One advantage for the US and China is that both countries are at least interested in growth. You don’t have to convince the elites or the populace that growth is good or that entrepreneurs could be celebrated. Meanwhile in Europe, perhaps 15 percent of the electorate actively believes in degrowth. I feel it’s impossible to convince Europeans to act in their self interest. You can’t even convince them to adopt air conditioning in the summer.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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American scientists may be world leaders in dreaming up new ideas. But American manufacturers have been poor at building industries around these ideas.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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However strange our new world will become, there will always be a class of people who want to engage with essays and books. Over the long term, writing might enjoy the fate of the opera and the symphony.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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Stalin was fond of telling a story from his experience in Leipzig in 1907, when, to his astonishment, 200 German workers failed to turn up to a socialist meeting because no ticket controller was on the platform to punch their train tickets, citing this experience as proof of the hopelessness of Germanic obedience. Could anyone imagine Chinese or Americans being so obedient?
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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Silicon Valley has not demonstrated joined-up thinking for deploying AI. It would help if they learned from the central planners. The AI labs have not shown that they’re thinking seriously about how to diffuse the technology throughout society, which will require extensive regulatory and legal reform. How else will AI be able to fold doctors and lawyers into its tender mercies?
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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It’s funny that PDFs sometimes circulate better than web-optimized pages; there’s something about strict formatting that establishes authority. Physical books can also last a long time.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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I submit that Europeans ought to be more circumspect in their self-satisfaction. Chaos is only one election away. Right-populist parties are outpolling ruling incumbent parties pretty much everywhere, and it is as likely as not that Trumps with European characteristics will engulf the continent by the end of the decade.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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Call me a romantic, but I believe that there will be a future, and indeed a long future, beyond 2027. History will not end. We need to cultivate the skill of exact thinking in demented times.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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Before I publish this letter, I retype the whole thing from start to finish. It means I take the draft that lives in my Notes app on the left half of my screen while I retype the whole thing into the Google Docs on the right side of my screen. It’s a final check to catch infelicities. More importantly, by simulating the experience of a reader, it’s another way to see if the whole essay stands together.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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Europeans are right to gloat they are not under the rule of Trump. But for all of Trump’s ills, I see him as a sign of the underlying dynamism of the US. Who else would have elected so whimsical a leader to this high office? Trump forces questions that Europeans have no appetite to confront, proud as they are in being superior to both Americans and Chinese.
~ Dan Wang via his 2025 letter
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