Good summary of the LHC breakthrough this week and what we’ll see in the future.
LHC and the Geek in Me
Economists > Historians
Ezra Klein reports (whose post rate forced me into submission a year ago or so – too much stuff!) h/t Tyler Cowen
Sex ain’t what it used to be
How do you define sex?
You might be surprised at what people say.
Man, Russia Is Screwed up
On Ikea:
From the start the company announced that even in Russia it would be adhering to its clearly-formulated Swedish rules, based on the Protestant work ethic and
unanswerable logic. As a result, Khimki officials turned off the electricity just before the first Moscow shop opened…IKEA’s legendary founder Ingvar Kamprad announced that investment in Russia would be scaled down. But local officials were unlikely to be fazed by such trifles.
And
«Managers at the State Bank VTB have run a scam which has robbed the country and the shareholders of hundreds of millions of dollars. One person has been dismissed.»
And more.
And how about this?
What is most interesting is that people working in the public sector are also anti-state in their hearts. If you talk to any policeman or civil servant off the record, you will find levels of resentment, disillusionment and Jacobinism that the classical anarchists could only have dreamed of.
I wonder whether they have some kind of internet surveillance there? You’d think that with these kinds of stories getting out that eventually you’ll have an educated public that will want to put an end to all the crap. I’ll be interested in what happens when the first generation born after the fall of the Berlin Wall comes of age. They’re getting closer.
Nature or Nurture? Answer: “Yes”
We still don’t know exactly how much genes contribute to intelligence, with various studies coming up with estimates ranging from 40 to 80 per cent.
Yet:
This wide range of estimates might have arisen because genes contribute more to IQ as we get older, according to a study published last year.
They suggest that either the brain rewires itself as you get older (yeah, right), or:
Alternatively, they may dictate whether someone is likely to seek out stimulating experiences to help their brain grow and develop.
I think I’d agree. I’m always surprised at how incurious people are when they leave school and no longer forced to learn new things every day.
Learning just ain’t fun for some…
Wow, there’s a lot here
Ok, so one of my favourite data sources has come up with another stunner:
Time and again in American politics, Republicans have voted as a unit to frustrate our disorganized Democratic majority.
Today, we’re going to perform a data-driven investigation of this
Read the whole thing. This is amazing stuff.
The basic idea starts with this chart, which I found fascinating:
The old idea of one’s political beliefs changing over time is obvious, here. It goes deeper, too, though. They demonstrate that when a person is in the Republican parts of life, that person is much closer ideologically to other Republicans in their respective Republican phases. Democrats are more ideologically disparate. Their tent is too big and so they are more likely to defect.
What a data set.
Brooks on Happiness
David Brooks has an interesting column with a Faustian bent:
Two things happened to Sandra Bullock this month. First, she won an Academy Award for best actress. Then came the news reports claiming that her husband is an adulterous jerk. So the philosophic question of the day is: Would you take that as a deal?
He then discusses a lot of research which suggests that
People get slightly happier as they climb the income scale, but this depends on how they experience growth. Does wealth inflame unrealistic expectations? Does it destabilize settled relationships? Or does it flow from a virtuous cycle in which an interesting job produces hard work that in turn leads to more interesting opportunities?
and, finally:
The overall impression from this research is that economic and professional success exists on the surface of life, and that they emerge out of interpersonal relationships, which are much deeper and more important.
And, for our purposes, we finally get to the punch line:
Most governments release a ton of data on economic trends but not enough on trust and other social conditions. In short, modern societies have developed vast institutions oriented around the things that are easy to count, not around the things that matter most.
This is starting to turn into a theme here. Data is what we’re going to need most in this next phase of human history.
On Dogs
The most impressive beggars, however, get their own title: ‘metro dogs’. They rely on scraps of food from the daily commuters who travel the public transportation system. To do so, the dogs have learned to navigate the subway. They know stops by name, and integrate a number of specific stations into their territories.
More here.
The most interesting bit for me was learning that dogs can still breed with wolves, so they aren’t different species. Not mind blowing, really, but not something that would have occurred to me.
Is Health Related to Health Spending?
There was a study done once which suggested it does not.
This is potentially one of those facts that terrifies the polity. If we can’t spend out way out of it, what on earth do we do?
Sounds like we’ve got us some bias to overcome.
Data
This is about the Oceans, but the message here for me is the steady increase in the amount of data we’re generating about the world:
“Chartering an oceanographic vessel costs $20,000 a day,” he says. “So we need a way to get more data more cheaply and we need as many options for getting it as possible.”
I’m reminded of the famous Harvard undergrad paper that Michael Lewis used in his book, the Big Short. The innovation of AK Barnett-Hart was not in her ability to use some fancy new technique on the data, but to sleuth out a data set that anybody could have worked on. Analytical capabilities are a commodity, now.
Human progress right now seems to be wedded to our ability to collect useful new data that we can work with. That is also my iron law of financial innovation: no new data? No innoation for you!
Robin Hanson says that until we can massively increase Humans’ ability to work with information (services economy, etc), we’ll never substantially increase economic growth.
Not Unreasonable 