Category: Uncategorized
From the comments, on Covid
We are just now evaluating vaccines based on the initial Omicron variant, which emerged seven months ago. They are only a moderate improvement on the status quo, in part because we have gone through several iterations of the variant since then. Because they are probably better but might not be that much better, Offit’s advice is even more delay while we study even more.
We have basically enshrined a process that guarantees vaccine development will be far behind the progress of the virus, the bad process itself being its own self fulfilling prophecy because the lag ensures the results will be worse.
The capability of mRNA vaccines to be quickly adapted to the disease is not being leveraged.
That is from Dan1111. And this is from Naveen K:
The Left in the last two weeks has said they’re for imposing mask mandates (coming soon in LA county) and Fauci restated his support for masks last week. All this while Biden WH saying Biden getting COVID isn’t a big deal.
How costly is trust in the blockchain?
Eric B. Budish has a new paper on this topic:
Satoshi Nakamoto invented a new form of trust. This paper presents a three equation argument that Nakamoto’s new form of trust, while undeniably ingenious, is extremely expensive: the recurring, “flow” payments to the anonymous, decentralized compute power that maintains the trust must be large relative to the one-off, “stock” benefits of attacking the trust. This result also implies that the cost of securing the trust grows linearly with the potential value of attack — e.g., securing against a $1 billion attack is 1000 times more expensive than securing against a $1 million attack. A way out of this flow-stock argument
is if both (i) the compute power used to maintain the trust is non-repurposable, and (ii) a successful attack would cause the economic value of the trust to collapse. However, vulnerability to economic collapse is itself a serious problem, and the model points to specific collapse scenarios. The analysis thus suggests a “pick your poison” economic critique of Bitcoin and its novel form of trust: it is either extremely expensive relative to its economic usefulness or vulnerable to sabotage and collapse.
I enjoyed these sentences:
The intuition for why Nakamoto’s method of creating trust is so expensive, relative to other methods of creating trust, is that Nakamoto’s form of trust is memoryless. The Bitcoin system is only as secure at a moment in time as the amount of computing power being devoted to maintaining it at that particular moment in time.
Whether or not you agree with the arguments here, or maybe you think proof of stake will render them less relevant, it is nice to see academics (U. Chicago business school) making contributions to crypto debates.
And do you know what is excellent about this paper? At the end is an appendix “Discussion of Responses to this Paper’s Argument.” If you can’t write one of those for your own paper, maybe nobody gives a damn!
Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
Monday assorted links
1. What is up with the Claremont Institute?
2. Perry Bacon Jr. recognizes that progressivism is losing ground.
3. The great Diana Kennedy has passed away. I recommend her Mexican cookbooks highly, and the documentary about her is excellent as well.
4. In theory the White House will now attempt to develop a new generation of Covid vaccines. Big if true.
5. New interview with Peter Thiel.
6. Mechanics invent an axle that can achieve steering angles of up to 80 degrees.
The human capital deficit in leadership these days
It is very real, just look around the world. Even Mario Draghi is on the way out. Here is one take from Adrian Wooldridge at Bloomberg:
Leadership is most vital during a period of transition from one order to another. We are certainly in such a period now — not only from the neoliberal order to something much darker but also to a new era of smart machines — yet so far leadership is lacking. We call for leaders who are equal to the times, but nobody answers.
Kissinger offers two explanations for this troubling silence. The first lies in the evolution of meritocracy. (Full disclosure: He mentions a book I have written on this subject). The six leaders were all born outside the pale of the aristocratic elite that had hitherto dominated politics, and particularly foreign policy: Adenauer and Sadat were the sons of clerks, Thatcher and Nixon were the children of storekeepers, Lee’s parents were downwardly mobile. But theirs was a meritocracy with an aristocratic flavor. They went to elite schools and universities that provided an education in human excellence rather than just passing tests. In rubbing shoulders with members of the old elite, they absorbed some of its ethic of noblesse oblige (“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required”) as well as its distaste for populism. Hence Lee’s recurring references to “Junzi” (Confucian gentlemen) and de Gaulle’s striving to become a “man of character.” They believed in history, tradition and, in most cases, God.
The world has become much more meritocratic since Kissinger’s six made their careers, not least when it comes to women and ethnic minorities. But the dilution of the aristocratic element in the mix may also have removed some of the grit that produced the pearl of leadership: Schools have given up providing an education in human excellence — the very idea would be triggering! — and ambitious young people speak less of obligation than of self-expression or personal advancement. The bonds of character and duty that once bound leaders to their people are dissolving.
There are further arguments — much more in fact — at the link. And here is an ngram on “leadership.”
What should I ask Walter Russell Mead?
He is a leading foreign policy expert, and I will be doing a Conversation with him. Here is from Wikipedia:
Walter Russell Mead (born June 12, 1952) is an American academic. He is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and taught American foreign policy at Yale University. He was also the editor-at-large of The American Interest magazine. Mead is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, and a book reviewer for Foreign Affairs, the quarterly foreign policy journal published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
His new book is The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People.
So what should I ask him?
Poverty rates in Chile and Venezuela
Via Jeremy Horpendahl.
Sunday assorted links
Merit, Fairness and Equality
Noted Canadian chemist Patanjali Kambhampati on the DIE movement:
My “lived experiences” as a Third World immigrant to the United States has in fact led me to be a lifelong defender of the practices of merit, fairness and equality — practices derived from classical liberal principles….My father was born Third World poor. [My father’s] only hope was to gain employment as a secretary or to be able to test into the top engineering school in India, the Indian Institute of Science. By gaining admission to this top school, my father was able to bring his family to America, where we received a superb education and tremendous opportunities.
In my father’s world, it was merit that enabled him to advance and his family to flourish. Merit and the practice of meritocracy are also classical liberal values. Merit is also central to the immigrant dream, and the rise of modern society.
…As a recent example of common practices in science funding in North America, I was denied funding opportunities twice by Canada’s federal science foundations, both of which were detailed in these pages, purely because I said I would hire research assistants based on merit, regardless of their gender or ethnic or cultural backgrounds.
Over the past year, the encroachment of the cult of DIE into academia has only grown. There are now many positions that are simply off limits to straight white men who are not handicapped. One must pledge allegiance to these illiberal principles in order to be a practising scientist in 2022.
These are some of the reasons I am writing about DIE in science and in the broader society. As someone who has dealt with the “lived experience” of racism, I am here to make the case that we need to move beyond antiquated intellectual racism and inept modern anti-racism, and move instead toward a more individualistic approach….I hope that my experiences can play a role in enabling others to speak and think freely and add value to the never-ending drive for human progress and freedom.
Saturday assorted links
1. More on the rise and fall of mobile home manufacturing.
3. “Sun-drenched Texas — not exactly known for its bleeding-heart liberals — has nearly triple the solar capacity this summer than it had last summer.” Link here.
4. Billionaire wealth as a percentage of gdp, across countries.
China revelations of the day
Among the most alarming things the FBI uncovered pertains to Chinese-made Huawei equipment atop cell towers near US military bases in the rural Midwest. According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the FBI determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting highly restricted Defense Department communications, including those used by US Strategic Command, which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons.
And:
In 2020, Congress approved $1.9 billion to remove Chinese-made Huawei and ZTE cellular technology across wide swaths of rural America. But two years later, none of that equipment has been removed and rural telecom companies are still waiting for federal reimbursement money. The FCC received applications to remove some 24,000 pieces of Chinese-made communications equipment—but according to a July 15 update from the commission, it is more than $3 billion short of the money it needs to reimburse all eligible companies.
Here is the full story, vtekl.
Borgen, season four (only spoilers are at the meta-level)
My Bloody Valentine did a follow-up album twenty years later and it was pretty good, unexpectedly good. Well, this reboot of Borgen, seven years later, is mostly better than the original, even if some of the original characters (Kasper) are missed. It is now titled Borgen: Power and Glory, and can be found on Netflix.
Some people disliked the original Borgen for its possibly naive portrait of social democracy in Denmark, but season four stands all that on its head. It represents a radical departure from political and also media discourse these days.
By far the main theme of season four is how it affects women when they hold major positions of power, in both the public and private sector. How do their characters evolve? How do they handle power? What are their family relations like? How happy do they become? I won’t say any more here, only that I can’t imagine today’s Hollywood putting out this content. Nor can I think of any other art work that explores this theme so consistently. Critics might call the series misogynistic. They might be right.
Some other themes are relevance are:
1. The nature of Danish imperialism, and how Denmark is incapable of treating Greenland as an equal partner.
2. How left parties manipulate indigenous causes for their own ends.
3. The corruption and pettiness of indigenous societies, such as are found in Greenland.
4. How the media really operate.
5. The hypocrisy of “green” politics.
In other words, what you get is “right-wing Borgen,” and with a vengeance. Yet the proceedings are all cloaked in the same kind of superficial Danish triumphalism that characterized seasons 1-3. I wish the content had more of “my kind of liberalism,” but maybe the right-wing cultural critique makes for better TV. (I keep on thinking that something ought to be privatized…with apologies to David Brooks. But it should! You can give the government half the revenue. And no, Russian and Chinese state-affiliated buyers do not count. And while we are at it, how about “one billion Greenlanders“? I’d settle for a million.)
It is no surprise that the reviews of this season are largely mediocre. Yet for me it is the best Borgen yet, recognizing that it will not be everyone’s cup of tea. But if any show has the street cred to deliver these messages, it is Borgen. The show also tells us once again that Denmark is not quite the left-wing country you might think, because none of the reactionary content put on the screen comes across as unnaturally Danish.
Do you need to have seen seasons one thru three for season four to make sense? It seems to me yes, but who knows maybe you can just start this one from scratch?
Stop drinking now!
Perhaps you drink responsibly, but you create contagion effects for others:
How malleable is alcohol consumption? Specifically, how much is alcohol consumption driven by the current environment versus individual characteristics? To answer this question, we analyze changes in alcohol purchases when consumers move from one state to another in the United States. We find that if a household moves to a state with a higher (lower) average alcohol purchases than the origin state, the household is likely to increase (decrease) its alcohol purchases right after the move. The current environment explains about two-thirds of the differences in alcohol purchases. The adjustment takes place both on the extensive and intensive margins.
That is from a new research paper by Marit Hinnosaar and Elaine M. Liu. To be clear, I don’t think we should ban alcohol, I simply think each and every person should stop drinking it, voluntarily. Now.
Will MacAskill remarked to me recently (in a not yet released CWT) that Effective Altruists tend to be social liberals. But should they be? Why should they not jump on this bandwagon? It is in fact a wagon you jump on!
Friday assorted links
1. China policy: an early career guide.
3. Labour call for UK supply-side progressivism.
5. What is the coffin money for Russian soldiers? Supply curves slope upwards!
Peer review facts of the day
It’s estimated that, between them, researchers around the world spent a total of 100 million hours on reviewing papers in just 2020 alone. Around 10 percent of economics researchers spend at least 25 working days a year reviewing them…
Today, a scientist who submits a study to Nature or PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can expect to be published nine months later, on average. In the top economics journals, the process takes even longer – a staggering 34 months, or almost three years. And the length has been crawling upward each year.
That is from Saloni Dattani, at Works in Progress (full issue here, recommended), and she also offers some suggestions for reform.
Thursday assorted links
1. Most common dream by country (speculative).
2. Atif Mian on Pakistan’s desperate economic situation.
3. David Wallace-Wells on where we stand with Covid (NYT).
4. Officials to reorganize the federal health department, currently hard to assess but surely no response to pandemic failures was a mistake. CDC to lose some power.
5. Thomas Edsall on the feminization of U.S. politics (NYT). Important, recommended.
6. Thailand not happy about seasteading.
7. Russ Roberts on marriage, rationality, and Darwin, and also his new book (NYT).