Every quarter, Josh Wolfe writes an update on what all of us at Lux are seeing, ranging from new ideas at the cutting-edge of science to the machinations of nation-states. This time is no different. I’ve excerpted the introduction and conclusion of this quarter’s letter below with its original formatting; for the full edition, scoot over to the highlighted PDF edition available on Google Drive or the full copy published on Twitter.
Meanwhile, have an enjoyable Labor Day for those of you in the United States!
From V for Vendetta…
The world is filled with anxious anger. Widening inequality driven by inflation; soaring geopolitical tensions from Eastern Europe and the Middle East to Asia-Pacific, the Sahel and Latin America; polarizing elections exacerbated by social media (in a year in which a majority of humanity will vote for at least some of their political leaders); escalating climate chaos that’s cleaving communities; and deep-seated fears of automation wiping out breadwinners have made anxious anger the mainstay emotion of our era.
We’ve already seen the blowback, from riots and ruination to calls for degrowth and destruction of critical assets, including oil pipelines and scientific institutes. Often, small numbers of individuals styling themselves as revolutionaries are at the heart of these responses, externalizing their inner demons on an unwitting population.
Few movies (or comic books) capture this spirit better than V for Vendetta, which centers on the antihero V in a Guy Fawkes-mask who parlays spectacular violence against a totalitarian regime snuffing out humanity. V is an anarchist marshaling no army, whose only power is to wield force to destroy the institutions that he sees as morally wrong. Left unseen is any community of uplift or broad solidarity in the pursuit of freedom. V aestheticizes narcissistic violence in a vainglorious quest to prove his own self-worth.
Yet, there is a different approach to assuaging the world’s anxious anger, and it lies with the community of scientists opening the future to further health, prosperity and equality. As Karl Popper argued in his fight against the Vienna Circle, rebellious scientists fight what’s wrong in order to search for what’s right. Falsification isn’t about destruction, but renovating antiquated foundations to secure a stronger future. Far from anarchist antiheros, these scientists form a collaborative community of comrades conscientiously casting around for a cogent consensus.
Examples abound. Behind Oppenheimer lay the thousands of scientists and administrators of Los Alamos who together invented the atomic bomb. Behind Turing lay thousands of computer scientists who shared and built upon his theoretical work to invent the artificial intelligence models at the heart of our current moment. And behind 2023 Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó lay thousands of bioscientists and clinicians who transformed her pioneering mRNA technology into a pandemic-defeating vaccine that saved millions.
Lux funds ambitious rebel scientists working alongside brilliant teams in the collaborative pursuit of the possible. In preview, in spite of all the political polarization, technological upheaval, and market and geopolitical volatility, this quarter’s letter is a clarion call for scientific advancement (and all who foster, find, fund and benefit from it) as the cornerstone of our collective future. It happens that V is the Roman numeral for five, and so across five sections, we will talk more about rebellious scientists, the importance of laboratory culture, the ambition of Lux Labs, the global macro context in venture and finance, and finally, the geopolitical challenge of maintaining American hegemony in the twenty-first century.
… To V for Valor
When a Senator asked Fermilab director Robert Wilson what value the pricey lab might bring to the nation’s security in the race against the USSR, Wilson replied, “Only from a long-range point of view, of a developing technology. Otherwise, it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about. In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending.”
We don't pretend to predict the future, but we're committed to funding those rebellious scientists who envision it and who attract intrepid colleagues to build it — architects of posterity, not merely tenants of the present. While our long-standing Lux Labs initiatives in founding, finding, and funding investments in cutting-edge biotech, compute, AI, autonomy, aerospace, and defense have positioned us well, we are ever vigilant and humble in our pursuit of what's next. We maintain our focus on the cutting-edge breakthroughs and sci-tech superiority that comes from scientists, inventors and founders relentless in their pursuit of competitive advantage — for their companies, their countries, and all of us. In the coming quarter, we will reveal new investments with incredible breakthroughs narrowing the gap between sci-fi and sci-fact, with ventures that control the nervous system; target neural circuits to direct bone growth; use genetic engineering to supply life-saving organ transplants; and develop breakthrough defense systems in the most conflict-laden regions.
Anxious anger is understandable; what’s not are the vainglorious vendettas of the few who want to compel civilization to retreat into the past. The future will be built by vanguard visionaries seeking out valuable verities amidst volatile valuations. Science marches on, heedless of political, social, or economic tumult. We expect the venture landscape will face upheaval, and yet the steady march of scientific progress and human ambition will continue unabated, forever propelling us forward to a better future. Fiat Lux.
Podcast: How games, god(s) and chance transformed human decision-making
Gaming has enveloped our world. A majority of Americans now gamble at least once every year, and popular video games like Fortnite and Roblox count hundreds of millions of global players. In social science, game theory and its descendants remain the mainstay for objectively analyzing human rationality, even as a gigaton of evidence shows the limits of these mathematical approaches. Meanwhile in foreign affairs, wargaming (including some of our very own Riskgaming scenarios!) are used to explore speculative futures that can change the fate of nations.
All of these subjects and more are fodder in Playing With Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World, a broad and open inquiry into the nature of games written by neuroscientist Kelly Clancy. Kelly weaves discussions of dopamine, surprise, chance and learning into a history of human behavioral development over the ages, but then she pivots her discussion. For all of gaming’s success across time and around the world, what are its limits and are we properly critiquing these simulacra of reality?
Kelly and I talk about her book and so much more across an extended show that gets at the very heart of Riskgaming. We talk about the history of games, why the theory of probability arrived so late in the development of mathematics, why game theory works mathematically but fails to capture the complexity and dynamism of human behavior, how AI models use gaming techniques like self-play to evolve, and how the world might change given the explosive popularity of interactive gaming in all facets of modern life.
🔊 Listen to “How games, god(s) and chance transformed human decision-making”
The Orthogonal Bet: The Harsh Realities of the Soviet Space Program
In this episode, Lux’s scientist-in-residence Sam Arbesman speaks with John Strausbaugh, a former editor of New York Press and the author of numerous history books. John’s latest work is the compelling new book The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned.
The book is an eye-opening delight, filled with stories about the Potemkin Village-like space program that the Soviets ran. Beneath the achievements that alarmed the United States, the Soviet space program was essentially a shambling disaster, and the book reveals many tales that had been hidden from the public for years.
In this conversation, Sam explores how John became interested in this topic, the nature of the Soviet space program and the Cold War’s Space Race, the role of propaganda, how to think about space programs more generally, and much more.
🔊 Listen to “The Harsh Realities of the Soviet Space Program”
Lux Recommends
- Few authors can delight on a Labor Day weekend in the midst of a presidential election quite like Tom Wolfe. Wolfe is an authorial treasure, and his oeuvre is returning to the limelight again thanks to the release of the documentary Radical Wolfe and this week’s re-issue of Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers as well as The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, collections of some of his most well-known work. Decades after their publication, the satire still singes unlike anything else. The introduction of Radical Chic by New York Times columnist David Brooks was also published by the NYT, so check that out as well.
- Sam enjoyed Saloni Dattani’s analysis of the scale of the Black Death in Asimov Press. “Direct records of mortality are sparse and mostly relate to deaths among the nobility. Researchers have compiled information from tax and rent registers, parish records, court documents, guild records, and archaeological remains from many localities across Europe. However, even those who have carefully combed over this data have not reached a consensus about the overall death toll.”
- Adam Kalish enjoyed this infographic from the r/dataisbeautiful Reddit community on “Who Lived When? The overlapping lives of historical figures, from 1200 to present”.
- In optimistic news for a certain type of Elon Musk superfan, Sam points to new research showing that “Terraforming Mars could be easier than scientists thought.” “Ansari and her colleagues wanted to test the heat-trapping abilities of a substance Mars holds in abundance: dust. Martian dust is rich in iron and aluminum, which give it its characteristic red hue. But its microscopic size and roughly spherical shape are not conducive to absorbing radiation or reflecting it back to the surface. So the researchers brainstormed a different particle: using the iron and aluminum in the dust to manufacture 9-micrometer-long rods, about twice as big as a speck of martian dust and smaller than commercially available glitter.”
- Finally, a great piece by Lincoln Michel on “What Lasts and (Mostly) Doesn't Last.” “To offer a theory though, I think what lasts is almost always what has a dedicated following among one or more of the following: artists, geeks, academics, critics, and editors. ‘Gatekeepers’ of various types, if you like. Artists play the most important role in what art endures because artists are the ones making new art. Indirectly, they popularize styles and genres and make new fans seek out older influences. Directly, artists tend to tout their influences and encourage their fans to explore them.”
That’s it, folks. Have questions, comments, or ideas? This newsletter is sent from my email, so you can just click reply.
