Ireland fact of the day, coming soon to a state near you

by  Tyler Cowen in

Some experts estimate this could mean, if we do not accelerate the pace of vaccination, one million deaths for the United States.

Tuesday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Walter Benjamin thread.  And El Anatsui profile (New Yorker).

2. The excellent Frank Blake does a podcast with me; he interviews me, he is former CEO of Home Depot.

3. More on how mRNA vaccines work, and a credit to Canada too.

4. Vitalik on free speech (always read Vitalik).

5. The Economist on Wikipedia.

6. The Australasian Virology Society in action.

7. Matt Yglesias love letter.

Can open access scientific publishing work?

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the top of my latest Bloomberg column, another link here, here is one excerpt:

The Indian government has a proposal, called the “One Nation, One Subscription” plan, to buy bulk subscriptions of the world’s most important scientific journals and provide them free to everyone in India. Given the porousness of the internet, and the widespread availability of VPN services, general worldwide access is likely to result. Sci-Hub, based in Russia, already offers open access to many scientific publications.

But why stop there? Rather than just reproducing published articles, the publication process could be opened up altogether.

And the key part:

The biggest problem for an open-access regime is how to ensure good refereeing, which if done correctly raises the quality of academic papers. Under the current system, editors decide which papers get refereed, and they choose the identities of the referees. Those same referees are underpaid and underincentivized, and often do a poor or indifferent job.

Many of the original papers on mRNA vaccines, for example, were rejected numerous times by academic journals, hardly a ringing endorsement of the status quo. More generally, since publication is currently a yes/no decision, the refereeing system creates incentives to avoid criticism and play it safe, rather than to strike out with bold new ideas and risk rejection.

Under my alternative vision, research scientists would be told to publish one-third less and devote the extra time to volunteer refereeing of what they consider to be the most important online postings. That refereeing, which would not be anonymous, would be considered as a significant part of their research contribution for tenure and promotion. Professional associations, foundations and universities could set up prizes for the top referees, who might be able to get tenure just by being great at adding value to other people’s work. If the lack of anonymity bothers you, keep in mind that book reviews are already a key determinant for tenure in many fields, such as the humanities, and they are not typically anonymous.

Freer entry yes, open access yes, but also more refereeing.

Should Twitter have banned Trump?

by  Tyler Cowen in

As many of you will expect, I am fine with their decision.  Furthermore I think they made it at exactly the right moment.

Questions for those who think that Twitter made the wrong decision:

1. Can you state your margin? That is, what would Trump have to do for you to think that Twitter should suspend his account?

2. Robert Nozick called for an archipelago of polities, each autonomously setting their own rules. Isn’t Twitter’s action quite consistent with this vision? Is the optimal libertarian equilibrium really one that adds centralized government regulation of tech platform speech codes?  If so, does that induce you to reject libertarian doctrines more generally?

3. If you favor regulation to avoid this deplatforming, which many are calling for, is the optimal libertarian equilibrium really one that adds centralized government regulation of tech platform speech codes?  Where else do you think technology companies should be more regulated when it comes to speech issues?

4. Do you think that the US is the only government that should regulate the speech codes of technology companies or are you in favor of the evolution that would actually occur, i.e. dozens of different countries regulating platform speech in heterogeneous fashion?  If you don’t favor the latter, shouldn’t you be stridently on the side of tech platform independence here?  Do you think that the modal government has more or less Millian liberal tendencies than say Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg?

Questions for those who think that Twitter made the right decision:

5. Why not ban the CCP or Ayatollah Khomenei or many of the other odious and even genocidal characters who populate Twitter today? This tweet still stands: https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1263551872872386562.  (My view would be to ban the violence-promoting Ayatollahs and leave the CCP, albeit with labeling that it is state propaganda.)

6. This summer, Slate and many other media organizations condoned violence in explicit terms.  Murders are in fact up a great deal this year.  Given that incitement to violence is manifestly acceptable to Twitter in many cases, can you articulate the relevant standard in more detail?

Who Runs the AEA?

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is a new paper by Kevin D. Hoover and Andrej Svorenčík:

The leadership structure of the American Economics Association is documented using a biographical database covering every officer and losing candidate for AEA offices from 1950 to 2019. The analysis focuses on institutional affiliations by education and employment. The structure is strongly hierarchical. A few institutions dominate the leadership, and their dominance has become markedly stronger over time. Broadly two types of explanations are explored: that institutional dominance is based on academic merit or that it based on self-perpetuating privilege. Network effects that might explain the dynamic of increasing concentration are also investigated.

I wonder how the AEA budget will hold up now that interviews can be done by Zoom and meeting attendance is not required.

Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.

Monday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Chip, block, Stoicism.

2. “It seems likely that figuring out the principles & protocols of governance for this mediation layer will be one of the great challenges of the 21st century, a challenge much like figuring out the principles underlying, say, the US constitution.”  Link here.

3. Substack review of Stubborn Attachments.

4. Kieran Healy on what happened.  Recommended, the best take so far and also a good application of spontaneous order theory.

5. How Israel did it.  By doing it.

6. Mengerian monkey evolution of money?

7. “Moderna is announcing three new vaccine programs. Seasonal flu, HIV, and Nipah.“

What I’ve been reading

by  Tyler Cowen in

1. David M. Friedman, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrell, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever.  This book doesn’t seem so well known, but it should be essential reading for those obsessed with life extension.  It helps explain why the idea has not been historically popular for some time, and why it might stand in tension with certain liberal values.

2. Jonathan Cohn, The Ten Year War: Obamacare and the Unfinished Crusade for Universal Coverage.  This is the book by the person who should have written this book.  Whether you will choose to read a book on this topic, at this point, is perhaps the question. But if you do…

3.Allan Chapman, England’s Leonardo: Robert Hooke and the Seventeenth-Century Scientific Revolution. Of all the books on Hooke, this one seems to be best (most of what I’m reading I never cover on MR), most of all for showing the unity of his contributions and situating them within the 17th century English milieu.  Microscopes and air pumps and chemistry and barometers and the motion of bodies and helping to rebuild London, and more!

4. Chinmay Tumbe, The Age of Pandemics: 1817-1920, How They Shaped India and the World.  Across 1817-1920, India lost an estimated eight million lives to cholera.  In 1907 alone, India lost an estimated one million lives to the plague.  So there should be many more books on this topic. In the meantime,this is a good introduction to the basic outlines of what happened.

5. Philippe Aghion, Céline Antonin, and Simon Bunel, The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations. A good and clearly written look at that approach to growth and macroeconomics.

6. Emmanuel Kreike, Scorched Earth: Environmental Warfare as a Crime Against Humanity and Nature.  Might this be the most important topic that most smart, very well educated people have never read a book on? And this treatment is excellent and engaging, covering the attacks on Dutch water systems in the 17th century, various Spanish attacks on indigenous American environments, the late 19th century conquest of Aceh, Indonesia, the colonial conquests of Angola and Namibia, and more.  Recommended.

You will note that I have been watching YouTube videos to accompany the science books I have been reading.

Sunday assorted links

by  Tyler Cowen

1. Interview with me in Korean, on the Biden administration and also Chinese-American relations, among other matters.

2. The Navalny thread.

3. “Seeing this kind of censorship leak into the United States is why Zhou says he supports the Trump administration’s push to ban WeChat.”  Solve for the international equilibrium.

4. The 1861 storming of electoral certification (NYT).

5. “However, IMPORTANTLY, of those who received the AstraZeneca vaccine, beyond 10 days after receiving the vaccine, not a single person was hospitalized. By this measure, we would call the AZ vaccine 100 percent effective.” Link here.

6. Uh-oh.

*The Shield Penetrators” — some further Star Trek viewing

by  Tyler Cowen in

Not many people know this obscure episode, because it was shot during the third season as an “extra,” to be used in a fourth season that never materialized.  But here is the basic plot line.  Kirk and the Enterprise visit a planet that, by mistake, received errant TV transmissions of “The Beverly Hillbillies” centuries ago.  The inhabitants of that planet, being highly impressionable, have since organized their society along those principles and with Appalachian clothing, albeit with less couth manners.  These creatures are mostly backward, but they have two special powers.  First, neither Vulcan neck pinches nor phasers “set on stun” affect them, and second they have the ability to just walk through the otherwise protective shields of the Starship Enterprise.

In the episode, these “Penetrators,” upset at the backward state of affairs on their own planet, and encouraged by a nearby Klingon commander, attempt to take over the bridge of the Enterprise, using pipe bombs, chemical irritants, and Molotov cocktails, throwing one of the latter at Chekhov.  Their motives are varied, but their manner is undeniably hostile and they arrive in a great swarm.  Kirk issues orders to respond vigorously, and the intruders are stopped.  This is, after all, the bridge of the Enterprise.

It is protected by a single, sliding door.

One member of Starfleet Command, an enemy of Kirk’s since they were classmates together at the Academy, attempts to have Kirk tried on charges of authorizing excess force against the Penetrators.  But neither the Starfleet admirals nor the television audience side against Kirk.  It was, after all, the bridge of the Enterprise that was being stormed.  The Command also issues a statement recognizing the red-shirted Enterprise security guards for their (usual) valor in such extreme and perilous circumstances.

The Klingon commander escapes unscathed, though a well-aimed phaser shot cripples the communications ability of the Klingon ship.

Addendum: You won’t find this episode in the Star Trek DVD box, or on streaming, but recently they have put parts of it on TV.  And here are my previous Star Trek posts.

The end of the Swedish model

by  Tyler Cowen in

The government this week proposed an emergency law that would allow it to lock down large parts of society; the first recommended use of face masks came into force; and the authorities gave schools the option to close for pupils older than 13 — all changes to its strategy to combat the pandemic.

“I don’t think Sweden stands out [from the rest of the world] very much right now,” said Jonas Ludvigsson, professor of clinical epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. “Most of the things that made Sweden different have changed — either in Sweden or elsewhere.”

…Sweden has reported more than 2,000 Covid-19 deaths in a month and 535 in the past eight days alone. This compares with 465 for the pandemic as a whole in neighbouring Norway, which has half the population. As Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf said just before Christmas: “We have failed.”

Here is more from the FT.  U.S. Covid deaths per day have now exceeded 4,000 for some days, and they are running at about 50% of the normal number for total daily deaths.  And no, it is not that the payments to classify these as Covid deaths have increased, rather the virus and the deaths have increased.  So the “no big deal” question we now can consider settled?  The new and more contagious strains haven’t even started playing a major role yet in the United States.

“Second Doses” post-mortem

by  Tyler Cowen in

The most striking thing about the Biden administration shift to a version of “First Doses First” is how little protest there has been.  Given how many public health experts were upset about the idea only a few days ago, you might expect them to organize a Wall Street Journal petition from hundreds of their colleagues: “Biden administration proposal endangers the lives of millions of Americans.”

But of course they won’t do that.  Some of that is pro-Democrat partisanship, but that is not even the main factor.  One reason is that public health experts, with their medical and quasi-medical backgrounds, typically have very little sense of how to respond in the public arena if challenged.  For instance, not a single one stepped forward with a calculation to defend “Second Doses.”  They are not especially good at “the internet rules of the game,” which of course are now supreme (not always for the best, to be clear).

The second and probably most important reason is that, as I had explained, sins of omission are treated as far less significant than sins of commission.  Now that a version of “First Doses First” is on the verge of becoming policy, to do nothing about that is only a sin of omission, and thus not so bad.  Remarkable!  Status quo bias really matters here.

I haven’t seen a single peep on Twitter opposing the new policy.

Just keep all this in mind the next time you see a debate over public health policy.  There is often less behind the curtain than you might think.

Quantum Technology for Economists

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the title of a new paper by Isaiah Hull, Or Sattath, Eleni Diamanti, and Goran Wendin.  Much of it I did not understand, but maybe you will.  Here is one excerpt:

Our overview of quantum money starts with a full description of the original scheme, which was introduced circa 1969, but only published later in Wiesner (1983). We will see that it achieves what is called “information-theoretic security,” which means that an attacker with unbounded classical and quantum resources will not be able to counterfeit a unit of the money. Since this original scheme was proposed, the term “quantum money” has come to refer to a broad variety of different payment instruments, including credit cards, bills, and coins, all of which use of quantum physical phenomena to achieve security.The real promise of quantum money is that it offers the possibility of combining the beneficial features of both physical cash and digital payments, which is not possible without the use of the higher standard of security quantum money offers.In particular, a form of currency called “public-key” quantum money would allow individuals to verify the authenticity of bills and coins publicly and without the need to communicate with a trusted third party. This is not possible with any classical form of digital of money, including cryptocurrencies, which at least require communication with a distributed ledger. Thus, quantum money could restore the privacy and anonymity associated with physical money transactions, while maintaining the convenience of digital payment instruments.

Makes those crypto people look like David Laidler!  See also this Behera and Sattath paper.