Speaking of Gioia, I love his work, his most recent article is just wonderful, and I absolutely share his view on techno optimism… but blogging from Substack makes things a bit awkward.
If you say that “$1 of research investment yields $5 in returns to the economy” — as some do — but then clarify that under those $5 you have a lot of laboratory-building and infrastructure-supporting — as some did — what point exactly are you trying to make? As ever, there is much wisdom in r/Jokes.
A major entry in the Annals of Zombie Medicine must be screening for prostate cancer in men age 70 and above. Recent events had Nassim Taleb asking whether one could detect aggressive prostate cancer early, and one could, but… Indeed, this kind of screening has been singled out as something not to do for more than a decade, and yet:
Prostate screening in men ≥70 has not reached a 50% reduction in use since the 2012 guideline release.
Meanwhile, a full one-third of adult Americans is not doing the kinds of screening that are recommended, probably because they involve poop.
Another good podcast episode: neurosurgeon Theodore Schwartz talking to Tyler Cowen. Dr Schwartz is a bigger believer in science than yours truly:
COWEN: Do you think there are areas of science, though, where the institutions are so screwed up that you don’t actually trust the product of what is coming out, and there’s some systematic bias in the ideas being generated?
SCHWARTZ: I think, yes, there’s always going to be politics involved, and we always come to any problem from a unique single perspective, and institutions are going to have their biases. Yes, that is true, but in the long run, the scientific method will figure it out, and there will be one right answer. That institution — whatever their bias is — will be proven wrong in the long run. Now, those people might be dead and won’t be able to apologize at that point.
The problem, of course, is even when the scientific method does figure something out, people still keep doing things the old way, and no, generational change does not help. Witness homeopathy, kyphoplasty, vitamin C for colds, and — more relevant to Tyler’s question — the amyloid plaque hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease. Abandoning lobotomies was an aberration, zombie medicine is the rule.
Not a tech or finance expert, but whatever Jony Ive ends up making has the potential to destroy Apple.
When Ive left the company I wondered if he was tired of work in general, or just of Tim Cook’s profiteering. Guess I got my answer.
After finishing The Space Trilogy I was wondering which of C.S. Lewis’s many books I should read next. Well, Kyla Scanlon has just nudged me in the right direction with her Economic Lessons from the Screwtape Letters:
In Screwtape, evil doesn’t arrive through fire and fury. It creeps in through ease, comfort, and optimization. Screwtape wants to nudge people into passivity as a way of capturing their souls. Let them scroll. Let them spend. Let them smooth away all friction until they wake up hollow and can’t remember why.
Sounds about right.
🎙️ Good podcast episode alert: the most recent EconTalk guest is Patrick McKenzie, a credit card savant. Have someone thoughtful and eloquent talk about their area of expertise and they will make anything interesting.
Today, I learned about The Chandler Project, a doomed attempt to build a next-generation “personal information manager”, and it is wonderful. Just look at this beauty! Sadly, the project went bust more than a decade ago — the last update was in 2009 — but many thanks to whomever is paying to keep the lights on.
The initial development and decline of Chandler was described in the book Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg which, yes, is now on the pile. (↬Thinking With Tinderbox)
🎙️ After listening to a half-dozen episodes of the Plain English podcast I have come to the conclusion that I don’t like it for reasons of both substance and style. Style-wise, it is just too polished. The host, Derek Thompson, talks like someone who has spent way too much time in his childhood watching News at 10 and now has the cadence of a seasoned newscaster. Thirty years ago this may have projected authority but nowadays, to me, sounds fake.
Substance is the bigger problem: the choice of guests is just too self-centered, wherein by “self” I mean The Atlantic in-crowd. Case in point, the episode about cultural decay starts with a description of Ted Gioia and mostly discusses the ideas of Ted Gioia, but instead of Ted Gioia the guest is… a writer from The Atlantic who spent several hours talking to Ted Gioia to include only a few of his comments in the final article. It was so egregious that Gioia himself commented.
And so Plain English moves from my ever-shortening playlist of must-listen podcasts to the one that’s case-by-case, good guests only. Which is, in fact, most podcasts around.
Speaking of Gioia, I love his work, his most recent article is just wonderful, and I absolutely share his view on techno optimism… but blogging from Substack makes things a bit awkward.
Credit where it’s due: the Mobile Passport Control app was super-easy to set up (provided your passport or green card are more than 4 years from expiration) and cut down my entry at Dulles Airport by at least 30 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised.