these are reasonable people. it’s clear to both of them that you do not solve the federal debt with workforce cuts—most of the money is in entitlements.
Ruiz is a bit more hopeful than Klein that the conspicuous cuts to (small and sometimes even cost-effective) liberal-coded programs like PEPFAR are the necessary concession to Trump voters (who want to own the libs but may want to keep their Medicare) before serious budget cuts can begin.
Klein is suspicious that the whole program is just punishing Trump’s political enemies, which, as a Democrat, even a moderate who accepts the need for fiscal discipline, he has no reason to support.
Very exciting! I think the biggest “loophole” here is probably that they used a novel technique for detection, maybe if we used that technique more we would have to update the view that such big molecules are so unlikely to be produced non-biologically.
links 3/28/25: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/03-28-2025
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc5RvEk4ufotM52v5mKHF7iZOh0Ls_cMDLd5TXn7YOVa62VZQ/viewform Anna Gat offers free mentoring calls to women & immigrants
https://chatgpt.com/share/67e6ae4a-2138-800f-8e33-f1c50857859f Deep Research report says that 19th-20th c metals companies (Rio Tinto, US Steel, Alcoa, Timet) could routinely make double-digit profits.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/alkanes-mars there are alkanes—big organic molecules—on Mars. these can be produced by abiotic processes, but usually that makes shorter chains than these. so....life? We Shall See.
https://archive.is/20250326022231/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/25/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-santi-ruiz.html Ezra Klein and Santi Ruiz on DOGE.
these are reasonable people. it’s clear to both of them that you do not solve the federal debt with workforce cuts—most of the money is in entitlements.
Ruiz is a bit more hopeful than Klein that the conspicuous cuts to (small and sometimes even cost-effective) liberal-coded programs like PEPFAR are the necessary concession to Trump voters (who want to own the libs but may want to keep their Medicare) before serious budget cuts can begin.
Klein is suspicious that the whole program is just punishing Trump’s political enemies, which, as a Democrat, even a moderate who accepts the need for fiscal discipline, he has no reason to support.
Very exciting! I think the biggest “loophole” here is probably that they used a novel technique for detection, maybe if we used that technique more we would have to update the view that such big molecules are so unlikely to be produced non-biologically.