Ask yourself what are the relevant topics you have yet to read good pieces on, and then try to find them and read them. Over time, your broader opinions will then evolve in better directions than if you focus on having an immediate emotional reaction to the events right before your eyes. The more tempted you are to judge, the higher the return from trying to read something factual and substantive instead.
Tyler Cowen on finding saner, more productive ways to relate to the news (if you must).
In general, I am suspicious when someone dismisses a view for being “radical” or “extreme.” There is usually sloppy thinking behind that designation. Why not just say what is wrong with the view? How for instance are we supposed to feel about “radical Christianity”? Good or bad? Does it mean Origen or Ted Cruz or something altogether different? Can’t we just debate the question itself?
The same is true in politics. Let’s say someone favors free trade and the First Amendment. Is that “radical”? Or is it mainstream and thus non-radical? Does labeling it radical further the debate on whether or not those are the correct positions?
If you read a book, how many other related or similar books does it make you order? […] If you don’t end your read with some additional book orders, maybe you need to ask yourself what exactly went wrong.
And this is worth pondering:
How about a book review outlet which refuses to consider the books under consideration, but rather considers and evaluates what they will induce you to read next?
One enduring feature of the art world is that a given piece will sell for much more in one context rather than another. The same painting that might sell for 5k from a lower tier dealer won’t command more than 2k on eBay, if that. Yet it could sell for 10k, as a bargain item, relatively speaking, if it ended up in the right NYC gallery (which it probably wouldn’t). Where does Amazon stand in this hierarchy? It doesn’t look promising.
The Age of Reason. There are a couple scary things here. (via)
Many commentators are framing the matter in terms of raising or lowering the relative status of aid recipients. So it’s the aspiring student, the virtuous retiree, and the brave veteran, rather than the irresponsible bums. That’s a distraction (albeit a legitimate correction), as the real question is whether the political equilibrium is shifting toward takers. That’s takers as roles in particular political struggles, not individuals with “taker” stamped on their foreheads.
Various forms of crony capitalism arguably are on the rise. Is the political influence of the issue-specific takers, relative to the issue-specific makers, a growing problem in American politics? What does the evidence actually suggest?
Filed under: arguments. Cf. Charitable arguing:
Taking a moment to hunt for an interpretation that makes an argument good — before you denounce it as a bad argument — is a nice heuristic that forestalls the tempting leap from “There exists an interpretation that makes this a bad argument, but it may not be what he had in mind,” to “This is a bad argument!”
The question arose as to what we would do differently if we were immortal. […] I answered that I would travel more. Later the question was asked, what would you do differently if you found out you had only a short time to live. I answered again that I would travel more. Click, buzz, whirr…does not compute, does not compute. […] Given that I would travel more if I was to live either less or more, the probability that I was at just that level of mortality that I should not be traveling now must be vanishingly small.
I attempt to explain how this came about, in the podcast and in one chapter of my forthcoming book An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies.
I will read this book.
The authors of picture books are often relatively “agenda-less,” since most people don’t read the text, the selling point is the pictures, and the book is so expensive that the publisher doesn’t want to rule out the broadest possible audience.
Alex Tabarrok mulls over the recent OkTrends post on the Mathematics of Beauty.
I think there are certain types of beauty that greatly attract some men but repel others. Analagously, some people will pay hundreds of dollars for an ounce of caviar that other people won’t eat for free. The reason some people love caviar, however, is not that other people dislike it. Instead, it just so happens, that the thing that some people love is the very thing that repels others. We see the same phenomena in art, some people love John Cage, other people would rather listen to nothing at all. ;)
Now if we mix in this kind of beauty–beauty over which there are violent disagreements–with the kind that most people do agree upon (think Haagan-Dazs vanilla ice cream) then I suspect that it will appear that lower rankings increase messages. But what is really going on is that high rankings–conditional on their also being many low rankings–actually signal an extra strong attraction. Someone who tells you that John Cage is their favorite composer is telling you more than someone who says Aaron Copland is their favorite composer.
Marginal Revolution: Sex and Statistics or Heteroscedasticity is Hot
Alex Tabarrok mulls over the recent OkTrends post on the Mathematics of Beauty.
I think there are certain types of beauty that greatly attract some men but repel others. Analagously, some people will pay hundreds of dollars for an ounce of caviar that other people won’t eat for free. The reason some people love caviar, however, is not that other people dislike it. Instead, it just so happens, that the thing that some people love is the very thing that repels others. We see the same phenomena in art, some people love John Cage, other people would rather listen to nothing at all. ;)
Now if we mix in this kind of beauty–beauty over which there are violent disagreements–with the kind that most people do agree upon (think Haagan-Dazs vanilla ice cream) then I suspect that it will appear that lower rankings increase messages. But what is really going on is that high rankings–conditional on their also being many low rankings–actually signal an extra strong attraction. Someone who tells you that John Cage is their favorite composer is telling you more than someone who says Aaron Copland is their favorite composer.
Marginal Revolution: Sex and Statistics or Heteroscedasticity is Hot
Using U-Haul pricing for one-way trips to figure out where people want to move. Very clever idea.
One-Way Trip (August 2005)
Los Angeles to Las Vegas – $454.00
Las Vegas to Los Angeles – $119.00One-Way Trip (October 2010)
Los Angeles to Las Vegas – $223.00
Las Vegas to Los Angeles – $234.00
Tyler Cowen: “Doesn’t everyone who might suffer a loss have a potential claim to complain? At what percentile of wealth does your claim to complain go away or diminish?” And also: “Beware of moral arguments which do not address ‘At which margin?’”
Marginal Revolution: Does the well-off law professor have cause to complain?
Tyler Cowen summarizes some of the contents of his new book. Some bits I’m curious about:
2. A new vision for how “autistic cognitive strengths” are a major dynamic element in human history and that includes a revisionist view of the autism spectrum.
3. New ways of thinking about what you’re really good at (and not so good at).
4. A view of why education is much more than just signaling, but why you should be cynical about most education nonetheless.
7. Why the Sherlock Holmes stories are a lot more interesting than most people think.
10. The importance of neurology for unpacking debates about aesthetics, especially when it comes to music.
I finished his Discover Your Inner Economist last week, which was wide-ranging and breezy and smart, just like the blog he co-writes. Looking forward to this new book.
Marginal Revolution: *Create Your Own Economy*, standing on one foot
Mark Larson 