Don't ask 'Why is there still poverty?' but why any place got developed at all by Tibor Rutar, University of Maribor (Slovenia)
There is strong evidence that democracies above a certain income threshold – roughly $6,055 of GDP per capita in constant 1985 purchasing power terms – rarely break down, with only a few exceptions. Adam Przeworski et al. first established this pattern in a dataset spanning 1950-1990. Above, the figure shows the pattern still mostly holds from 1990 onward.
Statistics - Presidential Grades
Seasons of Friends Includes a link in the comments to a Sarah Hoyt essay about exchange students, which I have recalled many times
The Froude Society In contrast, this idea never caught on with me. I had completely forgotten about it. Still interesting, though
QOTD Proof
When meaning well replaces Research in the church. Not even informal research of "we compared a dozen small groups over a three year period," but just "I talked to other people who think like me and they think so too."
I had started a post on pervasive unrest, that when discord occurs in a society around one issue it tends to bleed over into others when Cranberry popped in with the news that foreign "rage farmers" were posting a lot of the highly charged political information on X. Presumably similar things are happening on at least some of the other conflict sites: bluesky, instagram, Facebook, snapchat, TikTok, substack, and whatever else is out there. Likely all of them.
I wondered what effect this would have on my thinking about the subject and decided it reinforced some of what I wanted to say, but in quite a different way than expected. So I am just going to put down my bullet notes for now to give you ideas to play around with.
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There is a concept of evaporation of groups, analogous to what happens to a liquid as it evaporates. The elements that do not evaporate off become more concentrated. Think of salt water left outdoors in a basin for a few days. When you come back there will be less water, and it will be saltier. The social analogy is that as fads and fashions "simmer down" (hehe) the less engaged wander off, pay less attention, and bring less energy, leaving a concentration of core believers behind. I don't know how well this has been demonstrated, but the idea at least makes some sense. I had a related post about the SPLC and Hate Groups in 2013.
The people who went online and finally found communities of people who like to collect old license plates or are interested in the War of 1812 mostly found each other 20 years ago. It's one of the benefits of social media, but it's not likely to expand much now.
If concentrated groups encounter each other, whether IRL or online, they are more likely to spark conflict, even if they are surrounded by "mostly peaceful" protests. So the impression that people have that bluesky and Twitter have become crazier may be spot on. Facebook is for Boomers, community groups, and young parents now, and the residual is a few people with very confrontative politics. Hell's Grannies come to life. I've about had it with a lot of my wife's old sorority sisters and elementary school staff.
Jesse Singal is a major target for hatred on Bluesky. Who knew?
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Maybe we are less angry than we thought. If the angriest people we know ratchet down a bit we might all do better.
I linked to a link from Rob Henderson about women recommending more attractive women cut off more hair, which he interpreted as intrasexual competition, sweet sabotage. Bethany picked that up and ran with it and though she found some positive things about the study and its followup, she found that the study mostly did not support the competition idea very well, and actually pointed in the opposite direction in some ways. There was a telltale sign that the authors were prepared to regard any data as supportive of their hypothesis somehow.
That should remind me not to rely entirely on reading only the abstract when I relink a study. I hope you didn't repeat the claim to a lot of people on my say-so. If you did, please blame me. Reading only the abstract is common for me, and it has its dangers.
Ancestor worship is one of the earliest and most common forms of religion. I wonder if the robots will worship microwaves.
Colin Wright of Reality's Last Stand on the lack of evidence for gender transitioning medicine. Pray that whatever diseases and conditions you get have no political implications. Doctors do well with those. But part of succeeding at school is knowing what answers get you good grades. Medical school selects for many things, but one of them is discerning the fashionableness of an idea, because you need to adjust to that to get through to the next level.
James, can you explain this to us? Or any other scientists I've got aboard here. Is this some superadvanced analogy to casting out nines, where you can get enormous amounts of information out of the way?
Cats Greet Men More Than Women Not at my sons' houses, they don't.
Further Arguments Against Jared Diamond by Jane Psmith. Three books, two of which we have discussed here. I like any arguments against Jared Diamond
Epiphaneia at Cosmos and Taxis In Defense of Free Markets I had not heard of the site before this evening. I clicked on it because of the recommendation "Best defence of free markets I have ever read. I have read Friedman, Hayek, Rothbard and Mises—but this is the best by far." It was worth it.
I also want to mention computational market simulations as a source of evidence that market can self organize to achieve favorable outcomes without needing perfect competition. Gode et al. 2013 find that even when artificial traders use random, "zero-intelligence" bids, they can achieve near perfect market efficiency as long as a budget constraint (i.e., not permitting traders to sell below their costs or buy above their values) is enforced. This indicates that the market structure itself can produce efficient outcomes, supporting the idea that the "invisible hand" can work not only when individual traders are irrational, but also when the traders have zero intelligence. All it takes is a budget constraint.
As substack has gradually acquired more slop, there has been an informal move for some readers to trust only those using their real names. I think there are places where people should be allowed to be anonymous, and have found the handles people have taken for themselves informative and humorous about them, and human nature in general. Yet I don't mind different platforms having different rules, and prefer social influencing to mandates. I see their point. A lot of the newer sites coming on board are just copying AI information and trying to get people to follow their links so that they can get advertising money. So I will remain Assistant Village Idiot in most places, but am signing as David Wyman on substack comments. David Foster's substack is already well-prepared.
People say "follow the money" but that is only a specific case of a more general perspective. People want lots of things other than money: status, mates, predictability, jobs, safety. Looking at our behavior in terms of getting those things can explain a lot.
Wokeness arose largely because powerful people were in the way of others. They needed to be gotten rid of so that jobs and status would open up. Because they were mostly older, mostly male, and mostly white it paid to put those categories under immediate suspicion at every starting point and watch what they said like a hawk. Cancelations were more intense in academia, media, and entertainment - exactly those places where young left-leaning people were trying to get in. So it didn't matter if they were actually sexist, or homophobic or whatever. Some were and some weren't but that wasn't primary. What had to happen was a blanket reduction of people in the way, and let God sort them out. This is why there was only some protection for being female or black or gay yourself.
Connections to the word "patriarchy" may come to mind, here.
Even though Jews were longtime supporters and powers in the Democratic Party and the left in general, they were also often in positions of power. Obama's speechwriters and political operatives were predominantly Jewish. That was much less true under Biden. Media, academia, entertainment had powerful older Jews gumming up the works for people who wanted those slots.
If you look at the insane and contradictory support for the Palestinians on the left from this perspective it starts to make more sense. There's no rationality to it. The Palestinians treat women very badly, as does much of the Islamic world. Gays can be executed, and are certainly not allowed into positions of power, nor are Blacks or East Asians. (Indonesia is a huge Muslim presence that has almost no influence in the Middle East. Too far away and the wrong color.) There is no natural alliance with the Western left.
But those Jews have to be gotten rid of somehow, so the alligator eventually came for them too. Being good liberals who had written many books or contributed large sums no longer mattered. The kids want those jobs in those industries.
I started a post that turned out to be too clever by half, based on the idea that liberals think of themselves as chaotic good as a leftover from the 70s when people were moving into communes and becoming Jesus people and breaking the marijuana laws and having very different fashions. That devolved into just sticking it to The Man by having different fashions and music. Ha ha, oldsters! But as they took over the institutions - journalism, education, government, mainstream religion - they are now lawful neutral. They frame Trump as a good-evil axis, but it's the law-chaos axis that really upsets them. I think even a lot of his supporters see him as chaotic neutral, with the chaos part being necessary enough to outweigh other considerations.
That's okay as far as it goes, but it's only half an idea and when I tried to expand it the various branches kept collapsing with counterexamples in quick order. Play with it on your own if you like.
I watched some of his stuff. He's is just a troll, not a thinker in any way. Whether he will have appeal and become important I have no idea. There is chatter about the kids who have grown up online, and where they have migrated to, and the power of short-form video and repetition - all that. I don't know. I no longer trust any short-form video myself. I like seeing the ones with my granddaughters in Alaska are in them, or my son out doing adventurous things in the cold.
Four Hands Good, Two Feet Better We did not have four feet and stood up, allowing two feet to become hands. We were in the trees with four hands and came down.
The Opposite of Chesterton's Fence Some fun comments
Graphs About Religion Fascinating site. Here are two:
Mainline female clergy are 71% Democrat, 5% Republican Female laity 47% and 44%
Mainline clergy is much more liberal than laity It's nice to have numbers to back that up
Lyman Stone debunks Elena Bridges, who thinks everything is about birth intervals
Contrast how varied the starts were then compared to the near uniformity of how everyone gets out now. I suspect it is coaching, film, and repetition.
I loved reading the history of track and field for some reason growing up in the 60s. I recognised the story of Dillard not qualifying for his specialty in the 110M hurdles, but likely hadn't thought of it in over 60 years.
Casual Calumny - Jesse Singal. I have certainly done this myself, especially commenting.
Unions I once enjoyed Hanania, now I find him puzzling and often disagree. I have a mixed reaction to this one, at best. And this. This doesn't affect me. It's none of my business.
You Will Always Have Conflicting Pressures Justin Ross. These twin pressures on women are an excellent example in our era.
You have to know that for Fair Play Cards, there is one card for getting home goods & supplies, which is equal to the one card for home maintenance. Drunk Wisconsin has a question about this.
Cremieux on the misclassification of Hispanics in crime statistics
Our cognitive genetic changes were not caused by the Industrial Revolution, they preceded and caused it, starting at least as far back as 1350 (Black Death was 1346-53, remember) The Genetic Evolution of the Human Race and Its Consequences for the Industrial Revolution Before steam engines transformed the world, the human population that built them was already changing genetically.
Adam Mastroianni at Experimental History on The Decline of Deviance. Where did the weirdness go since the 70s? (podcast available)
Britain's Wealth Was Not Built on Slavery
Not All Non-Monagamy is the Same Great comments. The substacker Drunk Wisconsin merely wrote "clarity."
Norway's Wealth Tax Unchains A Capital Exodus It reduced yearly tax revenues by $448M instead of raising them by $146M as projected. (I think the photo is Bergen harbor)
You Cannot Destroy The Elite Noah Carl at Aporia. Carl gives examples from truly draconian attempts to eliminate the elites in The Societ Union and Mao's China, and even teases out information from records of which Japanese-Americans were interned in WWII to show that their children and grandchildren were more prosperous and educated than their peers anyway.
I wonder if anyone has done a study on the wealth and success of the grandchildren of lottery winners?
As I move to links of various kinds I see this results from my scrolling of various sites. Scrolling is one of the things considered a time-waster and fairly mindless these days, and here I am, encouraging you to do more of it.
I should be sorry, but I'm not.
At least it is still a legitimate human being doing this to you, not an algorithm.
I always enjoy running across these. I read or heard years ago that crossing a river, as here, is the most common place for these. Route Something/SomethingA runs on either side of the river, and where they cross this necessarily happens. However, I don't know how you would measures that easily. I suppose AI could find out just that sort of thing for you now. I always associate this North-South contradiction with different route numbers in town centers.
On Becoming Less Left-Wing by Dan Williams at Conspicuous Cognition. He focuses on the economic understanding and the myths liberals believe. My own journey from the left, now decades ago, focused more on the data around social issues. Liberals believed myths, not only about the issues, but about themselves and their opponents. I came out from among them and worked almost entirely with them throughout my career. Many lovely people, fun to talk to and earnest about wanting to do good. But I had grown entirely suspicious of my own motives from reading CS Lewis, who stresses that self-deception is one of the main drivers of sin and unbelief, and easily heard and saw the same things in these others. I had not seen it especially before. We saw ourselves as The Nice People, buoyed by the knowledge that our opponents were the stupid, evil people. Much of this was social, that they just didn't Get It - about music and arts, about the horrors of conformity, loving guns and the military because they were afraid - all the usual.
Because of my life choices good and bad I found myself regarded as an outsider among my own people and I saw them for who they were. I also learned that the stupid, evil people were far less stupid and evil than I had imagined. I learned that the liberals in human services were in fact quite controlling of their charges. But mostly, I learned that a lot of these obviously great ideas didn't um, you know, work.
But back to Dan Williams, who saw something similar but not identical in left-wing economics. He summarises well and dismisses the pieties efficiently. Be suspicious who give their own good motives as the reason their beliefs must be true.
His seven basics are worth listing. He expands on each of these.
First, standard left-wing critiques of mainstream economics are biased and low-quality.
Second, incentives really matter.
Third, poverty is the default state of humanity.
Fourth, you cannot solve poverty or create wealth by redistribution alone.
Fifth, although free markets are subject to well-known market failures, governments are run by people, not angels, who are subject to the same kinds of incentives and constraints as those in the private sector.
Sixth, there are no solutions, only trade-offs, and unintended consequences are inevitable in political decision-making.
Seven, even win-win cooperation is inherently challenging.
So though he describes himself as still liberal in many ways, you can see he is the sort you could ave a conversation that was not infuriating at every turn.
The Gods Were the Good Guys All Along "Norse mythology is not an open-source fantasy system designed for entertainment studios to generate franchise material. It’s a collection of ancient stories that reflect an ancient belief system. While the stories themselves can be entertaining, the belief system did not exist solely for entertainment purposes. It existed for the same reason all religions do: to provide a framework for understanding and interacting with the world."
The War on Sex Differences Part II
Eadric Streona The villain meets a fitting end. The question is why did Edmund keep trusting this guy? Fool me twice, etc. The word gemot near the end is related to Moot, if that gives it away for you.
Gerrymandering? On the one hand, Utah is about 2:1 Republican overall, so however one draws the districts is likely to result in GOP majorities. OTOH, They have four House seats and you could draw a majority Democratic district around SLC, which is not an unreasonable way to envision the state.
Why the Developing World Needs Wider Streets Cities are the engines of growth and gridlock screws them up
