Month: September 2019
Tuesday assorted links
My MRU videos with Ian Bremmer, on globalization
Here’s the first video in the three-part series.
And a description of the curriculum:
Globalization, Robots, and You
Students have important decisions to make about their educations and careers – wouldn’t it be nice if they better understood the forces of globalization and automation first?
Imagine if they could deftly navigate data from the BLS occupational handbook, academic research, and more to gauge salary prospects, the risk of automation, and foreign competition when comparing their options.
Imagine no more: Tyler Cowen and MRU have partnered with Ian Bremmer and Eurasia Group Foundation to build a five-day curriculum that covers globalization, automation, creative destruction, the elephant graph, and more! Then we apply those concepts to help students rethink personal choices of education and career. 100% free.
The curriculum is chock-full of interactive games, discussion prompts, research assignments, assessment questions, and includes three new videos.
And here are links to video #2 – Creative Destruction: Technology and Trade and video #3 – Are There Winners and Losers of Globalization?
Here is a link to the curriculum.
My favorite things Pakistan
1. Female singer: Abida Parveen, here is one early song, the later material is often more commercial. Sufi songs!
2. Qawwali performers: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the Sabri Brothers, and try this French collection of Qawwali music.
3. Author/novel: Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. I am not sure why this book isn’t better known. It is better than even the average of the better half of the Booker Prize winners. Why doesn’t he write more?
4. Dish: Haleem: “Haleem is made of wheat, barley, meat (usually minced beef or mutton (goat meat or Lamb and mutton) or chicken), lentils and spices, sometimes rice is also used. This dish is slow cooked for seven to eight hours, which results in a paste-like consistency, blending the flavors of spices, meat, barley and wheat.”
5. Movie: I don’t think I have seen a Pakistani film, and my favorite movie set in Pakistan is not so clear. Charlie Wilson’s War bored me, and Zero Dark Thirty is OK. What am I forgetting?
6. Economic reformer: Manmohan Singh.
7. Economist: Atif Mian, born in Nigeria to a Pakistani family.
8. Textiles: Wedding carpets from Sindh?
9. Visual artist: Shahzia Shikhander, images here.
I don’t follow cricket, sorry!
They solved for the equilibrium
Yet GWU is taking a surprising and radical step that has prompted deep faculty anxiety: It is choosing to shrink — a lot.
Over the next five years, the private university just west of the White House aims to slash the undergraduate population of its D.C. campuses 20 percent. That would mean 2,100 fewer students, less tuition revenue and tough choices on whether to reduce faculty and financial aid or find other ways to balance the budget.
Many colleges have scrambled in recent times to cope with falling enrollment amid demographic upheaval. GWU provides the rare case of a school announcing in advance, as a public strategy, that it wants to get smaller…
LeBlanc declined to rule out faculty layoffs or other significant steps to reduce expenditures. He said those issues will be hashed out in consultation with faculty, trustees and others in the development of a strategic plan.
Here is more from Nick Anderson at The Washington Post. Keep in mind that universities cannot do much to control their labor costs in the short or even medium-run, and thus shifts in demand can have a spectacularly large impact on finances.
Monday assorted links
1. Did Wicksteed discover the Coase theorem?
2. “But two other mothers who have met him said in interviews that he is clean-cut and polite. One described him as “hot.” Another said her first impression of the donor, who showed up wearing khakis and a nice shirt, was that he is “brave” and “generous.” The parents had happily connected on Facebook and Yahoo groups for “donor siblings” — and then were shocked to discover that many of their children seemed to have the same types of developmental challenges and diagnoses.” Link here.
5. “Antisocial behaviour was consistently rated as less genetically influenced than prosocial behaviour.”
Average is Over: GDP Edition
The United States hasn’t had a year of above-average growth since 2005.
Addendum: With a smoothed series we haven’t had an above average year of growth in the entire 21st century.
Developing object permanence around flinches
Many years ago, I did an exercise where I made a list of thoughts that I flinched away from. Then, I made spaced repetition cards with the thoughts.
The cards were statements like: “As of March 2009, I am currently uncomfortable with the idea that quitting my job might be the right move.” (Totally fake example to communicate the format.)
I think it was a really useful exercise, and it’s pretty easy to implement, and I basically recommend it to people.
I don’t think the part about spaced repetition software specifically was all that important–I think the idea was that I developed something like object permanence around these mental flinches of mine, and that was the way I accomplished that.
If you try this, I wouldn’t try to force yourself to consider the uncomfortable thought at the object level. I would try to internalize that you are in fact uncomfortable considering it at the object level, and maybe meditate on possible cognitive chilling effects of that situation.
Because, in my experience, human brains are pretty good at back-propagating these flinches, and that can cut off a lot of otherwise useful thought. (The linked article is very good, but includes a framing and approach that are, IMO, importantly different from what worked for me. YMMV.)
From Divia Eden, via Alexey Guzey.
The college football surveillance culture that is Alabama
Saban, the Alabama football coach, has long been peeved that the student section at Bryant-Denny Stadium empties early. So this season, the university is rewarding students who attend games — and stay until the fourth quarter — with an alluring prize: improved access to tickets to the SEC championship game and to the College Football Playoff semifinals and championship game, which Alabama is trying to reach for the fifth consecutive season.
But to do this, Alabama is taking an extraordinary, Orwellian step: using location-tracking technology from students’ phones to see who skips out and who stays.
“It’s kind of like Big Brother,” said Allison Isidore, a graduate student in religious studies from Montclair, N.J…
Greg Byrne, Alabama’s athletic director, said privacy concerns rarely came up when the program was being discussed with other departments and student groups. Students who download the Tide Loyalty Points app will be tracked only inside the stadium, he said, and they can close the app — or delete it — once they leave the stadium. “If anybody has a phone, unless you’re in airplane mode or have it off, the cellular companies know where you are,” he said.
Here is the full NYT piece, via Anecdotal.
Career advice in climate change
From a loyal MR reader:
Advice question for you and MR readers, riffing on one of your Conversations themes, if you would indulge me.
What advice would you give to someone wishing to build a career in climate change mitigation as a non-scientist?
Two advice scenarios: 1) the person is 16; 2) the person is mid-career. Assume no constraints with respect to skill development or self-directed study. That is, what should these people teach themselves? To whom should they reach out to for mentorship?
Your suggestions?
Sunday assorted links
1. Some case studies in assorted field growth.
2. The best classical music works of the 21st century?
4. 100 best albums of the century? (speculative, but mostly a good list)
Tabarrok on Macro Musings
Here’s my podcast on Macro Musings with David Beckworth. One bit on China.
Tabarrok: The perspective which we’re getting today is that we’re in competition with China, but actually, when it comes to ideas, we’re in cooperation with China, because the more scientists and engineers that there are in China, then the better that is for us, actually. As you pointed out, if a Chinese researcher comes up with a cure for cancer, great! That’s fantastic! I mean, ideally I would come up with a cure for cancer, but the second best is my neighbor comes up with a cure for cancer, right?
Beckworth: Right.
Tabarrok: So, increasing the size of the Chinese market, with wealthier Chinese consumers, wealthier Indian consumers, that is going to increase the demand to do research and development, and that is going to have tremendous impacts not only in health, but in any field of endeavor which relies on these big, fixed costs. So, any time you have an idea-centered industry, which is a lot of industries today. All of high tech is idea centered. More R&D means more ideas. That comes from having bigger, richer markets.
Berkeley markets in everything
Multiple students on campus have offered to pay their classmates to drop out of classes they are waitlisted for, raising concerns about over-enrollment and advising.
Campus sophomore David Wang reposted a screenshot on the Overheard at UC Berkeley Facebook page showing a post by a Haas senior in their final semester before going abroad offering to pay $100 to the first five students to drop UGBA 102B, “Introduction to Managerial Accounting.” The student in question needed the class to graduate, and claimed that the “advising office was no help, so I’m taking matters into my own hands.”
Here is the full story, via Paul Kedrosky.
Yak loose in Virginia after escaping transport to the butchers
A yak is on the loose in the US state of Virginia after escaping from a trailer on its way to the butchers.
Meteor, a three-year-old who belongs to farmer Robert Cissell of Nature’s Bridge Farm in Buckingham, Virginia, has been missing since Tuesday.
Mr Cissell told the BBC Meteor had been raised for meat and described the animal as “aloof”.
He said if captured the yak would “most likely live out his life here with our breeding herd”.
Kevin Wright, an animal control supervisor for Nelson County, said: “It broke through a stop sign and we’ve been trying to catch it for a while. It’s a well-mannered creature and clearly doesn’t want to be handled.”
…The animal was seen at a bed and breakfast in the county but is believed to have wandered to the mountains.
Here is the full story, via Michelle Dawson.
Saturday assorted links
1. Human corpses keep moving for a year after death.
2. Scarce labor and low interest rates. By Benzell and Brynjolfsson.
3. My Stubborn Attachments philosophy podcast, Elucidations, with Matt Teichman.
4. Are we living in the most influential time ever?
5. Average is Over: “These synthetic husbands have an average income that is about 58% higher than the actual unmarried men that are currently available to unmarried women.”
6. Thomas Piketty slides based on his forthcoming book; the word “Mormon” does not appear.
NBA crypto markets in everything
Nets sixth man Spencer Dinwiddie is in the process of converting his contract so it can be used as a digital investment tool, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports.
Dinwiddie’s deal, which he agreed to during last season, is worth $34 million over three years. By converting it to be used as an investment vehicle, Dinwiddie will receive a lump sum upfront that will likely be less than the total amount of the deal.
According to Charania, Dinwiddie’s plan is to start his own company to securitize his deal as a digital token. Dinwiddie would pay investors back principle and interest.
Dinwiddie’s deal includes a player option for the 2021-22 season, and it is unclear how opting out would impact investors. Last year, Dinwiddie took a business class at Harvard along with now-teammate Kyrie Irving.
Former NFL running back Arian Foster previously tried to do something similar but it did not pan out.
Dinwiddie is heading into his sixth season. Last season, he averaged 16.8 points and 4.4 assists.
From Sports Illustrated, via Mike Tamada, here is further coverage from Atlantic.