Sam is involved in innovation policy at Progress Ireland, a Dublin-based independent policy think tank. He also manages a publication called The Fitzwilliam. Most pertinent to our interests, his personal blog features a well-received link roundup; below is a condensed version of his Links for December.
Blogs and Short Links
1. I recently wrapped up my Notes on Taiwan. The positive reception has been gratifying, especially as it garnered attention from Marginal Revolution, The Browser, and made it onto Conor Friedersdorf’s Best of Journalism list.
2. I had the opportunity to join Matt Teichman’s podcast for a discussion.
3. What strategies should middle powers adopt regarding compute strategy?
4. A look at the scientific contributions of the Carlsberg beer company. Danish Guinness?!
5. We now have a platform akin to Goodreads for academic papers.1 Unsurprisingly, Gavin Leech has already joined, contributing a substantial portion of the site’s content.
6. We are now accepting submissions for In Development, a new magazine inspired by Works in Progress, focusing on the developing world.
7. From The Fitzwilliam: our essay addresses why most foreign aid remains within the country, and curiously, why this is acceptable (for the time being).
8. The Guardian offers insights into the life of Saul Kripke. Can’t a man crawl on the floor in front of students without it becoming a headline?
By sheer coincidence, I encountered Kripke’s causal theory of reference during a philosophy of language class on the very day he passed away. Later that week, I experienced the most stinging critique of my philosophical career, when a tutor quipped that if Saul Kripke had heard my argument, “he would return just to die again”.2
9. The art of granting things sustained attention.
10. A highlight from Wikipedia: The Glasgow ice cream wars.
11. Harry Law’s insightful overview of the history of AI and the legacy of the Dartmouth Conference. It’s amusing to think that Marvin Minsky was the scientific advisor for HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Music and Podcasts
1. A curious exploration: Why the War on Drugs has led to the widespread availability of blueberries.
2. Hiromi’s album Sonicwonderland, discovered through her performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. My favorite track is Up. I haven’t yet watched the interview with Rick Beato, but Hiromi’s performance is nothing short of electrifying. Additionally, her duet with Chick Corea, whom she fortuitously met at 17, is a must-listen.
3. The Marginal Revolutionaries discuss their favorite economic models. This episode sheds light on why monopoly, in theory, doesn’t necessarily lead to inferior product quality. I ponder how many in Ireland could accurately articulate Harberger’s general equilibrium capital taxation result, which underpins much of our economy.
4. Ulkar Aghayeva’s composition Fugue Chahargah marks my first encounter with Azerbaijani music. This piano fugue is influenced by mugham, a traditional microtonal genre from Azerbaijan. Ulkar also has a suite for cello and piano and a string trio. Her talent is exceptional, and I hope to attend one of her concerts soon.
5. Dan Wang offers insights on what to do if you aspire to lead China. I found his discussion with Sam Bowman and Pieter Garicano regarding the challenges facing European economies particularly intriguing. The stark contrast in competition within banking between the US and Europe is staggering. When I attempted to open a new bank account, I discovered there were only three banks available, making the process exasperating enough that I ultimately gave up. Remarkably, around 80% of financing for European companies is through bank loans, compared to just 30% in America—highlighting the critical role of quality financial services!
6. Soham Sankaran discusses building a vaccine company in India. This brings to mind many discussions I’ve had with Akash Kulgod about scaling Dognosis from Bangalore. Akash would make an excellent guest for this podcast.
Books and Papers
1. John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, Claude Shannon, A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. This document marks the first formal mention of the term ‘artificial intelligence’ and outlines a research agenda that would culminate in the 1956 Dartmouth workshop. 3 Is the significance of the Dartmouth conference overstated in AI history? Likely. Are we fortunate to live in an era where we can read the original proposal and ponder its implications using modern technology that has largely addressed the challenges outlined within a single human lifetime? Absolutely.
2. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. Unless you count graphic novels, plays, poetry, or autofiction, this is the sole novel I read in 2025. One of my resolutions is to dive deeper into fiction. In brief, Gulliver’s Travels is A++, possibly the best novel I’ve ever encountered. For more reflections, you’ll have to wait for my Irish Enlightenment post.
Liberty Fund is organizing a virtual reading group on Gulliver’s Travels on March 4, 11, 18, and 25 from 4:00–5:00 p.m. EST. More information can be found here.
Films and Video
1. Greg Kohs’ The Thinking Game offers a documentary on Demis Hassabis and the journey of Google DeepMind, available to watch for free on YouTube. I was intrigued to learn about Demis’s involvement in creating the 1994 video game Theme Park.
The viewing experience was peculiar; OpenAI, Anthropic, and ChatGPT were notably absent from the narrative. One might finish this film and still believe that AlphaGo-era reinforcement learning reigns supreme. Portions of this documentary could easily have been excerpts from the 2017 documentary about AlphaGo, which is one of the finest documentaries ever made.
I was also let down that Demis’s side gig as the world’s fourth-ranked player in the board game Diplomacy was not mentioned.
2. Edward Yang’s Yi Yi (一一) marks my inaugural experience with Taiwanese cinema, discovered by querying Claude Opus 4.5, “What is the greatest Taiwanese film of all time?” This was Yang’s swan song and a cornerstone of the Taiwanese New Wave. The title translates to ‘one by one’ and, when written vertically, resembles the Chinese character for the number 2.
I consider this one of the finest films I’ve ever seen. It brilliantly encapsulates the ‘relentlessness’ of ordinary family life more effectively than any other visual medium I can fathom. I later discovered that this film is one of the rare occasions Scott Sumner awarded a perfect score to a film:
[1] Acknowledgments to Anuja Uppuluri.
[2] No, I can’t recall what my argument actually was.
[3] I also discovered that the Dartmouth conference was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
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