High Signal Podcasts Evidence ledger
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Brian Potter

Published podcast speaker

Claims
22
Episodes
1
Shows
1
Named items
0

Claim ledger

What Brian said.

22 transcript-backed records

01 / evaluation

When something gets bigger, your volume increases a lot faster than your surface area does. So for something enclosed, like a tank or a pipe, the cost goes down per thing of unit you're transporting because you can carry a larger amount or a smaller amount of material.

“When something gets bigger, your volume increases a lot faster than your surface area does. So for something enclosed, like a tank or a pipe, the cost goes down per thing of unit you're transporting because you can carry a larger amount or a smaller amount of material.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

02 / belief

How I think about that is that you kind of see a similar structure in anything that's project-based or anything where there's an element of figuring out what you're doing while you're doing it.

“How I think about that is that you kind of see a similar structure in anything that's project-based or anything where there's an element of figuring out what you're doing while you're doing it.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

03 / belief

Yeah, again, I'm going to sort of cheat a little bit and do it in terms of space and time, because I think most countries that are doing a good job at building massive amounts of stuff are not ones that are basically doing it currently.

“Yeah, again, I'm going to sort of cheat a little bit and do it in terms of space and time, because I think most countries that are doing a good job at building massive amounts of stuff are not ones that are basically doing it currently.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

04 / belief

I think, on some level, they're expecting that you would just see a return just from building something that's really impressive and the biggest thing on some particular axis or whatever.

“I think, on some level, they're expecting that you would just see a return just from building something that's really impressive and the biggest thing on some particular axis or whatever.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

05 / uncertainty

The new Google headquarters (I don't know how new it is, but on the newer side), is basically this big, big giant, dome-type thing with a lot of structural detail visible and a lot of just light coming in this big, giant open space.

“The new Google headquarters (I don't know how new it is, but on the newer side), is basically this big, big giant, dome-type thing with a lot of structural detail visible and a lot of just light coming in this big, giant open space.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

06 / uncertainty

Like you, I've definitely heard talk of it and I've seen the little YouTube clips of them knocking down all these towers that it turns out they didn't need or the developer couldn't, finish or whatever. I don't know a huge amount about that.

“Like you, I've definitely heard talk of it and I've seen the little YouTube clips of them knocking down all these towers that it turns out they didn't need or the developer couldn't, finish or whatever. I don't know a huge amount about that.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

07 / commitment

The risk is that people will just say, “Okay well, we’ll go and litigate this project immediately, and then when we do, we will say that they did not look hard enough at these impacts and if they can't marshal the resources we needed to study some particular flowering species and it only has a flowering period of two weeks in the spring and the time period was up before that happens,” then the court is good, which is a thing that happens in NEPA apparently.

“The risk is that people will just say, “Okay well, we’ll go and litigate this project immediately, and then when we do, we will say that they did not look hard enough at these impacts and if they can't marshal the resources we needed to study some particular flowering species and it only has a flowering period of two weeks in the spring and the time period was up before that happens,” then the court is good, which is a thing that happens in NEPA apparently.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

09 / belief

I suspect that you're just gonna start to see robotics and systems like that take a larger and larger share of the tasks on the construction site over time.

“I suspect that you're just gonna start to see robotics and systems like that take a larger and larger share of the tasks on the construction site over time.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

10 / belief

The complaint is that “Oh all buildings have to be a cylinder of glass or a rectangle of glass or whatever,” but I think one reason that is true is that, while it may not be super interesting from the outside, when you're on the inside of a building, you actually kind of want a whole lot of glass.

“The complaint is that “Oh all buildings have to be a cylinder of glass or a rectangle of glass or whatever,” but I think one reason that is true is that, while it may not be super interesting from the outside, when you're on the inside of a building, you actually kind of want a whole lot of glass.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

11 / belief

I think there's probably something to that where you go to architecture school and architecture school is adjacent to art school in the way that you learn how to design buildings, but you also learn a specific way of looking and thinking about them.

“I think there's probably something to that where you go to architecture school and architecture school is adjacent to art school in the way that you learn how to design buildings, but you also learn a specific way of looking and thinking about them.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

14 / evaluation

If they slow it down enough, sometimes the project becomes unattractive and it gets canceled. That's kind of what a lot of these groups hope for and so basically instead of great uncertainty and solid coordination problems, it creates all this new uncertainty where people will like very deliberately try to avoid the NEPA process because they do not know how long it will take and how much it will cost to get their project approved and in some cases going through the process will take a very very very very long time.

“If they slow it down enough, sometimes the project becomes unattractive and it gets canceled. That's kind of what a lot of these groups hope for and so basically instead of great uncertainty and solid coordination problems, it creates all this new uncertainty where people will like very deliberately try to avoid the NEPA process because they do not know how long it will take and how much it will cost to get their project approved and in some cases going through the process will take a very very very very long time.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

15 / prediction

I think that the value of 3D printing is basically entirely predicated on how successful they are at figuring out how to like deliver more components of the building using their system.

“I think that the value of 3D printing is basically entirely predicated on how successful they are at figuring out how to like deliver more components of the building using their system.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

16 / evaluation

Then once we started mass producing conventional lumber, we stopped doing that because it was much cheaper to build out of two-by-fours than it was to build big heavy posts.

“Then once we started mass producing conventional lumber, we stopped doing that because it was much cheaper to build out of two-by-fours than it was to build big heavy posts.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

17 / evaluation

I asked a few people who I thought would know about it, “Is there any book written that actually explains what it’s like to get something built in china or what building things in china are actually like, and they're all like, “No, I don't know any source that exists.

“I asked a few people who I thought would know about it, “Is there any book written that actually explains what it’s like to get something built in china or what building things in china are actually like, and they're all like, “No, I don't know any source that exists.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

18 / prediction

I think one of the people mentioned that the Victorian style of house basically came about because of mass production methods, which made really ornate wood decorations really, really cheaply.

“I think one of the people mentioned that the Victorian style of house basically came about because of mass production methods, which made really ornate wood decorations really, really cheaply.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

19 / evaluation

You tend to see a lot more houses like that built out of prefab construction and other factory-built methods because it's just physically more difficult to achieve that on-site.

“You tend to see a lot more houses like that built out of prefab construction and other factory-built methods because it's just physically more difficult to achieve that on-site.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

20 / evaluation

All of a sudden, you could build things in ways that you couldn't do before steel, and you could use so much less structure to build fine concrete, because it was like liquid.

“All of a sudden, you could build things in ways that you couldn't do before steel, and you could use so much less structure to build fine concrete, because it was like liquid.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

21 / commitment

I should figure out a way to automate this process.” So I made a very simple web app where when you searched for shoes or something, it would automatically search the very nice brands of shoes and all the typos of the brand name.

“I should figure out a way to automate this process.” So I made a very simple web app where when you searched for shoes or something, it would automatically search the very nice brands of shoes and all the typos of the brand name.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast

22 / recommendation

Focus on software and then work at one of the many more new startups that are now tackling the construction space. They're increasingly in need of software developers and that would probably be a lower-risk way to do it because you don't need to necessarily go to a fancy school to become a software developer.

“Focus on software and then work at one of the many more new startups that are now tackling the construction space. They're increasingly in need of software developers and that would probably be a lower-risk way to do it because you don't need to necessarily go to a fancy school to become a software developer.”
Speaker
Brian Potter
Publisher
Dwarkesh Podcast
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