The News Not Noise Letter: News That Doesn't Suck
Is the metaverse the future of traffic court? Plus: no, Elon Musk cannot access your brain (yet), and greening up coal country.
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Here’s some news that doesn’t suck:
Bad News for Sheeple and Cyborgs: It turns out there are still some people willing to tell billionaire Elon Musk “no.” Musk founded a company called Neuralink in 2016 which aims to implant devices into human brains, initially for the purpose of treating complex disabilities like paralysis and blindness but eventually to allow people to connect to computers and other brains wirelessly through the cloud. Musk has repeatedly claimed that Neuralink will begin human trials soon, but current and former employees told Reuters the FDA rejected Neuralink’s application. In other words: no implanting the device in humans, yet. From the sound of it, that rejection was a good thing – one former employee said that Musk “can’t appreciate that this is not a car. This is a person’s brain. This is not a toy.” So what are the real risks? Unlike the sci-fi-influenced “brain chip” a lot of people might imagine, the Neuralink implant connects electrodes to the brain with wires thinner than a human hair. The FDA flagged the possibility that these wires might migrate to other areas of the brain, the batteries could fail, and there are many more risks that could cause awful things we don’t want to detail here. Even if Neuralink works through these physiological kinks, there’s still the risk of hacking. And Neuralink is already under investigation for violating the Animal Welfare Act (link contains graphic descriptions of animal cruelty) in its animal testing. So relax your mind, the government isn’t giving the Chief Twit direct access to your brain, yet.
Coal Country’s Cleaner Future: This might not strike everyone as positive news but it should spark your curiosity. The Biden administration and Bill Gates are working to bring nuclear power to communities (possibly) near you. The plan: convert old coal plants into small adaptable nuclear power plants. They’re called modular nuclear power plants. Why? Many climate activists argue that nuclear power is a necessary part of the energy mix because it’s clean, comparatively safe, and reliable. They argue that using more nuclear energy will bring down emissions. Problem: building a new nuclear power plant is time-consuming and prohibitively costly. The big idea: turn existing infrastructure (e.g. coal plants) into small, local nuclear power plants, bringing zero-emission electricity to coal communities across the country. The Inflation Reduction Act included major subsidies to fund this. Gates founded one company in this space, TerraPower, which says its design can even store excess energy created by renewables and deploy that electricity at times of peak energy use. That would be a huge change, making the supply of renewable energy more consistent and reliable. TerraPower is testing a small modular reactor in Wyoming and Gates is in talks to bring TerraPower to West Virginia. Another company, NuScale Power, is developing a plant in Idaho. Many Appalachian states are eyeing these small nuclear plants as a way to bring jobs to their community. Note: some dissenters insist nuclear energy isn’t green at all.
Chips & Childcare: This is a NTDS double-whammy: more companies will be making vital microchips in the US and this will mean more childcare for American parents. How are these two things connected? Let’s tackle the microchips first. Microchips are the “brains” of all our electronics, from smartphones to cars and all manner of other devices; we need them to build our electronics. The majority of the world’s microchips are made in Taiwan, and US companies struggled with major microchip shortages thanks to the 2020 COVID supply-chain disruptions. Amazingly, Washington acted and made billions of dollars available for companies to start building microchip factories here in the US. (It’s called the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.) Here’s where childcare comes in. The Department of Commerce decides who gets the funding, and they’ve determined recipients will be required to provide their employees with “affordable, accessible, reliable, and high-quality” childcare. In other words, want to build chips? You have to provide childcare. If you want to learn more about the childcare crisis, read our December newsletter with data from USAFacts.
Not Too Late: Didn’t launch a startup in a garage in your twenties? Don’t worry about it. The Harvard Business Review found that on average, the most successful entrepreneurs start their businesses during their 40s. In today’s youth-obsessed culture, it’s easy to assume that the window for founding the next Facebook or Microsoft closes once you hit 30, but the Mark Zuckerbergs and Bill Gateses of the world are the exception, not the rule. By analyzing US Census data, the HBR determined the average age of a successful startup founder is 45. Work experience seems to be a key factor here: founders with at least 3 years of experience in the workforce were 85% more likely to succeed. A note: successful women founders tend to be older; the sweet spot for female CEOs is over 50.
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