Favorite Rejects 2022-02-21

Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated

@Noahpinion Avenatti's in jail, Gabbard's a Trumper now, and Louise the fake game theorist has faded into obscurity. Dems are handling their grifters a lot better than Repubs.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Curriculum transparency in the German Empire was designed to prevent teachers from secretly instructing students in Polish.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Bismarck was tough on the border and wanted to expel non-citizen Poles who migrated into the Reich from poorer Austrian or Russian territory but they didn’t really have the modern concept of the “illegal immigrant” and parliament wouldn’t go for it.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

Read @JosephPolitano's excellent essay on how NIMBYs weaponized the California Environmental Quality Act to slow growth and exclude newcomers.

apricitas.substack.comUC Berkeley and America’s Scarcity MindsetHow a Lawsuit Against UC Berkeley Represents America’s Stagnation

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

It’s not really knowable ex ante how many service sector workers see corporate mask mandates as a cost vs a benefit, which makes it a good situation to let the market function (especially since there’s very high labor demand right now).

Kat Rosenfield @katrosenfield

not sure what the solution is and perhaps government need not be involved, but this emerging two-tier society where working class people are required to cover their faces 8+ hours a day "for safety" while the rest of us swan around unmasked seems extremely bad to me https://t.co/uY8s3gE1D7

Noah Smith 🌐+🧦=🐇 @Noahpinion

I've always wondered this. Is is a function of farmland? Rivers? Historical birth rates? Urbanization patterns?

Ron Yang @rn_yang

Why is Germany so much denser than France? https://t.co/K6M2olNxdb

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

@Noahpinion French fertility transition happened earlier. People disagree about why; this piece argues a values shift linked to the French Revolution.

anderson-review.ucla.eduIn Some Places, Fertility Rates Declined Before the Industrial Revolution - UCLA Anderson ReviewUsing parish records, researchers examine fundamental changes in society following the French Revolution

ethan winter @EthanBWinter

the united states has sufficient energy recourses to drive down oil/gas prices at home while making europe less reliant on russia. just got to convince Wall Street it’s time to reinvest in production https://t.co/cXbdNaL86v

Rory Johnston @Rory_Johnston

Certainly feels like we’re gonna run past $100 crude here real soon on a pretty wild geopolitical risk premium. https://t.co/YcQUZlSRIL

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

One way to think about why online voting is a bad idea is to think about the current situation with vaccines. There is strong evidence the COVID vaccine saves lives. The vast majority of experts say it's safe and effective. But people don't trust experts so they are skeptical.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

It's a hard problem because nobody can directly observe what vaccines do. You can't look in a microscope and watch the vaccine killing covid viruses or whatever. On some level, we're all dependent on experts to help us understand complex biological and statistical arguments.

Timothy B. Lee @binarybits

Maybe you can design a system that professional cryptographers can verify mathematically (though I doubt it). But even then, the rest of the public is relying on these experts to tell the truth. And in our low-trust society that's not good enough.

Steve Stewart-Williams @SteveStuWill

The final nail in the coffin of the marshmallow effect? New study suggests that 4-year-olds' ability to resist eating one marshmallow to get two later on doesn't predict how well they'll do in life.

anderson-review.ucla.eduNew Study Disavows Marshmallow Test’s Predictive Powers - UCLA Anderson ReviewFor years, parents and scientists have turned to the marshmallow test for clues about kids’ futures. But new research dispels the theory that to raise successful kids, we must teach them to resist that first marshmallow.