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Friday links, to get you into a more contemplative mood for the weekend
Christopher J Ferguson, Ph.D.: No, Conscientiousness Hasn’t Collapsed Among Young People in Recent Years. A while back, when I wrote about “journalist science”, I highlighted FT’s John Burn-Murdoch as someone who’s on thin ice with regards to methodology. Well, according to this article — which I have no reason to doubt — he punched a whole straight through and is now in some icy waters. Unlimited degrees of freedom combined with an incentive towards sensationalism do not make for rigorous research. (↬Adam Mastroianni)
Erik Hoel: John von Neumann Shot Lightning From His Arse. A delightful myth-busting of some of the more out-there stories about von Neumann, which have recently been spread by, erm, “pop-hereditarianists”, which I suppose are to eugenicists what alt-right is to national socialism. I suppose these people would also marvel at Winston Churchill’s wit, hearing all the stories about him, but then it takes a certain dose of credulity to buy into ideology that has long ago been debunked.
Kyla Scanlon: 30 Days, 9 Cities, 1 Question: Where Did American Prosperity Go?. “What became clear almost immediately is that the prosperity is real, it’s just not showing up in the places people actually live. It exists in balance sheets, in stock portfolios, in data centers behind chain-link fences. But in daily life like in commutes, in childcare costs, in housing, in safety, in community, people are feeling decay.” Maybe it’s the non-economist in me but what Scanlon is describing here does not sound prosperous at all. The balance sheets and stock portfolios are a jobs report away from melting into nothing. That is not prosperity, it is a house of cards.