Links (17)

Collection of papers and articles that I’ve spotted since my previous links post that seem interesting. Other Dick Pick is not what you think An analysis of the ideology of journalists vs average ideology, by country Philosophy A defense of liberal eugenics, by the philosopher with the spiciest surname, Jonathan Anomaly. Utilitarian supervillains. Featuring Vegetarian Thanos Economics Another blowfor the short-termism hypothesis. This is the idea that markets make companies myopic, causing a fall in R&…

Links (16) & bodily redistribution

Collection of papers and articles that I’ve spotted since my previous links post that seem interesting. Energy Alliance of private fusion companies working to get $100M price for first to achieve net energy Philosophy Nazis as animal welfare pioneers Why is pain associated with negative stimuli and pleasure with positive stimuli and not viceversa? Is there a universal morality? (Head essay and commentaries) Religion When a good God makes bad people Psychology More female classmates in school -> Le…

Links (15) & some words on Pinker

Collection of papers and articles that I’ve spotted since my previous links postthat seem interesting. Economics The landscape of innovative governance After a recession, economies do not return to their original growth trend. This may sound obvious, but many smart people -including Milton Friedman-have thought different (see his plucking model) As the Austrians and others have been saying Note to self: write about business cycle theories at some point Financial stability without central banks, new Selg…

Notes on The Case Against Education

The average cheesiness of my titles went through the roof in the last review, so there you have a plain self-explanatory title again. I finished reading The Case Against Education a week and some days ago. As I went through the book I couldn't note any major disagreement, with some very trivial ones detailed in the review I made of The Elephant in the Brain. The book is really great, and you must buy it. The key idea of the book is that educacion as currently conceived is extremely overrated. The policy imp…

Links (14)

Collection of papers and articles that I’ve spotted since my previous links post (in November) that seem interesting. Political science Working paper: Political party in power in the US has no effect on individual well-being. Are cultural and economic conservatism correlated? The usual story is that people naturally sort into conservative (morally traditional free marketeers) and progressives (morally progressive interventionists). This paper shows this is not true, the opposite is more usually the case. …

Ad hoc explanations - a rejoinder to Hanson

I wrote a few days agothis rather lengthy review of The Elephant in the Brain, and I got a reply from Robin Hanson here. After this reply, I think we are in agreement more than I initially thought, and that is a good thing, but there are still a few things I disagree with in his reply. I will begin by noting down something that left me surprised to the utmost degree, even though it is a tiny discussion point:  (Note that our book never uses “hypocrisy”.) It is just a comment in passing Hanson makes. Initi…