The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 20 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Handmer: Musk's Government Efficiency Work Will Be a Massive US Net Positive
“I think ultimately, I think history will show this is going to be a massive net positive for United States. You know, obviously there's going to be some mistakes and some struggles and pain along the way.”
Handmer: Chinese Space Program Managers Fear Failure, NASA Managers Do Not
“China's program managers in their space program, they fear the consequences of failure and NASA's program managers do not. And that is the key difference.”
Handmer: Irreducible Steam Turbine Costs Mean Nuclear Can Never Undercut Coal
“Nuclear reactors are steam engines and steam engines operate on what's called the Brayton cycle. And there are certain irreducible costs associated with, you know, steam turbines and so on that, that just drive the cost up. And that's, even if NRC didn't exist…”
Handmer: US Should Buy Subsidized Chinese Solar Panels Instead of Taxing Them
“I think if China, our geopolitical adversary is attempting to harm us by giving us solar panels subsidized at their taxpayer's expense we should do the textbook thing that you do when people are trying to do predatory dumping, which is buy as much of it as you…”
Handmer: California's Failures Threaten the Future of the Progressive Movement
“California. I live there. I love it. It's great. It's a great state, but it's not the state that anyone wants to be like right now. And that's a real problem for the future of the progressive movement.”
Handmer: Major Innovations Historically Scale Inside Existing Organizations, Not Startups
“And in almost all cases, it was actually led within an organization. So you have an existing organization that has existing, you know, capital relationships and projects and in particular, a large team of very skilled people who are extremely aggressive about …”
Handmer: NASA Bureaucracy Prevents Its Brilliant Employees From Doing Extraordinary Work
“My experience in NASA was that the organization is you know, it's still stuffed to the gills with brilliant people, but most of those people spend most of their time not being allowed to do really extraordinary work, like actively being blocked and hindered an…”
Handmer: Humanity Will Solve the Global Energy Problem in the 2020s
“So I'm just very optimistic that we're going to solve the energy problem, you know, this decade.”
Handmer: Solar on 6% of Earth Could Provide US-Level Energy Globally
“In terms of energy we can give every man, woman, and child on Earth the amount of energy we enjoy here in the United States, which is about 20 barrels of oil per person per year with something like six percent of Earth's surface under solar, which is, It's a, …”
Handmer: Future Life-Extension Drugs Will Have Been Buildable Since the 1930s
“I think that when we figure out how to drastically increase human lifespans, it will turn out that we would have been able to build these drugs since the 19 thirties.”
Handmer: Hard Tech Is Significantly Less Efficient for Venture Capital Than SaaS
“The reality is it's extremely capital intensive. It operates on a different set of both physical and legal laws than SAS. And that, that actually makes it, you know, significantly less efficient, I think in terms of, The health and functionality of a typical V…”
Handmer: Future living standards depend strictly on total factor productivity growth
“At the end of the day, we either have total factor productivity growth or we don't. And if we do, then our children will have a better life than us, no matter what. And if we don't, then they won't, no matter what. It doesn't matter how innovative we get about…”
Handmer: Global Solar Panel Production Exceeds 1 TW, Growing 30-40% Annually
“There are factories worldwide now, now turning, churning out more than a terawatt of solar per year with no signs of slowing down. If anything, production is increasing to 30 to 40% per year, which is just Bananas.”
Handmer: Space-Based Solar Power Will Not Be Beamed to Earth Anytime Soon
“We will obviously have a lot of solar in space, but I think mostly it'll be for powering applications in space. I don't think people are going to be beaming power down from space to the earth anytime, anytime soon.”
Handmer: Moore's Law Prevented Far Worse Economic Stagnation Since the 1970s
“I think if we had not seen the emergence of Moore's law and improved computing capacity, we would have been in much more dire straits as far as economic stagnation goes.”
Handmer: Technologies Requiring Massive Consumer Behavioral Changes Will Usually Fail
“And I just see this mistake time and time again, which is like, well, this technology will work if we can bring about some like massive behavioral change in the entire market or something like. Probably that's not going to happen”
Handmer: US Spends Less Than 0.1% of Health Budget on Anti-Aging
“We spend less than .1% of our national health budget on anti-aging research.”
Handmer: Solar Panels Convert Sunlight to Energy 100x More Efficiently Than Plants
“Converting sunlight into energy about a hundred times more efficiently than plants do, and electricity is quite a bit more useful than corn.”