What I have been reading: mid-November edition
Women tend to be harsher judges than men. Evidence against Andrews’ argument that feminisation threatens the rule of law, or in favour (as females are stricter with a greater number of female colleagues)? Although females are generally the more empathetic half of our species, this translates into more rigid adherence to moral and legal norms, with less sympathy for violators, in this case. These results demonstrate why I'm sceptical of the claim that feminism is to blame for much of society's ills: its effects are indeterminate and hard to predict ex-ante.
The results of one test for political bias in LLMs. On Sacks’ claim that AI is woke: how would you go about establishing that? Has an AI ever cancelled someone (independently of the user) for their views? Does it always spout the leftist ideology on identity politics? “Woke” is increasingly being used as a residual for “anything I don't like”…
Indeed. The elephant in the room here is that the degree to which traits (particularly IQ) are heritable yields direct implications for the source of racial disparities, and their optimal (if any) solutions. Wokes will break their backs to deny any heritability, whilst many race realists will downplay the environmental effects. Even if IQ is 60% heritable, that leaves a large proportion that can be attributed to environment: theoretically that can account for all of the black-white IQ gap. I see a tendency for both sides of this debate to be driven by ideological motivations over empirical inquiry.
A case against beta blockers
The very fact that the publication of these results in a major journal is possible shows that the "elites" are not gaslighting you into thinkinh that vaccines are 100% risk-free (which is likely too much to ask from any pharmaceutical intervention). Yet the complications are negligible. Anti-vaxxers are too stupid to do cost-benefit analyses and to think in probabilities.
More on the kakistocratic turn of the right. I think this, and the lessons of Hanania’s and Karlin’s elite human capital theory more broadly, applies to most right-wing movements across the globe. Educated, intelligent people incline towards socially-liberal viewpoints, so the rightist pandering to social conservatism and nativism will undoubtedly repel them. It holds for Brexit (hence why “Singapore on Thames” failed to materialise in favour of “Little England”), and the Libertarian Party with the Mises Caucus takeover and the Ron Paul types. Populism is disastrous for competent policymaking.
However you interpret this correlation, your health is linked to your mood. Easier said than done though…
An impressive attempt by a non-economist to model, using a range of growth models, and forecast the effects of AI on output.
Unfortunately, hate spreads. What can we do about this problem?
A paper basically confirming my predictions. One more reason to subscribe!
"There are disincentives for selecting charities by deliberating about their cost-effectiveness, as people are more rewarded for signaling socially valued moral traits". Competing for status seems to reward deontological over utilitarian ethics. Equally well, much of the moral virtues we hold are probably an elaborate exercise in signalling our prosociality more than actually being proscoial. This is especially relevant when the moral option (and yes, I do agree with Singer that morality is objective; where there are disagreements that moral relativists hype on, the issue is lack of data regarding how to enact the utilitarian calculus) is personally costly. The most moral thing anyone can do can be done instantly today - go vegan, yet how many of us are willing to do so? Meat-eaters are objectively more evil than vegan serial killers, yet how many of us lose sleep over that? Perhaps this is also an argument against paying too much attention to morality outside of ethics debates, and in favour of sociopathy…
Everyone criticises social media for misinformation, but how many false statistics would get debunked in the absence of autistic nerds and academics on X? #EconTwitter is a public good, and only possible given the fact social media exists.
Get the shingles vaccine as soon as you can. I will also be posting more about how to delay (and possibly reverse) ageing at a later date. A spoiler: with point (15) you can kill two birds with one stone by going vegan.
I love that some economists are still practicing general equilibrium theory, as opposed to being “reg monkeys”!
Is this surprising? Cannabis contains many of the same chemicals as can be found in tobacco, and of course is generally mixed with tobacco. I have always thought that the high isn't the major harm; it is the physical cumulative health impact of regular long-term use. Still probably healthier than alcohol though. Basically in terms of health costs from least to worst, I rank the options as such: occasional/moderate (not daily) MJ consumption < moderate drinking (UK guidelines) < heavy MJ use < heavy drinking.