As me move toward a messier, more complicated retelling of our story, my guess is that more students are going to lose track of the overall picture.
Interesting thread on happiness that mirrors my post on trust. Some similarities, poverty and inequality lead to low trust and happiness. It also complicates two of my views: I'm okay with inequality as long as we take care of the people at the bottom. But I also highly value trust, which seems incompatible with high inequality.New paper! Here's the one-minute version. There's a puzzle I've been thinking about for a long time. Wealthy countries tend to be happier... pic.twitter.com/LL2neJbiT4
— Thomas Talhelm (@ThomasTalhelm) January 24, 2023
Speaking of trust and social capital, I’ve speculated a lot on the decline of social capital; why there is less face-to-face interaction with people outside our homes in younger generations. But maybe the better question is to ask why there was so much face-to-face interaction with the silent generation.
And maybe the simple, boring answer is that civic participation and social interaction is driven by boredom. And entertainment and technology is so amazing right now that people are never bored enough to leave their homes and find other people to cure their boredom.
I also think this is a better explanation than the one offered by the Let Grow movement, i.e. that kids are stuck inside because their parents are too scared to let them out. My theory is that they don’t want to go out. The idea of meeting up with some neighborhood friends and building their own treehouse is less exciting than doing the same thing virtually on Minecraft.
In my End of Culture post, I pointed out that the proliferation of new movies that are sequels (Top Gun: Maverick, etc.) and TV shows that are spinoffs (Velma, Wednesday, etc.) are a sign of a lack of creativity driven by the Gossip Trap.
I also think this is a better explanation than the one offered by the Let Grow movement, i.e. that kids are stuck inside because their parents are too scared to let them out. My theory is that they don’t want to go out. The idea of meeting up with some neighborhood friends and building their own treehouse is less exciting than doing the same thing virtually on Minecraft.
In my End of Culture post, I pointed out that the proliferation of new movies that are sequels (Top Gun: Maverick, etc.) and TV shows that are spinoffs (Velma, Wednesday, etc.) are a sign of a lack of creativity driven by the Gossip Trap.
But I think there is a better explanation.
Research shows that, given low information, a voter will choose the candidate with the familiar name. Likewise, given an abundance of streaming options, and the paradox of choice, a viewer will choose a familiar-sounding show. So spin-offs and sequels are a way for content makers to cut through the noise by giving the viewer a familiar-sounding name.
In The Scout Mindset, Julia Galef uses the example of a climate activist using investment language as an analogy to change the stance of a climate skeptic who worked in finance. I was thinking of this when reading NYT’s "The Morning" when it quoted Biden’s line about going after “junk fees.”
Not knowing much about junk fees, I would have defaulted to feeling like this was some government overreach effort that is probably a net harm, especially if I read it in a column by a leftwing activist with language like "corporate greed" and "the evils of capitalism". But watch how David Leonhardt frames it.
I mean, that worked for me. And it reminded me why viewpoint diversity is important for persuasion; you have to know how other people think and talk if you want to change the way they look at things.
In The Scout Mindset, Julia Galef uses the example of a climate activist using investment language as an analogy to change the stance of a climate skeptic who worked in finance. I was thinking of this when reading NYT’s "The Morning" when it quoted Biden’s line about going after “junk fees.”
Not knowing much about junk fees, I would have defaulted to feeling like this was some government overreach effort that is probably a net harm, especially if I read it in a column by a leftwing activist with language like "corporate greed" and "the evils of capitalism". But watch how David Leonhardt frames it.
“True, one company could call out another for using [junk fees]. But doing so often requires a complex marketing message that tries to persuade people to overcome their psychological instincts (like the appeal of a low list price). For that reason, Hilton can probably make more money by charging its own sneaky resort fees than by criticizing Marriott’s.”In other words, our current, unregulated system penalizes companies that don’t engage in junk fees. If they want to stay competitive they have to do it too, even if they don’t want to. The government, in this case, is just resetting the nash equilibrium so there is no longer an incentive to opt out of the prisoner’s dilemma.
I mean, that worked for me. And it reminded me why viewpoint diversity is important for persuasion; you have to know how other people think and talk if you want to change the way they look at things.
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