• “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
• “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
• “United, there is little we cannot do… Divided, there is little we can do.”
• “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

and from the 1962 moon speech at Rice University;

• We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard.

and from Lyndon Johnson’s inaugural speech:

• John Kennedy’s death commands what his life conveyed—that America must move forward.
• On the 20th day of January, in 1961, John F. Kennedy told his countrymen that our national work would not be finished ‘in the first thousand days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet.’ But, he said, ‘let us begin.’ Today, in this moment of new resolve, I would say to all my fellow Americans, let us continue.

Sound familiar?

Were John F. Kennedy’s speeches written by an AI? Probably not. But were AI’s trained on the speech writer Ted Sorensen? It would appear so. Or to be more accurate, AIs have absorbed the Sorensen toolkit: symmetry, parallelism, antithesis, repetition, and the neatly turned reversal.

Sorensen is considered a great stylist, and these are iconic lines. The problem with AI voice is not the techniques themselves. It is the overuse of them—their deployment to describe a trip to 7-Eleven with the same rhetorical flourishes once used to send men to the moon.

I suspect that will be an easy problem to fix, so don’t expect AI voice to continue.

Hat tip: murgh

The post JFK’s AI Voice appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to Hadur. Few politicians are orators, even on their ... by Engineer
• What makes you think AI-voice will be easy to fix? The training ... by Sinister
• In reply to Mark C. I agree on this analysis, but I've got to ... by M
• An often-forgotten part of the Rice speech was that immediately ... by Alabamian
• >Were John F. Kennedy’s speeches written by an AI? Probably ... by Action Figure
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• My excellent Conversation with Julia Ioffe
• *Rome’s Age of Revolution*
• Rothko show in Florence

 

I agree with Tyler’s earlier review: A truly excellent movie, one of the best of the year.  Specifically, it concerns the meteorological forecasts (!) leading up to the D-Day invasion.  Thematically, it is about the differences between Americans and Brits, how bureaucracy operates, the nature of leadership, and the proper role of science in government.  It is like an old-style Hollywood movie.  Most of the action takes place in only a few rooms, and with superb dialogue and performances.  Although you all know how D-Day turns out, the movie still generates suspense on some of the major plot points.

The post Pressure appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to rayward. This is much like someone in 1900 saying ... by Bill Allen
• Does the movie serve (with obvious intent or no) or aspire to ... by Edward Burke
• “We had better meteorologists than the Germans.” It was ... by mkt42
• Great movie marred only by Brendan Fraser's miscasting/poor ... by Echarles
• The movie is excellent, with the casting especially good. It ... by Drew
• That the future of the world depended on the weather and human ... by rayward

 

The post One of the better pro-natalist Lieder appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• Yuck! I mean, the performance is good, but the body language ... by JWC
• In reply to mkt42. Also, though we can see the intensity that ... by mkt42
• The role of Papageno was specifically written for Emanuel ... by "Let me entertain you"
• In reply to Sridhar. The two characters, Papageno and ... by mkt42
• Wolfiebar! by dearieme
• Plus 6 more...

Related Stories

• The Queen song ’39
• Cross-ethnic casting

 

The Balkans may be the only region other than central Asia where fertility has increased from 2015 to 2026.*

All of the highest fertility rates in Europe are in the Balkans. As of 2024: Montenegro (1.8), Bulgaria (1.73) Moldova (1.73), and Serbia (1.64) are top four. France was next at 1.61.

Other balkan countries were generally about 1.5 (Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Slovakia), comparable to the highest non-gallic TFRs in Western Europe: Britain (1.55) and Ireland (1.47).

The lowest Balkan countries (Macedonia, Romania, Albania, and Hungary) sit at ~1.35-1.4, which would be lowish for Western Europe, but extremely high for Southern Europe or the former Warsaw pact/USSR.

During the post-soviet nadir, the Balkans had perhaps the lowest fertility in Europe. The rates rose circa 2010, and have recently continued to slowly rise.

Ostensibly similar cultures/economies have no parallel increase (Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and the Baltics).

I don’t have any theory that would explain this pattern. Balkan men are famously unhelpful husbands and fathers, and the Balkans aren’t any more religious than Poland, Italy and Belarus.

What could possibly be the deal?

That is from Thomas Hanes.

The post Is there a Balkan fertility paradox? (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to Zoroto. To your point, I scored 46 European ... by AB
• In reply to Zoroto. Same goes for Moldova, Romania or ... by cwc
• In reply to ElsieT. Questioning data sources is always ... by Marie
• In reply to Smug Belgian. I wonder whether that is the ... by Marie
• In reply to Smug Belgian. Some notes from your friendly ... by Smug Belgian
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• The Binmen of Birmingham
• Will U.S. cities face a knock-on fiscal crisis from the feds?
• Taiwan fact of the day

 

As weapon systems increase in effectiveness, they will generally target one another rather than humans. Lower loss of life will ease conflict entry and hinder exit.

Warfare will veer further from industrial competition into techno-industrial; the current appearance of parity between low tech and advanced actors reflects near zero deployment of advanced systems. As these deploy, their martial advantages will present clearly.

The need for advanced ecosystems will lead to blocs able to combine human capital, techno-industrial capacity, and inputs. Logistics may be contested at elevated levels, changing the incentives around geographic size and increasing the value of inputs.

Blocs may well engage in near constant warfare of various intensity levels. Bloc composition will be necessity driven, perhaps with increased fluidity.

That is from an anonymous reader.

The post The future of warfare? (from my email) appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to Etalon d'Silomar. In other words, you need ... by Anti-Gnostic
• In reply to Dr. Cornelius. This has been the perspective of ... by Anti-Gnostic
• In reply to Dismalist. This is wishful thinking. by Anti-Gnostic
• In reply to Kaz Stanczak. You always need land. The data ... by Anti-Gnostic
• In reply to Dr. Cornelius. Moreover, Nazi Germany devoted ... by Mm
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• *Restoring Childhood: How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety*
• Solve for the (Refine) equilibrium
• Taiwan fact of the day

 

2. HuggingFace co-founder on what happened, very good post.

3. What do private insurers want from a Hormuz agreement?

4. GPT Pro on burrito price worries.

5. NoVa vs. MD, once again.

6. Do people listen to female economists more?

7. North Korea might be growing at 3.5% (Bloomberg).

The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to RAD. Eh, in this article Douthat describes the UK ... by M
• In reply to BC. I thought this was going to be different joke ... by Slocum
• I took pages 40 and 41 from Pride and Prejudice, changed the ... by Annanas
• In reply to Hazel Meade. Advice for Hazel Meade: P-O-T-A-T-O. ... by Wayfaring Stranger
• 1. this is AI-generated itself, lol by anon
• Plus 10 more...

 

In preparation for this chapter, I spent weeks poring over the research literature pretaining to smartphones, social media, and teen mental health.  It is clear to me that there is something close to a consensus among scientists most immersed in this research, which includes the following three conclusions: (1) Extensive research refutes the theory that effects of smartphones and social media account for a meaningful portion of the decline in teen mental health in the years following 2010.  (2) Smartphones and social media can have both beneficial and harmful effects on teens’ mental health, which tend to cancel out when averaging.  (3) Future research should focus on understanding better the ways teens use these tools and how to help them maximize the benefits and minimize the harm.

Note that teen suffering also hit a peak around 1990 by many measures, yet that cannot have been caused by phones or social media.  And European teen suicide rates were falling just as those in the United States were rising.  This evidence is considered in further detail of course.

Recommended, it is both easy to read and substantive.

The post *Restoring Childhood: How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety* appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to anonprof. In case you didn't notice. Jon Haidt is ... by patrick
• Its the cars. Outside is dangerous for children, teenagers have ... by Matt
• Could this be an incentive type question? Say AI bad earn $1 ... by Economics at the Margin
• Isn’t divorce rate in preceding years the obvious place to ... by Clay
• In reply to superdestroyer. I guess one never discussed ... by MikeP
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• The future of warfare? (from my email)
• What I’ve been reading
• My excellent Conversation with Julia Ioffe

 

2. Vasily Grossman, From the Front Line, Stalingrad-Treblinka-Berlin 1941-1945.  Self-recommending, the best third of this volume is just stunningly good.  You do not have to read the whole thing, as there is some degree of repetition.

3. Forough Farrokhzad, Let Us Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season.  She died in a car crash in 1967 at the age of thirty-three, but it turns out she was an amazing poet.  I usually do not enjoy poetry in translation, but this is so fiery and full of passion that I am happy to recommend it.  Surely in the original Farsi it is better (and quite different?) yet.

4. André Breton, Nadja.  It is short, and fun enough to read.  But one learns most books from the past are not masterpieces, and that surrealism as a movement — most of all in painting — was more important than the literary outputs of surrealism.  Nadja, to me, sounds like a drag.  Which is fine.  But.  What does Breton really think he is immortalizing here?  At the end he writes “Beauty will be CONVULSIVE or not at all.”  I do appreciate Breton for his understanding of Mexico, and for his cultivation of Haitian art.

5. Emma Southon, Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire.  A very good and aggressively readable book about how terrible slavery was in the Roman Empire.  A useful corrective to other sources as well.  While my general view is that interpretative disputes over antiquity are difficult to resolve, I find her interpretations more intuitive and more convincing than the other side of the debate.

The post What I’ve been reading appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to Mother of three. “Aggressively readable” is ... by mkt42
• In reply to Dino Sauron. It has indeed been inexcusably ... by dearieme
• Interesting tangent to 5… the story of Pope Callistus I ... by Student
• In reply to Dino Sauron. Also, his comments about the book ... by Mother of three
• In reply to rayward. Russian paranoia is much deeper than ... by Dino Sauron
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• *Restoring Childhood: How to Set Kids Free in the Age of Anxiety*
• My excellent Conversation with Julia Ioffe
• *Rome’s Age of Revolution*

 

I had never before listened carefully to the lyrics.  I heard the “’39” reference at the beginning, the mention of volunteeers sailing away, and the general nostalgic British music hall mood to the piece, and assumed it concerned the Second World War.  But no, the volunteers sailing away are going to the stars, and their eventual return to the Earth will be for them a sad and tragic event, as everything they had known will be gone.  You can listen to the song here.

Here is one of the most direct excerpts:

In the year of ’39 came a ship in from the blue
The volunteers came home that day
And they bring good news of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the Earth is old and grey, little darling, we’ll away
But my love, this cannot be
Oh, so many years have gone though I’m older but a year
Your mother’s eyes, from your eyes, cry to me

Here are the full lyrics.  Brian May, who wrote the song, is not only a wonderful guitarist but he has a PhD in astrophysics.

p.s. no synthesizers!

The post The Queen song ’39 appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to mkt42. P.S.  Bad Religion's song “Los Angeles ... by mkt42
• “he has a PhD in astrophysics” A non-trivial number of ... by mkt42
• In reply to Steve Sailer. I never thought of them as ... by Elad
• In reply to Steve Sailer. Another he might have read was The ... by John
• In reply to Jumfrey Tuckins, President of Tonality. I think ... by Michael Stack
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• One of the better pro-natalist Lieder
• My excellent Conversation with Julia Ioffe
• Solve for the (Refine) equilibrium

 

2. “Books that Tyler Cowen probably would like.”

3. The tenure dismissal of Sanjay Reddy (NYT).

4. Dell and Rambachan NBER video on the economics of AI.  I have yet to view, but “self-recommending.”

5. Anton Leicht on AI and how the concentration of power will evolve.  Very good piece.

6. Universities would prefer not to.

7. Which polities can you really trust?

8. GPT 5.6 is working on social choice theory.

9. OpenAI 37-minute talk on the Book of Exodus.

The post Friday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to JK Brown. Thanks for the quotes! by Grizzled Econ 101 Prof
• AI will continue as a threat to all schooling, not just ... by JK Brown
• In reply to Wayfaring Stranger. Gravel production has ... by JK Brown
• In reply to Grizzled Econ 101 Prof. “Real education must ... by JK Brown
• 9. The OpenAI video discussing the Hugging Face attack in great ... by Brian Villanueva
• Plus 10 more...

 

This paper studies the environmental effects of a specialised AI aeration-control system deployed across French wastewater treatment plants operated by a global leader in water supply services. Exploiting quasi-experimental variation in both the timing of adoption and outages, we estimate the causal impact of AI on electricity use, carbon emissions, and energy expenditures. We find that full-time AI control reduces plants’ electricity consumption and carbon emissions by 5.4% and 6% respectively, and energy expenditures by 8.2%, resulting in negative abatement costs, while also improving water effluent quality. The additional electricity demand generated by AI models represents less than 1% of these savings. Beyond these effects, AI-equipped plants prove more resilient to high operational stress during extreme meteorological events and chemical pollutant peaks. They also improve load management by reallocating electricity consumption from peak to off-peak hours. Finally, we use the DICE model to assess the aggregate implications of our findings
in three diffusion scenarios. We find substantial global welfare gains from the CO2 reductions associated with this industrial AI use case.

One annoyance: The authors frame the paper as a contrast to worries about AI’s energy use and environmental impact. But those objections are almost entirely innumerate and pretextual and casting the paper as a rebuttal lends them more credibility than they deserve.

One note: Don’t misread the “less than 1%” line as being in the same units as the 5.4%, 6%, and 8.2% figures above it — it isn’t a comparable percentage-point offset. It means the AI system’s own electricity draw is a rounding error next to the savings it generates.

More generally, the effect of AI will be through many, many improvements of this nature.

The post AI and Marginal Revolutions in Wastewater Treatment appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• Talking about AI writ large confused more than illuminates in ... by PAtwater
• In reply to Mitchell. I've been thinking that most cities ... by mkt42
• In reply to Brain. LLMs are forecasting ML models. by Kaleberg
• In reply to Wayfaring Stranger. In NYC, the issue was finding ... by Kaleberg
• In reply to BeachHockey. Coke ovens used to run for months ... by Kaleberg
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• Solve for the (Refine) equilibrium
• The Binmen of Birmingham
• Will U.S. cities face a knock-on fiscal crisis from the feds?

 

Julia joined Tyler to discuss why so many of Russia’s great constructivist painters were women, why the tsarist government established women’s medical courses in 1872, changing attitudes towards abortion and birth control in the 20^th century, why the Soviet regime turned prudish, how Khrushchev’s plan to “replace the dead” institutionalized single motherhood, Russian superwomen, why Jewish men were a prized commodity amid rampant antisemitism, the cultural significance of flowers, why a few Russian names still dominate, why Russian women think Western feminists have their priorities backwards, how gender attitudes and autocracy feed into each other, three underrated Russian novels, what she wants to write about next, and more.

Excerpt:

COWEN: I’m sure you’ve noticed that quite a few American men will marry Russian or Soviet women, but not so many American women want to marry Russian or Soviet men. It’s a kind of market test, right? Why exactly are the men so bad? Why are they such louts? Maybe that’s a rude way to put it, but surely in one’s mind, one asks that question, right?

IOFFE: It’s a question that a lot of us who were living in Moscow in the late aughts and the teens were asking that all the time. I remember a friend of mine, a male Western TV correspondent, saying, “The women are so gorgeous here, but the men are so ugly and unfashionable.” He had lived all over the place and worked all over the place, and he said, “I’ve never seen such disparity,” and it was true.

The women like me, Western women who were living and working in Moscow at the time, said, “We’ll just wait till we get home.” I think it’s because of what I talked about before, or what you and I talked about before, which is that so many men were killed in the first half of the 20th century, and so few demands were placed on them because they were seen as an endangered species, in general. They were a resource to be fought over and protected.

In 1968, when the West was undergoing a sexual revolution, and women were fighting for more rights, more equality, the Soviets were talking about saving the men, protecting the men, and saying, “We’ve done enough for the women, but our men die young.” That’s after a lifetime of alcohol abuse, smoking, being largely irrelevant in the home, and obviously politically, because it’s a totalitarian system, so let’s work on protecting them.

Soviet men, and then Russian men, became these coddled, spoiled children essentially, where on one hand, so little was asked of them that it’s the bigotry of low expectations. So little was asked of them, and very little was expected of them, and they rose to meet those very low expectations.

On top of that, the idea of what made a man a manly man in Russia is he’s physically strong, but he dies a young death, or he dies an early death. He drinks a lot, he smokes a lot, he’s reckless, he’s careless, and takes a lot of risk, and that usually means an early death. If you have fewer men to begin with, and as a Russian woman, you see them dying early, and you’re fighting over them, what is the impetus for men to take care of themselves, to act better, be better, if there’s always going to be a beautiful, super competent woman to take him if you don’t want him?

COWEN: These points you’re raising, historically, do you feel it’s been quite different for Soviet and Russian Jews or the same?

IOFFE: I think it’s a little bit different. The caveat is, and I hate that I have to say this, Jews are people too, and subject to the same social forces that everybody else is, but culturally, Soviet Jews were more educated as a rule, more urban, and culturally came from a very family-centric tradition. Russian women, actually, for all the intense antisemitism in the Soviet Union, in Russia, Jewish men were actually a prized commodity for Russian women.

COWEN: With ethnic Russian women?

IOFFE: Yes. Ethnic Ukrainian women, you name it, because the cultural stereotype was that Jewish men don’t drink, they don’t hit you, they are family-focused, family-oriented, they’re involved fathers, they bring their money home, they don’t waste it at the bar or on bottles of vodka with their buddies. That’s the kind of man you would want as a husband. Ironically, the same polls that will tell you that Russians would want their daughters to marry a Jew will tell you that they don’t want their president to be a Jew.

One of my favorite episodes of the year, interesting throughout, and I very much enjoyed Julia’s book Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia.

The post My excellent Conversation with Julia Ioffe appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to Horhe. And so, you know, when Stalin came to ... by just listen to the audio instead of relying on a transcript nobody proofreads
• In reply to Cyrus. slightly more men then women are born as a ... by Agorabum
• Not a Ioffista, but this interview was good. “When Stalin ... by Horhe
• Lovely conversation. I have never thought about this subject ... by A Guy Online
• In reply to Tolstoy. It’s common knowledge that it’s ... by SJ
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• What should I ask Jared Diamond?
• *Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect*
• *Rome’s Age of Revolution*

 

We’re proud to announce that Refine has signed partnerships with two leading publishers in economics. Both the American Economic Association and the Econometric Society now use Refine’s AI-assisted technical verification as part of their publication processes.

Here is the thread.  And more comments here.

The post Solve for the (Refine) equilibrium appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to mkt42. The top finance journals pay reviewers (if ... by Cameron
• In reply to F. E. Guerra-Pujol. Do you know the difference ... by Leandro Paredes
• In reply to mkt42. “Refereeing, i.e. peer review, is the ... by Wayfaring Stranger
• In reply to Kaz Stanczak. Does that just make Refine a method ... by TMC
• In reply to F. E. Guerra-Pujol. Exactly! The fools who are ... by Arnold Kling
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• My excellent Conversation with Julia Ioffe
• Will U.S. cities face a knock-on fiscal crisis from the feds?
• More math breakthroughs from GPT models

 

2. New publication on AI and institutions.  Good people involved.

3. Chicago boys in Chile.

4. What kind of machine can a book make?

5. Longevity firms push for medical deregulation in Montana (WSJ).

6. OpenAI Economic Research Exchange.

7. Victor Niederhoffer obituary.  Do not forget Victor also was a world class checkers player, art collector, and a very good jazz bassist as well (yes I have heard him play) in addition to his other achievements.

8. David Wolpe now has a Substack.

9. The cyberattacks against the hedge funds.

The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to rayward. That standard would put every macro ... by Gilligan
• In reply to M. “If Google exits, are any publicly traded ... by RAD
• In reply to rayward. He didn't kill people he killed commies. ... by Anti-Gnostic
• In reply to RAD. Interesting; doing some reading today, I ... by M
• In reply to Patrick W. Someone should propose a Not Smarter ... by MikeP
• Plus 10 more...

 

In 2010 an employment tribunal ruled that Birmingham City Council had discriminated against thousands of female workers — cooks, cleaners, care assistants, caretakers — who were denied bonuses paid to the mostly male binmen, gardeners, and gravediggers. Why were the binmen given bonuses? Well, refuse collection is filthy, heavy, outdoor work and not many people want to be gravediggers. Thus, these jobs command a premium for exactly the reason Adam Smith gave in 1776 — compensating differentials. Or was it sexism? Well, note first that there is nothing stopping women from becoming “binpersons” and indeed there are female binpersons and they earn the same bonuses as their male counterparts (just as with the Next case). Moreover, we can test the sexism versus compensating differentials theory. Let’s see what happened.

Here’s the problem, which contributed to Birmingham going bankrupt in 2023. The council employs roughly 400 binmen and something like 6,000 women in comparable graded roles. Every extra pound paid to a binman therefore implied about fifteen pounds owed to the cooks and cleaners. The council simply didn’t have the money to pay everyone binman wages so they cut the binmen’s wages. But the market wage for collecting rubbish is what it is, so when Birmingham finally deleted the premium in January 2025, the binmen went on strike — and they are still on strike, nearly eighteen months later. The rubbish piled up, 17,000 tonnes of it, and the city declared a major incident.

Here’s the most amazing part. The council hired an outside contractor to take over its rubbish collection and it now pays roughly triple its pre-strike outsourcing bill–more than it was paying its own employees. So much for sexism. Apparently the premium wasn’t a favor to men; it was the price of the job. If you want your rubbish picked up and your graves dug, you must pay the market wage. This was pure regulatory arbitrage, of course. Because the new binmen were contractors they legally had a different employer than the Council’s female caregivers and the Act’s comparator rules stop at the employer’s nexus.

The government mandarins, of course, want to close the “loophole” adding yet another bureaucratic requirement to push the equal pay madness up the supply chain. The rubbish piles up.

The post The Binmen of Birmingham appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

       

Comments

• In reply to Wayfaring Stranger. Yep, useful additions. I ... by M
• In reply to Critical thinking. It is fundamentally an ... by Slocum
• In reply to M. M, a couple of thoughts, not sure what the ... by Wayfaring Stranger
• In reply to Marie. “Past decades” is doing a whole lot of ... by Slocum
• In reply to Not exactly, Alex. What do you mean getting paid ... by Dylan
• Plus 10 more...

Related Stories

• Will U.S. cities face a knock-on fiscal crisis from the feds?
• Is there a Balkan fertility paradox? (from my email)
• AI and Marginal Revolutions in Wastewater Treatment