Sam’s Links: April Edition – Econlib

Sam Enright is a key player in innovation policy at Progress Ireland, an independent think tank based in Dublin, and he also manages a publication called The Fitzwilliam. Notably, on his personal blog, he curates a widely followed link roundup; what follows is a condensed version of his Links for February and Links for March.

Blogs and Short Links

1. A critical examination of the Jones Act reveals it’s particularly detrimental to Puerto Rico.

2. In a surprising twist, artificial intelligence can now rent humans.

3. Gavin Leech delivers characteristic insights on learning statistics without losing one’s sanity:

In agreement with Gav, I found that delving into generalized linear models and experimenting with glmnet in R significantly enhanced my understanding. Initially, many results regarding foundational concepts like linear regression can feel like a collection of arbitrary rules to memorize, rather than a result of comprehensible modeling decisions.

4. Alarmingly, China recorded fewer births in 2025 than in 1776.

5. For Progress Ireland, I explored the economic burden of corporate tax:

6. Opposing the belief held by some educators that constant repetition turns students into automatons, the latest argument in favor of “memorization has its merits”: we should all strive to learn how to recite more poetry from memory.

7. Reflecting on St. Patrick’s Day, it’s worth pondering how Irish cuisine gained its notoriously poor reputation.

8. A look into how Francis Bacon approached reading. I even have a Bacon quote on my (horribly outdated, desperately in need of revamping) bookshelf page on my website.

9. Barra Roantree argues that in the absence of a proper land tax, Ireland should ramp up its reliance on property taxes. Instead, these taxes have been progressively eroded and diminished.

10. Tom Cunningham discusses the economics of transformative AI.

11. Tom McCarthy sheds light on the lies we tell ourselves on seemingly unproductive days. I can certainly relate.

12. Interestingly, the Trump administration is suspending the Jones Act.

Music and Podcasts

1. The Rest is History featuring Conan O’Brien discussing the Beatles.

2. Ebo Taylor, Ebo Taylor. He would undoubtedly feature on my ‘favorite things about Ghana’ list, which I might eventually publish alongside my Ghanaian travelogue. Taylor passed away last week—an icon in the highlife and Afrobeat genres. My favorite track here is Heaven.

3. Henry Oliver reflects on what he learned from reading Peter Pan to his children. I often wonder how much further I could have advanced in life had I possessed a voice and accent as delightful as Henry’s.

4. Chick Corea and Hiromi collaborate in Duet. Hiromi is undoubtedly an incredible pianist, although some of her studio albums lean towards the, shall we say, ‘anime’ genre. Yet, this album finds a perfect equilibrium. I particularly enjoy Humpty Dumpty, which originally featured on Corea’s album Mad Hatter.

5. Helen Castor discusses Richard II, Henry IV, and the political economy of medieval England. A highly engaging discussion.

6. Adam Brown delves into general relativity, hitchhiking, and whether the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki was against direct orders. Reconciling how Brown discusses AdS/CFT correspondence as a potentially useful model with Julian Gough’s skepticism poses an intriguing challenge.

7. A dialogue between Dwarkesh Patel, Sholto Douglas, and Trenton Bricken on whether reinforcement learning and LLMs are sufficient to achieve AGI. Has anyone crafted a model suggesting that, if fine motor skills are the last to be automated, the final jobs for humans will involve assembling intricate parts in windowless factories?

8. Re-exploring the Beatles’ White Album. The 1968 album, with its confounding white cover, is also titled ‘The Beatles’. While I’ve heard each song individually numerous times, listening to the album in its entirety reveals just how disjointed it is. Of course, While My Guitar Gently Weeps remains an all-time classic. I was unaware of the peculiar connection this album has to the Manson murders. I hold a particular affection for Yer Blues and Helter Skelter. Admittedly, Revolution 9 is quite the auditory challenge, yet it has finally clarified the Simpsons parody for me.

Books and Papers

1. Trevor Chow, Basil Halperin, Zach Mazlish, Transformative AI, Existential Risk, and Real Interest Rates. I finally tackled this paper, which had lingered on my list long enough to undergo several revisions (I read the October 2025 version). Here are the LessWrong comments and EA Forum discussions, including counterarguments from Jakob Graabak.

The crux of the paper is that if you anticipate significantly higher consumption in the future—or a potential transformation into a paperclip—then borrowing and consuming more now makes sense. Hence, real interest rates should theoretically surge. Yet, this expectation does not seem to be reflected in current market behavior, suggesting that transformative AI is not on the horizon in the next three decades. Thus, if one adheres to the efficient market hypothesis, it implies we should not expect AGI anytime soon.

Nicholas Decker argues that this rationale is flawed, as AI will primarily influence us by generating goods and services that are not presently available at any price. It’s conceivable that $1 could yield substantially greater utility in a post-AGI landscape, potentially resulting in a savings glut and declining real rates now. However, reasoning back from real rates is notoriously tricky; here’s Basil explaining why he believes his paper does not contravene Cowen’s Third Law (“all propositions regarding real interest rates are wrong”).

Moreover, there appears to be an opportunity for insightful commentary on interest rates, as economics generally comprehends risk and consumption smoothing quite effectively. However, I gather that the impact of AI on GDP or equity prices remains much less certain.

While I don’t have strong convictions on this matter, it strikes me as a critical and productive avenue for exploration. My EA friends who dismiss this paper as a mere excuse for skeptics to entirely brush aside AI x-risk concerns are profoundly misguided. I eagerly anticipate what these authors will produce next.

2. Claude Shannon, Programming a Computer for Playing Chess. This paper is delightful; I find it amusing how deeply rooted game-playing is in AI history. This is my second attempt at reading a Shannon paper, following his mathematical theory of communication. In this document, one can see the origins of Shannon’s number, his estimate for the number of potential chess matches (still an unsolved conundrum!).

3. Peter Singer, Ethics (Oxford Reader). It’s refreshing to engage with philosophy again. The structure of this book—a collection of excerpts from significant ethical works, accompanied by commentary—is particularly appealing. I believe this is my first encounter with a non-Western philosopher! The prominent thinkers I feel slightly guilty for not having read extensively, but who I can now claim to have perused at least a few pages of thanks to this anthology, include: Mencius, Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, Marx, Engels, Nietzsche, Freud, Confucius, Martin Luther, Hegel, Henry Sidgwick, Wittgenstein, A.J. Eyer, The Buddha, Epicurus, Epictetus, Voltaire, Jeremy Bentham, William James, G.E. Moore, Gandhi, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, and William Godwin. It’s remarkable how a linkpost can highlight a man’s ignorance…

However, I did notice some curious inaccuracies within this book. In his commentary on the Sixth Commandment, Singer bizarrely references Martin Luther’s “ninety-six” theses (p.402). I briefly questioned my sanity before confirming that, indeed, they haven’t added a new thesis since I last checked.

Similar inaccuracies appear in other works by Singer, which often lack attention to detail. For instance, in Animal Liberation, he uncritically mentions an apparent hoax claiming there’s a valley in Ecuador where inhabitants live to 142 due to their vegetarianism (in truth, only one person has been verified to have lived beyond 120 years). This unverified claim persists into the 2015 reprint alongside Yuval Noah Harari. Furthermore, in The Life You Can Save, page 114, he repeats a dubious assertion that Cuba boasts lower child mortality than the United States.

Although Singer has significantly contributed to anthologizing others’ work and making philosophy more empirical since the 1970s—this book stands as a testament to that—I find myself grappling with texts like Moral Experts, which feels closer to moral psychology than moral philosophy. How do we assess it when its author seems unconcerned with empirical accuracy and rigor?

4. Clemens Fuest, Andreas Peichl, Sebastian Siegloch, Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany. A thought-provoking paper; see my Progress Ireland post for further insights.

5. Jimmy Soni, Rob Goodman, A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age. This book exemplifies the “string theory is akin to a taco” model of science communication. It features statements like this (page 64):

Alan Turing made a pivotal contribution to machine intelligence by demonstrating that any solvable mathematical problem could, in principle, be addressed by a machine.

It seems the authors must be referencing Turing’s computable numbers paper. What “solvable mathematical problem” is meant remains ambiguous, as that isn’t precisely the focus of Turing’s work. This paper is widely regarded as compelling evidence supporting the Church-Turing thesis, which posits that anything effectively computable can be computed on a Turing machine. Yet, the Church-Turing thesis is, by its nature, an unprovable philosophical stance, not something Turing claimed to “prove”.

It feels a bit unkind to continue critiquing the book in this fashion, as I appreciate the authors’ efforts to explore a new area and craft the book they envisioned. However, it ultimately comes across as more about Claude Shannon’s ethos than substantive content. The strongest sections discuss Shannon’s intriguing side projects, such as the Roman numeral calculator (THROBAC) and the robot mouse that learns to navigate a maze (Theseus).

Films and Video

1. Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme. From the director of Uncut Gems, I found this film quite compelling! However, I can’t help but think that even more fascinating historical narratives about American table tennis players and their diplomatic ties with East Asia remain untapped. The story of how ping pong was pivotal in the normalization of U.S.-China relations would make for an excellent film. Dave Franco could portray the American team captain, while Tony Leung could take on the role of Zhou Enlai? An AI-generated simulation of Peter Sellers as Kissinger, perhaps?!

2. Milton Friedman, Free to Choose. You can watch this entire ten-part series for free on YouTube. It’s genuinely well-crafted, and I wish I had seen it prior to my Friedman event. In episode four, the individual on welfare in Britain interviewed about their long-term dependence on it possesses a thick Irish accent, which, well, likely didn’t aid their integration.

There are many enjoyable filming locations featured throughout the series. In episode eight, Friedman visits the island of Kos to discuss Hippocrates and how his famous oath is blatantly disregarded by medical licensing. Several “that was then, this is now” moments arise: in episode seven, Friedman comments that he only sometimes uses his seatbelt.

It’s amusing how many familiar faces unexpectedly appear in these episodes. Peter Temin makes an appearance in episode three (his hair was already grey back in 1980).

3. Óliver Laxe, Sirāt. Here’s the review from Tyler Cowen, who hails it as one of the five or six finest films of the millennium. A spoiler-filled analysis of its deeper meanings is available. This is among the most profoundly moving films I’ve experienced in the past year; the big screen is crucial.

4. Various, Six Nations: Ireland v Scotland. Even as someone who doesn’t entirely grasp rugby, this match was quite engaging. It culminated in Ireland securing the Triple Crown, awarded to any Home Nation that beats all others. Regrettably, Ireland ultimately lost the tournament to France.

For the full versions of Sam’s February and March links, click here and here.

Endnotes:

[1] They measure real interest rates in two ways: by subtracting a measure of expected inflation from nominal rates, and also by examining yields on long-term inflation-linked bonds. Encouragingly, both methods yield the same outcome.

[2] Why isn’t the number of possible chess games infinite? This is due to the fifty-move rule, which stipulates a game ends in a draw if no piece is taken and no pawn is moved for fifty consecutive moves.

[3] Location 3428 of 5674 in the Kindle edition (chapter 4). Confusingly, this book differs from the 2023 reissue, Animal Liberation Now, which is also accompanied by Yuval Noah Harari. That version contains significant updates to the content, but I haven’t perused it.

[4] The 2024 Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to research uncovering clerical errors and fabrications that account for ‘blue zones’, purported hotspots of exceptional life expectancy. Here’s Cremieux discussing claims of extreme longevity.

[5] Turing himself did not subscribe to the belief that the human brain is limited to processes computable by Turing machines.

[6] I know I already suggested him for the hypothetical Morris Chang biopic, but he truly is remarkable.