Stop Being Okay With Patience

The trouble with innovations is that the really cool ones are perpetually light years away. This presents itself in two facets.
1) Vaporware is perpetually in the extremely early stages of R&D, like fusion power, connecting human nerve cells to computers directly, faster than light travel, and teleportion.

2) When a cool innovation is proposed the time line before we'll see it on the market is always 5+ years, aka "impossibly far in the future."

And yet, people seem to be okay with this. Take this announcement on MSNBC about "spacesuits of the future" being developed by a consortium of MIT and Draper Lab (aka MIT for post-docs) for NASA:

Duda's Draper Lab group has partnered on the project with scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They plan to first create a prototype for a spacesuit arm by 2012, with funding from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program.

If success attracts continued funds, Duda said, a full-body wearable suit could become a reality within a decade — easily within the time frame for NASA's plans targeting the asteroids, Mars and beyond.

Within a decade? They're overtly admitting they want to bilk Federal dollars for a decade at best. And see how they carefully veil the fact that NASA's "next big thing" is even farther into the future?

Am I the only one that gets SUPER chagrined at this? It means I'll likely turn 40, my entire "thirties" having gone by while they worked on this. Assuming the funding isn't killed. And its really only an incremental innovation. Then there are other timelines for major research projects that make my teeth hurt:
- The Joint Strike Fighter program started more than 15 years ago.
- The powered exoskeleton program DARPA funded in 2001 ran for 7 years then quietly ended with no usable prototypes. The only working unit, the Sarcos XOS, is still in early stage development.
- NASA's search for a new orbital delivery system has been ongoing for two decades.

One might say that I am impatient with the status quo rate of innovation in this country. The seeming perpetuity of government-funded research and development leads a cynic to conclude that these projects are not meant to have an end, rather they are a means to transfer taxpayer dollars into industrial stimulus. Can you imagine if a project manager at a company spent $75 million company dollars, but did not meet the project goals and did not delivering a single thing at the end? That PM would have his/her head on a platter. And their box of belongings with them as they were shown the door and their keycard was deactivated. But on the contrary, can you imagine a project manager that managed to bilk a customer out of $75 MEEELLION dollars and at the end didn't actually have to meet the goals they had outlined in the proposal nor deliver anything to the customer? That PM would be heralded by the company as a genius.
That's the rub, isn't it? Fast innovation...the kind with high risk and high reward...is fraught with peril. Lengthy, open-ended government projects are ripe with fee and more fee. And the best thing about a big government contract is you can dump all the risky work on subcontractors and they not only strengthen your proposal by giving you "a small business plan" but you collect fee on what they do too, just for overseeing them. And so government-led innovation, sadly, is counterproductive.

Unless, of course, the deliverable of the funded work is harder to achieve, and the contractor risk is higher. For instance, what if instead of DARPA spending $75M on the exoskeleton project and at the end not really having much expectation other than "maybe the Army will continue your funding" they had instead told Sarcos/Raytheon "here's $150 million. You have 5 years to deliver 20 working, production-quality exoskeletons. If at the end of the 5 years you do not deliver the prototypes then you will immediately pay back the $150 million under the same pay schedule as an IRS tax payment: the full tax burden owed, plus an immediate 16% fee, plus 6% compounded interest for each month. Essentially Sarcos would either get a check for $150 million or they'd owe the government $564 million. Their reward is compounded as well, though. Under a successful project, they'd come away with twice as much money, plus they'd stand to be the sole company on Earth capable of producing Iron Man.

The government could fund competing projects more effectively this way. What if, when they funded Lockheed and Boeing to build a Joint Strike Fighter prototype, the winner got the contract but the loser got penalized? As in the government said "you each get $750 million and 5 years to have a new supersonic fighter capable of VTOL. Which ever one has better scores on the following 10 metrics wins the contract. The other has to pay the government $2.8 billion in penalties." Can you imagine it? The incentive to not lose is massive. But I digress. And I am not so naive as to think the puppets that fund projects like this are willing to iceberg a major military-industrial corporation. Too many voters work at (insert military-industrialist corporation with branch offices in 100+ Congressional districts), if you catch my drift.

In any case, the bottom line remains the same: funding agencies and the general public have way too much tolerance for long time lines.

Sometimes when I argue this with my friends, I'll come around to "why should we have to wait 15 years for the development of (insert vaporware example here)?" and they give me this bull-crap cop out "if you don't like it, do something about it." Do I tell a teacher complaining about NCLB that they should be able to fix the whole system? Do I tell someone who complains about American politics that they should run for office? No, I don't. When a problem is systemic it cannot be mitigated by the actions of a single person. It needs a system-wide change. And in this case, a little less patience with the process might not be so bad.

There is good news, potentially. If and when the economy recovers to a sufficient degree, there will be a tidal wave of Boomers who retire and analysts suggest that venture capital will surge. So the private R&D industry might be one we shouldn't underestimate in the next 10 years while that new spacesuit is being developed.


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A World of Steve Jobses

The knee-jerk reaction whenever some technoceleb makes it big is to try to examine every facet of his/her life and see how young persons can potentially emulate those things. The implication is that "if I am like Steve Jobs, my career and revenue stream will also be like Steve Jobs."

This is a dangerous habit, and a difficult one to break. Firstly, its dangerous because Steve Jobs brilliance is more than a little in his uniqueness, and trying to copy a man whose career thrived due to his individuality is paradoxical and...foolhardy. Second, this tendency to want children to be genius-facsimiles is a difficult habit to break because people are greedy and they want their kids to be filthy stinking rich and famous. This has been true since time began. And copying the successful endeavors of a rich person seems a great way, time and time again, for achieving filthy stinking richness.

But, truly I tell you that the success of Steve Jobs and so many technocelebs before him was entirely independent on their emulation of their predecessors. Really, what Steve Jobs is would be more in line with lottery winners than anything else. Because honestly there were zillions of nerds geeking out with computers in the late 70's but only a few became Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Larry Ellison. And honestly, dropping out of college after one semester isn't statistically a sure-fire way to end up rich (nor something sane parents encourage in their children). It just happened that Jobs had Wozniak, and that he had good timing. I am not meaning to downplay the obvious brilliance of Jobs. Merely, I am trying to highlight that there are tons of brilliant people at any given moment in human history and it's only in hindsight that we see the "winners."

So, parents: if you are hell-bent for leather on raising a technoceleb here's my advice. Teach your child to be an individual. Teach them to be diversely-capable. Teach them to draw doodles and to play in the sand. Take them to science museums, sure, but art museums too. Teach them to do sports, but only one or two night a week. Let them be average at math and science (it won't matter later). Most importantly, don't sweat details. Work on these five traits: questioning, experimenting, observing, associating and networking. Don't teach them to be like anyone. Teach them to be bold and risky and to make a new template for success.


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Steve Jobs, Retired

There are a lot of things I could say about him. Because of this, I'm going to write two entries about him. This one is about (as alluded to by the above Eminiem video) the fact that Steve Jobs rightly deserves a giant sign above his mega-mansion that says "I told you so!"
How Jobs determined his path forward once he left his India-buddhist-sojourn only he can ever really know. But he knew it, to be sure. And he never once slowed down. The naysayers, myself included, scoffed at Apple products, but the shareholders reaped the rewards as consumers gobbled (and continue to gobble) up Apple products like candy.
We kept waiting for the man to run out of ideas, or to produce a crappy product everyone hated, but it never materialized. He departs, as Royce raps in the above video "I'll stop when I'm at the very top."

One thing we focus on here at work in regards to innovation is that an innovative idea needs a "champion" for it to survive and hopefully thrive.  In that, Jobs was the ultimate champion for Apple products.


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The Abstracted Engineer reviews: The Passage, by Justin Cronin

First, I really enjoyed this book; it was entertaining. I am looking forward to the sequel. Right off the bat, I'd score it a 7 out of 10. That said, there are two major problems I had with it that I kept thinking about during reading. Also, I assume by reading this you don't mind spoilers. If you do then close your browser now. I won't be offended.

First, Cronin's massive tome reads like a movie. And it is in the movie category that we find that Cronin has essentially troped his way into an 800-page derivation of O.P.P. (other people's precedent). Essentially, Cronin has taken the Will Smith movie "I Am Legend" and sprinkled it over the top of "Resident Evil: Extinction" both of which just happened to come out in 2007, around the time Cronin was writing the first draft. For example, as though directly out of the Will Smith virus-drama, we have: 1) a naturally-occurring virus being hijacked and modified to help humans, which goes wildly awry. 2) infected turn into blood-thirsty, super-strong/agile/aggressive, light-phobic, hairless killers, 3) scattered "colonies" that supposedly survive the apocalypse, and 4) the infected show a surprising amount of organization and cunning. From Resident Evil: Extinction: 1) female protagonist is infected but not turned, develops some of the good but none of the bad qualities of the hyper-aggressive normal-infected, and subsequently turns into a killing machine on the good guy side, 2) America is a vast, uninhabited wasteland, and 3) a visit to the destroyed remains of Las Vegas.
The point is, I don't think anyone can justifiably argue that Cronin broke new ground with this novel.

Second, like when I read most science fiction novels, I am frustrated by the idea that throwing a bunch of science details into the novel means that the reader will consider the scenario plausible. For example Cronin starts the novel by discussing that the virus is found in a species of bats. Sounds plausible, right?
But there are simple breakdowns in the novel, like so many others, where we have to suspend belief. At the end, the female protagonist has successfully been infected with a modified version of the virus that gives her the incredible strength, speed, and agility the "smokes" (the character's nickname for the vampire-like infected) enjoy but without the negative features, like the unquenchable thirst for blood. At one point she jumps nearly 100 feet in a single bound.
And yet, the biomechanist in me scoffs. Such a jump would be impossible with ordinary human musculature. Surely she must have tripled or quadrupled her size in order to perform such a feet. And landing after that would crush a normal humans bones into splinters. Surely her bones are reinforced with some sort of heavier lattice?
Alas, the character appears outwardly unmodified by the virus, save for her sensitivity to light (and necessary wearing of goggles and headgear). And so I have to just sigh. Superhuman strength and agility make great plot devices for thrillers, but in the world of science fiction, an author should do the legwork and make the character...plausible. Throwing science into a novel might be enough to hoodwink the average reader...but come on, the average reader is reading Twilight, not real science fiction. Don't be lazy.

Nevertheless, those two things aside, the novel as a whole was a great read. Cronin spares no expense in character backgrounds, routinely spending pages on a character's backstory only to have them killed off. Inefficient to a fault, perhaps, but great prose in the meantime. And like I said before, the novel ended satisfyingly but openly enough that I am excited for the sequel, expected next year. When the world is controlled by 12 supervillains and you only manage to kill one of them in the first novel...you certainly leave yourself open for some more good narrative.

All in all, I recommend this book.

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40% Of My Day

1. Think about cool idea that belongs in a science fiction novel.
2. Search wikipedia for evidence this idea doesn't exist IRL.
3. Search Google Scholar for researchers working on this idea.
4. Confirm the idea has not been commercialized, nor will be in the next 5 years.
5. Assume all that is needed is a spark of genius to make this idea a reality, despite the hundreds of researchers working on it.
6. Assume I am capable of producing this spark.
7. Amuse self with business plan for company that produces this idea.
8. Think about cool idea that belongs in a science fiction novel.
9. Search wikipedia for evidence this idea doesn't exist IRL.
10. Search Google Scholar for researchers working on this idea.
11. Confirm the idea has not been commercialized, nor will be in the next 5 years.
12. Assume all that is needed is a spark of genius to make this idea a reality, despite the hundreds of researchers working on it.
13. Assume I am capable of producing this spark.
14. Amuse self with business plan for company that produces this idea.
15. Think about cool idea that belongs in a science fiction novel.
16. Search wikipedia for evidence this idea doesn't exist IRL.
17. Search Google Scholar for researchers working on this idea.
18. Confirm the idea has not been commercialized, nor will be in the next 5 years.
19. Assume all that is needed is a spark of genius to make this idea a reality, despite the hundreds of researchers working on it.
20. Assume I am capable of producing this spark.
21. Amuse self with business plan for company that produces this idea.
22. Think about cool idea that belongs in a science fiction novel.
23. Search wikipedia for evidence this idea doesn't exist IRL.
24. Search Google Scholar for researchers working on this idea.
25. Confirm the idea has not been commercialized, nor will be in the next 5 years.
26. Assume all that is needed is a spark of genius to make this idea a reality, despite the hundreds of researchers working on it.
27. Assume I am capable of producing this spark.
28. Amuse self with business plan for company that produces this idea.


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The End of History?

First: Amen.

Second, am I the only one who wants to plot a chart of income inequality in democratic countries over time and then compare it to a plot of the increase in # of democratic countries over time? I hate to disagree with Yglesias (who does this politics stuff better than I ever will) but there seems to be an underlying assumption here that once a certain level of democracy is achieved (fairness for everyone) that the country that has achieved it can not subsequently decline into a worse state of democracy, rather they just sit in stasis and purity until the slower countries catch up. That's almost certainly false.


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Please look as white as possible.

Jerry Richardson is a racist bigot:

Richardson, who said that Newton “was dressed perfectly” for their meeting, was blunt.  “I said, ‘Do you have any tattoos?’” Richardson told Rose.  “He said, ‘No, sir.  I don’t have any.’  I said, ‘Do you have any piercings?’  He said, ‘No, sir.  I don’t have any.’ 
 I said, ‘We want to keep it that way.’ . . . ."

“We want to keep no tattoos, no piercings, and I think you’ve got a very nice haircut.”

Florio is quick to point out that a different employee of Richardson, Jeremy Shockey, has several tattoos that are very visible during games. Also visible during games is Shockey's skin which is white.

Of course what Richardson is implying here is that a "clean cut, American boy" look will somehow keep Cam Newton from adopting a lifestyle that Richardson finds distatesful. You know...a black one.


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My one thing

If they old adage is true, and "everyone is good at something" then I think my one thing is making enchiladas.


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Verizon's ridiculous 4G rollout

Gotta hit that crucial, lucrative Bettendorf, IA market before they move to less populous areas, like Kansas City...the 9th largest metro in the country.


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In Which I Admit I Am Merely A Product Of My Upbringing

Jonah Lehrer points to a pretty dang convincing study that not only are there no long-term ill effects from smoking pot, but actually that once education/race/gender/social status are normalized, it turns out that pretty much everything D.A.R.E told us about pot is myth.

Once these population differences were corrected for, the long-term effects of marijuana use disappeared: The scientists found that “there were no significant between group differences.” In other words, the amount of pot consumed had no measurable impact on cognitive performance.Furthermore, there’s some intriguing evidence that marijuana can actually improve performance on some mental tests. A recent paper by scientists at University College, London looked at a phenomenon called semantic priming. This occurs when the activation of one word allows us to react more quickly to related words. For instance, the word “dog” might lead to decreased reaction times for “cat,” “pet” and “Lassie,” but won’t alter how quickly we react to “chair.”

Well. I should just state for the record (and for the benefit of my mother) that I've never smoked pot. Never seen a need. Never understood the need in others. But as the quality, peer-reviewed evidence compounds...I have to admit: I have stopped seeing pot's illegality as worthwhile.


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Where is the artificial gravity research?

Just asking.


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Sure it has a 0.25 MOA at 250 yards, but can it run Crysis?

Here's a long, interesting article about Accuracy International, the sniper rifle outfit that is supplying many western nations with cutting-edge man-killers. I want to highlight one passage though:

Sniping, and the design, engineering and manufacture of sniper rifles, revolves around one characteristic: precision. There are no grey areas with sniping — a bullet fired at long range either hits its target, or it doesn’t, depending on how good the rifle and its human operator are.

My initial knee jerk reaction was to point out the author's misuse of precision. The way the paragraph is written one should actually use the term "accuracy" if referring to whether the fired bullet is a hit or a miss. By definition:
Accuracy: how close to the target the projectile is.
Precision: how close together multiple projectiles are.

That said, I think the author is overtly right. A "tight group" is lord of all in high-end rifles. Custom rifles are rated on their "MOA," that is Minute Of Angle of their group. The tighter - more preciese - the group, the better. If a rifle fires consistently it is good. The aim (accuracy) can be adjusted by the shooter. The precision (largely) cannot.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make was simply that accuracy and precision are two different things. Think of it next time you play darts. Hitting a bullseye is accurate. Hitting 20 three times in a row is precise.


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Bad Parenting

Today I saw you at the park. You were proudly watching your son's football practice.

One thing I've learned to do since my daughter was born was to not judge other parents. That deranged father with a death-grip on his daughter's arm while she screams and claws at him? I don't judge him...he's probably me.

But all that aside, I have to judge you. Because you were clearly putting your son's in harm's way. A seven year-old should not be playing tackle football. Certainly, signing your son up for sports is a great way to keep him healthy. And a complicated team sport like football, with 22 players all with specific jobs that may vary on each play is a great way to teach your son critical thinking skills under pressure. He'll be more confident when he grows up, and probably look back when nostalgia when he thinks about his youth football league days.

That is...if he can think at all. Here's a link to a library of research that has proven that the worst possible thing that can happen to a youth is for them to get one or more concussions before the age of 12. Time after time, researchers have found that the damage to the brain at that early age carries forward into their teens and adulthood, and causes serious problems later on.
I understand that the occasional concussion is probably unavoidable for a little boy. I was one, and more than once I used my head as a brake to stop the rest of my body and was more than a little disorientated afterwards.
But having your little boy put on a heavy plastic helmet and run at other little boys is pointless and stupid risk.

It's not like there aren't alternatives. "7 on 7" leagues and flag football leagues are prevalent and available. Your son can learn every single thing about football rules, get good exercise, and most importantly of all can run around the field with almost zero risk of concussion. Especially since tackling is prohibited and player contact is heavily frowned upon.

It's possible you simply don't realize that tackle football is incredibly dangerous for little boys. You might not have spent the time reading Gregg Easterbrook's weekly articles. You might simply have done it as a kid yourself, and having come out of it largely unharmed, are unaware that many of your peers now suffer from serious head injury-related conditions.
But there's also a chance that you know about the risks, and don't do anything. Part of you is thinking that the "head start" you're giving him will pay off with his lucrative Michigan football scholarship and then multi-million dollar NFL contract. Part of you is thinking about how you were a mediocre-at-best football player - not because of lack of physical prowess, nay you were a gifted athlete to be sure - but because you just didn't have a good enough headstart. And if that is so, shame on you sir.

Look, whatever your reasons, I don't really care. Like I said, I try not to judge. Carrying my daughter out of Wal-mart like a banshee/burrito I might not have looked like Dad of the Year. But I want you to stop sending your boy to play tackle football. I judge you...


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Guessing Passwords

Normally I find XKCD hilarious and insightful, but I have to wonder at this one:

If his first password, "Tr0ub4dor&3" is from the ASCII character set, then he's actually got an 11 character password, which translates to 72 bits. Where he gets "28 bits" I do not know. 2^72 at 1000/guesses per second is 150 billion years to crack. What am I missing?


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To Keith Barnes, May You Rest In A Soft Bed Made of RNA Polymerase

On the first day of class, Mr. Barnes handed me (and everyone else in the class) an 11X17" sheet of paper outlining the entire metabolic pathway of glucose in vertebrates. My life has not been the same since. The secrets - the dark, clandestine, unknowable secrets - were actually light, wondrous, and knowable. Mr. Barnes showed us the way. He had irrevocably changed my life in one day. I only signed up for his class, "college biology," because a few years earlier my sister had taken it and had rave reviews.

Oh, Mr. Barnes, I wish you were still alive. I wish I could find you like I did, one more time, volunteering at the Nelson, like the last time I found you, and tell you that you were the most important teacher I ever had. I wish I could tell you that your personality was every bit as important as the content of your class. I wish I could tell you...so much. How I had gone on to college to major in bioengineering. How I would say to myself "when I grow up, I want to be Mr. Barnes." How science seemed such an impossibly difficult topic until you opened it up for me.

Is electrophoresis a normal thing to have had high school students do in the 90's? Because we did it. We extracted DNA. And we injected chicks with chorionic gonadotropin. Then we euthanized them and inspected their testicles. And we thought. Oh, how we thought. Which was this strange, wonderful thing to be doing. I spent my days, that one glorious 5 months of my whole life, thinking.

It is no suprise to me that ten years after that class, with my artist/wife in hand, I found you volunteering at The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Of course the incredible Mr. Barnes would retire from a career teaching science to volunteer at an art museum.

Oh, Mr. Barnes, how I wept when I read your obituary. I openly wept and hid from my wife while I did it. Because how do you explain it to someone who didn't know you? How do you explain that a piece of the world has been ripped away...a piece that was good?
I weep now as I write this. Not as much because of your death, but because I am too late to say it to your face. If there is one regret in my life...maybe in the life of all people...it is that we are mortal and so is everyone else, and when we realize the things we should tell people it often is just too late.
Sayeth the wise:

Loretta Wood, a friend and colleague said about his ability to inspire and motivate, “Our older son, Garrett, was a “Barnes grad,” and often returned from KU for those famous Thanksgiving dinners at Olathe South, where the alumni line was 40 deep. Our younger son, Cullen, deployed with his Marine Intel unit, waited hours in line at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, to call “the old man” and wish him a happy birthday. Such is his legacy…”

Cullen was in my class. Mr. Barnes...why did you die? The mortality of life never felt so unfair to me. I miss you. I work hard because of people like you.

Every time I think about Mr. Barnes I start crying. I pray there is an afterlife...not for myself, but because I want to believe Mr. Barnes is enjoying it.


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In homage to my high school english teachers, Ms. Kohl and Mrs. Williams

In the interests of disclosure I must admit this: I am 80% of the way through a bottle of 'Two Buck Chuck.' They just opened a Trader Joe's here in town, and I admit I am partaking in their unexpectedly tasty wine selection.

Carol Williams. Vicki Kohl. While these names may not be immortalized in the annals of greatness, the fact that more than a decade after I had them as teachers I remember their names should alone stand as a to testament them. The women were, among other greater things, my junior and senior year English teachers. Here's the rub: I don't remember a damn thing they taught me.
Well, that's not entirely true. I remember sitting in Mrs. Williams class my junior year, reading through "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder. At the time it was all pomp and rote. I was there because science class wasn't for another hour. Yet a year later I'd land the lead, "George Gibbs", when the school put on the play. And without portraying George in the school play, would I have as much self-confidence? "Listen Emily, I'm going to tell you why I'm not going to Agriculture School. I think when you've found a person you're fond of..."
As for Ms. Kohl (senior year, AP English), I still remember her fateful words. The scene was thus: having just had my front tooth replaced (again) I was feeling a little antsy. At some point my (borderline ADD) self stood up and gesticulated...God only knows what. Ms. Kohl, with the voice like a harpy snapped "SIT DOWN, YOU HYPERACTIVE WEIRDO! QUIT ACTING LIKE A MAD BANSHEE!"
Ms. Kohl, you prophetess. A decade later I am still the same weirdo, and my daughter shows more than a little likeness for the familial trait of being a "mad banshee." If you do not retire soon, you may have to face her.
It would be seven years later, after I escaped those two women, that I'd sit down and write a 140 page master's thesis. Another four years, and I would make a name for myself at work as "an engineer who can actually write." My boss, at my promotion, would tell me to "expect to spend at least 20% of your time writing proposals, because you are a damn good writer."

While I can credit (justifiably) my mother with my ability to read...I must give credit where credit's due for my ability to write. And that skill was turned from clumsy to "language art" by those two women. Even now, with my head swimming admirably (mom probably does not find my swimming head admirable), I can write with a gusto and skill that many people lack. Is it because I am unusually gifted? Or is it because I was blessed with two especially amazing teachers, who subtly and successfully prodded into my brain the intricacies of the English language, and then made me practice it, essay after essay? I humbly submit it is because of the latter.

Ms. Kohl. Mrs. Williams. I never thanked you for the obviously underrated education you gave me at the time, because I was a sniveling teenager who saw no value in it. Believe me, I see it now. So thank you. Thank you for giving me C's on things. Thank you for challenging me. Thank you for doing your job. Thank you for doing it well. And please forgive any grammar mistakes I have made in this post.


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Question of the Day

If your God-given talent happened to be "the incredible ability to recreate scientific research that has been recently published in peer-reviewed journals and prove that it is junk," would you feel blessed by this or cursed?

Surely you perform a great benefit to society by casting a clear light on dubious research...but on the other hand the scientific community almost certainly will despise you.


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City Planets

I really like this Robin Hanson post about human (or other) population at a galactic level. His point:

If Earth were paved over with a city the density of Manhattan today (1.6 million in 60 square kilometers), Earth would have a population of 14 thousand billion. Since Manhattan now has an average building height of 25 meters, a two kilometer deep version could hold a million billion people, and a two thousand kilometer deep version (Earth’s radius is 6400km) could hold a billion billion people.

And his thesis:

Most science fiction seems to vastly underestimate the population that a single planet or star can hold, and the strength of the economic pressures to keep an economy close together, rather than spread across vast distances.

Before we get into this, let's just dismiss the "two thousand kilometer deep version" because 2,000km deep into the Earth it is between 3,000 and 5,000 degrees F and humans living there is pretty implausible. If he means building up into the sky 2,000 km, well...putting up buildings high enough to reach the ISS is just as implausible.
But a 2 km deep society is somewhat plausible, assuming you had engineering techniques to move the Earth that deep (you could dump it into the oceans to backfill them and make more land for building) and pump fresh air that deep. Or that you had the resources to build Burj Khalifa/Taipei 101 all over the place. So let's assume that Hanson's estimate of a world population of a million billion people (1,000 trillion aka 1 quadrillion) is a fair maximum. In that society, the average person needs 2,000 calories a day to stay healthy.
Now as I was getting wound up to go into some math about the natural resources required to sustain exawatts of calorie consumption, I noticed Hanson add the following update to his blog (as though to cut my argument off at the knees before I even wrote it!):

Even an unmodified sun radiates enough energy to cover the calorie consumption of over a hundred “galaxies” of humans, and far more ems.

But what he doesn't get after is what's to be done with the "waste heat" produced by our bodies. An oversimplified average amount of heat produced by a human body is 100 watts. So multiply that by the million billion people and you have a CRAPLOAD of waste heat...simply from the humans. Add in our bevy of electronic devices and you've essentially turned the surface of the Earth into a kiln.

Of course, if you did have 2,000 km high buildings, which Hanson suggested but I rejected, they'd essentially be going into LEO (low earth orbit) and you could use them (when they were on the night side of Earth) as massive heat sinks.

Nevertheless, I think the fundamental problem with Hanson's thesis that "science fiction authors consistently underestimate the population potential of a planet" is that Hanson is not cynical enough. With a mere 7 billion people, our planet is a torrid, violent, disease-ridden, famine-plagued, caste-driven, unsustainable mess. Multiply the human population by 1,000 and you multiply the problems, as well.


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