Noah Smith+

The death of Market Street

How San Francisco turned its most iconic street into a giant empty scar.

What if our biggest problems aren’t economic?

A new social challenge for a new century.

Are we watching the U.S. go bankrupt?

No, but there are still reasons for concern.

Economists should be worried about birth rates

Don’t be so quick to dismiss the threat of an aging, declining population.

Where to eat in San Francisco

Part 1 of my personal recommendations.

The end of an era for China's economy

Zhu Rongji's formula won't work anymore. But that doesn't mean Xi Jinping's will work either.

23 low-regret recommendations for AI policy

A guest post by Tim Fist and Saif Khan, with Tao Burga, Arthur Tellis, Ben Schifman, Jonah Weinbaum, and Olivia Scharfman

Roundup #86: Unintended consequences

The MAGA decline; The labor share decline; OPTs and American jobs; AI and Indian outsourcing; Drug users; AI and productivity; Botswana; Interracial Marriage; AI writing

The poverty of anti-tech thought

Some of my colleagues have been led into an intellectual cul-de-sac.

Should we "pace" AI self-improvement?

A guest post by Tim Fist and Saif Khan.

Banning data centers would blow up the U.S. economy

There's one thing keeping us afloat right now, and people want to get rid of it.

Are the Democrats going to save us this time?

And if not, what do we do?

The end of the age of heroes

AI will soon be better at math than any human. What does that mean?

Slopulism is taking over America

Sometimes bad populist ideas are just a mistake; sometimes they're being promoted for ideological reasons.

Why did South Korean stocks just crash?

The AI boom creates a lot of uncertainty.

Roundup #85: Most policy is also industrial policy

Trump and science; U.S. national debt; Europe and software; America and trains; China and metal refining; Indian women; Murder

What will more intelligence actually do for us?

A lot, actually. But it won't look quite like what humans do with our intelligence.

We asked too much of the American university

Our one remaining functional institution is going downhill.

Who was the worst monster of the 20th century?

And who is the worst monster of the 21st?

The UK is a cautionary tale for the U.S.

Learning from Britain's missteps doesn't mean looking down on them.

America's political economy is pretty bleak right now

We can get some good things done, but major efforts will be difficult with our divided politics.

Book Review: "Power and Progress"

A timely repost.

Why I didn't sign the "We Must Act Now" statement (yet)

I'd like to know exactly what the actions are.

The American suburbs are better than you think

They're not my personal cup of tea, but there are good reasons people like them.

I have never been working class

Unlike some American elites, I actually understand this fact.

MAGA's attack on science is even worse than it looks

The engine that powered history's greatest nation is in danger.

JD Vance's crusade against GDP is wrong and bad

Making Americans poorer won't make our society better.

No, China did not manage to avoid a crash

But there are still things we can learn from how they manage their macroeconomy.

The American age was the human age

Reflections on 250 years.

Stop screeching about immigration, and get smart about it

The culture war is making it impossible for us to deal with declining population.

Roundup #84: Bears on bikes

Vibecession (or not); AI depolarization; Existential AI risk; Millennials vs. Boomers; Deindustrialization; Russian oil revenue; GLP-1s; AI and jobs

Will AI make companies outsource more, or less?

Maybe both.

Europe's resistance to AC is driving it insane

A timely repost, with some updates.

The Democrats have their own MAGA now

The shape of America's new Left is becoming clearer.

China is winning the other tech race

They understand the importance of the electric revolution. America, so far, does not.

Pizza wheels are bad, Japanese toilets are great

So why do Americans use the former and not the latter?