Interview
Byrne Hobart - Optionality, Stagnation, and Secret Societies
- Applies financial concepts like expected value and optionality to human decisions while noting model deficiencies and the necessity of specific assumptions for valid predictions.
- Anticipates that large institutions often pursue unstated internal goals alongside stated mandates, and suggests that individuals within them may secure status by managing perceptions rather than solving growing problems.
- Calculates that closing a 1% annual gap in total factor productivity growth over the last 50 years would likely result in US GDP per capita being 60% to 70% higher today.
- Predicts that a continued mid-20th century productivity boom would yield benefits such as additional products and extended health or lifespans rather than increased physical possessions.
- Expects flying cars to remain impossible in many nations due to strict regulations, high supply chain barriers, and insufficient GDP per capita, noting that industry scaling likely requires backing from major airlines.
- Forecasts the aviation industry, particularly for wide-body commercial planes, will remain dominated by Boeing and Airbus, with China failing to catch up despite long-term efforts.
- Anticipates that human challenge trials may occur in countries with different regulatory environments during future pandemics, though predicts aggressive enforcement by bodies like the FDA to protect institutional legitimacy.
- Predicts FDA approval for polygenic embryo selection to correct genetic diseases, while forecasting that selection for traits like height for sports will be difficult to approve in the US but may occur first in China.
- Warns that "patient long-termism" strategies relying on compounding wealth over centuries are frequently reset by catastrophic events such as war, famine, or revolution.
- Expects financial assets are unlikely to survive national collapses or wars over periods of centuries to millennia, citing historical examples of trusts losing value to bankruptcy.
- Suggests that multi-generational family fortunes offer a more viable model for long-term goal coordination than secret societies, which are predicted to have a low population of powerful members.
- Anticipates that societal preference for optionality is driven by a wealth effect, while noting that success often stems from reducing options and that selling optionality remains a generally profitable strategy despite market crash drawdowns.
- Expects elite higher education remains a beneficial deal for individuals despite potential negative aggregate societal effects, and predicts self-education programs often fail due to overestimated willpower compared to the external motivation of schools.
- Predicts that as communication costs decline, specialized jobs will favor intrinsic interest over conscientiousness, and expects the rationalist subculture to skew toward programming rather than finance.
- Expects books offer higher "convexity of knowledge" and recommends studying complex topics through a diverse range of sources, including period fiction, to gain unique texture.
- Predicts escaping the "middle income trap" requires developing indigenous technologies or branded products, suggesting that maintaining control over intermediate industrial goods can sustain competitive advantage even if final assembly moves elsewhere.
- Recommends individuals become world-leading public-facing experts on narrow topics within short timeframes by synthesizing academic papers, and predicts the current era of slowed growth is either a unique anomaly or a precursor to new productivity-accelerating technologies.
- Expects future productivity-boosting technologies will correlate with individuals making significant money and living interesting lives, similar to previous industrial revolutions.
- Suggests adopting a "pseudo-historian's perspective" to evaluate current events by imagining how they will be judged 50 to 100 years from now.