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Dixit on 'the 21st Century's Economic Hurricane', by New Economist: Princeton emeritus professor Avinash Dixit is always worth reading, even when he is speculating about the economy over the next hundred years. Likening economic forecasting to weather forecasting (plenty of caveats and uncertainty), his approach is suitably skeptical. Here's how he kicks off:

Overcoming spinal cord injuries (I learned a lot about the spinal cord from the first segment, e.g. the systems that control walking are at the base of the spinal column, the brain has little to do with it), remote brain controlled mechanical hands, self-directed robots, and so on:

Yesterday the Washington Post had a great piece in the business section entitled  "Economists offer more pessimistic view on manufacturing in upcoming report."

Over the last year I've reviewed several ~1900 era future dystopias, such as Metropolis, We, and Pictures of the Socialist Future. I wanted to see fears of the industrial revolution, from an era when that revolution was still young enough for people could see things from a farmer era point of view, and yet old enough that people had some idea of where the revolution was going.

"The Eurobarometer poll shows that a surprising 70% of Europeans have a "fairly positive" or "very positive" view of robots. This is great news for human-robot relations." Fascinating. As the post explains, only 6 procent of Europeans ever used a robot. But then again, maybe it's about time to discuss robotics in society at large? 

"n a recent Wall Street Journal interview about college costs and online learning, Stanford University President John Hennessy said, "What I told my colleagues is there's a tsunami coming. I can't tell you exactly how it's going to break, but my goal is to try to surf it, not to just stand there." "