Russia fact of the day
A study of Russian publications in the 1990s found that some 39 percent of all nonfiction published in Russia in that decade had something to do with the occult.
That is from the really quite interesting The Russian Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers, by George M. Young. And for more on Russian Cosmism, you might try reading this collection. It is interesting to get such a different perspective on the issues raised by Bostrom, Hanson, Balaji, Musk, and the longevity writers, among others. I don’t believe any of those thinkers would be happy with these Russian discussions, but…I suppose that’s the point!
Wednesday assorted links
1. New non-profit for geothermal energy.
2. New Allison Schrager podcast, first episode with Joel Mokyr.
3. Who owns the publicity rights to Einstein?
4. Yann LeCun on AI risks. And why (some) octopus mothers self-mutilate and kill themselves.
5. “The subscribers presumably think they’re talking directly to the woman in the videos, and it is the job of the chatter to convincingly manifest that illusion.” (NYT, those new service sector jobs)
6. Virginia Postrel has a new Substack.
7. Mihm on the Henry Ford parallel (Bloomberg).
Remote work and home prices
What explains record U.S. house price growth since late 2019? We show that the shift to remote work explains over one half of the 23.8 percent national house price increase over this period. Using variation in remote work exposure across U.S. metropolitan areas we estimate that an additional percentage point of remote work causes a 0.93 percent increase in house prices after controlling for negative spillovers from migration. This cross-sectional estimate combined with the aggregate shift to remote work implies that remote work raised aggregate U.S. house prices by 15.1 percent.
The new Covid equilibrium
Many people have stopped keeping track of where Covid is headed, if only because it is such a stressful and unpleasant topic. To be clear, under current circumstances I favor complete “Covid laissez-faire,” though with subsidies for new and better vaccines. Overall, things are not so peachy keen (NYT):
The central problem is that the coronavirus has become more adept at reinfecting people. Already, those infected with the first Omicron variant are reporting second infections with the newer versions of the variant — BA.2 or BA2.12.1 in the United States, or BA.4 and BA.5 in South Africa.
Those people may go on to have third or fourth infections, even within this year, researchers said in interviews. And some small fraction may have symptoms that persist for months or years, a condition known as long Covid.
“It seems likely to me that that’s going to sort of be a long-term pattern,” said Juliet Pulliam, an epidemiologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa…
“If we manage it the way that we manage it now, then most people will get infected with it at least a couple of times a year,” said Kristian Andersen, a virologist at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. “I would be very surprised if that’s not how it’s going to play out.”
I know many of you like to say “No worse than the common cold!” Well, the thing is…the common cold imposes considerable costs on the world. Imagine a new common cold, which you catch a few times a year, with some sliver of the population getting some form of Long Covid. One 2003 estimate suggested that the common cold costs us $40 billion a year, and in a typical year I don’t get a cold even once. That 2003 estimate also does not include the sheer discomfort of having a cold.
With a pinch of Long Covid in the distribution surely the current virus is a wee bit worse than that? While many cases of Long Covid are malingerers and hypochondriacs, at this point it is clear that not all of them are. Toss in some number of immunocompromised individuals (how many?).
Even under mild conceptions of current Covid, it is entirely plausible to believe that the costs of Covid will run into the trillions over the next ten years.
Death rates are not up, but more of the unvaccinated will die off with time and the rest of us will face this steady risk and planning annoyance for — how long? Plus we’ll get lots of “colds,” some of them considerably worse than a cold. And with what risk that it might mutate again and get worse? The next generation of vaccines probably will not be directly subsidized. Which will mean much lower rates of uptake. The point of maximum Covid immunity may well be behind us. And you won’t be able to blame it all on lockdowns.
Please keep in mind that when it comes to your reactions I will read many of them as not much better than “I just don’t want to think about this, I am still in denial.”
Podcast with the excellent Patrick O’Shaughnessy
With Daniel Gross as well, here it is.
Tuesday assorted links
1. How long-term space missions change the brain.
2. Innovation in NYC subway crimes (New Yorker).
3. “Right to repair” doesn’t have to work out well.
5. The UFO hearings are on, and “For the majority of the incidents we had in last years report, the majority had multi-sensor data…”
My *Talent* podcast with the excellent David Wright
Here is the episode page (includes transcript): https://www.buzzsprout.com/126848/10628363-tyler-cowen-on-talent
Here is the Youtube link.
What is the best interview question of all time?
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, also picked by the WaPo. Excerpts:
“What are the open tabs in your browser right now?”
…First, the question measures what a person does with his or her spare time as well as work time. If you leave a browser tab open, it probably has some importance to you and you expect to return to the page. It is one metric of what you are interested in and what your work flow looks like.
It’s not just cheap talk. Some job candidates might say they are interested in C++ as a programming language, but if you actually have an open page to the Reddit and Subreddits on that topic, that is a demonstrated preference…
The question also tests for enthusiasm. If the person doesn’t seem excited about any of those open browser tabs, that may be a sign that they are blasé about other things as well. But if you get a heated pitch about why a particular website is the best guide to “Lord of the Rings” lore, you may have found a true nerd with a love of detail. That will be a plus for many jobs and avocations, though not all.
There is much more at the link, and to consider some other competing questions, do see my new book with Daniel Gross Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World, publication date is today!
And do note that this particular question comes from Daniel.
The excellent Matt Clifford does a *Talent* podcast with Daniel Gross and me
You will find it here.
Ask and they shall deliver
The EU is preparing to loosen its environmental regulations as it seeks to replace Russian fossil fuels with renewable energy and imported hydrogen power.
Companies in the bloc would be allowed to build wind and solar projects without the need for an environmental impact assessment, according to draft proposals obtained by the Financial Times that call for the fast-track permitting of renewable projects in designated “go-to” areas.
The EU’s 27 member states, which control energy policy, would be obliged to earmark a sufficient number of these areas to meet the bloc’s renewable energy targets. A “strategic” impact assessment would be needed before an area was selected.
“Lengthy and complex administrative procedures are a key barrier for investments in renewables and their related infrastructure,” according to the draft. The plans could “result in the occasional killing or disturbance of birds and other protected species”, it added.
Here is more from the FT. Via Albert Rio.
Monday assorted links
1. New languages for Google Translate.
3. Eric Topol on the current state of the virus.
4. A guy on YouTube mimicking John Lennon, with Yoko and George Harrison, singing Paul McCartney solo songs. And now here is “John Lennon” doing “Band on the Run” album.
5. David Boaz honors George H. Smith. And David Henderson on George.
6. Management secrets of Anna Wintour (Bloomberg).
Russia fact of the day
Russia has stopped publishing detailed monthly trade statistics. But figures from its trading partners can be used to work out what is going on. They suggest that, as imports slide and exports hold up, Russia is running a record trade surplus.
On May 9th China reported that its goods exports to Russia fell by over a quarter in April, compared with a year earlier, while its imports from Russia rose by more than 56%. Germany reported a 62% monthly drop in exports to Russia in March, and its imports fell by 3%. Adding up such flows across eight of Russia’s biggest trading partners, we estimate that Russian imports have fallen by about 44% since the invasion of Ukraine, while its exports have risen by roughly 8%.
Here is more from The Economist, and that is why the ruble has maintained its value:
As a result, analysts expect Russia’s trade surplus to hit record highs in the coming months.
Why don’t nations buy more territories from each other?
Here is a rather underwhelming list of such purchases in recent times. West Germany buys three islands from the Netherlands in 1963? Pakistan buys Gwadar from Muscat and Oman in 1958. America buys the Danish West Indies in 1916. In 1947, though the Soviet Union bought part of Lapland in Finland to enable a hydroelectric plant.
We all know about the Louisiana Purchase. But that’s it since 1916!? Is Wikipedia failing us? I don’t think so.
Are there really no good Coasean trades between the two Irelands? Israel and the Palestinians? Armenia and Azerbaijan? How about Chile selling Bolivia a wee bit of coastline? I can think of a few reasons why territory purchases are these days so hard to pull off.
1. Incoming revenue is subject to a fiscal commons effect. Some crummy noble does not get to spend it on himself. And voters take government revenue for granted in most cases, and so do not perceive an increase in their expected retirement benefits from selling land to foreign powers.
2. In earlier times, a lot of land transactions were motivated by “they’re going to take it from us anyway, sooner or later.” Did Napoleon really think he could hold on to all that land? No. He wisely got out, though sadly subsequent French governments did not do “buy and hold.” Not to mention the Florida Purchase Treaty and Guadalupe Hidalgo. At least until lately, wars of conquest have been in decline and that has meant a corresponding decline in country-to-country land transactions as well.
3. First mass media and then social media have succeeded in making land boundaries more focal to the citizenry. Say Northern Ireland today wanted to sell a single acre to the Republic of Ireland. This would be seen as a precedent, rife with political implications, and it would be hard to evaluate the transaction on its own terms. Trying to sell a county would be all the more so. Just look at the map — should there really be so much of “Northern” Ireland to the south of ROI? Donegal, Derry, etc. — status quo bias, are we really at an optimum point right now?
4. Contested territories today often involve low levels of trust. Selling pieces of the Irelands back and forth is likely enforceable (but does ROI want any of it?), but an Israel-Palestine deal is not. Israel prefers to simply move the goalposts by increasing the settlements in the westward direction. What is really the gain from pressuring one of the Palestinian leaders to sign a piece of paper recognizing this? Most likely it would ensure his assassination and simply enflame tensions further. Both parties might prefer unilateral action over a deal.
5. Land in general is far less valuable than in earlier times. In theory, that could make it either easier or harder to sell land, but if some of the transactions costs (see above) are constant or rising in magnitude, that will make it harder. Let’s say Colombia raised the funds to buy back part of the Darien gap — whoop de doo! The country has plenty of empty land as it is. The whole notion of Lebensraum, and I don’t just mean in its evil Nazi form, has taken a beating since World War II.
6. Russia and China block some deals that might make sense, or maybe America blocks them too. Just run a Google search on “Arctic.” China is doing the investing, but we won’t let them own it. Russia doesn’t want America to own it. Everything thinks Canadian control or ownership doesn’t amount to much. Indigenous groups claim parts of it, but they cannot exercise effective control. And so the whole region and issue festers and stagnates.
7. Consider a deal that does make sense: the U.S. buying Greenland from the Greenlanders and also Denmark. Can we really in essence pay the 56,000 or so residents to give up their country and territory? I am no expert on the politics there, but I suspect they are unwilling to vote their pocketbook. (For one thing, I don’t see them posting a price on eBay or holding a garage sale.) How about skipping the vote and just offering them free condos in Miami? Let’s do it! Still, you can see the problem.
What else? And can you think of any current issues where a transactional approach might actually work?
Sunday assorted links
1. Sheikh Khalifa of UAE passes away (NYT).
2. George H. Smith has passed away.
3. The Economist on India’s economy, a good feature story.
4. Regulatory obstacles to flying electric vehicles (WSJ).
5. Is current comedy favoring the right wing?
How much should you criticize other people?
I mean in private conversation, not in public discourse, and this is not to their faces but rather behind their back. And with at least a modest amount of meanness, I am not talking about criticizing their ideas. Here are some reasons not to criticize other people:
1. “Complain less” is one of the very best pieces of wisdom. That is positively correlated with criticizing other people less, though it is not identical either.
2. If you criticize X to Y, Y wonders whether you criticize him to others as well. This problem can increase to the extent your criticism is biting and on the mark.
3. Criticizing others is a form of “devalue and dismiss,” and that tends to make the criticizing people stupider. If I consider the columnists who pour a lot of energy into criticizing others, even if they are sometimes correct, it isn’t so pretty a picture where they end up.
4. If X criticizes Y, it may get back to Y and Y will resent X and perhaps retaliate.
5. Under some moral theories, X is harming Y if X criticizes Y, Y doesn’t find out, and Y faces no practical penalties from that criticism (for an analogy, maybe a wife is harming her husband if she has a secret affair and he never finds out about it).
Here are some reasons to criticize others:
4. Others may deserve the criticism, and surely there is some intrinsic value in speaking the truth and perhaps some instrumental value as well.
5. Criticizing others is a way of building trust. In a three-way friendship with X, Y, and Z, if X establishes that he and Y can together criticize Z, that may boost trust between Y and X, and also increase X’s relative power in the group. Criticizing “Charles Manson” doesn’t do this — you’ve got to take some chances with your targets.
6. Criticizing others may induce people to fear you in a useful way. They may think if they displease you, you will criticize them as well.
7. Perhaps something or somebody is going to be criticized no matter what. If you take the lead with the criticism, that is a signal of your leadership potential.
What else? Is there anything useful written on this topic?