Links for May
Dance around the Link Pole this May day
Yet more reasons why technologically advanced civilisations would want to build black holes. Exactly as the three-stage model of cosmological natural selection would predict.
Did anyone predict the Industrial Revolution?
Moonsteading is coming.
Lost Mesoamerican technologies. In Peru, it was striking how excellent Inca stonework was. If they’d not been destroyed, I’ve no doubt it would have reached new heights of sophistication. It’s impossible to comprehend how much was lost in the Spanish conquest of the Americas.
Can we put the data centres out at sea?
If we can crack anti-matter production, the universe opens up to us. 750kg of antimatter could get a 500kg ship to 60% of the speed of light and slow it back down again. If you’re familiar with the rocket equation, you know that’s a very nice payload fraction. That speed means reaching Alpha Centauri in 6.5 years (ship time, 8 years Earth time), which is less time than it took New Horizons to get to Pluto. It would put reaching other systems on totally human time scales.
A sceptical take on whether we need to increase defence spending. I’ve been thinking similarly recently. There’s a clamour for spending more on defence owing to the war in Ukraine, but if anything, the war in Ukraine shows we’re safer than we thought.
This month, I decided to start a monthly donation to offset my meat consumption by donating to animal welfare charities. Is that ideal? No. Is it better than continuing what I’m doing and not donating? Yes. I’ve always been convinced of the immorality of factory farming, but I don’t think raising animals to kill for meat is inherently wrong. Arguments about wild animal suffering leave me thinking a given area of land used for non-factory animal husbandry might be morally preferable to the same land left for wildlife.
Long read on Nectome, the brain preservation start-up
We’re getting absolutely Mushroom Mogged by China.
And it turns out immigration law plays a role in why.
Talkie is an AI chatbot trained exclusively on pre-1931 text, letting you chat with that past.
I asked it about the prospects of the British Empire ‘this’ century (the 20th), to which it had this to say:
The prospects of the British empire, during the present century, are highly favourable. In population and wealth, it must continue to increase; and, in intelligence and moral worth, the improvement of the people can scarcely fail to be great and manifest. The colonies have already become a mighty dominion, spreading over a large portion of the globe, and the mother country can scarcely fail to profit by the connection. They must continue to look to her for protection; and she, in return, will derive advantage from their growing prosperity. The sympathies of a common origin will be strengthened by a community of interests, and the feeling of relationship will be cherished by mutual benefits. The intercourse between Great Britain and her dependencies must become more intimate and more profitable; and, though the latter may eventually assume the position of separate nations, they can never cease to regard the parent state with respect and affection. The commercial superiority of England must be maintained and augmented; and her power on the seas can scarcely be diminished, so long as she has a great maritime trade to protect. In time of peace, her internal tranquillity will be secure, and her internal prosperity will be steadily progressive; and, in war, she must still be formidable, as the undisputed mistress of the waters. The improvements in science, and in the art of destruction, must render her more formidable still, while they diminish the chances of hostility. She can scarcely fail to improve in social happiness, so long as she remains true to the principles of freedom; for freedom is favourable to mental cultivation, and mental cultivation is favourable to virtue. The century must close upon her a great, a powerful, and a prosperous nation.
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It’s an interesting insight into what is seen as ‘inevitable’. From our vantage, the decline of European empires seems inevitable, but to someone in the 1930s, what was inevitable ran the other way. What appears inevitable is often a post-hoc rationalisation.
It also appears strange to our eyes to be so positive and optimistic. Its answer was almost exclusively discussing improvements and strengths. I decided to ask the same question of Claude about the UK today, to see how the mood has changed. Claude’s answer is below:
Economy and public finances
The near-term picture is one of sluggish productivity. UK GDP per capita growth has been weak in recent years, mainly because of subdued productivity gains, modest business investment below pre-Brexit levels, and slow total factor productivity growth. The OBR’s central assumption is underlying medium-term productivity growth of 1.0% a year — higher than the post-financial-crisis trend, but well below the productivity growth of the century leading up to it. OECDOffice for Budget Responsibility
The longer-term fiscal picture is the more striking number. The OBR’s 2024 long-term projections showed that, on unchanged government policy, debt could rise to around 275% of GDP by the 2070s, driven mainly by a sharp rise in public spending as the population ages. That’s not a forecast of what will happen — it’s a “if nothing changes, this is the trajectory” warning shot. It implies that tax, spending, or pension policy will almost certainly have to shift before then. Office for Budget Responsibility
On global standing, the UK is still a top-tier economy — the fifth-largest national economy by nominal GDP in 2026, around 3.4% of world GDP — but most projections through the century have it slipping in relative terms as India, Indonesia and others grow faster. Wikipedia
Demographics
This is the most predictable part of the picture, because the people who’ll be old in 2070 are mostly already alive.
The UK population is projected to increase from 67.6 million in 2022 to 72.5 million by 2032 and 76.6 million by 2047. GOV.UK
The number of people aged 85+ is projected to almost double in 25 years, from 1.7 million in 2022 to 3.3 million by 2047. For every 1,000 people of working age, there will be 302 of pensionable age by 2047, up from 278 in 2022. GOV.UK
By 2072, people aged 65+ could make up 27% of the population, up from 19% in 2022. House of Commons Library
Almost all the projected growth comes from net migration rather than natural increase, so migration policy is the single biggest swing factor on population size. Births and deaths are roughly balancing.
Climate
The UK gets off relatively lightly compared to the global picture, but “lightly” still means substantial change.
UKCP18 projects hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters with more extreme weather and rising sea levels. Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs
By 2070, hot summer days could be 3.8°C to 6.8°C warmer under a high-emissions scenario, with summers generally drier and winters wetter — but with more intense summer rainfall events when they do come. UK Environmental Change Network
Sea level rise by the end of the century could reach 1.15m for London and 0.90m for Edinburgh under high emissions, and will continue rising beyond 2100. UK Environmental Change Network
Summers seeing days above 40°C somewhere in the UK currently have a return time of 100–300 years, but without emissions mitigation this could fall to 3.5 years by 2100. nih
The big variable is global emissions, which the UK influences but doesn’t control.
The structural story
Pulling these together, the recurring theme across the OBR, IFS, OECD and PwC analysis is that the UK’s central economic challenge this century is doing more with a workforce that grows slowly while supporting a much larger retired population — and doing it on infrastructure that needs to be both decarbonised and adapted for hotter summers, wetter winters and higher seas. Productivity growth is the lever everyone agrees matters most and that the UK has struggled with since 2008. AI and the energy transition are the two wildcards most often cited as potential upsides.
What’s genuinely unknowable at this horizon: technological shocks (AI in particular), the constitutional future of the Union, geopolitical realignments, and whether climate tipping points are crossed.
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Claude focuses mostly on problems: economic, demographic, and climatic. It doesn’t paint an optimistic picture of progress. To be clear, I don’t think this is an issue with Claude; I think it’s accurately summarising the current discourse on this issue. We’ve gotten less optimistic and lost faith in progress.