Philadelphia Political Agnostics

Bi-Weekly Discussion - Will China Eclipse the U.S. as a World Power?

Sun, Jul 26 · 3:00 PM EDT

·

Online

Online

This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Click on the link above at the scheduled date/time to log in...

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RAY DALIO VS PETER ZEIHAN: WILL CHINA ECLIPSE THE U.S. AS A WORLD POWER BY THE MID 21ST CENTURY?

INTRODUCTION:

Note: This is a repeat of a discussion we held back in Oct. 2025. Originally, I planned to design a new discussion outline for a meetup entitled "Is America Declining?", but I didn't have enough time.

In today's discussion, we'll address the ongoing debate over whether China looks poised to overtake the United States as the global superpower by 2050. I'm framing this primarily as a debate between investor Ray Dalio and geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan since they have been on opposite sides of the China issue for about a decade and each of them has an interesting forecasting model that's worth considering. However, keep in mind that neither Dalio or Zeihan are academics publishing peer-reviewed research. Ray Dalio has a MBA from Harvard and is the founder of the world's largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, and Peter Zeihan has a postgrad degree in Asian studies and used to work for George Friedman's forecasting firm Stratfor before striking out on his own. They write for a popular audience mostly composed of investors & business leaders rather than scholars who could subject their work to a deeper critique. But to paraphrase Nietzsche, "The errors of overconfident pundits are more valuable than the truths of modest scholars." At the very least, pundits tend to state their case boldly enough to provoke more nuanced scholarly critiques. So we'll consider their models' strengths & limitations and include the views of international relations scholars, political scientists, economists, and other geopolitical experts who have reviewed their works and weighed in on either side.

In the first section, we'll look at the case for China becoming the next global superpower amid U.S. decline that Ray Dalio presents in his books Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail (2021) and How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle (2025). We'll look at how Ray Dalio's ""Big Cycle" theory depends on his company's analysis of 5 major forces (debt/credit cycle, internal order/disorder cycle, external geopolitical order/disorder cycle, acts of nature, and technology) and allegedly explain the rise & fall of major powers in history - which he sees playing out currently with the decline of the U.S. and the rise of China. We'll see how his optimism in China was shaken by its mishandling of COVID & the Evergrande property crisis, but how his concerns about mounting U.S. debt & political turmoil under Trump make him even more pessimistic about America - and how the economist Noah Smith agrees. We'll also see where the ecologist-cum-historian Peter Turchin agrees with Dalio and where they disagree, which is interesting since Turchin has his own cyclical theory of history which is focused more on internal social tensions than global economic dominance like Dalio. Turchin's structural-demographic theory and its implications for the U.S. are outlined in his books Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History (2016) and End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration (2023) but he hasn't yet run his analysis on modern China.

In the second section, we'll look at the case for an impending collapse of China and a retrenching but resilient America that Peter Zeihan presents in his books Disunited Nations: The Scramble for Power in an Ungoverned World (2020), The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization (2022), and The Accidental Superpower: Ten Years On (2023) which is an updated version of his 2014 bookThe Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder. Zeihan's pessimistic view of China's future hinges on its lack of agricultural & energy independence, a debt-fueled investment growth model that's unsustainable, increasing authoritarianism which hurts innovation & problem-solving, and accelerated demographic decline due to Mao's one-child policy - with the latter factor prompting Zeihan to think China will "grow old before it grows rich". Conversely, he thinks America is resilient despite its high level of political polarization & mounting debt due to its geographical isolation, blue-water navy that allows global power projection, agricultural self-sufficiency, energy independence, and more stable demographic profile. We'll compare this to similar arguments made by the political scientist Michael Beckley in his books China’s Century? Why America’s Edge Will Endure (2011) and The Peril of Peaking Powers: Economic Slowdowns and Implications for China's Next Decade (2023). We'll also consider arguments from Stephen Brooks & William Wohlforth's article “The Myth of Multipolarity: American Power’s Staying Power” in Foreign Affairs back in 2023.

In the third section, we'll look at some intermediate scenarios where experts have projected that China will rise to a regional power in East Asia but not a global superpower and the U.S. will stagnate or decline slightly - perhaps becoming merely a regional power in North America - leading to a "bipolar" or "multipolar" world by 2050. Since I've linked the Belgian economist Joeri Schasfoort's videos critiquing both Dalio & Zeihan, we'll start with his take on the coming multipolar world based on a review of recent studies in "geo-economics". Then we'll discuss Ian Bremmer's prediction of a "G-Zero World" described in his book Every Nation for Itself (2012), along with some articles in Foreign Policy & Foreign Affairs that can give us a sense of how some prominent foreign policy scholars are thinking about this topic.

A FEW CAVEATS ABOUT LISTENING TO PUNDITS VS SCHOLARS & EVALUATING GEOPOLITICAL FORECASTS:

You'll notice that the critiques offered of both Ray Dalio & Peter Zeihan's theories in the videos from Joeri Schasfoort are rather scathing at several points and could lead you to think we should dismiss both of them as cranks. However, towards the end of his critique of Zeihan's predictions of an imminent China collapse, Schasfoort says: "If you expected Mr. Zeihan to be an oracle of the truth, then I think this shows you should really reconsider. However, for me personally... following Zeihan is not about learning the absolute truth. It is about getting interesting and provocative insights... I've always taken his extreme predictions with a very large grain of salt.... [But] I will continue to follow Mr. Zeihan to get a broad overview and an interesting perspective on global affairs."

If you've read the political scientist Philip Tetlock's book Superforecasting (2015) about his research on geopolitical forecasting with the Good Judgement Project, his categorization of forecasters into "foxes" and "hedghogs" is similar to how a careful scholar like Schasfoort thinks about the value of listening to a bold pundit like Dalio or Zeihan. As Tetlock explained in a talk to the Long Now Foundation:
"Hedgehogs have one grand theory... which they are happy to extend into many domains, relishing its parsimony, and expressing their views with great confidence. Foxes, on the other hand are skeptical about grand theories, diffident in their forecasts, and ready to adjust their ideas based on actual events. The aggregate success rate of Foxes is significantly greater... especially in short-term forecasts. And Hedgehogs routinely fare worse than Foxes, especially in long-term forecasts. They even fare worse than normal attention-paying dilletantes -- apparently blinded by their extensive expertise and beautiful theory. Furthermore, Foxes win not only in the accuracy of their predictions but also the accuracy of the likelihood they assign to their predictions-- in this they are closer to the admirable discipline of weather forecasters. The value of Hedgehogs is that they occasionally get right the farthest-out predictions... But that comes at the cost of a great many wrong far-out predictions... Hedgehogs annoy only their political opposition, while Foxes annoy across the political spectrum, in part because the smartest Foxes cherry-pick idea fragments from the whole array of Hedgehogs." [emphasis added].

One of the possible criticisms I've anticipated about the way I've framed this topic is that merely looking at the bold predictions of a couple non-scholars and a few critiques of their models doesn't give us a broader sense of the expert consensus on this issue. However, as far as I can tell, there's no polls of academic experts like the College of William & Mary's TRIP Program (which surveys American IR scholars) or the University of Chicago's Kent Clark Forum (which surveys US & European economists) that can give us a clear sense of what most of them think geopolitics will look like in 2050, since they tend to focus on more near-term predictions and policy recommendations.

You can find long-range geopolitical predictions on Metaculus:

• "Will China's GDP Overtake the US Before 2030?" (currently 2%)
• "Will China's nominal GDP be larger than the U.S. GDP in 2050?" (currently 53%)
• "What will be the China-to-USA GDP ratio in 2050?" (currently 1.14x)
• "Will there be a US-China war before 2035?" (currently 11%)
• "Will there be a US-China war before 2050?" (currently 25%)
• "When will China surpass the United States economically, militarily, and scientifically?" (currently 2067)
  However, Metaculus is a forecasting tournament not a prediction market where money is being bet on the outcomes (i.e. disincentivizing "cheap talk"), and the participants appear to mostly be interested amateurs rather than academic experts.
  For expert analysis, we'd want to look at the various forecasts from economic research groups, as well as war game simulations from military think tanks:
• CUNY's Economic Studies Group forecast from June 2022 that predicts China will catch up to US GDP around 2031 but "its economic power would still be very low compared to the United States... [since] for a country to become the No.1 economic power, it must first be self-sufficient in food and energy supplies, or at least have access to resources in the event of a food or energy crisis."
• Japan Center for Economic Research (JCER) forecast from Dec. 2022 that predicts "China's GDP unlikely to surpass U.S. [in the next decade] due to Xi Jinping regime in its third term, the zero-Covid policy, and the U.S.-China decoupling". The study also notes that "it will be difficult for China to surpass the U.S. even after 2036 due to the decrease in the labor force population"."
• Citigroup forecast from Jan. 2023 with 3 scenarios : China's GDP rapidly overtaking US GDP by 2028, middle case with China's GDP catching up by 2035, and slow case with China's GDP catching up by 2050s. Their analysts consider a catch-up in the mid-2030s to be the most likely, noting that "certain activities—Olympic teams, space programs, and (most important) the military—are funded at the national level, and a larger economy means increased resources... [so] the world’s largest economy may reap non-linear influence."
• Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) forecast from July 2023 that predicts "China will be the world’s largest economy for only 21 years [starting in 2036] before the US overtakes again in 2057. And by 2081 India will have overtaken the US". Their analysts note that Chinese leaders may "realise that any period on top is temporary and that China needs to adopt a cooperative approach to dealing with other economies. But the other might be to take advantage of what might be only a small period of considerable relative power and to use that window to achieve national objectives such as taking over Taiwan and establishing dominance in some regions and technologies."
• CNAS war game from 2022 that predicted "neither Beijing nor Washington is likely to have the upper hand after the first week of the conflict, which suggests a protracted conflict."
• CSIS war-game from 2023 that predicted "In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan. However, this defense came at high cost."
• Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies war game from 2026 that predicted "the U.S. Air Force would not be able to repel a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2035 or launch strategic attacks in the ensuing conflict."

Which of these forecasts should you trust? Are there other better-quality forecasts? Unfortunately, I don't have the training to independently evaluate them or even to know which forecasts are considered the best. However, I did see that the economist Noah Smith has a blog post back in Jan. 2025 where he explains some of the statistical difficulties in comparing the Chinese & US economy to make these forecasts. We should also note that economic forecasts can help generate projections of a country's military power in the future if it increases military spending accordingly. But this entails further assumptions about the efficiency of the spending which can be eroded by corruption, the extent to which purchasing power parity (PPP) influences how much "bang for its buck" a country gets, and of course the strategy of deploying its forces in a war. Check out Michael Beckley's 2018 paper "The Power of Nations: Measuring What Matters" and Jacques Fontanel's 2022 article "Is military expenditure a reliable indicator of victory in an interstate war?" for some important caveats.

RELEVANT MATERIALS FROM PAST MEETUPS:

Back in Aug. 2025, we had a meetup entitled "Understanding the 'Chip War' & 'AI Race' between the U.S. & China" where we discussed how China appears to be quickly catching up to the US in terms of AI development (~1 year behind) & advanced chip production (~3-5 years behind). We also covered the importance of data centers to the tech race between the U.S. and China, where the US has a much bigger lead, with about 12 times as many data centers as China. However, China's frontier AI models are about 4-7 times more efficient, and there's concerns the US may run into constraints due to the electrical power generation needed to run its data centers.

In June, we had a meetup entitled "Trump's Tariffs, The Dollar & The Mar-a-Lago Accord" where we looked at some concerns expressed by the economist Kenneth Rogoff about how mounting U.S. national debt and Trump's tariffs are leading to "de-dollarization" (reduction in the use of U.S. dollars in world trade), and how this could possibly lead to the dollar losing its world reserve currency status in the near future. This is relevant to this discussion, because this scenario is what Ray Dalio predicts will lead to China taking over as the new global hegemon.

In April, we had a meetup entitled "Is There a 'Trump Doctrine'?" where we discussed various theories about the ideology underlying Trump's foreign policy. In the 2nd section, we discussed the possibility the Trump wants to pull a "reverse Nixon" and use concessions in the Ukraine War to pull Russia back towards the EU & US and away from China. In the 4th section, we discussed the theory that Trump has figured "if you can't beat them, join them" and wants to abandon traditional Western allies like NATO so he can pursue an anti-democratic alliance with both Russia & China.

In Aug. 2023, our member Chris led a discussion entitled "Understanding the China-Taiwan Conflict" where we analyzed the prospects for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan that might result in direct military conflict between the U.S. and China, since Taiwan is strategically important as part of the "first island chain" that constrains China's navy and as the world's major manufacturer of the most sophisticated semiconductor chips.

Back in March 2022, we had a meetup entitled "Are We Headed For World War 3?" In the 2nd section, we discussed the political scientist Graham Allison's theory of the "Thucydides trap" and how it predicts conflict between a rising power and a ruling power, as well as the shift from Hu Jintao's "Peaceful Rise" policy to Xi Jinping's more aggressive "Wolf Warrior Diplomacy".

Since we're comparing Peter Turchin's cyclical "structural-demographic theory" to Ray Dalio's "Big Cycle", it may be worth it to refer back to prior meetups that discussed Turchin's theories like the 4th section of a Skeptic meetup in Jan. 2021 entitled "Bad History & Our Political Crisis", and more recently in the 1st section of our Feb. 2025 meetup entitled "Elites & Counter-Elites" and the 4th section of our meetup in Sept. 2025 entitled "Is Political Violence Increasing in America?".

Aside from these meetups, I also linked a couple third party discussions of US-China rivalry in the spring of 2024 such as the Cato Institute's talk with IR scholar Ketian Zhang about her book China’s Gambit: The Calculus of Coercion (2023) and the Braver Angels' discussion with Col. Grant Newsham about his book When China Attacks: A Warning to America (2023).

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major debates over whether or not China will displace the U.S. as a global superpower. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about 53 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 40 minutes on each section.

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I. RAY DALIO'S BULLISH VIEW ON CHINA AS THE NEXT SUPERPOWER ACCORDING TO HIS "BIG CYCLE" THEORY:

• SECTION 1, QUESTION 1: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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1.) Joeri Schasfoort (Money & Macro), "Economist Fact-Checks Ray Dalio's China's inevitable rise story" (video - 15:25 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1iv0q_SW3E

• Tunku Varadarajan, "‘Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order’ Review: Trouble Ahead, As Usual: The ineluctable ‘cycles’ of history are said to explain everything, if you can attain a lofty enough perspective" (WSJ)
  https://archive.ph/2mhfU#selection-2591.3-2595.17
• Kenneth Rogoff, "How Countries Go Broke — Ray Dalio on why timing is everything: The billionaire Bridgewater founder shares his ideas on debt crises and how to predict them" (FT)
  https://archive.ph/74kX2
• William Pesek, "China’s Ray Dalio Troubles Are Only Just Beginning"
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/williampesek/2024/09/20/chinas-ray-dalio-troubles-are-only-just-beginning/
• Tom Latchem, "Billionaire Investor Issues Ominous Warning of ‘Civil War’ Building Under Trump: Ray Dalio said soaring debt and polarization are creating a dangerous 'test of power.'"
  https://www.thedailybeast.com/billionaire-ray-dalio-issues-ominous-warning-of-civil-war-in-the-us-under-donald-trump/
• Peter Turchin, "So, It's China: The focus for the next structural-demographic analysis" and "On Taking Sides: Most 'Analysis' on China is Projecting Own Biases"
  https://peterturchin.substack.com/p/so-its-china
• https://peterturchin.substack.com/p/on-taking-sides
• Peter Turchin, "Is Fiscal Collapse of the American State Possible? Possible, but not very probable"
  https://peterturchin.substack.com/p/is-fiscal-collapse-of-the-american
• Noah Smith, "Will this be the Chinese Century? Probably yes, though that may not mean what people expect" and "Can anything knock China off its mountain? A great nation at its peak can still make big mistakes."
  https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/will-this-be-the-chinese-century
  https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/can-anything-knock-china-off-its

II. PETER ZEIHAN'S BEARISH VIEW ON CHINA DUE TO DEMOGRAPHIC & GEOGRAPHIC CONSTRAINTS:

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2.) Joeri Schasfoort (Money & Macro), "Economist Fact-Checks Zeihan's China Collapse Story" (video - 23:50 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XupM5_zHDbM

• Liam Denning, "The Coming Hobbesian World: The North American shale energy boom raises the question of whether it is worthwhile for the U.S. to continue to protect everyone’s trade." (WSJ review of Peter Zeihan's "The Accidental Superpower" from 2014)
  https://archive.ph/dFe6u
• Noah Smith, "Book Review: 'The End of the World is Just the Beginning': Peter Zeihan gives us his vision of the collapse of globalization."
  https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/book-review-the-end-of-the-world
• Cyrus Janssen, "I Fact Checked Peter Zeihan's China Collapse Story... This Will Shock You"
  https://cyrusjanssen.substack.com/p/i-fact-checked-peter-zeihans-china
• Jan Krikke, "The China collapse that just never arrives: A forecasting error that consistently points in the same direction reveals more about the observer than about the object"
  https://asiatimes.com/2026/06/the-china-collapse-that-just-never-arrives/
• Sarah Stahlman, "China’s Peaking Power: An Interview with Michael Beckley"
  https://www.aei.org/op-eds/chinas-peaking-power-an-interview-with-michael-beckley/
• Hal Brands & Michael Beckley, "China Is a Declining Power—and That’s the Problem: The United States needs to prepare for a major war, not because its rival is rising but because of the opposite."
• https://archive.ph/0nNd6
• Loren Thompson, "Why China’s Bid To Become A Superpower Is Doomed To Failure"
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2023/08/25/why-chinas-bid-to-become-a-superpower-is-doomed-to-failure/
• Stephen G. Brooks & William C. Wohlforth, "The Myth of Multipolarity: American Power’s Staying Power" (Foreign Affairs)
• https://archive.ph/I2bFZ

III. INTERMEDIATE SCENARIOS WHERE CHINA BECOMES A REGIONAL POWER & THE U.S. STAGNATES OR HAS A MILD DECLINE LEADING TO A "BIPOLAR" OR "MULTIPOLAR" WORLD:

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3.) Joeri Schasfoort (Money & Macro), "What the new global economic order will look like" (video - 16:23 min, listen to 15:18)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z_56-BOpcQ

• Ian Bremmer, "The Next Global Superpower Isn’t Who You Think: What happens when the world is no longer unipolar, bipolar, or even multipolar?" (Foreign Policy)
  https://archive.ph/DHNrY
• Antonio Francisco, "G-Zero: A Leaderless World or the Illusion of a Void? Why Ian Bremmer’s G-Zero Concept Needed an Update"
  https://medium.com/the-geopolitical-economist/g-zero-the-leaderless-world-and-the-illusion-of-a-void-b74b3cb8b030
• Jo Inge Bekkevold, "No, the World Is Not Multipolar [but Bipolar]: The idea of emerging power centers is popular but wrong—and could lead to serious policy mistakes." (Foreign Policy)
  https://archive.ph/Gz2uL
• Emma Ashford & Evan Cooper, "Yes, the World Is Multipolar: And that isn’t bad news for the United States." (Foreign Policy)
  https://archive.ph/BuGlM
• Joshua Shifrinson, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Bilahari Kausikan, Robert Keohane, Stephen G. Brooks & William C. Wohlforth, "The Long Unipolar Moment? Debating American Dominance" (Foreign Affairs)
  https://archive.ph/49mgl

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Bi-Weekly Discussion - The Uses & Abuses of Prediction Markets (Repeat)

Sun, Aug 9 · 3:00 PM EDT

·

Online

Online

This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Click on the link above at the scheduled date/time to log in...

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THE USES & ABUSES OF PREDICTION MARKETS

INTRODUCTION:

NOTE: This is a repeat of our discussion back on Saturday, June 27th, since many of our regulars were not able to attend.

As this meetup's regulars know, I often try to emphasize that being a "political agnostic" means being humble enough to recognize the limits of your own knowledge on a particular subject and realizing when you need to seek out an expert opinion. That's why I typically try to ground our discussions by linking to polls of academic experts or forecasts from think tanks when they're available, even though we know they can be biased on some contentious issues and that there's often many facets of an issue that these polls don't illuminate.

That's why earlier this year, in a discussion on the Ukraine War, I also linked some prediction market bets being placed on the outcomes of battles in Ukraine. For those who aren't aware, prediction markets are online exchanges established for trading bets on the outcome of various events including elections, sports games, the weather, celebrity gossip, and even wars. Their business model is similar to poker games at a casino - i.e. you're betting against other players rather than the house, but the house takes a cut. With money at stake, I figured that could reduce some of the bias we might expect in journalistic coverage of the Ukraine War and also give us some more granular estimates of the war's progress that you can't find in the think tanks forecasts or expert polls. However, some of our members pushed back by arguing that it's unlikely that anyone with deep knowledge of this conflict (esp. Ukrainians & Russians) wouldn't be biased. Several people also pointed out the potential risk of cash-strapped soldiers or lower-tier government officials engaging in insider trading based on knowledge of covert military operations - perhaps even betting against their own side.

These sorts of debates have erupted into mainstream media focus in the ensuing months once it became clear that people with access to highly classified information engaged in insider trading ahead of the raid on Venezuela that captured Nicolas Maduro and the initial air strikes on Iran that killed the Ayatollah Khamenei. Left-leaning journalists uncovered that the two biggest prediction markets, Polymarket and Kalshi, both hired Donald Trump Jr. as an "advisor" and the Trump administration responded by decreasing regulations on them, even having the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sue states that tried to regulate them as gambling instead of event contracts. They also noticed that many bettors on these platforms appear to be tech-savvy, contrarian-thinking young men who often identify as populists, libertarians, meme-stock traders or "crypto bros" - i.e. the type of people the average liberal journalist instinctively dislikes. Along with the preexisting stigma on gambling and rising concern about Gen Z's "financial nihilism", this has led most of the mainstream media to portray prediction markets as not some sort of promising innovation or relatively harmless pastime but rather an elaborate con and a venue for profiting off state secrets orchestrated by the Trump administration and the "Tech Right".

However, as a recent CNN report found, many notable economists still argue that prediction markets could be very useful if properly regulated, although they have noted some recent developments that have surprised or worried them. The economist Justin Wolfers, who's gone from being one of the chief advocates of prediction markets to very outspoken about the potential harms, has said he still stands by the core thesis:
"A fundamental economic problem is, how do we aggregate information? I believed back then, and I still believe, that markets are an incredibly efficient way of doing that… Most of the alternatives are pretty bad, and markets appear to be less bad." However, Wolfers also expressed concern about prediction markets enabling compulsive gambling that financially ruins 1-2% of users, saying: "If you give me the choice of unfettered laissez-faire gambling versus shut it all down… I think there's still a reasonable case for shut it all down."

Prediction markets & forecasting tournaments have long been popular with the "rationalist community" that's centered around blogs like Overcoming Bias, Less Wrong, AstralCodexTen (formerly SlateStarCodex), ClearerThinking-dot-org, and non-profits like the Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) and the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). This makes sense, since a forum for betting on beliefs provides a testing ground for their methods of cognitive self-improvement. The well-known rationalist blogger Scott Alexander wrote the Prediction Market FAQ, one of the best introductions to and defenses of prediction markets, back in Dec. 2022. He argued that "a poll of experts named 'the breakdown of trusted information sources' as one of the leading challenges of the 21st century... Millions of words have been written on how to solve this crisis, with most ideas being impossibly naive or dangerously authoritarian. I think prediction markets are a genuine solution, one that can’t come fast enough."

However, there's been some criticisms within the community more recently, like M. Abramov's recent essay on Less Wrong entitled "Forecasting is Way Overrated, and We Should Stop Funding It". He argued that: "Total prediction market volume is something like $500B/year, but it just isn’t very useful. We get to know the odds on every basketball game player prop, and if BTC is going to go up or down in the next 5 minutes. While some people suggest that these trivial markets help sharpen skills or identify good forecasters, I don’t think there is any evidence of this, and it is more wishful thinking.,. I don’t think there is very much in the way of 'this forecasting happened, and now we have made demonstrably better decisions regarding this terminal goal that we care about'."

So what should we make of all this fuss over prediction markets? To help us think more clearly, I've broken up the wide-ranging debates into 4 sections to isolate the different types of arguments for & against them...

In the 1st section, we'll look at the theoretical ideal of predictions markets that aggregate the "wisdom of the crowd" and use betting to incentivize true expert to step forward while disincentivizing virtue signaling or random guessing. This is why the economist Bryan Caplan famously said that "betting is a tax on bulls*t". We'll try to determine if they're more accurate than alternatives like expert panels, money-less forecasting tournaments, and AI models, based on the argument that when there's enough money at stake, smart investors will synthesize information from the other available sources and produce something at least as accurate if not better. It may seem unsavory to turn everything into a "market" or "casino", but if synthesizing all this information to get the most accurate forecast is incredibly time-consuming & expensive, it makes sense we'd need to financially compensate the people doing this work - and putting them effectively on a commission instead of a salary ensures they'll try their hardest to be right. The counterargument is that betting could degrade accuracy by allowing wealthy individuals, corporations & foreign governments to effectively buy "self-fulfilling prophecies" and inflate "speculative bubbles" - i.e. skew public perception by betting on their favored narrative or against their disfavored narrative. This is somewhat akin to "pump & dump" or "short & distort" schemes in the stock market, but instead of doing it for monetary gain, by using prediction markets those with deep pockets could arguably afford to risk/lose lots of money to skew public perception for political reasons. For example, someone could artificially boost or tank a political candidate's apparent odds, make it look like a bill is about to pass or fail in Congress, imply the Supreme Court is about to make a specific ruling, or suggest a military operation is on the verge of success or collapse. However, as we'll see, proponents of prediction markets argue this would effectively just subsidize people uncovering their attempt at manipulation, and in most cases this dynamic (i.e. the "efficient market hypothesis") would allow the market to quickly correct itself.

In the 2nd section, we'll look at the debate over whether prediction markets are fair and/or sustainable if it turns out that most people lose money and a small number of elite traders reap most of the financial gains. These groups are often referred to as "dumb money" and "smart money" by investment professionals. Even pundits who are okay with letting lots of people blow their money on frivolous betting are afraid the prediction markets won't have enough cash flow (a.k.a. "liquidity") to function if/when average people begin to wise up and stop betting. We'll also address the related problem of most of the bettors flocking to sports gambling, celebrity gossip, and pop cultural trivia, whereas advocates of prediction markets are hoping to steer the betting action towards more serious issues where there are big positive externalities if prediction markets can increase our understanding. Possible solutions include encouraging more prediction market wagers for hedging purposes, subsidizing thinner but important prediction markets, having "market makers" encourage bets on both sides, and/or using AI agents in place of human bettors.

In the 3rd section, we'll look at the debate over whether the insider trading encouraged by prediction markets are socially useful or harmful insofar as they make private knowledge public prior to any official disclosures by shifts in the betting odds. Essentially, we want to know how we can structure & regulate prediction markets so they incentivize the exposure of lies & corruption but don't expose necessary secrets in ways that could prove disastrous for society. As we'll see, the ongoing debates about insider trading in prediction markets has resurfaced the older debate over how it affects the stock market. Decades ago, economists like Milton Friedman & Henry Mann famously argued that insider trading was socially beneficial because it could deflate market bubbles and should be legalized. There's also interesting speculations about how prediction markets could offer the sort of "surveillance-from-below" that David Brin wrote about in his book The Transparent Society (1998) and Julian Assange advocated for in his famous essay "Conspiracy as Governance" (2006).

In the 4th section, we'll look at the debate over whether allowing people to bet on bad events like wars, crimes, man-made or natural disasters is good because it helps us understand & prevent these things or actually incentivizes bad actors to cause or exacerbate them. One of the early attempts at this was the Policy Analysis Market formed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that was shut down in August 2003 after multiple US senators condemned it as akin to morbid forms of betting like "death pools" or criminal ventures like "assassination markets". As we'll see, getting people to overcome their instinctive revulsion towards bets on death & destruction may be the easy part. We may need to make some difficult tradeoffs if/when we allow placing bets on negative events - i.e. if it's very important to understand them better because it could benefit thousands or millions of people, it may be worth running the risk that a bad actor will do something harmful to a few people. Once again, striking the right balance may come down to how we structure & regulate prediction markets.

WHAT'S THE DISTRIBUTION OF OPINION AMONG EXPERTS?

Economists have spent decades theorizing about prediction markets, so they're probably the most relevant subject matter experts. The University of Chicago's Kent Clark Center (formerly known as the IGM Experts Panel) polled 39 top US economists in April 2026 and asked them 2 questions back in April about prediction markets: (1) Do prediction markets provide substantially more accurate forecasts of key macro-financial variables than traditional sources such as surveys of professional forecasters? and (2)
Would retail market participants be measurably better off if sports contracts on prediction markets were regulated more like gambling than like financial derivatives? Based on their weighted responses, 36% agreed with the 1st question, while 38% were uncertain and 26% disagreed. On the 2nd question, there was more agreement - based on their weighted responses, 57% agreed, 22% were uncertain, and 20% disagreed. The Kent Clark Center posted an article by the economist Duncan Weldon on the potential value & regulatory options for prediction markets that gives some broader context to these polls.

It might be useful to look at the Kent Clark Center's previous polls on state-run lotteries and sports betting for comparison. Only 18% of the surveyed economists thought state lottos improved social welfare (41% were uncertain, 41% disagreed), but 32% thought more states should legalize sports gambling (52% were uncertain, 16% disagreed). If you look at the comments some of them made on these issues, you can get a sense of why they took a given position. Many of them view gambling as akin to a regressive tax on those who are less educated & more impulsive. But others note that some people will almost inevitably want to gamble, and (as with drugs) prohibition can drive it underground while legalization allows it to be regulated & taxed.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any polls of other social scientists like political scientists or psychologists. However, I did come across a recent Bloomberg article that cited a flash survey of 53 Wall Street professionals in the US conducted by Crisil Coalition Greenwich in Jan. 2026. It found that "around 43% of market structure experts view prediction markets as an innovative value-add to the overall marketplace... A similar range were neutral on the space’s prospects, while around a fifth said the markets encourage gambling and introduce additional 'risk noise' instead of trading signals." It's interesting to note that this breakdown among Wall Street pros is close to the breakdown of how economists answered the Kent Clark Forum's 1st question.

RELEVANT MATERIAL FROM PAST MEETUPS:

It's useful to understand the cognitive tools that geopolitical forecasters use, since even though they're typically just putting their reputation on the line rather than their money, there's a lot of overlap with the most successful traders on prediction markets. In Oct. 2021, we had a meetup entitled "Can We Predict Geopolitical Conflict?" We looked at how to predict the onset of wars, WMD development & usage, military coups & popular revolts, as well as civil wars & genocide. We tried to apply some of Phil Tetlock's tips for geopolitical forecasting, like: (1) break seemingly intractable problems into tractable sub-problems, using Fermi estimates, (2) strike the right balance between "inside" (event-specific) and "outside" (reference class) views, (3) strike the right balance between under- and overreacting to new evidence, by using Bayesian-style updating, and (4) look for the clashing causal forces at work in each problem, and consider multiple theories & models.

For those seeking to understand a complex issue, one of the alternatives to prediction markets is simply looking at polls of experts. We addressed the pros & cons of relying on expert consensus in a meetup back in March 2024 entitled "How Much Should We Trust the Experts?" Of particular interest is the 1st section where we talked about several ways to account for biases among experts, like looking for what lawyers call "admissions against interest" and using some heuristics that the rationalist community calls "bounded distrust" and the "general factor of correctness" (a.k.a. correct contrarian cluster). These are tactics the savvier investors in prediction markets would use to know when they should side with the expert consensus or get against it.

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major debates over the pros & cons of prediction markets. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about 60 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

***

I. DOES BETTING REAL MONEY MAKE PREDICTION MARKETS MORE ACCURATE THAN EXPERT PANELS, FORECASTING TOURNAMENTS & AI MODELS - OR DOES IT ALLOW THE RICH TO BUY "SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES" & INFLATE "SPECULATIVE BUBBLES"?

1a) Rational Animations, "Prediction markets: can betting be good for the world?" (video - 13:30 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA27x7GRMZQ

1b) Nick Pardini, "Why Prediction Markets May Lose Their Forecasting Power" (video - 9:00 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8hjZ_vjz9o

• Dan Schwarz, "Are Prediction Markets Good for Anything?"
  https://asteriskmag.com/issues/14/are-prediction-markets-good-for-anything
• Alex Tabbarock, "Prediction Markets Are Very Accurate"
  https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/10/prediction-markets-are-very-accurate.html
• Jeremy B. Merrill, Leslie Shapiro & Mariana Alfaro, "Why prediction markets’ election picks are useful, even when they seem wrong" (Wash. Post)
  https://archive.ph/ERRrn
• Jeremiah Johnson, "Prediction Markets Have an Elections Problem: Why doesn’t smart money drive out dumb money in election markets?"
  https://asteriskmag.com/issues/05/prediction-markets-have-an-elections-problem-jeremiah-johnson
• John Sides, "The perils of election prediction markets"
  https://goodauthority.org/news/the-perils-of-election-prediction-markets/
• Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, Steven Tian & Anthony Scaramucci, "Don’t Trust the Political Prediction Markets"
  https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/dont-trust-the-political-prediction-markets
• Sips & Scale, "How Accurate Is Polymarket Compared To Superforecasters?"
  https://archive.ph/fTQXP
• Jose Antonio Lanz, "AI Now Matches Prediction Markets in Forecasting Real Events, Study Finds"
  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-now-matches-prediction-markets-230346352.html
• Ezekiel Njuguna, "Can AI Actually Beat Prediction Markets? Real Wallet Data from Polymarket Reveals the Truth"
  https://medium.com/mountain-movers/can-ai-actually-beat-prediction-markets-real-wallet-data-from-polymarket-reveals-the-truth-077949eed10d
• Matthew Wein, "Weaponizing the odds: Prediction markets as a new vector for foreign influence"
  https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/dispatches/weaponizing-the-odds-prediction-markets-as-a-new-vector-for-foreign-influence/
• Derek Thompson w/ Justin Wolfers, "Should Presidential Campaigns Spend More Money Manipulating Intrade [leading up to the 2012 election]?"
  https://archive.ph/dBcgx
• Aubrey Strobel, "No, Polymarket Whales Aren't Evidence of Prediction Market Manipulation"
  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/no-polymarket-whales-arent-evidence-181038513.html

II. ARE PREDICTION MARKETS FAIR/SUSTAINABLE EVEN IF MOST PEOPLE LOSE MONEY & BIG WINS ARE CONCENTRATED AMONG A FEW ELITE TRADERS?

2.) PBS Two Cents, "What Prediction Markets Don't Want You to Know" (video - 11:31 min, start at 3:01)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3X-KNvqoBM&t=3m1s

• Theis Ingerslev Jensen, "Wisdom of the Few? Prediction Markets Are Driven by a Small Number of Skilled Traders"
  https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/wisdom-of-the-few-prediction-markets-are-driven-by-small-number-of-skilled-traders
• Caitlin Ostroff, "We Investigated Polymarket’s Deceptive Marketing Campaign. Here’s What We Found: The promotion bolsters perception that Polymarket lets users make fast and easy money" (WSJ)
  https://archive.ph/oBFph
• Andrew Gilman, "Prediction markets and the need for 'dumb money' as well as 'smart money'"
  https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2024/10/25/prediction-markets-and-the-need-for-dumb-money-as-well-as-smart-money/
• Igor, "Noisy Traders Are Not Dumb Money: The smart-money-vs-dumb-money framing misreads how prediction markets actually work"
  https://functionspace.dev/research/noisy-traders-are-not-dumb-money
• Quantpedia, "Who Profits from Prediction Markets?" (summary of Joshua Della Vedova's study 'Who Profits from Prediction Markets? Execution, not Information')
  https://quantpedia.com/who-profits-from-prediction-markets/
• Nick Whitaker & J. Zachary Mazlish, "Why prediction markets aren’t popular: Prediction markets are legal, contrary to popular belief. But they remain unpopular [aside from sports & elections], because they lack key features that make markets attractive."
  https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-prediction-markets-arent-popular/
• Ayesha Aziz, "Vitalik Buterin Warns Prediction Markets Risk Collapse Without Pivot [Towards Hedging]"
  https://coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/vitalik-buterin-warns-prediction-markets-risk-collapse-without-pivot
• Mark Roulston, "Prediction markets are not a free lunch [i.e. they need subsidies]"
  https://www.crucialab.net/post/free-lunch/
• Jess Marquez, "Is the complex world of market-making the next growth engine for bookmakers?"
  https://igamingbusiness.com/sports-betting/market-making-opportunities-2026/
• Alex Janiak, "How AI Will Save Prediction Markets"
  https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Ab3NKBkrLhm6ssszH/how-ai-will-save-prediction-markets

III. DO PREDICTION MARKETS ENCOURAGE INSIDER TRADING & EXPOSING SECRETS - AND IF SO, (WHEN) IS THAT GOOD OR BAD?

3a) Jon Esq., "Why Insider Trading is GOOD" (video - 8:36 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-W04MkV8QY

3b) CNBC, "Bets On Death Of Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Khamenei And Others Draw Scrutiny" (video - 2:35 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuPbHtGEE9s

• Alicia Park, "Why Prediction Markets Need Insider Trading: Here’s why the godfather of prediction markets [Robin Hanson] thinks it's a good thing" (WSJ)
  https://archive.ph/m22tX
• Scott Alexander, "Use Prediction Markets To Fund Investigative Reporting"
  https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/use-prediction-markets-to-fund-investigative
• Julia R. Cartwright, "Government fraud is everywhere. Prediction markets can fix that" (Wash. Post)
  https://archive.ph/DTcVQ
• Scott Alexander, "Prediction Markets Suggest Replacing Biden"
  https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/prediction-markets-suggest-replacing
• Anthony Robledo, "Prediction markets are coming to Hollywood – and may ruin your favorite show"
  https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2026/06/14/prediction-markets-tv-spoilers-betting-euphoria-survivor/90484649007/
• Anna Dreber, et al., "Using prediction markets to estimate the reproducibility of scientific research"
  https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1516179112
• Saahil Desai, "Insider Trading Is Going to Get People Killed: War markets are a national-security threat."
  https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/03/polymarket-insider-trading-going-get-people-killed/686283/
• Andjela Radmilac, "How Polymarket war betting is putting civilians at risk by disrupting humanitarian aid maps"
  https://cryptoslate.com/polymarket-war-bets-collide-with-the-maps-civilians-use-to-survive/
• Jim Harper, "Prediction Markets’ Deadly Implications [are Exaggerated]"
  https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/prediction-markets-deadly-implications/

IV. DO PREDICTION MARKETS ON BAD EVENTS (WAR, CRIME, NATURAL DISASTERS) MOTIVATE US UNDERSTAND & PREVENT THEM, OR INCENTIVIZE BAD ACTORS TO BRIBE/THREATEN REPORTERS OR EVEN CAUSE THE BAD EVENTS THEMSELVES?

4a) Columbia Business School, "Changing Perceptions: The Promise of Climate Prediction Markets" (video - 19:00 min, start at 5:29)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBnJV8ursZc&t=5m29s

4b) Elrodd, "The Inevitable Horror of Assassination Markets" (video - 10:25 min, start at 5:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZlRCThKuqI&t=5m0s

• Tim Craig, "Polymarket slammed for ‘disrespectful’ dildo throwing bets after second man is arrested at WNBA game"
  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/polymarket-slammed-disrespectful-dildo-throwing-135201432.html
• Eleanor Taylor, "Policy Analysis Market and the Political Yuck Factor — why Americans shied away from a geopolitical futures market."
  https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/PAM/PRESS/SIRC-4-27-04.shtml
• Andy Greenberg, "Meet The 'Assassination Market' Creator Who's Crowdfunding Murder With Bitcoins" (Forbes)
  https://archive.ph/JS06l
• Scott Alexander, "Metaculus Monday [and the COVID Pandemic]"
  https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/metaculus-monday
• Brian Sandalow, "Using Prediction Markets to Raise Climate Concern: Participation in climate markets bolsters backing for anti-warming measures"
  https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/news/articles/2023/06/using-prediction-markets-to-raise-climate-concern/
• Christopher Freiman, "Prediction Markets and The Ethics of Betting on Bad News: Accurately predicting disaster is actually quite useful, and prediction markets reward people for operationalizing information others don’t yet have"
  https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-ethics-of-betting-on-future-bad-news/
• Jamie L. Pietruska, "Catastrophe markets: Americans love to gamble. But placing bets on wildfires, floods and storms comes with serious moral and social costs"
  https://aeon.co/essays/what-is-the-real-cost-of-betting-on-weather-catastrophes
• Nick Cleveland-Stout, "Think tanker altered Ukraine war map before big Polymarket payout"
  https://responsiblestatecraft.org/isw-polymarket-ukraine-war-map/
• Sean Anthony Guillory & Amy Nelson, "A Journalist Covered a Missile Strike. Then the Death Threats Started [from Polymarket Bettors]."
  https://archive.ph/mkFKf

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Braver Angels Event: "What Role Does Patriotism Have in Schools?"

Mon, Aug 17 · 7:00 PM EDT

·

Online

Online

The Orange County Alliance of Braver Angels is hosting an online discussion in partnership with Dignity.Us, AllSides, the Prohuman Foundation, the Listen First Project, Living Room Conversations, and Courageous Conversations about our Schools. I thought it might be of interest to our members...

Event Description:
What place does patriotism have in schools? Join a live national conversation with diverse voices from across America.
Patriotism is one of those terms that seems pretty simple—until you start talking about it.

Across the country, Americans are debating whether schools should help shape students’ sense of patriotism and civic identity. Some believe schools should cultivate love of country, civic responsibility, and national unity, while others worry that teaching patriotism can become a form of indoctrination or limit open discussion about difficult parts of American history.

In this live online event, a politically and culturally diverse group of students, parents, educators, writers, and community members will explore what patriotism means to them personally and what role, if any, schools should play in shaping it.

Rather than trying to win an argument, this conversation aims to model thoughtful listening, honest dialogue, and the possibility of finding more common ground than we often imagine.

Questions? Contact Mary Thomas-Vallens, marytv@braverangels.org; Ken Futernick ken@schoolconversations.org; Paige Swartz paige@braverangels.org

Registering for the Online Event:
This is a FREE event; however, you will need to register for it. Go to the following Eventbrite link & fill out the registration form:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-role-does-patriotism-have-in-schools-a-fishbowl-webinar-registration-1990250374446?discount=BRAVER&aff=oddtdtcreator

Registration for this event will be closed 12 hours prior to the scheduled starting time. Check your email for the confirmation message with the Zoom link - if you don't see it, check your "Junk" folder.

• Note: Braver Angels events may be recorded, and may be shared with media or used in Braver Angels publications, including web pages. Participants who object to this may disable their video.

What is "Braver Angels"?
Formerly known as "Better Angels", Braver Angels is an organization founded in 2016 to depolarize American politics through grassroots organizing. They do this primarily by hosting events for cross-partisan dialogue & civil debate. To learn more, go to https://braverangels.org/

Bi-Weekly Discussion - Is There a Case for (Cautious) Climate Optimism?

Sun, Aug 23 · 3:00 PM EDT

·

Online

Online

This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Click on the link above at the scheduled date/time to log in...

***

***

IS THERE A CASE FOR (CAUTIOUS) CLIMATE OPTIMISM:
CAN WE STILL AVERT CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE WITHOUT "DEGROWTH" BY QUICKLY TRANSITIONING TO 100% RENEWABLE ENERGY?

INTRODUCTION:

In this meetup, we'll discuss how advances in solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, electric vehicles have excited economists and technology experts, many of whom now think we may be able to avert catastrophic climate change later in the 21st century without resorting to "degrowth" policies that make everyone poorer. Instead of linking several short videos under each section, I'm just asking our members to watch this 80-minute talk between The NY Times journalist Ezra Klein and the environmentalist Bill McKibben about his new book Here Comes the Sun and how it sheds some light on these current debates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogAZS7_RhhA

* Note: You can also read an edited transcript of their discussion here - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-bill-mckibben.html - or an archived copy here - https://archive.ph/OTedv

[insert Bill McKibben bio]

McKibben's latest book is titled Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization (2025). According to the publisher's blurb, it "tells the story of the sudden spike in power from the sun and wind―and the desperate fight of the fossil fuel industry and their politicians to hold this new power at bay. From the everyday citizens who installed solar panels equal to a third of Pakistan’s electric grid in a year to the world’s sixth-largest economy―California―nearly halving its use of natural gas in the last two years, Bill McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy. And he shows how solar power is more than just a path out of the climate crisis: it is a chance to reorder the world on saner and more humane grounds. You can’t hoard solar energy or hold it in reserves ― it’s available to all. There’s no guarantee we can make this change in time, but there is a hope ― in McKibben’s eyes, our best hope for a new civilization: one that looks up to the sun, every day, as the star that fuels our world."

In this 1st section of this meetup, we'll discuss the first 5 sections of the talk (after the brief intro) entitled "Costco renewable energy has arrived", "Free electricity in Australia", "Battery innovation", "Global energy landscape" and "The new possibilities" which goes up to almost the 34:00 mark. These sections mostly deal with debates over the possibilities created by recent technological developments.

In the 2nd section, we'll skip ahead anddiscuss the section entitled "Global warming acceleration" that runs from about 41:00 to 47:00. This section focuses on differing projections from climate scientists and predictions of climate-related damage by environmental economists, with the implication that faster warming & more severe near-term damages requires a faster clean energy transition.

In the 3rd section, we'll discuss the sections of the talk entitled "Climate backlash during the Trump era", "The state of climate politics", "Political lessons for this moment", "Implementing the clean energy future" and "Is solarpunk the future of the left?" that stretch from 34:00 to about 80:00, but notice that I've broken out the topics of global warming acceleration and U.S. tariffs on China into separate sections. The remaining sections mostly deal with political barriers to a rapid clean energy transition, such as the fossil fuel industry lobbyists who push the GOP to block any taxes or regulations that would hurt their industry, as well as the NIMBYs in blue states that lead to endless hearings & red tape that holds up clean energy projects.

In the 4th section, we'll discuss the section entitled "Were U.S. tariffs on China a mistake?" that runs from about 57:00 to 62:00. This section focuses on the complex links between foreign policy, trade policy and climate policy, but the main question is fairly straightforward, i.e. can the U.S. achieve a rapid clean energy transition without relying on Chinese imports?

RELEVANT MATERIAL FROM PAST MEETUPS:

In Sept. 2025, we had a meetup entitled "Is the U.S. Facing an Energy Crisis?" We discussed: (1) how geopolitical turmoil has driven a push for "energy independence" that often neglects critical inputs, (2) the California & Texas grid failures of 2020-2021 and risks of a broader energy crisis in the near future, (3) debates over the Biden administration's push for renewable energy & attempts to phase out fossil fuels, (4) debate over the 2nd Trump administration's renewed focus on fossil fuels and deemphasizing renewable energy.

Back in August 2025, Braver Angels hosted a debate over whether nuclear power is necessary to mitigate climate change. A video clip posted in the comments sections summarizes some of the pro & con arguments made.

Back in April 2025, we had a meetup entitled "Can 'Abundance Liberalism' Save the Democrats?" where we looked at arguments made in Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson's new book Abundance (2025) for why blue states have allowed NIMBYism and red tape to get in the way of efforts to build solar panel & wind farms, EV charging stations, and high-speed rail. Unfortunately, as we discussed, much of the progressive punditry opposes the reforms advocated by the "Abundance agenda" and may make this a political non-starter, at least in the near term.

Way back in June 2019, we had a meetup entitled "How Should We Deal With Climate Change?" where we discussed how economists have worked with climate scientists to estimate the economic damages that various levels of warming could cause, and how we could rapidly transition to low-carbon energy production. For our discussion on energy policy, the most pertinent part of the climate change meetup was the 2nd section where we looked at various plans like James Baker & George Scultz's "carbon tax & dividends" plan which involves using a carbon tax to nudge us towards renewable energy while funding a payout to consumers to offset a rise in gas prices & electric bills, the progressive Democrats' "Green New Deal" which connects Keynesian economic stimulus and "green jobs" with renewable energy build-out, and the more radical "de-growth" policies that entail putting an end to consumerism, suburban living in single-family homes, and private car ownership in favor of spartan living conditions in eco-friendly urban high-rises & mass transit.

Also back in June of 2019, the Skeptics meetup hosted a discussion entitled "Do We Need Nuclear Power, Biofuels & Fracking to Address Climate Change?" They looked at the limits of solar & wind energy due to problems with intermittency & energy storage, and why many scientists are proposing to expand nuclear power & biofuels, and in some cases even endorse fracking for natural gas as a "bridge technology" to reduce coal & oil burning while we build up renewable energy capacity.

DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major debates over the implications of the renewable energy revolution for both climate change and the economy. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the video of Klein & McKibben's talk linked above The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

***

I. UNDERSTANDING THE CLEAN ENERGY REVOLUTION & ITS POSSIBILITIES:

• SECTION 1, QUESTION 1: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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• Alex Trembath, "The SolarFix Is In: On 'Sun Day' and Bill McKibben’s Narrow Techno-Optimism"
  https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/the-solarfix-is-in
• Ted Nordhaus, "How Bill McKibben Lost the Plot: A new book by the high priest of the climate movement reads like the end of an era"
  https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/how-bill-mckibben-lost-the-plot
• Paul Fleckenstein, "Stopping Climate Change Will Never Be 'Good Business' - Climate activist and writer Bill McKibben's new book is an excellent account of how urgent the climate crisis in front of us is. But it stumbles in trying to prescribe green capitalist solutions to a problem that requires systematic change.”
  https://jacobin.com/2019/07/falter-bill-mckibben-350org-review
• ARTICLE 5 - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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II. UNDERSTANDING THE SPEED & SEVERITY OF CLIMATE CHANGE:

• SECTION 2, QUESTION 1: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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• James E. Hansen, et al., "Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?"
  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2025.2434494#abstract
• Claude Beaulieu, et al., "A recent surge in global warming is not detectable yet"
  https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01711-1
• Michael Shellenberger, "Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong" (Forbes)
  https://archive.ph/ceKOS
• ARTICLE 4 - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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III. UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICAL BARRIERS ON THE RIGHT & LEFT TO A RAPID CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION:

• SECTION 3, QUESTION 1: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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• Christina Cauterucci w/ Bill McKibben, "The Old Climate-Activism Playbook No Longer Works. What Else Can?" (NY Times)
  https://archive.ph/o8FaK
• Timothy W. Luke, "Climate Change Deniers versus Climate Change Decriers: The Pragmatics of Climate Defense in the Age of Disinformation"
  https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=fastcapitalism
• Peter K. Busmen, et al., "Strategic Gestures in Bill McKibben's Climate Change Rhetoric"
  https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/communication/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00040/full
• Bruce Ledewitz, "Bill McKibben Proves Me Right on Campaign
  Finance, Though He Probably Doesn’t Agree"
  https://dsc.duq.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2001&context=ledewitz-hallowedsecularism
• ARTICLE 3 - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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• ARTICLE 4 - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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IV. UNDERSTANDING HOW US-CHINA RIVALRY COMPLICATES THE CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION:

• SECTION 4, QUESTION 1: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
• SECTION 4, QUESTION 2: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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• Kent Clark Forum, "[China] Tariffs, [Solar Panel] Technology, and Growth" (poll of top economists, Dec. 2024)
  https://kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/tariffs-technology-and-growth/
• Kent Clark Forum, "Tariffs on Chinese Electric Vehicles" (poll of top economists, Mar. 2024)
  https://kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/tariffs-on-chinese-electric-vehicles/
• Noah Smith, "China is quietly saving the world from climate change"
  https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/china-is-quietly-saving-the-world
• Seaver Wang, Ted Norah's & Vijaya Ramachandran, "Greenwashing With Chinese Characteristics: China's 'Green Electrostate' Is Neither"
  https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/greenwashing-with-chinese-characteristics
• ARTICLE 4 - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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