billion, which is less than the 10 billion he has already offered to pay.

Second, someone who might be super smart in one niche might or might not be equally informed in another niche, or in the same niche in another era. We think Tesla was so smart, Elon Musk has named his most famous company after him, and Musk is today, and Tesla was indeed smart. But Tesla never bought into whatever Einstein was proposing. Tesla was a pre-relativity kind of guy.

Bill Gates is a PC-era guy. No tech entrepreneur who starts in 2020 can not buy into the idea of a Universal Basic Income (which I have never defined as American Basic Income). UBI is to the fourth industrial revolution what electricity was to the second and what the internet has been to the third. It is basic. It is infrastructure.

In all fairness, I did not hear Bill Gates say anything about UBI. I'd be very surprised if he was opposed to it. But if he is saying, you have already taken 10 billion from me, take 10 billion more, but don't take away the entire 100 billion, because I have a foundation to run.

Only the mainstream media can interpret that as an attack on Elizabeth Warren, or the idea of UBI. I can't.

I actually subscribe to Bill Gates' newsletter. So he has a tendency to show up in my inbox. He is a smart interesting guy doing good work, although it is my firm conviction 100 Gates Foundations will not be able to solve the problems of the world, what we need is a world government.

Bill Gates, Elizabeth Warren, And Andrew Yang https://t.co/emjXtgTwCV @BillGates @ewarren @SenWarren @AndrewYang @AOC @reshmasaujani @iam_preethi @deepikapadukone @priyankagandhi @priyankachopra @IlhanMN @RashidaTlaib @RepPressley @sunrisemvmt @VarshPrakash #UBI

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) November 8, 2019

Hillary Clinton called the wealth taxes proposed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren "unworkable" and said they would be "incredibly disruptive" if enforced. pic.twitter.com/BOJPZJokSX

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) November 8, 2019

This whole “let’s all dunk on Bill Gates” thing is infuriating. Yep, dude is mega rich. But he’s also one if the greatest philanthropists the world has ever seen.

Dollar for dollar I’d wager his philanthropic investments are dramatically more efficient in their return vs. gov. https://t.co/efyBJWkkzO

— Matt Galligan (@mg) November 8, 2019

Talk About Pulling Your Own Weight

Nanotube Muscles Bench 50,000 Times Their Own Weight

Carbon nanotube yarns powered by light or electricity can run motors, flip a catapult, and lift impressive amounts of weight. ..... lifting loads as much as 50,000 times greater than their own weight .... Artificial muscles might be used as actuators in robotics and surgical tools, and drive tiny motors and flywheels. The nanotube muscles can be powered by electricity, but they also contract in response to light and certain chemicals. And they work at temperatures as high as 2,500 degrees Celsius, an extreme that reduces other strong actuating materials to a molten puddle. And unlike previous carbon nanotube muscles, these materials require no packaging or battery-like electrolytes to function. ..... Individual carbon nanotubes are stronger than steel, highly conductive, have great optical properties, and so on .... One problem is the tendency for nanotubes to form spaghetti-like tangles, where each point of tube-to-tube contact can compromise strength. But over the past few years materials scientists have been learning how to straighten out these tangles and build large, useful things

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Information As Service, Service As Information

Image via Wikipedia

Political Sci-Fi
The Energy Solution: Nuclear Energy

Imagine we have solved the food problem. We have. We produce more than people can eat. We just never figured out how to distribute all that food we produce. Imagine we only produce environmentally neutral products, all electric cars and so on. There is abundant electricity from nuclear energy for all humanity. And there is universal, wireless, mobile broadband. In that post agricultural, post industrial, post electricity, post information age, all that we know as cutting edge and exciting today will have become utilities. At that point much of the excitement will be in the service sector.

Information processing, content creation and search will always be as expansive as the human mind. There will never be any cure to curiosity. We are built curious. At that point the two most exciting economic frontiers will remain screen time and face time: information and service.

Why d

Image by Digital Papercuts via Flickr

o I bring this up? Is this escapism on my part? I don't expect to see that post agricultural, post industrial, post electricity, post information age for decades. But what I do expect to see, what I am already seeing is the emergence of the same in pockets. It is already happening. Why would a Third World guy like me have an interest in those pockets? Why am I out to betray my peoples whose immediate needs are more mundane? Because you have to constantly inhabit the future to constantly seek the quickest, best routes to the present.

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