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China Torpedoes Biosingularity Bid
•�April 5, 2021
•�700 Words •�222 Comments
From the indispensable BioHackInfo: China’s new Criminal Code, which came into effect four weeks ago on March 1st, has a new section dedicated to ‘illegal medical practices’, which makes it a punishable crime to create gene-edited babies, human clones and animal-human chimeras. The new section is an amendment to Article 336 of China’s Criminal Law,... Read More
Wokeness as White Supremacism
Why Western SJWs are the Real Racists
•�March 21, 2021
•�600 Words •�172 Comments
Bold but not entirely trollish interpretation of the Great Awokening. Western - White American - culture remains hegemonic around the world, even as its economic and military preponderance slips away. Assuming this cultural hegemony remains intact, cultural "innovations" that arise in the imperial metropolis inevitably seep their way into the colonies. This is obviously correct... Read More
The Black Clinics of Kolkata
•�December 11, 2020
•�200 Words •�17 Comments
There's a lot of interesting data in the recent PEW poll on public attitudes to gene editing research, though it's really just the increasing intelligence part (4th column) that's of civilizational significance. Gene editing for IQ is still a philosophical discussion at this stage, despite very fast progress in the relevant fields. So these numbers... Read More
New Paper: Max World Population ≈ 200 Billion
•�May 5, 2020
•�400 Words •�171 Comments
A correspondent brought this new paper to my attention: Binder, Seth, Ethan Holdahl, Ly Trinh, and John H. Smith. 2020. “Humanity’s Fundamental Environmental Limits.” Human Ecology, April. This is in the same order of magnitude as my ~100 billion estimate. Our results also approximate those of models tied to current technologies. De Wit (1967) and... Read More
Rosstat Publishes New Demographic Forecast to 2035
•�January 21, 2020
•�800 Words •�112 Comments
While we wait for the last data to trickle in to update Russian Demographics in 2019 for the new year, I would note that Rosstat released a new demographic forecast at the end of December. Here is the TLDR on what they project for 2035: As usual, there is a Low, Medium, and High scenario.... Read More
Top 25 Cool Demographics Facts
•�November 5, 2019
•�1,900 Words •�464 Comments
I am not going to cover things that well-informed normies already know: How Israel is a weird outlier in fertility by First World standards, and the collapse of fertility in the Islamic world; how life expectancy has been soaring nearly everywhere; the "Great White Death" in the US and how all races in the US... Read More
Alexander Turok on the Age of Malthusian Industrialism
•�September 28, 2019
•�2,400 Words •�243 Comments
In my Age of Malthusian Industrialism concept (see archive), I explore the possibility of a future scenario in which technology stagnates due to problems becoming harder and dysgenic reproduction patterns. Meanwhile, the demographic transition will be reversed, since fertility preferences are heritable, and ultra-competitive in a post-Malthusian world. This may eventually bring the world population... Read More
Moscow Geek Picnic 2019
•�July 16, 2019
•�1,300 Words •�31 Comments
The past weekend saw the ninth Geek Picnic. This is an annual Russian science/sci-fi festival where technologists and futurists come together to hear lectures presentations, see tech exhibits, and do other futuristic things. I decided to come to this one to see what's it's all about. Some of you may have followed my Twitter thread... Read More
Embryo Editing with CRISPR in Russia
•�June 21, 2019
•�1,300 Words •�35 Comments
Kodyleva, T. A., A. O. Kirillova, E. A. Tyschik, V. V. Makarov, A. V. Khromov, V. A. Guschin, A. N. Abybakirov, D. V. Rebrikov, and G. T. Sukhikh. 2018. “Эффективность создания делеции CCR5Ddelta32 методом CRISPR-Cas9 в эмбрионах человека.” Научный Медицинский Журнал РНИМУ имени Н.И. Пирогова 4. This makes Russia the world's fourth country to have... Read More
Eloi & Morlocks
•�March 28, 2019
•�100 Words •�36 Comments
Recent paper (h/t @whyvert). Kim, Yuri, and James J. Lee. 2018. “The Genetics of Human Fertility.” Current Opinion in Psychology 27 (August): 41–45. There's basically two classes of people having more kids: Interesting to see who will win out by the time of the Age of Malthusian Industrialism. (Certainly the former would be more successful... Read More
The Future of Russia-Ukraine Relations
•�March 22, 2019
•�1,100 Words •�272 Comments
The latest polls, jointly conducted by KIIS (Ukraine) and Levada (Russia), show that the collapse in Ukrainian sentiment towards Russia may be turning a corner. Legend: Ukrainian attitudes towards Russia [blue]; Russian attitudes towards Ukraine [orange] For the first time since April 2014, more Ukrainians have a positive impressive of Russia than the converse. Attitudes... Read More
Effective Terrorism: Pushing Up That K/D Ratio
•�March 17, 2019
•�1,400 Words •�58 Comments
The drones from Wolf Warrior 2. To date the world's most successful (non-state) terrorists have only been getting about ~100 kills / death (or capture). The 9/11 hijackers each killed 2,996/19 = 158 people. Anders Breivik methodically killed 77 people. Brenton Tarrant got 50 while livestreaming it like a video game. Aircraft bombings can take... Read More
Financial Times on the Convergence Hoax
•�March 5, 2019
•�700 Words •�62 Comments
Polish Perspective points us to a recent FT article: Window for poor countries to industrialise ‘closing fast’ TLDR: As PP points out, while many of these factors might a
Aubrey de Grey Getting More Optimistic on Life Extension
•�March 3, 2019
•�200 Words •�18 Comments
For a long time, the world's most recognizable proponent of radical life extension - not to mention significant scientist in his own right, and not just in gerontology - kept refraining from giving any quantitative predictions of when we would reach "longevity escape velocity." However, I notice that he has been getting a great deal... Read More
AOMI IV: What Is the Maximum Population Earth Can Support?
•�January 30, 2019
•�4,600 Words •�272 Comments
This is the fourth in a series of posts about the demographics of the coming Age of Malthusian Industrialism. In the decades and centuries to come, technological progress will slow to a crawl, as dysgenic reproduction patterns deplete the world's remaining smart fractions (assuming that there are no abrupt discontinuities in humanity's capacity for collective... Read More
AoMI III: the Geopolitics of the Age of Malthusian Industrialism
•�January 25, 2019
•�1,400 Words •�98 Comments
This is the third in a series of posts about the demographics of the coming Age of Malthusian Industrialism. In the decades and centuries to come, technological progress will slow to a crawl, as dysgenic reproduction patterns deplete the world's remaining smart fractions (assuming that there are no abrupt discontinuities in humanity's capacity for collective... Read More
AoMI II: Breeders' Revenge
•�January 23, 2019
•�2,300 Words •�88 Comments
This is the second in a series of posts about the demographics of the coming Age of Malthusian Industrialism. In the decades and centuries to come, technological progress will slow to a crawl, as dysgenic reproduction patterns deplete the world's remaining smart fractions (assuming that there are no abrupt discontinuities in humanity's capacity for collective... Read More
Who Will Dominate the CRISPR Arms Race?
•�November 26, 2018
•�1,200 Words •�216 Comments
Technology Review: Chinese scientists are creating CRISPR babies It's a popular meme that a China unencumbered by Judeo-Christian morality/superstitions (cross out as appropriate) will be more open to transhumanist technology. For instance, here is a typical statement of this argument from my friend Hank Pellissier:
Book Review: Joseph Tainter - the Collapse of Complex Societies
•�October 28, 2018
•�4,800 Words •�123 Comments
Joseph Tainter - The Collapse of Complex Societies (1998) Rating: 5/5 Notes: Can be downloaded here. Access my other reviews here: TLDR: Joseph Tainter argues that the root cause of civilizational collapse is because of over-investment into and declining marginal returns on complexity. Societies invest in complexity to solve their problems and typically need to... Read More
31 Steps for the Ukraine
•�October 8, 2018
•�2,300 Words •�752 Comments
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky: Kiev in 1905. I suppose that if superintelligence is developed soon, or the entire world melts together into a post-historical open borders dystopia/utopia, or some existential risk does as all in, then these considerations will become rather irrelevant. However, if the 21st century continues on a more or less "business as usual" path,... Read More
The End of TV and the Future of Russian Politics
•�September 24, 2018
•�700 Words •�130 Comments
Though they remain a solid majority, fewer and fewer Russians are getting their news from TV. . 2009 2013 2018 TV 94% 88% 73% Internet (journals, websites, etc) 9% 21% 37% Friends 26% 24% 18% Social networks 6% 14% 28% Radio 41% 16% 15% Newspapers 37% 20% 13% Journals 8% 4% 3% Other 0% 1%... Read More
Sinotriumph 101
•�September 12, 2018
•�1,200 Words •�924 Comments
Wei Geisheing (2013). Aerial Shanghai by Crane Operator 2. Let's take the standard assumption that national power consists of three main elements: Economic, military, and cultural ("soft"). Why can we be confident that China is on its way to superpowerdom? China has already overtaken the US in terms of GDP (PPP) in the mid-2010s at... Read More
Feasibility of Transhumanist Techs
•�August 4, 2018
•�1,400 Words •�85 Comments
Pursuant to the discussions at the last big thread, I am making a quick post with my assessments of how realistic various "transhumanist" spheres of technology are. *** Has been, is, and will continue to happen - and will affect lower-IQ occupations sooner. Since it takes IQ to design and maintain the robots, this will... Read More
The Case for Annexing Canada
•�July 5, 2018
•�800 Words •�340 Comments
I have long been of the opinion that the only real countries are the playable ones from the Civilization video game series (and DLCs don't count!). So I am liking Thorfinnsson's sizzlingly powerful idea of Trump annexing Canada more and more. The moral case: They’re anti-American and constantly inventing dubious reasons as to why Canada... Read More
The Road to World War III
•�April 12, 2018
•�5,100 Words •�1,071 Comments
There are some fairly good reasons in favor of Russia's decision to intervene in Syria, which is why I have always been modestly if unenthusiastically supportive of it: It is basically a giant and continuous live training exercise for Russian pilots and generals, making it almost "free" in financial terms. The value of the Khmeimim... Read More
Superpower Demographics
•�January 30, 2018
•�700 Words •�178 Comments
Population size doesn't matter much if your goal is to live as a small, comfy, unambitious Switzerland or Singapore. But a large population, along with a sufficiently high IQ, remains of sine qua non of being a Great Power or superpower. France went from having 20% of Europe's population during the reign of the Sun... Read More
A World of 1,000 Nations
•�October 18, 2017
•�2,200 Words •�94 Comments
Though it is Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan that have dominated the news these past two weeks, this month also saw a flare-up in separatist sentiment in Brazil. This region apparently has a have a fleeting historical experience of independence: They are the the whitest states:
Our Biorealistic Future
•�October 9, 2017
•�400 Words •�79 Comments
There are three main reasons why the correlation between national IQ and GDP per capita is only around r=0.7, instead of r=0.9. Oil/resource windfalls: Saudi Arabia would otherwise be about as prosperous as Yemen. The legacy of Communism: Central planning and especially the lunacy that is Maoism are far less effective than free markets. The... Read More
The Case for Superintelligence Competition
•�July 3, 2017
•�600 Words •�40 Comments
I want to gather most of my arguments for skepticism (or, optimism) about a superintelligence apocalypse in one place. (1) I appreciate that the mindspace of unexplored superintelligences is both vast and something we have had absolutely zero experience with or access to. This argument is also the most speculative one. That said, here are... Read More
Open Thread 16: Smorgasbord
•�June 29, 2017
•�1,700 Words •�81 Comments
I'll be busy the next few days, there won't be many poasts, so I suppose now is as good as any for a big linkfest covering the past month. Adventures in Afrotriumphalism Russia Becoming *More* Russian Russians and Westerners (Mostly) Agree on the Most Influential Russian Writers I also published the notes and slides for... Read More
Smart Fractions and Technology in 2100
•�June 26, 2017
•�700 Words •�36 Comments
The population of the world's major regions according to the UN's World Population Prospects 2017 report. World Population Prospects (2017) 2015 2050 2100 WORLD 7,383,008,820 9,771,822,753 11,184,367,721 Sub-Saharan Africa 969,234,251 2,167,651,879 4,001,755,801 East Asia 1,635,150,365 1,586,491,284 1,198,264,520 South Asia 1,823,308,471 2,381,796,561 2,230,668,781 South-East Asia 634,609,846 797,648,622 771,527,666 MENA & C. Asia 551,964,576 850,895,914 1,045,856,658 Europe... Read More
Neural Augs Are Hard
•�March 31, 2017
•�1,300 Words •�7 Comments
Silicon Valley's tech oligarchs are becoming increasingly interested in brain-computer interfaces. The WSJ is now reporting that Elon Musk is entering the game with a new company, Neuralink. At the low end, they could improve function in patients suffering from diseases such as Parkinson's, which is the modest aim that the first such companies like... Read More
AI Performance Seems Linked to Moore's Law
•�March 13, 2017
•�200 Words •�7 Comments
This blog post by Sarah Constantin has an impressively comprehensive tally of performance trends in AI across multiple domains. Three main things to do take away: In games performance, e.g. chess (see right, based on Swedish Chess Computer Association data) "exponential growth in data and computation power yields exponential improvements in raw performance." So the... Read More
manyukhin-tower-of-sin
A Short History of the Third Millennium
•�January 10, 2017
•�3,700 Words •�330 Comments
Fundamentally solve the “intelligence problem,” and all other problems become trivial. The problem is that this problem is a very hard one, and our native wit is unlikely to suffice. Moreover, because problems tend to get harder, not easier, as you advance up the technological ladder (Karlin, 2015), in a “business as usual” scenario with... Read More
The FLynn Effect to 2100
•�December 28, 2016
•�700 Words •�41 Comments
There is a new expert survey out which, amongst other things, queries the world's top psychometrics experts on the future of the FLynn effect (Flynn + Lynn - clever). James Thompson has a summary at his column. The two most important reasons for the end of the FLynn effect in the West are regarded to... Read More
EA and Intelligence Theory
•�August 6, 2016
•�700 Words •�29 Comments
� Online version with hyperlinks: I am a blogger and independent researcher who is interested in the intersections of intelligence theory, futurism, economics, and geopolitics. Here is a summary of my ideas relevant to Effective Altruism: Intelligence is central to explaining the wealth and poverty of nations, so a good understanding of it is central... Read More
Meeting with Robin Hanson
•�August 4, 2016
•�1,400 Words •�35 Comments
Today I was at a talk with Robin Hanson to promote his book THE AGE OF EM hosted by the Bay Area Futurists. As an academic polymath with interests in physics, computer science, and economics, Hanson draws upon his extensive reading across these fields to try to piece together what such a society will look... Read More
K/D Ratio Rising
•�June 14, 2016
•�300 Words •�15 Comments
Source - The Economist Not only has there been an increasing incidence of rampages in the US in the past thirty years but it seems that average kill scores have been ramping up. I think this trend will only intensify in the years ahead. A couple of years ago there was a lot of agitation... Read More
Open Thread, 05/28/2016 - Alt Right Safe Space in Berkeley
•�May 28, 2016
•�1,800 Words •�34 Comments
I have been extremely busy the past month, hence not a lot of blogging. Hopefully that will be resolved soon. For now, here is a recap of some of the things I've been up to. On May 6, Richard Spencer and the Bay Area Alt Right organized a "safe space" for Europeans at Sproul Plaza,... Read More
H+ Debate in SF East Bay on Feb 6, 2016
•�January 13, 2016
•�400 Words •�23 Comments
Organized by IEET and Brighter Brains (Hank Pellissier). I'll be participating in one or perhaps two of them. My positions, briefly: Immigration/Open Borders - Opposed, and not even just from an HBD/"waycist" perspective. See Immigration and Effective Altruism. UBI - For it, and not even just from an automation perspective. See The Ethnic Politics of... Read More
Moore's Law Has Stopped for Supercomputers Too
•�January 13, 2016
•�700 Words •�38 Comments
The latest data from Top 500, a website that tracks the world's most powerful supercomputers, has pretty much confirmed this with the release of their November 2015 list. The world's most powerful supercomputer, the Tianhe-2 - a Chinese supercomputer, though made on American technology - has now maintained its place for 2.5 years in a... Read More
Foreign Relations Experts on War and Immigration
•�February 1, 2015
•�400 Words •�16 Comments
Foreign Policy reports on a massive opinion poll of International Relations experts on immigration, the wisdom of leaving Iraq, and the likelihood of war between the US and China or Russia. Here is the PDF. In some cases, their answers are compared to those of the public at large. For the most part, it's all... Read More
"Transhuman Visions" Conference @SF, Feb 1, 2014
•�November 15, 2013
•�500 Words
This conference is organized by brain health and IQ researcher Hank Pellissier, and its aim is to bring all kinds of quirky and visionary folks - "Biohackers, Neuro-Optimists, Extreme Futurists, Philosophers, Immortalist Artists, Steal-the-Singularitarians" - together in one place and have them give speeches and interact with each other and the interested public. One of... Read More
The Russian Cross Becomes A Hexagon
•�January 30, 2013
•�1,100 Words •�31 Comments
One of the standard memes about Russia's demographic trajectory was the "Russian Cross." While at the literal level it described the shape of the country's birth rate and death rate trajectories, a major reason why it entered the discourse was surely because it also evoked the foreboding of the grave. But this period now appears... Read More
Da Russophile's Predictions for 2013
•�January 5, 2013
•�1,500 Words •�33 Comments
I just remembered I'd made some in 2012. It's time to see how they went, plus make predictions for the coming year. Of course I failed to predict the biggest thing of them all: The hacking that made me throw in the towel on Sublime Oblivion (remember that?), but with the silver lining that I... Read More
ARCS of Progress – the Arctic World In 2050
•�August 20, 2012
•�3,800 Words •�18 Comments
Editorial note: This article was first published at Arctic Progress in February 2011. In the next few weeks I will be reposting the best material from there. The Arctic to become a pole of global economic growth? Image credit – Scenic Reflections. - Northward ho!: An account of the far North and its people. In... Read More
The Brave New World of Dennō Coil
•�August 7, 2012
•�1,700 Words •�5 Comments
In the Japanese TV series Dennō Coil, people wear Internet-connected augmented reality glasses and interact with a world that is now split between the real and the virtual. Citizens and netizens become one. The story is set in 2026, some eleven years after the introduction of this technology. Considering that this series was first conceived... Read More
Blast from the Past: What Andrew Miller Predicted About Russia In 2000
•�May 29, 2012
•�600 Words •�54 Comments
This guy Andrew Miller used to be The Economist's Moscow correspondent. This is his prediction from 2000. I also imagine he'd get on splendidly with K.F./Keif. No further comment is necessary. (h/t Patrick Armstrong) JRL 4331 #9 From: "andrew miller" Subject: The Gathering Storm Date: Sun, 28 May 2000 Topic: The Gathering Storm Title: The... Read More
Winners of the Election Predictions Contest
•�March 5, 2012
•�500 Words •�10 Comments
Before the 2012 Russian Presidential elections, 23 particularly courageous (or foolhardy?) netizens and Russia watchers participated in a contest on this blog to predict its results for the chance of eternal glory and a free S/O T-Shirt. The winner is the person with the least aggregate error, i.e. the sum of the absolute discrepancies between... Read More
Predict the Results of the 2012 Russian Presidential Election
•�March 2, 2012
•�400 Words •�52 Comments
Inspired by Kireev's similar posts in Russian, I'm asking S/O readers to predict (1) The official results of the elections, and (2) The actual, i.e. non-falsified, results. Please give them to one decimal point, and include all the five candidates as well as the share of invalid votes. They will be displayed in the table... Read More
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Anatoly Karlin
About Anatoly Karlin

I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.

One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.

Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.