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Terrorism the fruit of sincerity, intelligence and a need for consistency
Robin Hanson explains idealistic outliers: “Humans are built to be hypocritical, i.e., to give lip service and soft thought to high ideals, while mostly acting to achieve low practical personal ends....
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Bad but stable equilibrium in graduate education
Andrew Norton on the inefficiency of PhDs: “To start with, it’s not clear that the PhD is fit for purpose. It can’t be a qualification for university teaching, since most PhD students are already...
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Art as signalling
“In 1957, after being rejected by several other firms, On the Road was finally purchased by Viking Press, which demanded major revisions prior to publication.[25] Many of the more sexually explicit...
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We don’t actually care about Haitians
Related to: Don’t help refugees, you bastards A while back I wrote that to know what you as a whole mind really wants, you should look at what you do, not at what the little conscious voice in your...
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A preview of virtual reality
A while ago Bryan Caplan and Robin Hanson had a little stoush about how quickly the economy could grow when people can live in a virtual reality. Here’s Bryan: “I’m baffled. You don’t have to be a...
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Assorted links
Orientalism: Confessions of an arrogant Westerner: “So when people ask me whether I like the American or European economic model best, I answer that I like the Singapore model best. I like free trade...
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Evil profit motive?
Dilbert on price gouging: But won’t such bidding wars mean more people look for opportunities to save people in danger, and end up saving more lives and bidding down the price? Dilbert clearly has a...
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Spend status well
Related to: Choosing the best status games for society Reijo Laukkanen explains the remarkably successful Finnish education system: PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: What do you think are some of the major...
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Assorted links
The right approach John Weldon’s To Be Paul Collier on Democracy The Poverty Trap Action Camus Tagged: links
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Carl Sagan on the importance of preserving consciousness
HT Talia Katz. Tagged: consciousness, existential risk, the future, videos
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Beware art!
Research confirms our intuition that, regrettably, fiction is more persuasive than non-fiction: …the dramatic narrative reduced reactance by fostering parasocial interaction with characters and...
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Bargain hunting in the college dating market
Why don't more men join this table? The New York Times looks at the college dating market and finds men get a great deal when outnumbered by women: North Carolina, with a student body that is nearly 60...
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Growth more important than unions in the long run
How much does it matter whether we have labour unions or not? In the popular imagination labour unions are a significant factor in the incomes of ordinary people and a major reason we don’t endure the...
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Grow out of it!
Yesterday I wrote about how exponential economic growth has a much larger impact on employee welfare than unions can hope to. Well low wages isn’t the only problem economic growth can solve! Economist...
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Let my people grow
Greg Clark in A Farewell to Alms: “The focus on material conditions in this history will strike some as too narrow, too incidental to vast social changes over the millennia. Surely our material riches...
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Why seek sex in the dark?
A bunch of people not looking for a light switch. A major function of a dance floor is to facilitate finding and attracting partners. When we meet new potential friends and lovers we usually want to...
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Should singularitarians be socialists?
In the marketplace, factors of production (usually grouped into labour, capital and land/natural resources) are paid what is called their ‘marginal product’ (the extra output derived from the last unit...
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Martin Rees always interesting
Martin Rees on existential risk: I am concerned about the threats and opportunities posed by 21st century science, and how to react to them. There are some intractable risks stemming from science,...
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Smart strange syndrome
Smart people are more likely to develop and hold new and unusual beliefs: More intelligent people are significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are...
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Sex addiction a pathology, but not monogamy addiction?
This certainly gave me a good laugh: Tiger Woods, who recently admitted to multiple extramarital affairs, said he is receiving treatment. David Duchovny, who plays a sex-obsessed professor on the TV...
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