It’s time for some hardcore blog linking, because my browser it getting really slow from how many tabs I have open!
Here is Tyler Cowen, Brad Delong, Solow, and Russ Roberts talking about Piketty’s book on inequality. The whole thing is fantastic. They all agree that inequality is about the bottom, while Piketty’s book is focused on the top.
I’m amused by Delong’s articulation of what labor can do once machines become as intelligent as us. “It is still the case that the human brain is a supercomputer that fits in a shoebox and runs on 50 watts… (without that) we’re cast back to the other things we have that make us productive participants in the division of labor, which are our brains as genuinely creative organs of genuinely new thoughts… and also our smiles”
Brad has got to be practicing these lines in front of the mirror at home. But it’s great. Our brains as genuinely creative organs of new thoughts makes me think of things like art, music, and philosophy. Smiles obviously get at the fact that human beings like to be serviced by other human beings. Human connection can be simulated, but it is by definition something that can only be served by human beings.
Brad also brings up this little fact when the whole table agrees on how much progress the world is making poverty-wise, “They had to change the definition of deep poverty from $1 a day to $2 a day in the last 6 years. Because the people living on less than $1 a day were no longer large enough to create great excitement.”
Cowen is as focused as ever. “The real distinction is between resources devoted to innovation and resourced devoted to rents. Right now we have way too much devoted to rents. You can think of rents as an excess rate of return do to some barrier to entry, political or economic. We don’t have enough high density construction in San Francisco. Our intellectual property system is too extreme. Rents which accrue to finance. And these rents lead to too much inequality of income in a very bad way. Everyone agrees with that, and once you look at it this way not hung up at all on capital or labor.”
He also brings up this point, “That tax money is going to go to meet promises we’ve already made to the elderly. It is not going to go to fix inequality.”
Speaking of Tyler Cowen, he links to a humorous but disturbing segment on Civil Asses Forfeiture.
Where is the Kingdom of God? Is it heaven? – an article that points out one of the recurring problems I rediscover in popular Christianity all the time. The Kingdom spoken about in the new testament is futuristic, not otherworldly!
Rethinking Hell reaches the big time with a New York Times article and interview. Good for them. Another point for annihilationism!
Why are Danish people happy? This is largely a response to people who want to take every single variance between societies and attribute them to variance in political systems. The article Meshes well with the book that I’ve finally gotten around to reading, The Nurture Assumption. Happiness is highly genetic.
Christianity, Philosophy and Public Education: Reflections upon Retirement For all those who would sit in the chair of Philosophy. It is great to hear from Surrendra Gangadean again, and to see that he is writing another book.
List of countries by spending on Education.
16th - Denmark 7.8% of GDP,
55th – United States 5.5% of GDP,
74th – Canada 4.9% of GDP
By the way, the optimal amount to be spent on education is not infinity. It is not a competition in which a country necessarily wants to be in first.
Speaking of spending, here is Healthcare spending around the world, country by country. The U.S. spends 18% of GDP on healthcare, crushing any other developed country. Of course, 47% of that is private sector. What happens when we just compare government spending per person? United States is still near the very top, being beaten only by Norway as far as serious countries go. Again, not a competition in which one necessarily wants to be in first. But just as far as facts go, this and the previous link contradicts the impressions many subconsciously take away from their news shows.
The beepocolypse is silly, but I especially want to document this article for it’s absurdity.
“This new pesticide, Flupyradifurone, is very similar to an existing class of pesticides called “neonics”. Neonics are systemic pesticides -- they don't just remain on the surface, but are absorbed into plant tissues, and this new pesticide works in the same way. Research shows that neonics severely impair bees' immune systems, making them vulnerable to deadly viruses.”
Read it again. The new pesticide is Flupyradifurone and is similar to a class called “neonics”, but not actually in the class. So in what regard are they similar? They are both absorbed into plant tissue. Okay. Oh and by the way, Neonics impairs bees immune system. But why exactly should Flupyradifurone be like that again? Because the two share the similarity of being absorbed into plant tissue?
Meet Mike and Joe. Mike and Joe are similar, they both love pancakes. Mike is a cereal killer, so you’d better stay away from Joe!
There is so much I could say about the bees and the inanity of the fear mongering… but the deceit of this kind of literary slight of hand is especially repugnant.
