Weekend Briefing No. 487

A Saturday morning briefing on innovation and society.

Welcome to the weekend.

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Prime Numbers

77 — In 2022, there were a remarkable 77 television series based on books. That number is up from 33 in 2019.

47% — Coldplay produced 47% less emissions on this tour compared to their last stadium tour.

27% — Amtrak is rolling out new Acela high(ish) speed trains, which will also hold 386 passengers a pop, an increase of 27% compared to today’s higher speed rail.

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Community Responders

This year, New York City is conducting a series of bold experiments in Brownsville that some believe could redefine law enforcement in New York City. The police are hanging back and letting neighbors respond to low-level street crime. If a 911 call does not entail a major incident or a victim is not demanding an arrest, the police channel then calls a group of citizens on duty who are trained to intervene. Police officers, always in plainclothes, shadow the workers. The civilians have no arrest powers. They handle cases that fall into the yawning gap between law enforcement and social services. Brownsville residents complained that officers had become aggressive, grabbing men off the street to arrest them for minor offenses. This experiment is trying to ensure that fewer people are arrested and entangled in the criminal justice system. The Brownsville initiative is part of a movement called the “community responder model,” which aims to reduce the use of armed officers to handle many calls. The data is very limited, but it looks like it may be working. In the first half of 2023, homicides fell 50%, shootings fell 25% and the rate of grand larcenies of automobiles also fell even as it rose in other neighborhoods. New York Times (9 minutes)

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What do you think about the community responder model? Is it a well needed innovation in policing or a silly waste of time and resources?

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Danger and Meaning

Sebastian Junger was a war correspondent for many decades. His reporting on the front lines of Afghanistan was captured in his best-selling book War. and was made into an Academy Award-winning documentary Restrepo. Through his raw, unfiltered, on-the-ground reporting, perhaps no one has done more to illuminate the full picture and reality of war. One of those realities is that men seek and need danger. They have a deep desire to prove their valor. They find community and meaning in crisis. And yet, much of the Western world lives without any kind of high-stakes, high-risk danger at all. It is, of course, a great blessing that we don't live in constant crisis. But our comfort, safety and affluence, he argues, come with unexamined costs. This conversation with Sebastian Junger examines what it means to be human and how danger is inextricably tied to living a meaningful life. The Free Press (68 minutes)

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98% of the rich invest 5%+ in art — you can too

There’s a reason the ultra-rich aren’t worried about a global economic meltdown — and it's not just because they’ve got boatloads of cash hoarded away. Their financial futures are protected in alternative assets that can withstand market turmoil. For example, according to a report by global investment bank UBS, 98% of rich collectors surveyed reported investing at least 5% of their total wealth in art, with some investing over 50% in art! But how is the average person supposed to get access to an asset that has been the exclusive domain of the ultra-rich for centuries? The answer is Masterworks, an award-winning platform for investing in shares of multi-million dollar art. It's not just easy to use. Masterworks has completed 13 exits on their artwork, all of them profitable, with the last three delivering net annualized returns of 35%, 4.1% and 325% to investors. Skip the waitlist with this link. Masterworks (Sponsored)

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America’s Artificial Intelligence Fear

There are plenty of reasons why various people — not just Americans — are afraid of artificial intelligence technology. Some of this is just natural fear of the new and unknown. But it’s startling how much more pessimistic Americans seem to be about AI than, say, the internet, industrial technology or the nuclear age. Poll after poll shows a startling level of negativity toward the new technology. Only 23% of Americans are optimistic about AI. That number is 65% in China.  Americans have long prided ourselves on being sunnier and more confident about the future than our European counterparts, but it appears we’ve acquired a bit of the Old World gloom. Why? Americans have spent much of the last four decades watching technology fail to produce the kind of rapid, broad-based income growth that it had in the past. That made them think of their economy as more of a zero-sum proposition, and it made them fear that any new technology will simply create more winners and more losers. And that has blinded them to the possibility that AI might reverse this dynamic. Noahpinion (26 minutes)

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Baptists and Bootleggers

This week, Mark Andreesen wrote a long form piece called Why AI Will Save the World. The whole thing is worth a read. But following the theme of AI fear in America, I want to focus on one section about moral panic. Moral panic is by its very nature irrational. It takes what may be a legitimate concern and inflates it into a level of hysteria that ironically makes it harder to confront actually serious concerns. This moral panic is already being used as a motivating force by a variety of actors to demand regulation. Economists have observed a longstanding pattern in reform movements of this kind. The actors within movements like these fall into two categories — “Baptists” and “Bootleggers” — drawing on the historical example of the prohibition of alcohol in the United States in the 1920s. The “Baptists” are the true believer social reformers who legitimately feel — deeply and emotionally, if not rationally — that new restrictions, regulations and laws are required to prevent societal disaster. For alcohol prohibition, these actors were often literally devout Christians who felt that alcohol was destroying the moral fabric of society. For AI risk, these actors are true believers that AI presents one or another existential risks — strap them to a polygraph, they really mean it. The “Bootleggers” are the self-interested opportunists who stand to financially profit by the imposition of new restrictions, regulations and laws that insulate them from competitors. For alcohol prohibition, these were the literal bootleggers who made a fortune selling illicit alcohol to Americans when legitimate alcohol sales were banned. For AI risk, these are CEOs who stand to make more money if regulatory barriers are erected that form a cartel of government-blessed AI vendors protected from new startup and open source competition — the software version of “too big to fail” banks. The problem with the Bootleggers is that they win. The Baptists are naive ideologues, and the Bootleggers are cynical operators. The result of reform movements like these is often that the Bootleggers get what they want — regulatory capture, insulation from competition, the formation of a cartel — and the Baptists are left wondering where their drive for social improvement went so wrong. a16z (19 minutes)

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On Money

Here are some observations author / blogger Ryan Holiday has about money: (1) I’ve never met a person who ever reached “their number.” People say, “When I hit $Xm, I’ll be good.” They say, “Once I have X years salary in the bank, I’ll be good.” No one ever seems to get to that number. We’re never “good” because we move the goalposts. (2) Seneca said that poverty wasn’t having too little, it was wanting more. He wasn’t talking about poor people. He was talking about rich people. He was talking about people who are insatiable. “Rich” is having enough. (3) If you can, pick up the check. If you can, tip amply. It feels good, it’s nice. It also normalizes not sweating small amounts of money. (4) But if I am content with what I have, won’t I stop getting better? No. We play better with house money. Feel better too. (5) Anticipate the fact that maintaining discipline is hard. Automate. If saving / investing is another item on your to-do list, it’s not going to happen consistently. Ryan Holiday (5 minutes)

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On Beauty

I’ve gone down a YouTube rabbit hole of musicians playing in beautiful scenery. There is a whole section of YouTube I didn’t know existed but brings beauty into my life. Watch these videos, or sit back on your couch with a cocktail and queue them up. If you’re interested, Cercle’s channel is a good place to start. Anyhow, one of my favorites is Ry X playing in a landscape I never even knew existed called Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil. Cercle (93 minutes)

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Should We Work Together?

Hi! I’m Kyle. This newsletter is my passion project. When I’m not writing, I run a law firm that helps startups move fast without breaking things. Most founders want a trusted legal partner, but they hate surprise legal bills. At Westaway, we take care of your startup’s legal needs for a flat, monthly fee so you can control your costs and focus on scaling your business. If you’re interested, let’s jump on a call to see if you’re a good fit for the firm. Click here to schedule a one-on-one call with me.

Check out Founder Fridays — A Friday morning briefing helping founders scale smarter.

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Weekend Wisdom

If you have certain advantages, do me the favor of enjoying them.
- Polish Innkeeper