Results for “from the comments” 1938 found
From the comments, Boonton on education
The context is the discussion of why Mafia members with college degrees earn more:
Signalling doesn’t really work IMO. Who is he signalling too? Other criminals? Customers? Why do they care? It seems if this is what it is the economy is deeply inefficient. 40% of the population needs 4 years of college to ‘signal’? So if there was some way to pick up this signal without college huge profits would await.
I suspect there’s two aspects that make college valuable:
1. Narrative creation – humans work by creating and sharing fictional narratives. College is a lot of practice at that which is a skill that carries over into business of many types.
2. Burns off immaturity. I suspect a big portion of the benefit of schooling is babysitting. It keeps kids out of the way of adults (which our economy couldn’t function otherwise…imagine if *every* day was take your kid to work day). By keeping immaturity somewhat walled off until kids grow out of it, schools prevent them from damaging their lives.
2.1 This may be somewhat related but workplaces are very, very stable. If you are changing tires at 18 there’s enough tires in the world that you can still be doing it at 59. Perhaps by starting work at a younger age, it is a bit too easy to fall into stability. School forces you to someday break things up. No matter how good you are at school you’re going to have to leave that stability upon graduation which will land you somewhere else which you’ll have to figure out. That flexibility may be more valuable than premature stability.
From the comments, on the new Republican tax plan
The non-deductibility of imports is simply crazy. It will immediately increase inflation. Take IKEA, for example, they cannot source locally, they will increase prices immediately by 20%, or whatever the tax will be. At all effects, it is a flat tariff of 20% on every import. This guy seems to want to transform the US into North Korea. And think about the distortions: Boeing will become a purchasing company, making more money using the tax-credit to buy prosciutto and Camembert to sell to retailers at prices lower than the marginal cost, than producing planes.
That is Coasean reasoning from Massimo, there are other good comments as well. For instance Bob noted:
There will be a huge move to asset based leasing. So Wal-mart, instead of borrowing money will sell thier real estate to a REIT and lease it back. They essentially can keep the deduction.
From the comments, on cyberattacks
As someone who does software and hardware, I don’t think we are anywhere near the point where a mix of hardware and software in everyday things will give us anything more than sorrow. We are already seeing rather scary things with the Internet of Things: Denial of service attacks larger than anything we’ve ever seen, because networked software is often faulty, and selling it only in hardware means vulnerabilities stay forever. It’s not just that someone can take over your CCTV camera, or the system controlling your lightbulbs, but that their computing power can be used to attack any business or individual at any time.
We have seen attacks this week that were large enough to shut down any online payment processor. For instance, imagine that the set of people with the resources for launching those attacks wanted to stop Hillary from taking online donations for as long as possible: I’d not bet against them being able to do that for a couple of weeks at the least, and that’s today. Every day more devices with weak security and no updates are sold. We see records of attack strength beaten every month: Akamai has trouble handling them today. The more devices we sell, the bigger the weapon we are handing out, and we are lacking any mechanisms to increase security because incentives are all wrong.
That is from Bob.
From the comments, how to hit it big?
I am not endorsing these claims, but I do enjoy a good rant. It is an object lesson in showing how (some) people think about jobs, status, rivalry, and money.
First venture capital is generally consider where washed-out Wall Streeters go, when they can’t cut it in real finance. Very few b-school students start out trying to get into VC. And no, generally Silicon Valley people are not nearly as smart as HFT/algo quants. The type of kids who go to Google or Facebook are generally the Ivy CS students from the upper half of their class who are good at white-boarding problems (e.g. reverse a linked list). The truly brilliant kids, Putnam winners, math olympiads, core kernel contributors, etc. disproportionately go the quant route. (In which at least half will wind up in Chicago).
SV is generally a worse deal than HFT or quant trading. Starting comp is at least 50% higher than the big five tech firms, and goes up at a much faster rate. And definitely way higher than startups, which nearly always under-pay. It’s true in tech you can become a multibillionaire, but that’s extremely unlikely even for the most talented. In general SV is a bad deal for everyone except the small set of people lucky or connected enough to be at the top. Outside founder level, virtually no one gets rich from startups anymore. The equity and options comp is pathetic at best, if not outright fraudulent. (“You’ll be getting 1% of outstanding shares… from this round…”). Even founders have to live on 70k salaries in the Bay Area, then are frequently screwed over or cliff’d by their VCs. For every Google, heck for every Apigee, there’s a thousand no-name flame-outs, where no one but the VCs walk away with a dime.
Compare to quant trading. Compensation is cold hard cash, usually paid out annually, if not quarterly. Not lottery ticket equity with four year cliffs, unlimited dilution and byzantine share classes. Most comp is directly tied to individual trading performance, with clear results from trading everyday. No politics, extremely meritocratic, no being at the random whims of whether your app takes off fast enough to overcome your burn rate. Firms actually compete for talent and pay accordingly, instead of colluding to keep wages suppressed. Unless your ambition is to top the Forbes list, HFT’s a much better deal for someone extremely intelligent like a Math Olympiad. The probability of making “f-you money” before 40 is at least an order of magnitude higher as a prop quant than in the Valley.
That is from Doug.
From the comments, Joseph Henrich on group selection
There are separate issues that get muddled up under this label.
1. There’s a semantic debate among mathematical evolutionary biologists about what the best fitness accounting system is (e.g., inclusive fitness as promoted by the Oxford crowd, or a pluralistic approach favored by most other mebs). This debate will seem totally stupid to economists. This debate shouldn’t be confused with the empirical question of whether intergroup competition has shaped genetic or cultural evolution.
2. The difference between genetic vs. cultural evolution, and between cultural group selection and genetic group selection. Many researchers like Boyd and Richerson have argued against the importance of genetic group selection for humans but FOR the importance of intergroup competition shaping cultural evolution. Much modelling suggests that conditions that normally inhibit the importance of GGS in genetic systems are mitigated in cultural evolutionary systems–because of multiple stable equilibrium (think folk theorem with different populations stuck at different equilibrium)
3. Empirically, a lot of evidence suggests that intergroup competition has shaped cultural evolution (institutions, social norms, religions, etc.)
Two recent target articles in BBS with full commentaries and replies are the places to start
http://www.des.ucdavis.edu/faculty/Richerson/CGS%20for%20BBS.pdf
http://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~ara/Manuscripts/2016%20Norenzayan%20cultural%20evolution.pdf
I would avoid the opinions of web-publishing non-experts, who have not contributed to the primary literature and don’t understand cultural evolution.
In general I thought the comment thread on group selection was excellent.
From the comments
The authors of an article entitled “Mysticism in Literature” (by H.C. Gardiner and E. Larkin) were surprisingly dismissive of Blake, an “I-It” enthusiast (like Wordsworth and fantasy novel world-builders); apparently the real success in the “Mysticism in Literature” world is in the “I-Thou” (Carmelite poets, very generous people, that sort of thing) area. I have long thought that JM Keynes – whose General Theory is in places as well written as Finnegans Wake, as I once read somewhere on this blog – was to his brother Geoffrey (the Blake specialist) what the fictional Sherlock was to Mycroft; a very bright sibling but clearly the exponentially less capable of the two. Economics, though, is often just common sense reiterated and refined with the mistakes thrown out; it seems almost comical to associate something that takes such a long time with young students. I read my first economics book, with a banana-yellow cover, in high school (bought at a Waldenbooks at a Bay Area shopping mall, long vanished; at the same mall, I was in line behind a young woman, now in her 70s, who bought a cassette recording of Rachmaninoff’s 24 variations on a theme of some long-forgotten fiddler. I still remember the shy happy smile on her face – the money she spent must have meant something to her – and how well she was dressed, as if she believed one had to dress elegantly to buy a Rachmaninoff cassette. Writing a comment on this almost (or completely) male-only comment thread, all I can say is she was as likely to be right about the necessity of elegance as me, if not more so. If she is reading this, I don’t remember the town, but it was somewhere just north of Pleasanton).
It doesn’t matter what the post was, that is from another vote another time zone, if only E. Harding were so eloquent…
From the comments, the culture that is German
In Germany, where I live, you get money back for plastic bottles (“Pfand”). Sometimes €0.25 per bottle. And yet, I collect them, without ever finding the time to cash them. I never outright throw them away, but leave them standing neatly close to public trash cans. They are gone in less than an hour.
German colleagues are horrified by my barbaric behavior. I tell them that someone will recycle them, and get the money. But they are actually are horrified that I am not willing to claim the money as everyone else does. I can explain that I would be working below minimum wage if I were to spend time and mental bandwidth returning bottles. But these reasons are no use against the dogma that pfand bottles should be returned. Man macht das nicht.
That is from Londenio. And, not from the comments, here is a short piece on German economists:
So, my claim is that economists are only respected and accepted in the broader public discourse if they are like lawyers. And my conjecture is that this will remain so.
That is Rüdiger Bachmann: “Die hier geäußerten Meinungen sind nicht unbedingt die Sicht des Vereins für Socialpolitik.”
From the comments, on reintegrated servicemen
…I work occasionally at the VA as a psychiatrist in both inpatient and outpatient settings. My impression is that the men going into the recent wars are far less psychologically healthy then the men who went to WWI, WWII, or Korea. The prior longitudinal studies of the wars of the first half of the 20th century, such as they are, do indeed suggest that most men exit war with similar psychological profiles as to when they entered. Could the recently documented ‘sense of loss’ so many returning veterans express reflect something similar to inner city youths and gangs, namely, that the camaraderie of combat and order of military life provided the paternal presence they lacked growing up? Military life and combat provided what communities and families had provided similar men when they returned from WWI and WWII. Take away the military life and combat, and they are left where they were prior to joining.
That is from a recent post on reading.
From the comments, on the public choice of Brexit
…Brexit is against the “personal” interest of most of UK politicians. The EU institutions and Brussels lobbies offer major career opportunities they definitively do not want to be cut off.
That is from daguix.
When does Robert Cottrell just stop reading? (from the comments)
I considered the question of when one should just stop reading, and here is Robert’s take:
I read full-time to edit The Browser, and I abandon a hundred articles for every one that I finish. I generally stop if I hit “eponymous”, or “toxic”, or “trigger warning”, or “make no mistake”. Summary labelling of anything in an article as “complex” means that the writer does not understand or cannot explain the material. I don’t often read beyond headlines that use the words “surprising”, “secret”, “really”, “not” or “… and why it matters”. Any headline ending in a question mark is a bad sign. I know writers don’t usually write their own headlines, but the headline represents a best effort to say what is useful in the article by a sympathetic person who has been paid to read it.
Robert is one of the best readers I know.
From the comments — the economics of Mormon tithing
Jay McCarthy writes:
I am Mormon. I am from Massachusetts, but lived in Utah for a long time, and have lived in prosperous and not-prosperous Mormon areas.
I don’t think tithing is an effective way to get social status.
Let me explain some mechanics. When I get a paycheck, I got to a Web site the church runs and tell them to transfer 10% from my checking account to their accounts. The new online system lets me do it whenever I want, whereas previously (the online system is about eight months old) I wrote a check and handed it to a local church leader. Even in the old days of physical checks, there was extreme paranoia about keeping this an anonymous process. You would occasionally see people handing their checks, but the only people who could know what the amount was was the local leader (called a bishop) and their one or two clerks. (Aside: this local leader and their clerks are lay people that volunteer on a rotating basis for terms of about three to five years.) In the new system, only the local leader sees your tithing amount and maybe a clerk as they print out reports.
The next step is that each year, around the end of the year (December), you have a meeting with the local leader called “tithing settlement”. Before the meeting, you get a sealed letter from a clerk with a statement of all the money you’ve given. You go to the meeting as an entire family (in my case, my wife and three kids younger than 8). It normally lasts about 30 minutes and you spend the time chatting about how things are going in your life and if you have any needs and what is going on. At the end the bishop remembers, “Oh, it’s tithing settlement.” And says, “Is this amount tithed listed on your report accurate?” then asks “Are you a full tithe payer, a partial tithe payer, or not a tithe payer?”. Whatever you answer, he will have no comment about and then you leave.
The other way that tithing is noticed is that every two years you renewed what is called your “temple recommend”. This is an barcoded ID card that is tied to your membership records in the church database. When you want to go to the temple, you bring this card and they scan it to verify that you are allowed in the temple. (Aside, the temple is not where you go each Sunday. There are about 150 in the world. It is for special occasions and most people that are working try to go monthly, but most retired people try to go daily.) During this renewal process, you have an interview with two local leaders—one that you go to church with and one from the administrative unit above that (called a stake). During this interview, you are asked lots of “Yes” and “No” questions (they are encouraged to not require more than “Yes” or “No” answers, because historically some of these leaders changed the requirements to reflect their own interpretations of the rules.) One of the questions is, “Are you a full tithe payer?”. There is no checking of this answer with the answer you give at tithing settlement.
So, in summary, tithing is such a secretive process that I don’t believe it is a good way to get status.
In the preceding discussion, I always wrote “tithing”, but actually we would say “tithes and offerings” because when you pay you can always give additional money. The additional money can be flagged for certain programs. (The tithing CANNOT be flagged.) For instance, one program is called a “fast offering” and it is used for the poor and needy who are local to you. Others are to sponsor a missionary or help build a temple.
I have never heard a local leader with knowledge of offering matters ever say anything about how much a family gave or if they were giving a lot or being generous or anything like that. I have not been a local leader, but I have been on the executive committee of local congregations and attended all the meetings that the local leader did. If they said anything, it would be considered an incredible violation of protocol.
In my opinion, Mormons gain social status within the group by two major ways. First, by externality conformity to norms, such as dressing modestly, having lots of kids, never cursing, discussing the gospel with each other, and so on. Second, by in kind donation of time. Everything that happens at church is done by volunteers and there are many things that need to happen. Each Sunday, meetings are three hours long and there are many classes and lectures that need to be given. The first hour has about three lectures. The second and third hour each have about fifteen concurrent lessons (for different age groups). So, this means that about 33 people need to volunteer to teach for an hour weekly. On the Wednesdays, all youth from 8 to 18 have their own classes and activities at the church that need to be taught by someone. There’s another program for high school students called Seminary (a dumb name) where they are taught about the scriptures EVERY DAY before school. Outside of Utah, this is a volunteer position typically done by one person and is an immense time commitment. (That’s what I do.)
I think these things are much more expensive than tithing and an academic analysis of Mormonism would get more out of studying their impact than studying tithes and offerings.
— A few small comments.
The tithing settlement form says “The Church provided no goods or services in consideration, in whole or in part, for the contributions detailed below but only intangible religious benefits.” I chuckle every time I see that.
I assume that the details of your tithing are considered if you are considered for prestigious volunteer jobs, like bishop.
In executive meetings, we do hear about what percentage of the local membership paid tithing. In my experience, in Utah, social conformity is high but tithing payment is relatively low, but outside of Utah it is the opposite: there are more diverse Mormons and everyone is paying tithing.
Mormon home production is not caused by tithing. It’s explicit motivation is worry about the millennium (a similar impetus to “preppers”) and getting attacked by the government (as happened in Missouri, Illinois, and Utah in the 1800s.) It’s implicit motivation is to gain social status by conformity to norms.
Here is the original post.
NinjaEconomics on Tinder (from the comments)
I’m not convinced women who are on Tinder who say “no hookups” actually mean that.
First of all, Tinder is for young people and young women don’t have a hard time meeting men in real life. So, for someone to go to a place that is known to be where casual sex seekers meet and announce THEY aren’t at all interested in casual sex seems fishy. If I’m not in the market to buy shag carpeting that’s full of vomit and fleas, I don’t go shopping at the used carpet store that specializes in shag carpeting that’s full of vomit and fleas. I certainly don’t go there and ask where I can find silk hand-knotted rugs from Central Persia for basically the same price and get offended when I’m offered vomit and fleas.
More likely, these women are interested in hooking up (or at least open to some opportunities of it happening) but don’t want their friends and colleagues knowing this should someone come across their profile, so like the Playboy readers who buy the magazine for the articles, these women are on Tinder “just for the lulz.”
Which brings me to my second point: Despite their loud claims, women are not on Tinder to find their husbands. Getting married is easy. It is so easy that almost anyone can do it! Very unattractive, very poor, mentally unstable people can do it. Now, you might not be able to marry someone who meets all the required characteristics but if Tinder women were sincere in husband-hunting, rather than just stating “no hookups”, which is spectacularly unhelpful, they’d actually list their requirements in order to speed up the process.
And, if the internet (and online dating in particular) is so hostile to women, why would any reasonable woman who has above-average chances of meeting someone in traditional ways subject herself to unbearable and avoidable sexual harassment online? If she’ll assume the risk of verbal abuse from potential suitors, she must be very motivated to meet someone using this platform and I doubt she will be in the top 5-10% of all available women (or perhaps she’s more resilient and online interactions are not emotionally harmful to her). So compared to the top 5-10% of the men she’s vying for (attractive, educated, marriage-minded men in their 20s are quite rare), she won’t have the upper hand, so making brusque dismissals right out of the gate just seems more like an attempt to demonstrate dominance. The point is, the women who really don’t want to hook up aren’t on Tinder and the ones who do say that on Tinder aren’t being honest.
That is from NinjaEconomics, the original post is here.
From the comments, on sexist pricing
See Pashigian, B. P.. (1988). Demand Uncertainty and Sales: A Study of Fashion and Markdown Pricing. The American Economic Review, 78(5), 936–953. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1807158
Basic idea: there are more and better priced clearance sales for items that quickly go out of fashion, fewer clearance sales for non-fashionable items (e.g., white shirts, blue blazers, grey pants.)
That is from Hal Varian, on the topic of “sexist pricing.”
From the comments, on mass shootings
The comments were numerous, here is one from Malcolm Gladwell:
I see that someone included a link to my recent piece in the New Yorker on this very topic–trying to understand the rash of school shootings. In that piece, I used Mark Granovetter’s theory of riots. Granovetter’s original article is well worth reading: http://vserver1.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~spage/ONLINECOURSE/R2Granovetter.pdf
Gladwell’s original piece is here. And here is a comment from Peter Turchin:
Hi all,
My explanation of why the rate of indiscriminate mass murder increased 18-fold between 1960 and 2010 is developed in a series of blog posts. The first one is here:
http://peterturchin.com/blog/2012/12/15/canaries-in-a-coal-mine/
and links to the rest are at the end of the first post.
See also Steve Sailer’s varied comments on the evolution of serial killers, and related matters. There are other interesting comments as well.
From the comments, on Amish health and health care
I was just at two Amish weddings and would add a few observations:
– I wonder what they’d find for a later cohort. Amish folks born between 1890 and 1921 were almost all farmers. Today, fewer than 10% are. Most have far more sedentary jobs–though not as sedentary as mine. But they still eat as if they were out in the fields all day. Obesity is rampant and growing. Also, the diet has changed. The Amish eat a lot of processed, brand name food. They do have their own kitchen gardens, but salads are covered in dressing and cheese. In many homes, every meal (even breakfast!) comes with pie as desert.
– Nobody is left alone in old age. I had a long talk with an older Amish woman who couldn’t believe that, in NYC, some people live alone, interact with no close relatives or friends, have no one to watch over them. Her husband told a story of a very ornery old man with no children or wife who nobody likes but, still, people visit regularly to make sure he’s OK and to give him comfort.
– They absolutely use hospitals for urgent and emergent care. There are big fundraising auctions all the time to help those with big bills. And the church district will also help.
Yes, that is the Adam Davidson.