~marginalrevolution | Bookmarks (366)

1. Are Indian women stronger relative supporters of Modi? 2. Apple to build on-device AI? 3. The remarkable economic recovery of Sri Lanka?. 4. “UK alcohol-related deaths up one-third on pre-pandemic levels…” (FT) 5. New Cass Sunstein book on campus free speech. 6. The Straussian approach to the new Taylor Swift. 7. Macro Musings podcast […] The post Monday assorted links appeared first on...

These are usually worth pondering, as at the very least you will learn something.  Here is a hate-worthy paragraph from an earlier Bloomberg column of mine: …note that higher real estate prices, to the extent they result from immigrant demands, largely translate into capital gains for homeowners — most of whom are native-born. To be […] The post Arguments that (almost) everyone hates appeared...

1. Rasheed Griffith reggae playlist. 2. Poland got rid of compulsory homework for grade school. 3. Suicide rate trends for German teen females. 4. Important job ad for finding and cultivating talent in Brazil, no Portuguese required. 5. Plans for the REPO market? 6. Claims about microwave missiles, speculative. 7. Abundance Institute. The post Sunday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.         Comments#6...

The amazing Gukesh (17 years old!)  is half a point ahead with one round remaining today.  Three players — Nakamura, Caruana, and Nepo — trail him by half a point.  Naka is playing Gukesh, and of course Naka will try to win.  But what about Caruana vs. Nepo?  Yes, each must try to win (no […] The post The game theory of the final...

He is one of the greatest of living American historians, here is from Wikipedia: Alan Shaw Taylor (born June 17, 1955) is an American historian and scholar who is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia. A specialist in the early history of the United States, Taylor has written extensively about the colonial […] The post What should I ask Alan Taylor?...

That is the new Daron Acemoglu paper, and he is skeptical about its overall economic effects.  Here is part of the abstract: Using existing estimates on exposure to AI and productivity improvements at the task level, these macroeconomic effects appear nontrivial but modest—no more than a 0.71% increase in total factor productivity over 10 years. […] The post “The Simple Macroeconomics of AI” appeared...

1. Ross Douthat on whether the internet is the enemy of progress (NYT). 2. “This year, Sara and Justin Ilse finished building a floor for their home’s 230-square-foot entryway out of 65,507 pennies.” (WSJ) 3. Commentary on Zuck and Dwarkesh. 4. New open access book on Moonshots and the New Industrial Policy. 5. The decline […] The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on...

Maybe, but maybe not: Amid the current U.S.-China technological race, the U.S. has imposed export controls to deny China access to strategic technologies. We document that these measures prompted a broad-based decoupling of U.S. and Chinese supply chains. Once their Chinese customers are subject to export controls, U.S. suppliers are more likely to terminate relations […] The post Decoupling from China? appeared first on...

I saw the film as having very definite politics, and yes I am aware of the pronouncements of the director — ignore them!  I am writing about the movie, what was on the screen. The seceding states — California, Texas, and Florida — all have substantial Latino population segments.  The core political message is that […] The post The politics of *Civil War* (full...

1. Andrej Karpathy on Llama 3. 2. The PEN awards are on the brink of collapse. 3. These were my fiscal, political and other predictions from 2010. 4. AI is being integrated into social media — now.  Social media will change. 5. New Yorker Music critic Alex Ross cites Fischer Black on noise. 6. How […] The post Friday assorted links appeared first on...

With a group of friends I was having a chat about the merits of the current vs. past America.  Battle of the Ancients and Moderns!  I generally favor current times, but not unconditionally.  So I promised them a list of what I missed from the past.  To be clear, these are personal judgments, not claims […] The post What I am nostalgic about appeared...

All of this is from Devin Pope, in response to Lyman Stone (and myself).  Here was my original post on the paper, concerning the degree of religious attendance.  I won’t double indent, but here is Devin and Devin alone: “I’m super grateful for Lyman’s willingness to engage with my recent research on measuring religious worship […] The post Response from Devin Pope, on religious...

Latin American immigrants are starting businesses at more than twice the rate of the U.S. population as a whole. The jump in Latino entrepreneurship has driven up the overall share of new businesses owned by immigrants, who accounted for 36% of launches last year compared with 25% in 2019, according to a new analysis of […] The post U.S.A. fact of the day appeared...

1. Interview with Ulrike Malmendier, a regional thinker in the best sense of the term. 2. “Paying Off People’s Medical Debt Has Little Impact on Their Lives, Study Finds.” (NYT)  Model that. 3. Another look at suicide rates. 4. Should you have privacy rights to your brainwaves? (NYT)  And should you have the right to […] The post Thursday assorted links appeared first on...

Here is the audio, video, and transcript, along with almost thirty minutes of audience questions, filmed in Miami.  Here is the episode summary: Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, including why it’s a concept we still need today, why Peter’s against Calvinism (and rationalism), whether the Old Testament should […] The post My excellent Conversation with Peter Thiel...

1. Lyman Stone criticizes the Pope paper on church attendance.  Good criticisms, see also the points by Sure and others in the comment section.  This paper doesn’t seem to hold up?  I’ll gladly publish a response by the author, otherwise a withdrawal might be in order? 2. Good critique of the AGI concept.  And AI […] The post Wednesday assorted links appeared first on...

…residents of La Salut neighbourhood in Barcelona are celebrating a move to wipe themselves off the map. For years, residents had complained that they could not get home because the number 116 bus was always crammed with tourists visiting Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell. The park is the city’s second most popular attraction after the Sagrada Familia basilica. […] The post Barcelona escalates its role in the...

That is the subject of my latest Bloomberg column.  Here is one excerpt: The Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises is having a moment, especially in Latin America. Argentine President Javier Milei admires Mises, and he has adopted some Misesian ideas, such as the notion that “the middle of the road leads to socialism.” Milei used to be an academic […] The post The Ludwig von Mises comeback appeared...

“I have one partner now with three kids. He is transmasc, and he’s radical about the way he raises them. They’re radically home-schooled. They’re 17 and nonbinary, 6 and 5. They know everything in age-appropriate ways. They’ve seen their mommy undergo the transmasc experience, seen their mom become who they really are.” 5 and 6!  […] The post Does the NYT not recognize child...

From a recent paper: We bring novel data to bear on these questions, presenting the largest empirical study of private security to date. We introduce an administrative dataset covering nearly 300,000 licensed private security officers in the State of Florida. By linking this dataset to similarly comprehensive information about public law enforcement, we have, for […] The post Data on private security forces appeared...

1. Paul Christiano appointed to USG Head of AI Safety. 2. Further worries about the anti-cavity thing.  I don’t pretend to know the answers here, but this has not been thought through well enough.  And SSC update. 3. Fritz Peterson, RIP, MIE.  Very 1970s. 4. The economic research policymakers actually need. 5. Doris Day: A […] The post Tuesday assorted links appeared first on...

Thus, approximately 1 out of 7 people who I classify as a Latter-day Saint attends [religious service] weekly. And: However, only 5% of Americans attend services “weekly”, far fewer than the ~22% who report to do so in surveys. Oh, and this: The religions with the longest average visit duration are Orthodox Christians (116 minutes), […] The post LDS and indeed USA fact of...

Here is a very good article by Ronald Bailey of Reason magazine.  Excerpt: The contours of the new progress movement stretch from the Human Progress project at the libertarian Cato Institute to the “eco-modernist” initiatives at the Breakthrough Institute and the Pritzker Innovation Fund. Four relatively new groups at the forefront of the pro-progress forces […] The post The progress in Progress Studies appeared...

…at least half of a population of ten million depend on the state in some way—35% are retirees, 10% government workers, and another 5% receive either unemployment benefits or integration benefits. They would see a country with less youth than they once saw; they would see what is in fact, after Italy, the second-oldest country in […] The post A portrait of Portugal appeared first...