Not Boring by Packy McCormick - Weekly Dose of Optimism #5
Weekly Dose of Optimism #5CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act, Protein Folding, Garbage Removal, Carbon CaptureCome for the Optimism, stay for the in-depth analyses of tech companies and trends: Hi friends 👋, Happy Friday! Welcome to our 5th Weekly Dose of Optimism, where we celebrate the incredible accomplishments humans manage to pull off and the progress that we’re — unsteadily and windingly — making. It’s been awesome to see the positive response to the Weekly Dose so far. If you’re enjoying it, spread the optimism. The Weekly Dose is brought to you by my daily dose… Athletic Greens It’s easier to be optimistic when you start your day right. Every morning, I drink a homemade concoction starring Athletic Greens’ AG1. Join me. Not Boring optimists can get a free one-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 travel packs when you order with the special Not Boring link. (1) Senate Passes $280 Billion Industrial Policy Bill to Counter China Catie Edmonson for The New York Times
Earlier this week, the US Senate passed a $280 billion bill, known as the Chips Act, and yesterday, it passed the House 243-187-1, with 24 Republicans joining the party. The bill is a proof point that bipartisanship is still possible, and a good example of the point I made Monday: that a common enemy can spur action. In this case, the bill is intended to improve America’s competitiveness against China by reshoring semiconductor manufacturing and funding more scientific research. An earlier version of the bill was explicit in its name: United States Innovation and Competition Act. But wait, there’s more… (2) Machin’s Latest Shocker: A $700B Deal Burgess Everett and Marianne Levine for Politico
I’m sorry for doing back-to-back US legislation deals, but this is major! A few days after I wrote about how everyone was talking past each other, and a week after I shared an Op-Ed titled “What Joe Manchin Cost Us,” members of the US government were able to agree on not one, but two, big deals that include a lot of the kinds of things we like over here at Not Boring. In deal #2, Manchin and Chuck Schumer agreed on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes $370 billion in energy and climate spending that could, as Green Vortex coiner Robinson Meyer points out, get the US a very nice 69.69% of the way to meeting the 2030 climate goal. It still needs to pass the Senate and House. If the Manchin-Schumer deal cuts carbon pollution as much as promised, it will get the country 69.69% of the way to meeting Biden’s 2030 climate goal, as compared to current emissions levels. In a side deal, Manchin, Schumer, and legendary day-trader Nancy Pelosi are working on advancing permitting reforms, which could make it easier to greenlight energy projects. Overall, this seems like a big win for energy abundance if it’s passed, and further proof that compromise might not be dead. More details and analysis from Meyer here. (3) AlphaFold reveals the structure of the protein universe DeepMind Research Blog
Last year, AI lab DeepMind announced that its AlphaFold model has cracked one of the trickiest problems in biology: protein folding. Yesterday, DeepMind dropped an update: that it had “predicted structures for nearly all catalogued proteins known to science, which will expand the AlphaFold DB by over 200x - from nearly 1 million structures to over 200 million structures - with the potential to dramatically increase our understanding of biology.” They open sourced the database, giving scientists and researchers free access: find the full set at GitHub here. No excuses: get out there and cure a disease this weekend. For more, here’s a New Scientist thread on the implications. (4) FIRST 100,000 KG REMOVED FROM THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH Boyan Slat, Founder & CEO of The Ocean Cleanup Submission credit: Sam McAllister
The Ocean Cleanup has removed over 100,000kg of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. BREAKING: more than 100,000kg of plastic removed from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP).
Thank you to our determined offshore crew and supporters worldwide; together, we have now officially cleaned up 1/1000th of the GPGP. There’s a ways to go: the GPGP consists of 100 million kg of garbage, much of it in the form of small microplastics, but the company said that its System 03, which it’s rolling out shortly, may be able to collect garbage at a 10x higher rate. (5) The Big Business of Burying Carbon Jeffrey Ball for WIRED
This one is a great example of the academia-government-business partnership of the kind Rahul described in Making Moonshots.
It’s still early days, and Carbonvert and others still need to prove they can capture and sequester carbon profitably at $50 per ton, but it’s a step in the right direction towards something that climate scientists agree will be a big part of slowing climate change. Bonus #1: Idea Machines by Nadia Asparouhova
Nadia’s essay introduces the concept of an Idea Machine: “a network of operators, thinkers, and funders, centered around an ideology, that’s designed to turn ideas into outcomes.” It’s an early attempt at a playbook for forming and scaling Idea Machines to generate the kind of outcomes we write about here every Friday. Examples include Effective Altruism, Schmidt Futures, Bentoism, Public Goods Funding, Progress Studies, It’s Time to Build, and SBF’s Future Fund. Bonus #2: Into the Dataverse by Mike Sena at Ceramic Networks
Ceramic (from Not Boring Capital portfolio company 3Box Labs) “is a decentralized data network that brings unlimited data composability to Web3 applications.” Their blog post on the Dataverse this week is one of the most clearly-written and compelling visions of the web3 future that I’m excited about. Instead of financialization, this vision is about composability and interoperability, and about a billion connected apps created by anyone and everyone. Thanks to Dan for editing, and to all of you who submitted optimistic content! Humans are pulling off some pretty incredible things every week. Whenever you find examples, share them here and we’ll feature some in the newsletter. Have a great weekend, and see you on Monday! Packy If you liked this post from Not Boring by Packy McCormick, why not share it? |
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