skybrian's recent activity
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Comment on Does generative AI have a natural limit without a major innovation? in ~comp
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Comment on Access to Fable and Mythos 5 cut off after US government order in ~tech
skybrian Link ParentThe opportunity to become rich explains the AI labs and AI startups. It doesn’t explain why some managers are so eager to get all their employees to run up expenses, rather than just experimenting...The opportunity to become rich explains the AI labs and AI startups. It doesn’t explain why some managers are so eager to get all their employees to run up expenses, rather than just experimenting with AI.
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Comment on Four things to know about the newly approved US sunscreen ingredient in ~health
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]From the article:
For the first time in nearly three decades, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new chemical UV filter for use in sunscreens sold in the U.S. And that has many dermatologists cheering.
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The new ingredient is called bemotrizinol, and it has several advantages over the chemical sunscreen ingredients previously available in the U.S., Rogers says.
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In general, chemical sunscreens sold in the U.S. rely on an ingredient called avobenzone to block out UVA rays, says Kelly Dobos, a cosmetic chemist who teaches at the University of Cincinnati.
But avobenzone by itself isn't photo stable, meaning its protection can start to break down rapidly when exposed to sunlight. And as avobenzone breaks down, it can release molecules that lead to skin irritation, says Alexa Friedman, a senior scientist with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, or EWG.
By contrast, bemotrizinol offers protection against both UVA and UVB rays all on its own, and it is photo stable, so it breaks down more slowly, offering better protection, Rogers says.
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Bemotrizinol has been widely used in European and Asian sunscreens for decades. But it has taken 20 years for the FDA to approve its use in this country.
That's because in the U.S., sunscreens are regulated as over-the-counter drugs rather than cosmetics, as they're classified in Europe. That means ingredients need to undergo rigorous testing for safety and efficacy before they can be approved for use in the U.S.
"It's really expensive and time consuming," Dobos says. The European company DSM-Firmenich spent at least $18 million over more than two decades in its push to gain FDA approval for bemotrizinol.
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However, all that testing means bemotrizinol has more safety data to back it up than any other chemical sunscreen ingredient currently approved in the U.S., says Friedman of EWG.
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Until now, Rogers says, the only sunscreen ingredient available in the U.S. that offered the aforementioned advantages of bemotrizinol – photo stable, non-irritating, minimally absorbed into the skin and with good broad spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays – was zinc oxide.
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Bemotrizinol, on the other hand, is transparent on the skin, and because it protects against both UVA and UVB rays on its own, it doesn't have to be mixed with as many other chemical filters and stabilizers to achieve broad spectrum protection, Dobos adds. She says that should lead to more aesthetically pleasing, less greasy sunscreen formulations in the near future.
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Four things to know about the newly approved US sunscreen ingredient
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Comment on Why a 31-year-old software engineer wants to build a new neighborhood in wine country in ~finance
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...]From the article:
Zuegel, a 31-year-old software engineer raised in the heart of Silicon Valley, arrived in Cloverdale two years ago with fanciful renderings for a village with upwards of 600 new apartments and homes on the city's eastern edge. She gave it the name Esmeralda, and in this tight-knit town of just under 9,000 people, the idea stoked both excitement and alarm.
Zuegel's connections to the global center for tech innovation inspired comparisons to billionaires talking about forming their own governments and living on Mars. Zuegel has said that's not her world, but a place like Cloverdale could be. A live music festival runs on Friday nights all summer, shutting down the boulevard and drawing crowds of local families, retirees and neighbors. Banners hang on light posts celebrating active military service members.
This summer, Cloverdale will begin formally considering Zuegel's Esmeralda development proposal, an idea that has already consumed two years of public debate: Whether a long-dormant, 266-acre former industrial mill site along the Russian River should become an entirely new walkable neighborhood with housing, a hotel, an amphitheater, shops and cafes, playgrounds, parks and trails.
It's been nearly a half-century since utility poles were cut and treated with chemicals on the site. Since then, the land has undergone soil excavation, treatment injections and other forms of remediation. Various plans to transform the languishing but prime riverfront land have been taken up and abandoned, including a proposed destination resort with commercial space, homes, an equestrian center plus an 18-hole golf course. The city said yes two decades ago, but the project never moved beyond a concept.
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The Esmeralda Land Co. would build housing at a time when nearly every California city is desperate for more. It would build municipal water tanks, public trails and a park - all gifts to the city. And the project would generate an annual fiscal surplus of $2.3 million, at a minimum, according to a draft financial impact analysis they're producing for the city - to replenish Cloverdale city coffers and end an ongoing budget deficit.
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To supporters, Esmeralda is a rare chance to bring a major jolt of new energy to Cloverdale, where downtown businesses often struggle to stay open past late afternoon. To skeptics, it risks disrupting a careful balance in a community threatened by drought, wildfire and economic strain.
Esmeralda Land Co.'s plans, at least these initial concepts, are ambitious but not that radical compared to other neighborhood buildouts. About 40 miles south on Highway 101, Rohnert Park's SOMO Village has been remaking a former Hewlett-Packard manufacturing campus into a 176-acre mixed-use neighborhood. Approved for 1,750 homes, the site already has apartments, offices, a brew pub and a school, with more residential construction underway.
Sonoma County's northernmost city must plan for 335 new homes by 2031 or face state penalties. Cloverdale had already reached about 70% of its affordable housing goals at the end of 2024, according to city data, but was further behind with market rate housing.
Esmeralda would push the city far beyond that mark.
Zuegel's company has secured the option to buy the property, which comes with those entitlements approved about 20 years ago to build a resort with 235 homes, an 18-hole golf course, equestrian center plus commercial space. But they are applying to revise the plan and allow for a more connected, public-oriented enclave with a 200-room hotel, 200-unit senior housing complex, 405 market rate dwellings (a mix of houses and town homes), 22,000 square feet of retail space and 17,500 square feet of office space plus 168 acres for open space and recreation.
Zuegel said they have the financial backing of 19 individual and family investors, most from the Bay Area, including some from Sonoma County. The Esmeralda Land Co. is not disclosing their identities; Zuegel said they wish to remain anonymous.
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Why a 31-year-old software engineer wants to build a new neighborhood in wine country
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Comment on What’s new in biology: June 2026 in ~science
skybrian LinkFrom the article:From the article:
The most effective weight-loss drug so far, cancer breakthroughs, gene editing for cholesterol, ancestral CRISPR systems, and more.
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What’s new in biology: June 2026
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Comment on After new drug’s ‘unprecedented’ results for pancreatic cancer, doctors look at other uses in ~health
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...] [...]From the article:
Enthusiasm around daraxonrasib is reaching a fever pitch. In the Phase 3 trial of 500 patients, the drug was shown to double the survival time of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, a notoriously deadly cancer: 13.2 months, on average, compared to 6.7 months for people who got chemo. On Sunday, Wainberg and his colleagues presented those results at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago. The full study was simultaneously published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Now, the excitement is spilling over to other types of cancer. Daxaronrasib, which is taken as three pills once a day, works by targeting a mutation in the KRAS gene found across many cancers, including lung, colorectal, ovarian, endometrial and a type of bile duct cancer called cholangiocarcinoma.
“Pancreas cancer may be the first for this drug, but there will be others,” said Dr. Brian Wolpin, who also led research on daraxonrasib and directs the Hale Family Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “Now the floodgates open.”
The Food and Drug Administration has already put the drug on a fast track toward approval for pancreatic cancer, and earlier this month said it would permit Revolution Medicines to give it to patients outside of clinical trials in an expanded access program.
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Studies for similar drugs in the pipeline are underway. Daraxonrasib is not a cure for cancer; tumors eventually figure out a way to grow again. Ideally, oncologists want an arsenal of drugs like it in line to give to patients when they develop resistance.
Revolution Medicines’ Goldsmith said the company has three other such drugs, called RAS inhibitors, in clinical trials, with a fourth due to start later this year.
Daraxonrasib’s effectiveness appears to expand beyond targeting the mutation. Overall survival was 13.2 months for all patients who got the drug, regardless of whether they had the KRAS mutation.
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By all accounts, daraxonrasib is much less toxic compared to chemo. Some patients reported vomiting and diarrhea, as well as sores in the mouth and throat. Some developed a blistering rash that looked like a bad sunburn. Former Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who got the drug in a clinical trial, described the rash as “nuclear” on a New York Times podcast in April.
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After new drug’s ‘unprecedented’ results for pancreatic cancer, doctors look at other uses
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Comment on Access to Fable and Mythos 5 cut off after US government order in ~tech
skybrian LinkIt's a chaotic way to do it, but if you think AI is moving too fast, it does slow them down a bit, so there's that. I find AI useful, but don't see a lot of upside in speedrunning it. What's the...It's a chaotic way to do it, but if you think AI is moving too fast, it does slow them down a bit, so there's that.
I find AI useful, but don't see a lot of upside in speedrunning it. What's the hurry?
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Comment on Elon Musk net worth estimated at $1.1 trillion in ~finance
skybrian (edited )Link ParentThe tricky thing about opportunity costs is that they depend on counterfactuals: what would have happened otherwise? It's speculative, like imagining the future. When we buy food at a grocery...The tricky thing about opportunity costs is that they depend on counterfactuals: what would have happened otherwise? It's speculative, like imagining the future.
When we buy food at a grocery store then we get to control who eats it, but when we don't, we don't normally worry that it will go to waste, because we imagine someone else might buy it. That might not be true! Maybe it's in the half-off bin and they'll throw it out tomorrow. We don't know enough to accurately predict how much waste will happen.
Similarly, choosing not to buy muni bonds doesn't normally mean that government projects go unfunded, unless nobody else would do it.
As I understand it, a liquidity trap is what happens when saving money doesn't do anything because businesses don't take out loans because they don't see profitable investment opportunities, because consumers aren't spending. It seems like this shows another way that the consequences of investment are situational. More bank deposits might sometimes result in more investment, but not in that situation. To understand the consequences, we need to know what the banks are doing and what consumers are doing.
So I don't think modeling unspent money as corresponding to unused real-world resources works very well. I think it's more like not voting. A bank account or investing in an index fund is not quite like sitting out entirely, but it's still very passive, allowing the market or bankers to control the actual investment decisions.
To make a stronger argument for not hoarding, how about if we compare with giving money to charity? There are charities that could scale up and poor people who have immediate spending needs.
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Comment on Elon Musk net worth estimated at $1.1 trillion in ~finance
skybrian Link ParentA gold horde doesn't do anything harmful if it isn't spent. That seems neutral. The question is whether what billionaires (or anyone else) does by investing is better or worse than hoarding it....A gold horde doesn't do anything harmful if it isn't spent. That seems neutral. The question is whether what billionaires (or anyone else) does by investing is better or worse than hoarding it.
Rather than saying investment is good on average and leaving it at that, I think we need to make distinctions. Some Investments are better than others.
Unrealized gains are more limited than unrestricted personal funds, but they can still be a form of power. In the form of company stock, it's one way that company founders can control what those companies do and what projects they undertake.
Musk is a pretty good example of that. Yes, some of the projects he decided to invest in seem well worth doing. Others were pretty clearly harmful.
I shared an interview arguing that founder control is often good, or at least better than alternatives like private equity or leveraged buyouts.
And Musk has been on both sides of that, with the Twitter takeover changing it from mediocre to considerably worse. Also, how did he finance it? Partially with bank loans.
In the end, I think governance of huge budgets or huge investment funds is a tough problem no matter what. I find the rush to build data centers as quickly as possible somewhat mystifying. But it's not like Congress is doing a good job of spending money either.
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Comment on Elon Musk net worth estimated at $1.1 trillion in ~finance
skybrian LinkHeadline was wrong so I corrected it. SpaceX market cap is above 2 trillion. Musk owns 42% of that. On paper, for now, but we’ll see where it ends up. He certainly couldn’t sell all the shares....Headline was wrong so I corrected it. SpaceX market cap is above 2 trillion. Musk owns 42% of that.
On paper, for now, but we’ll see where it ends up. He certainly couldn’t sell all the shares.
Matt Levine wrote yesterday that a 20% pop would be just about ideal for an IPO:
Here are four possibilities:
- Musk picked an arbitrary price that is way off-base, and the stock will fall 50% or go up 300% tomorrow.
- Musk picked a price that was precisely correct, because he is a genius, and the stock will go up 20% tomorrow. (Twenty percent is the perfect IPO pop, making money for investors without leaving too much on the table.)
- Musk picked an arbitrary price, but because of his reality-distortion powers, it became the precisely correct price. “If Elon Musk says the IPO price is $135 then that’s the perfect IPO price,” everyone will say, and there will be a perfect 20% IPO pop tomorrow. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks SpaceX is worth; it matters what Musk says.
- Actually there was some price discovery, and SpaceX is going public at roughly the market-clearing price. It just didn’t need an IPO roadshow process to figure out that price.
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Comment on "The therapeutic industry is platonic prostitution" in ~health.mental
skybrian Link ParentIt seems like you’re reading that the wrong way. I didn’t intend to imply that anyone didn’t have the capacity for happiness or that friendships didn’t happen. However, I do think being able to...It seems like you’re reading that the wrong way. I didn’t intend to imply that anyone didn’t have the capacity for happiness or that friendships didn’t happen. However, I do think being able to leave the community where you were raised often has positive benefits. Anyone who comes from a conservative or religious community that didn’t suit them should appreciate this.
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Comment on "The therapeutic industry is platonic prostitution" in ~health.mental
skybrian Link ParentI assume people had friends, but you don’t choose your neighbors. I’m wary of speculating any further about their relationships. We do know that the material existence of peasants was absolutely...I assume people had friends, but you don’t choose your neighbors. I’m wary of speculating any further about their relationships.
We do know that the material existence of peasants was absolutely awful. Half their children died.
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Comment on "The therapeutic industry is platonic prostitution" in ~health.mental
skybrian Link ParentI assume so, but I don’t think historians know all that much about what they talked about.I assume so, but I don’t think historians know all that much about what they talked about.
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Comment on "The therapeutic industry is platonic prostitution" in ~health.mental
skybrian Link ParentFor most people and most of human history, peasants rarely had money and didn’t have banks or insurance. In hard times they relied on family and the charity of their neighbors. So yeah,...For most people and most of human history, peasants rarely had money and didn’t have banks or insurance. In hard times they relied on family and the charity of their neighbors.
So yeah, relationships were vital because without them, if you got in trouble, you were dead. In good times, banqueting your neighbors was a way to build those relationships.
This mode of existence was forced on them. Being able to travel by yourself, move to a new city, and make your own friends is only feasible due to the various innovations we take for granted in modern society. (Particularly for women.)
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Comment on How the Squamish struck gold in Vancouver in ~finance
skybrian LinkFrom the article: [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...] [...]From the article:
Senakw has an unusual history. The land it is built on was home to the Squamish people until they were forced out in 1913. Almost a century later, a court case restored the land to the descendants of those who were expelled, along with almost 100 million Canadian dollars in compensation. Freed from the restrictive planning rules that hold back densification in the rest of Vancouver, the Squamish decided in 2019 to use the land to build apartment blocks that, as well as housing Squamish people, are expected to generate around C$10 billion in income, equivalent to more than two million per person.
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This is a story of a dispossessed group that is making the most of a rare and remarkable set of circumstances to generate wealth through upzoning. But it is also a story with relevance all over the world. Senakw shows that when local residents stand to benefit from development, obstacles to housebuilding can be overcome, to the benefit of a much broader group of people.
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By cross-referencing Miranda's extraordinary memory against Catholic church records, government surveys, and early anthropological notes, Kennedy and Bouchard could reconstruct not just genealogies but precise information on who lived where. ‘We transcribed all the Catholic records for the Squamish back to 1860’, Kennedy explains. Thanks to the connection between anglicized names in the church record and traditional Squamish names, ‘We could reconstruct where the houses were, who lived there, and their descendants... All of the success was thanks to Chief Miranda’.This painstaking work would prove invaluable in the court battles that began in late 1977, led by Chief Joe Mathias. It took several decades of legal dispute, but the case that turned the tide was decided in 2001: Mathias vs Canada. The case centered on the fiduciary duty of the federal government towards Indian Bands. Several other indigenous groups also made competing claims over the same land.
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In a ceremony in 2002, the Squamish Nation sailed 28 canoes to the beach in Kitsilano, a symbolic homecoming for the Squamish people. The site did not seem especially valuable: a thin patch of land, approximately half of which lies directly beneath the Burrard Street Bridge in an unusual tri-point shape. With the neighborhood zoned largely for single-family housing, observers did not initially notice its development potential.
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Vancouver is one of the most expensive housing markets in Canada. An average detached house there now costs over C$2 million (USD $1.5 million). Data scientist Jens von Bergmann and UBC associate professor Nathan Lauster estimate that the metro area has 130,000 to 200,000 suppressed households: people doubling up with family or roommates who would live independently if they could afford to. That backlog alone represents six to ten years of recent construction. In 1981, two thirds of 25- to 29-year-olds in Vancouver lived in their own households; by 2021, only a third did. Rental vacancy rates often hover below one percent; vacancy rates in more affordable housing markets, such as Austin, Texas, hover around ten.
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Vancouver never managed to comprehensively reverse the downzoning of the early 1970s, despite the huge pressure on housing affordability since. But it did find a way to permit intensive development in narrow strips, typically along transport corridors, while leaving the suburban expanses largely untouched. The city is dependent on such developments: property taxes are low, so almost half of its C$3.5 billion capital budget comes from developer payments. Through a mixture of fixed development fees and Community Amenity Contributions, which are negotiated during spot rezoning on a case-by-case basis, planners extract funding for parks, childcare centers, and affordable housing units in exchange for permission to build. They aim to capture 75–80 percent of the land value uplift. Because each negotiation process can be lengthy, the city prefers to allocate a small number of highly valuable permits, creating an incentive structure that favors concentrated towers, rather than gentle density across the city.
The downside is that the negotiation process is slow, expensive, and unpredictable. Von Bergmann notes that planners ‘typically get it wrong – they either charge too much or too little’. Getting it right requires predicting market conditions years in advance. Charge too much and the project is rendered unviable and dies, potentially taking the developer and many jobs down with it. Charge too little and the city misses out on valuable capital spending opportunities. Frances Bula, a journalist who has covered Vancouver planning for decades, describes the practical reality: ‘Big developers just cough up when planners demand.’ Smaller builders, including homeowners wishing to add small extensions to their own houses, lack the resources to play the game.
This system is what is known as Vancouver’s grand bargain, and what leads to the largely untouched suburbs occasionally punctuated with tall, thin towers. The grand bargain generates some income for public spending, while minimizing property taxes and development across most of the city. But the price is paid through worsened housing affordability and the economic costs of suppressed construction.
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While reserve land can be leased with federal permission, it cannot be alienated from the band, meaning freehold ownership cannot be transferred in any way. This means it cannot be parceled up and sold off. It also means that the land cannot be borrowed against, because securing a loan on land is only possible if the land’s ownership can be alienated in the case of default. Traditional development finance uses loans as residential mortgages. Apartments cannot be sold as condominiums (where each unit is privately owned, like a house, and each owner also has a share of the overall building), but must instead use leasehold, where residents purchase a right to live in a property for a set period of time rather than owning their home outright.
These restrictions might have made the project impossible without support from the federal government, which agreed to a C$1.4 billion loan through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the largest in the corporation’s history. To work within leasehold constraints, the residential units were earmarked for 100 percent rental.
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Yet reserve land also offered a crucial advantage: because it is reserve land, it is exempt from zoning rules which apply to the rest of Vancouver. The Squamish Nation made the decision to ‘maximize economic benefits for the Squamish community’, which, in Vancouver’s housing-starved market, meant maximizing density: 6,000 rental homes plus commercial space. It also meant opting not to impose many of the costly mandates that cities typically require. They maintained the same safety and building standards that other Vancouver developments adhere to, but stripped away height limits, inclusionary zoning, zero-emissions requirements, parking minimums, design panels, and the years of public consultation that other projects must stick to.
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Mayor Stewart emphasized to me that Canada’s intensifying political discourse around ‘reconciliation’ was critical. Many dismissed this discourse as performative symbolism, but at Senakw it had practical consequences: ‘Promises about reconciliation forced governments’ hands when it came to enabling indigenous-led developments’. The Squamish Nation’s referendums gave the project a democratic legitimacy that Vancouver's usual stakeholder consultations rarely achieve. A city government that had spent years resisting modest density increases facilitated a far more ambitious project when backed by a clear community mandate and a compelling moral case.
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On just one site, Senakw will provide a year’s worth of housing normally built in the city of Vancouver. It functions as a sort of policy laboratory, showing that cities like Vancouver can build many more homes if the decision-makers allow it.
Senakw also offers two lessons for those of us in other cities who want to get more homes built. The first is about incentives. When the Squamish Nation’s members voted on development, they were voting on their own land, and for the economic development of their own community. They chose to maximize density and limit the costly requirements that cities like Vancouver typically impose on new developments because they would bear the costs of these requirements directly. Yet in terms of quality and safety, Senakw is just as good or better than other new developments built just across the river. But residents voting on their own projects make very different assessments of the value of some of these mandates and vote accordingly. Similar dynamics have appeared in other resident-led ballots such as estate regeneration programs in England, and Israel’s Pinui Binui program.
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How the Squamish struck gold in Vancouver
11 votes
Now that AI chatbots are typically an LLM augmented with tools, there’s no natural limit beyond what computers can do. The tools could do anything the LLM can’t do on its own.
AI research is moving rapidly and putting any bound on what researchers might come up with is very hard.