At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
2025 hot takes on cities, AI, space, politics, and society
- They argue that most viral Twitter narratives about San Francisco are low-signal and that macro forces like COVID and downtown vacancy explain more than individual politicians do.
- They frame depopulation as an underappreciated risk, tracing how 1960s–70s overpopulation ideas influenced culture and policy and noting that common government incentives (e.g., tax credits) appear ineffective at raising birth rates.
- They see rapid AI model improvement in late 2025 but remain skeptical of near-term “superintelligence” timelines, warning founders not to make life or startup plans around 6–18 month predictions.
- They compare AGI hype to the self-driving arc: early optimism was directionally right but years off, and “human-in-the-loop” (e.g., teleoperators) may become an accepted operational reality that still feels autonomous to users.
- They view space as entering a Moore’s-law-like cost decline due to SpaceX, while flagging competitive dynamics where SpaceX/Starlink can bump other payloads, and they debate whether AI is a bubble—concluding value is real but datacenter debt could create painful market turmoil.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasTreat viral city narratives as noise, not insight.
They argue that memes about San Francisco (positive or negative) often lack grounding, and that relying on them leads to distorted beliefs about real conditions and policy outcomes.
Macro shocks often dominate local political “agency.”
COVID, office vacancy, and shifting policing norms can put any administration in a bind; they caution against simplistic stories that credit or blame a few leaders for complex trend reversals.
Depopulation concerns may be partly cultural and idea-driven, not just economic.
They suggest decades of overpopulation messaging and environmental arguments still influence decisions today, and that once certain ideas take hold, they can shape policy and personal choices for generations.
Child-related incentives are hard to engineer with small financial nudges.
They note that tax credits can shift timing for people already planning kids rather than increase total births, highlighting the mismatch between 18-year commitments and short-term incentives.
AI progress can be fast while “AGI” remains an ill-defined moving target.
They observe models improved faster than expected and are harder to evaluate by benchmarks alone, but they warn that “AGI in 18 months” talk can crowd out more realistic planning.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesIf you're reading it on Twitter, it's like, there's a greater than 50% chance it's wrong.
— Michael Seibel
People give politicians way too much agency.
— Michael Seibel
Wow, is that different now.
— Dalton Caldwell
I think the models improved faster than I would've expected January 1, 2025.
— Dalton Caldwell
I'm always skeptical of ideas that take all the oxygen out of the room.
— Michael Seibel
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