What I’ve been reading
1. Mark Gilbert, Italy Reborn: From Fascism to Democracy. How Italy built a democracy after WWII, more or less out of nothing. An optimistic and good book. De Gasperi was a great man, and essential to the building out of a democratic Italy, yet today his name is hardly known.
2. Dave Edmonds, Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, A Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need. An engaging but also intellectually serious history of some strands of utilitarianism and effective altruism. I was happy to blurb this book, you may recall Edmonds also wrote the excellent biography of Derek Parfit.
3. Arundhati Roy, Mother Mary Comes to Me. Well-written, but at some point I started wondering why I should care. OK, Mama was a pain in the ass, but then what? You had to take care of her when she was old. I guess I prefer whaling tales?
4. Chuck Klosterman, Football. An excellent and highly conceptual book about America’s favorite sport. Could this be the best book on (American) football ever?
5. Jordana Pomeroy, Daring: The Life and Art of Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Both a book and a picture book rolled into one. This new release is a very good introduction to her life, her art, and her role as semi-official court painter for Marie de Antoinette. She remains an underrated artist.
6. Michael Lentz, Schattenfroh. About one thousand pages, it is receiving buzz as a new novel to master, some are calling it “the new Solenoid” (not a positive for everyone, I do understand). I have tried parts in English and parts in German, but still I do not get it. Does it have a plot? Any humor? For purposes of norming, I am a big fan of James Joyce’s Ulysses. I will try it again, however. At least the author was not complacent.
Stop blaming them
That is the title of my latest Free Press piece, and it is more political than I usually get:
One of the most dangerous collectivist arguments in the wake of Kirk’s murder is to blame the “trans community.” Some have reported that Robinson lived with a transgender romantic partner. Regardless of whether this proves to be true, there is no good evidence that trans individuals are especially likely to commit murder (try asking Grok). There is also no evidence that this particular trans individual contributed to the murder plot; rather, reports indicate the person in question is cooperating with the authorities.
If there is generalized evidence for anything, it is that trans individuals are likely to be the victims of violent attacks.
And yet, Elon Musk is approvingly reposting the following: “It’s time for a complete and total ban on cross-sex hormones. They cannot change your sex. They turn men with perverse fetishes into deranged bioweapons, and women trying to escape sexual trauma into androgynous osteoporotic goblins. These people need to spend a long time in an asylum—some of them, indefinitely.”
Constitutional rights, anyone? The right for peaceful individuals to avoid involuntary incarceration? How about basic toleration? Musk is an individualist in many other contexts, but it appears not this one. As a strategy matter, why go out of your way to make left-wing charges against the right seem plausible?
There is much more at the link.
Sunday assorted links
2. “A separate tally by the Anti-Defamation League, an advocacy group, shows that 76% of extremist-related murders over the past decade were committed by those on the right. Such tallies, however, depend on how extremism is defined and how ideology is assigned.” Link here.
3. “Two Cornell students face no charges after skinning a bear in a communal kitchen in the Ganędagǫ”
5. Stick fight.
6. Arvo Part at 90.
7. Florida may not end up getting rid of all vaccine mandates?
*The Sound of Music*
For the 60th anniversary of its release, the movie is now playing in some cinemas on a large screen. See it if you can. For a while it was the highest-grossing movie ever, and it is not hard to see why. It has spectacular visuals, music, and casting, but most of all there is a remarkable sense of life to it all. Julie Andrews dominates every scene she is in (p.s. I say the Baroness was a Nazi, or at least anti-anti-Nazi). It is also a fascinating glimpse of both life and aesthetics circa 1965. Seeing it is one of the very best things I have done in recent times.
Polarization, purpose and profit
Or a theory of how Silicon Valley once was? Or maybe still is? I am not sure!
We present a model in which firms compete for workers who value nonpecuniary job attributes, such as purpose, sustainability, political stances, or working conditions. Firms adopt production technologies that enable them to offer jobs with varying levels of these desirable attributes. Firms’ profits are higher when they cater to workers with extreme preferences. In a competitive assignment equilibrium, firms become polarized and not only reflect but also amplify the polarized preferences of the general population. More polarized sectors exhibit higher profits, lower average wages, and a reduced labor share of value added. Sustainable investing amplifies firm polarization.
That is from a recent paper by Daniel Ferreira and Radoslawaa Nikolowa. Via the excellent Kevin Lewis.
Intertemporal substitution
Across several Central American nations money transfers have jumped 20 percent.
The reason, officials, migrants and analysts say, is that people afraid of being deported are trying to get as much money out of the country as possible, while they still can.
The money transfers, called remittances, are a critical lifeline for many countries and families around the world, especially in Central America and the Caribbean. There, the funds sometimes make up a huge chunk of a nation’s economy — as much as a quarter of a country’s gross domestic product, as in Honduras and Nicaragua.
Here is more from James Wagner at the NYT.
What should I ask Cass Sunstein?
Yes, I will be doing a Conversation with him soon. Most of all (but not exclusively) about his three recent books Liberalism: In Defense of Freedom, Manipulation: What It Is, Why It Is Bad, What To Do About It, and Imperfect Oracle: What AI Can and Cannot Do.
So what should I ask him? Here is my previous CWT with Cass.
Saturday assorted links
1. Fraud case against Lisa Cook appears weak.
2. Sorry, Baby is an excellent movie, one of the best of the year.
3. Time series on politically motivated killings. There is no surge.
4. Macau fertility rate possibly dropping to 0.49?
5. “French pensioners now have higher incomes than working-age adults”
6. Anting.
7. China will open the world’s tallest bridge, twice as high as the Eiffel Tower.
Human growth sentences to ponder
The most striking finding is that males born in the 1960s appear to have had a later or smaller adolescent growth spurt than those born a decade earlier. Combining the NHANES surveys and their precursors, I show that males born in the 1960s were the same height in childhood as those born a decade earlier, but then fell behind and were around half an inch shorter in adolescence. By adulthood, the heights of the two cohorts were nearly identical. These patterns are consistent with the 1960s cohort experiencing a slower growth tempo in adolescence through either a later or smaller adolescent growth spurt, followed by catch-up growth by growing longer into early adulthood (later ”age at final height”). Similar patterns are not evident in the height of females; however, females born in the 1960s experienced menarche (first menstrual period) later than those born a decade earlier.
That is from a new paper by Nicholas Reynolds. Via the excellent Samir Varma.
AI Agents for Economic Research
The objective of this paper is to demystify AI agents – autonomous LLM-based systems that plan, use tools, and execute multi-step research tasks – and to provide hands-on instructions for economists to build their own, even if they do not have programming expertise. As AI has evolved from simple chatbots to reasoning models and now to autonomous agents, the main focus of this paper is to make these powerful tools accessible to all researchers. Through working examples and step-by-step code, it shows how economists can create agents that autonomously conduct literature reviews across myriads of sources, write and debug econometric code, fetch and analyze economic data, and coordinate complex research workflows. The paper demonstrates that by “vibe coding” (programming through natural language) and building on modern agentic frameworks like LangGraph, any economist can build sophisticated research assistants and other autonomous tools in minutes. By providing complete, working implementations alongside conceptual frameworks, this guide demonstrates how to employ AI agents in every stage of the research process, from initial investigation to final analysis.
What should I ask Jimmy Wales?
Yes I will be doing a Conversation with him. Here is his uh…Wikipedia page. So what should I ask?
My podcast with The Economist
Here is the proper link.
Friday assorted links
1. Is Baghadad now a boomtown? (The Economist) And tourists are returning to Iraq to see ancient Babylon.
3. Claims.
5. Should the Germans stop teaching Goethe? (no)
6. Bob Cooter, RIP.
7. Nepal update.
Are we building an “animal internet”?
Should we?
Human owners of parrots in the study reported that the birds seemed happier when they could interact online with other parrots and not just with people…
Scientists are using digital technology to revolutionise animal communication and move towards an “animal internet”, using new products such as phones for dogs and touchscreens for parrots.
Experiments by Glasgow university have enabled several species, from parrots and monkeys to cats and dogs, to enjoy long-distance video and audio calls. They have also developed technology for monkeys and lemurs in zoos to trigger soothing sounds, smells or video images on demand.
Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, who heads the university’s Animal-Computer Interaction Group, started by developing a DogPhone that enables animals to contact their owners when they are left alone.
Her pet labrador Zack calls her by picking up and shaking an electronic ball containing an accelerometer. When this senses movement, it sets up a video call on a laptop, allowing Zack to interact with her whenever he chooses. She can also use the system to call him. Either party is free to pick up or ignore the call.
…When a parrot wanted to connect with a distant friend, a touchscreen showed a selection of other birds available online. The parrots learned to activate the screen, designed specially for them, by touching it gently with their tongues rather than pecking aggressively with their beaks.
“We had 26 birds involved,” said Hirskyj-Douglas. “They would use the system up to three hours a day, with each call lasting up to five minutes.” The interactions ranged from preening and playing with toys to loud vocal exchanges.
Here is more from Clive Cookson from the FT. Via Malinga.
The polity that is Albania
Albania has become the first country in the world to have an AI minister — not a minister for AI, but a virtual minister made of pixels and code and powered by artificial intelligence.
Her name is Diella, meaning sunshine in Albanian, and she will be responsible for all public procurement, Prime Minister Edi Rama said Thursday.
During the summer, Rama mused that one day the country could have a digital minister and even an AI prime minister, but few thought that day would come around so quickly.
Here is the full story, we will see how this develops. Diella also is tokenized. Via MN.