I found the idea that Ezra and Derek are trying to appeal to the tech right and these series of takes could be for stopping that demographic from moving further right to be really interesting! Also found Sho’s comment about Zohran changing his platform to be from only focusing on rent control to actually increasing the supply of housing to be very cool and exciting!
Some of the critiques seem to fall into the everything bagel trap. I agree that the audience for this book isn't people already in the know - but its been great to hear people who have never been in tune about why issues like housing or why nothing works start to take an interest. Sometimes we fall into this culture of being professional haters - and I wonder if that damages the causes we care about more than it helps.
I think the point of talking about vertical farming was to give an example of what a future where energy is not scarce could include, and not so much about the actual merits of vertical farming itself.
Love love loved Sho’s tweet about punditry!
Overall great stuff!! Love hearing both your thoughts and seeing my worlds collide 😊
I think your collective takes are correct: This book is not for us, and it is not ambitious for a reason. It is trying to cater to the sort of mainstream voter democrats lost. It’s an attempt to realign the party on social values, but on social values that work. In that aim, I think it works—so long as the authors meet that mainstream voter through their podcast circuit. Because ironically, the person they are trying to reach probably won’t read the book or attend the press tour, and those of us who will are the already converted who are looking for a more ambitious take…
"This is going to sound really mean to Abundance, but if Abundance were a multi-level-marketing scheme, here’s how it would work: if you already know about zoning your job is not to buy the book, your job is to sell the book to your less online friends."
Interesting perspectives. I see Abundance as an effort by the Silicon Valley + YIMBY intersection (other keywords; Progress Studies, Tyler Cowen, left-leaning supply-side econ, state capacity) to convince East Coast Dems (particularly in cities) of the virtues of the future implied by the success of that vision. It's not *for* Silicon Valley, it's an effort to convince others of the same things Bay Area Dems believe.
I think the closest this article comes to capturing it well is the "center left DOGE" analogy, which is accurate because it directly targets the core complaint of many Abundance advocates: state capacity. As you allude to, US state capacity to do things is at historic lows right now, and neither the current DOGE approach nor the Jen Pahlka approach are doing more than tinkering around the edges.
This is why I think the call from Jacob for Abundance to be more ambitious felt very off to me, a bit like complaining that one's vision for the future lacks the political equivalent of flying cars despite solving our major problems in other ways. Perhaps flying cars are a part of the optimal framing to win an election, but the actual amount of state capacity implied by Abundance seems extraordinarily ambitious to achieve.
Thanks for this response! On your last point: I do genuinely believe that visions of political futures ought to have flying cars (or whatever ideological equivalent is appropriate) — you’re right that getting that vision out there is more a matter of political framing and messaging than pure policy work, but so is much of the rest of this book and the accompanying press tour.
My critique is, ultimately, that the vision Abundance brings is a mixture of much needed process changes and marginal improvements to the average person’s lifestyle. The fact that, yes, there are strong political headwinds facing a politics of abundance (from opposition among homeowners, small government enthusiasts, and other foes of state capacity and progress) does not mean that Abundance should not present a bold and perhaps even weird vision for how life in the US would be improved by the full implementation of that politics. To me, it *needs* that ambitious vision to generate the necessary support for its governing changes, and the book as it stands does not articulate it as clearly as I’d like.
"Today we’ve diffused into a Jeffersonian system - so many people have power. Everyone has a say, lots of people can stop a project despite there being a better overall utility function.
The prescription here is not specific policies but pushing for a cultural change for progressive policy makers. Rather than including the maximum number of people in a process, maybe you actually maximize good by reducing the power of certain people. " this part! so much technocratic language around effective policy change ignores this. i think it goes hand in hand with reorienting & retraining existing human capital vs. replacing entire teams and processes, like pahlka's california unemployment digitization in recoding america.
I think you drastically underestimate the negatives of the current situation. I live in California and I love California and if California housing was not horrifically broken for many decades California would be almost a perfect State. But you wave away the horrors of the housing situation as if it’s not actively horrific - the homelessness situation is a mass tragedy that also imposes mental and emotional costs on the rest of us who know perfectly well it’s not the Republican’s fault - and that we are in some sense responsible for this ongoing mass tragedy. Everyone I know in California is profoundly pissed off about this one way or another. Everyone knows people who had to move away. And decades of Dem politicians have been unable to make a dent in the problem. I understand why you think it’s unambitious but you’re wrong. It proposes a sensible and practical solution to the #1 problem of the biggest Blue State - it’s very ambitious. And it addresses the #2 problem - inability to build trains etc. If we could fix these two things America would literally jump some 20 spaces in the “best places to live” in the world and I personally would be a much happier person much prouder of her State and Country. Also it would bring us more political power.
I found the idea that Ezra and Derek are trying to appeal to the tech right and these series of takes could be for stopping that demographic from moving further right to be really interesting! Also found Sho’s comment about Zohran changing his platform to be from only focusing on rent control to actually increasing the supply of housing to be very cool and exciting!
Some of the critiques seem to fall into the everything bagel trap. I agree that the audience for this book isn't people already in the know - but its been great to hear people who have never been in tune about why issues like housing or why nothing works start to take an interest. Sometimes we fall into this culture of being professional haters - and I wonder if that damages the causes we care about more than it helps.
I think the point of talking about vertical farming was to give an example of what a future where energy is not scarce could include, and not so much about the actual merits of vertical farming itself.
Love love loved Sho’s tweet about punditry!
Overall great stuff!! Love hearing both your thoughts and seeing my worlds collide 😊
I think your collective takes are correct: This book is not for us, and it is not ambitious for a reason. It is trying to cater to the sort of mainstream voter democrats lost. It’s an attempt to realign the party on social values, but on social values that work. In that aim, I think it works—so long as the authors meet that mainstream voter through their podcast circuit. Because ironically, the person they are trying to reach probably won’t read the book or attend the press tour, and those of us who will are the already converted who are looking for a more ambitious take…
"This is going to sound really mean to Abundance, but if Abundance were a multi-level-marketing scheme, here’s how it would work: if you already know about zoning your job is not to buy the book, your job is to sell the book to your less online friends."
!!!
burns
Interesting perspectives. I see Abundance as an effort by the Silicon Valley + YIMBY intersection (other keywords; Progress Studies, Tyler Cowen, left-leaning supply-side econ, state capacity) to convince East Coast Dems (particularly in cities) of the virtues of the future implied by the success of that vision. It's not *for* Silicon Valley, it's an effort to convince others of the same things Bay Area Dems believe.
I think the closest this article comes to capturing it well is the "center left DOGE" analogy, which is accurate because it directly targets the core complaint of many Abundance advocates: state capacity. As you allude to, US state capacity to do things is at historic lows right now, and neither the current DOGE approach nor the Jen Pahlka approach are doing more than tinkering around the edges.
This is why I think the call from Jacob for Abundance to be more ambitious felt very off to me, a bit like complaining that one's vision for the future lacks the political equivalent of flying cars despite solving our major problems in other ways. Perhaps flying cars are a part of the optimal framing to win an election, but the actual amount of state capacity implied by Abundance seems extraordinarily ambitious to achieve.
Thanks for this response! On your last point: I do genuinely believe that visions of political futures ought to have flying cars (or whatever ideological equivalent is appropriate) — you’re right that getting that vision out there is more a matter of political framing and messaging than pure policy work, but so is much of the rest of this book and the accompanying press tour.
My critique is, ultimately, that the vision Abundance brings is a mixture of much needed process changes and marginal improvements to the average person’s lifestyle. The fact that, yes, there are strong political headwinds facing a politics of abundance (from opposition among homeowners, small government enthusiasts, and other foes of state capacity and progress) does not mean that Abundance should not present a bold and perhaps even weird vision for how life in the US would be improved by the full implementation of that politics. To me, it *needs* that ambitious vision to generate the necessary support for its governing changes, and the book as it stands does not articulate it as clearly as I’d like.
"Today we’ve diffused into a Jeffersonian system - so many people have power. Everyone has a say, lots of people can stop a project despite there being a better overall utility function.
The prescription here is not specific policies but pushing for a cultural change for progressive policy makers. Rather than including the maximum number of people in a process, maybe you actually maximize good by reducing the power of certain people. " this part! so much technocratic language around effective policy change ignores this. i think it goes hand in hand with reorienting & retraining existing human capital vs. replacing entire teams and processes, like pahlka's california unemployment digitization in recoding america.
I think you drastically underestimate the negatives of the current situation. I live in California and I love California and if California housing was not horrifically broken for many decades California would be almost a perfect State. But you wave away the horrors of the housing situation as if it’s not actively horrific - the homelessness situation is a mass tragedy that also imposes mental and emotional costs on the rest of us who know perfectly well it’s not the Republican’s fault - and that we are in some sense responsible for this ongoing mass tragedy. Everyone I know in California is profoundly pissed off about this one way or another. Everyone knows people who had to move away. And decades of Dem politicians have been unable to make a dent in the problem. I understand why you think it’s unambitious but you’re wrong. It proposes a sensible and practical solution to the #1 problem of the biggest Blue State - it’s very ambitious. And it addresses the #2 problem - inability to build trains etc. If we could fix these two things America would literally jump some 20 spaces in the “best places to live” in the world and I personally would be a much happier person much prouder of her State and Country. Also it would bring us more political power.