Links to Consider, 6/30
Alice Evans on discrimination against women; Lynne Kiesling on Economic Calculation; Noah Smith on electrification; Lorenzo Warby on Marxian science
In male-majority US undergraduate classes, men speak for longer, interrupt frequently and are much more assertive. Another US study finds that male-majority undergraduate teams accord grant men more influence and are more likely to choose men as external representatives. Even when women achieve top grades in physical sciences, the male majority rarely rate them as equally knowledgeable or want to study together.
These appear to be genuine examples of social behavior that disfavors women. I can almost hear Bryan Caplan asking, “What about social behavior that disfavors men?” Rather than stand on whataboutism, I would say that pointing out social behavior that disfavors one sex is helpful, because we should try to change our behavior.
Knowledge is not data, and data are only an incomplete surrogate for knowledge. Knowledge is perception, interpretation, and judgement; the distillation of those elements into action in an economic system with prices (and profit and loss) creates data. Economic calculation has an irreducible cognitive dimension because it is grounded in subjective personal judgements about opportunity costs.
Clarifying these differences between knowledge and data suggests that the complex economy is in fact not computable, at least not in any meaningful sense that reflects underlying human values and can adapt to unknown and changing conditions in dynamic systems. AI can generate, process, and analyze data, but AI cannot react to data and take actions without contextual knowledge grounded in human cognition. AI cannot perform economic calculation without human input.
Instead of me, Reason Magazine should have asked Kiesling to write on this topic.
Often, electricity and combustion accomplish two different purposes. Combustion, which releases energy very quickly and relies on very dense energy storage mediums (e.g. gasoline), has long provided the “oomph” to make vehicles go. But electricity, with its capacity for fine control, is what we use to power our computers, radios, and other electronic instruments. And because pushing electrons in a nice orderly line is more efficient than releasing energy as heat, electricity is better for some applications like lighting our houses. So for a century and a half, combustion and electricity have largely existed side by side. One offered power and portability; the other, precision.
…two new technological revolutions shored up electricity’s fundamental weaknesses — low power and low energy density — while expanding on its fundamental strengths of precision, efficiency, and storability.
…As a result, we’re starting to see electricity become competitive in many of the applications where combustion easily won out in past decades. Solar power is taking over from fossil fuel combustion at an accelerating rate. Batteries are replacing internal combustion engines in cars, also at an accelerating rate. Battery-powered drones are quickly becoming much more important in warfare. Heat pumps are improving to the point where they’re able to challenge combustion-based heating. Battery-powered stoves, ovens, dryers, and other appliances will be both more powerful and cheaper than their gas-burning equivalents.
I hope Noah’s vision for the future is right. You can read contrary takes from Bjorn Lomborg (WSJ) or Mark P. Mills.
Marx’s economistic systematising created a pretence of being social scientist—to himself and even more to Engels—that many people have maintained ever since. Hence a pre-Darwinian metaphysician is even now regularly treated as if he was a social scientist. This despite being wrong about more or less everything—class, commerce, surplus, immiseration, the state, patterns of history, commodification, division of labour, foraging societies …
Treating Marx as what he is not—a social scientist—is a falsity that is having increasingly grim consequences. This original sin against taking evidentiary standards and humilities of scholarship seriously has polluted and corroded the Social Sciences and Humanities, is moving onto to Science and Medicine and out into institutions.
I think that Marx’s popularity owes a lot to what Tyler Cowen calls mood affiliation. If you are in the mood to resent everything WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic), then Marx will come across as having deep insights.
substacks referenced above:
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"In male-majority US undergraduate classes, men speak for longer, interrupt frequently and are much more assertive. "
There's another explanation for this besides that men are implicitly conspiring to marginalize women's influence. Which is that men, especially in their peak reproductive years, are wired to *compete against other men* to get noticed by women. Men generally need to stand out in some way, hence the sheer volume of male speech in the public sphere. I would think that this competition gets stronger the more a mixed-gender group skews male.
Noah Smith claims “Solar power is taking over from fossil fuel combustion at an accelerating rate” apparently based upon a tweet that purports to show estimated versus actual new solar installations. Not sure how that logic works.
Alternatively, one might consider the recent Energy Institute’s recent annual report (https://www.energyinst.org/exploring-energy/resources/news-centre/media-releases/a-year-of-record-highs-in-an-energy-hungry-world,-reveals-ei-statistical-review ). Although a New Green Deal cheerleader type of propaganda outlet, it does at least purport to provide data on energy. The press release for the annual report states:
“Global fossil fuel consumption reached a record high, up 1.5% to 505 EJ (driven by coal up 1.6%, oil up 2% to above 100 million barrels for first time, while gas was flat). As a share of the overall mix they were at 81.5%, marginally down from 82% last year.
Emissions from energy increased by 2%, exceeding 40 gigatonnes of CO2 for the first time.
Solar and wind push global renewable electricity generation to another record level
Renewable generation, excluding hydro, was up 13% to a record high of 4,748 TWh
This growth was driven almost entirely by wind and solar, and accounted for 74% of all net additional electricity generated.
As a share of primary energy use, renewables (excluding hydro) were at 8%, or 15% including hydro.
Ongoing Ukraine conflict cements gas rebalancing in Europe
US consumption of fossil fuels fell to 80% of total primary energy consumed.
Growth economies struggle to curb fossil fuel growth, but renewables accelerate in China
In India fossil fuel consumption was up 8%, accounting for almost all demand growth, and stood at 89% share of overall consumption. For the first time, more coal was used in India than Europe and North America combined.
In Africa primary energy consumption fell in 2023 by 0.5%. Fossil fuels accounted for 90% of overall energy consumption, with renewables (excluding hydro) at only 6% of electricity.
China’s full return post-Covid saw fossil fuel use increase to a new high, up 6%, but as a share of primary energy it has been in decline since 2011, down to 81.6% in 2023. China added 55% of all renewable generation additions in 2023, i.e. more than the rest of the world combined. It also overtook Europe on an energy per capita basis for the first time.”
The Manhattan Contrarian (https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-6-25-this-energy-transition-thing-really-is-not-happening ) contradicts Smith and helpfully comments on their findings:
“4,748 TWh of renewable generation — wow, that’s a lot! Or is it? Do you notice how they suddenly switched units from Exajoules to Terawatt hours when they changed from talking about fossil fuels to solar and wind. Does anybody around here know the conversion factor? Yes — it’s 277.778 TWh per EJ. That means that the 4,748 TWh of “almost entirely” solar and wind power generated in 2023 came to all of 17.1 EJ, which is just 2.7% of the 620 EJ of world primary energy consumption. Could you have imagined that it could be so little, after decades of over-the-top promotion and trillions of dollars of subsidies?
And pay attention to that line “wind and solar . . . accounted for 74% of all net additional electricity generated.” Does that somehow sound like a transition is happening? It’s the opposite. If wind and solar were actually taking over, they would have to account for 100% of additional generation, plus large further amounts to replace fossil fuel generators. As long as wind and solar account for less than all of additional generation, then fossil fuels are continuing to increase, and there is no “transition” going on at all.”
The Contrarian also links to Robert Bryce’s substack (https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/these-charts-expose-myth-of-energy-transition ) which graphs a lot of information in easy to understand format. The graph titles tell the story all by themselves:
What Energy Transition? From 2004 to 2023, Global Spending on Wind + Solar totalted $4.7 Trillion yet Hydrocarbon Use Increased 3.2x Faster
Hydrocarbons Grew Faster than Wind + Solar Again in 2023
What Energy Transition? CO2 Emissions in Six Large Economies 2000 to 2023
Change in CO2 Emissions in The six Larges Economies, 2023
Just Stop Oil? Global Oil Demand is Going One Direction: Up
Just Stop Coal? Coal Use Jumped 1.6% to Set a New Record & India’s Use Exceeded the Combined Consumption of Europe + N. American For First Time
In 2023, us gas-Fired Generation Grew 5x Faster than Wind + Solar
Coal -Fired Generation in India + China Increased Faster Than Solar Production
We can be grateful for all this progress despite the best efforts of the climate divination cabal. The future of humanity, at this point, rests in China and India’s hands and their pragmatic and humane approach to alleviating energy poverty trhough their increasingly important world leadership through BRICS is a welcome alternative to the philosophy of “Starve a Child, Feed a Server Farm” that governs the legacy economies.