Category Archives: Economics

Admitting When You’re Wrong

Here is something that honest journalists (and scientists) understand and do, but which conservatives and the religious never do: admit they were wrong, and change their minds. That’s intellectual honesty. Today’s NYT has a set of eight essays by its … Continue reading

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Ls&Cs: Harari on Climate Change

Yuval Noah Harari has an essay in the current issue of Time Magazine about the cost of tackling climate change.

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Links & Comments: Narrative Shortcuts, Fantasy Worlds, Arabic Numerals

Sunny but chilly today; we’ve had rain for much of the past two weeks, and now we’re in for a week or so of sun. We did a 34-minute walk, though Robinson Drive and around on  Skyline and back to … Continue reading

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Ls&Cs: Is DNA Safe to Eat? Is America Undergoing a Mass Psychosis?

Paul Krugman on Republican resistance to investments in the future; a concern about whether DNA is safe to eat; about watching Fox News every day; and about Carl Jung’s warning about mass psychosis.

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Pursuing Books During the Pandemic and Supply-Side Crisis

Via book reviews and Fb posts, I’m aware of 2 or 3 new nonfiction books published every week that look interesting enough to consider reading. I restrain myself; at most I buy 2 or 3 new nonfiction books a month … Continue reading

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Ls&Cs: Look at the (Economics) Evidence

More evidence that economics (and psychology) are becoming sciences, not just ideologies. This year’s Nobel Prizes in economics are interesting, Paul Krugman explains, because their recipients applied real-world evidence which turn out to undermine ideological economic theories that that have … Continue reading

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Links and Comments: Reality; Economics; Religion and Politics

Scientific American: Now Is the Time to Reestablish Reality, subtitled “We need to agree on the evidence—so we can disagree on what to do in light of it” On the occasion of the passing of the Trump administration, of course. … Continue reading

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Link and Comments: Federal Deficits and Pandemic Relief

One of the themes of my blog here is that reality is complex. While many if not most people (especially conservatives) cling to simple, black and white, alternatives to every issue, and think the right answer is always white, the … Continue reading

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Links and Comments: Secrets of Success, the 2010s, Gibson’s future, History v. Narratives

Here are a few items from recent papers. 1) Nicholas Kristof: The Four Secrets of Success. Which are: 1. Take a class in economics and in statistics 2. Connect to a cause larger than yourself. 3. Make out. 4. Escape … Continue reading

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Links and Comments: Psychology and Economics; SF and Fantasy

Several items from Sunday’s NYT. First a review of a new book by Steven Johnson, FARSIGHTED: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most; the review is by Adam Grant: How Do We Make the Long-Term Decisions That Matter?. … Continue reading

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