Why Poor Countries Stopped Catching Up. Notable for academic researchers being honest and saying "The data now says we were wrong."
It looks like Fukuyama was prophetic about this in 1991.
Bernini. Imagine being able to make stone look soft.
Steve Sailer reminds us what PJ O'Rourke wrote about Somalis. In 1993.
The purpose of Milan Cathedral
First and Second Palestine. Seems to be new
One of the possible names for this blog 20 years ago was "Do I have to pull this car over?" I rejected it because I knew I would prove as guilty as the misbehaving children in the back.
So there's this.
School is Way Worse for Kids Than Social Media. Eli-Stark-Elster
One of my favorite tests: "Compared to What?" We read about the terrible things that social media and video games do to children's development. I do not say such things are untrue. In my day it was comic books and TV that rotted the brain, and I imagine it did. Either my junior or senior year of high school, I watched "Gilligan's Island" three times every night - two of them the same episode. I know see it as a good form of zoning out. When you have anxiety sufficient to require at least 60 minutes - often 120 - to fall asleep every night, the brain seeks something mindless enough to relax, interesting enough to keep you in the chair.
School was great because I got to see my friends before, after, and between classes. But many of my classes I would go in prepared to start slowly counting until the end of the class as soon as paying attention became intolerable, but having to look attentive. Even being challenged wore off rather quickly. I loved the first two weeks of advanced summer studies, 4 hours a day, six days a week of the same subject, plus homework that was new ground we were supposed to capture by morning. Weeks three and four were okay. Week five I was starting to wane. Week six I was checked out again.
I suppose it was dime novels that started us on the road to ruin, eh?
For instance: did you know that daily social media use increases the likelihood a child will commit suicide by 12-18%? Or that teenagers are far more likely to visit the ER for psychiatric problems if they have an Instagram account? Or that a child’s amount of social media use, past a certain threshold, correlates exponentially with poorer sleep, lower reported wellbeing, and more severe mental health symptoms?
If that was all true for social media— and again, none of it is — you and I both would agree that people under 16 or so should not have access to platforms like Instagram or Snapchat. Imagine allowing your child to enter any system that would make them 12-18% more likely to kill themselves. That would be insane. You wouldn’t let your kid anywhere near that system, and the public would protest until it was eliminated once for all.
Great. So let’s get rid of school.
Yes, there’s the obvious twist — all the data I just listed is true for the effects of school. The modern education system is probably the single biggest threat to the mental health of children.
I don't know what I would design instead. I am pretty sure I would order the complete set of Junior Classics comic books. How else would I ever read Silas Marner?
Why it's good news that more people are dying of cancer.
Since 1980, the share of the global population that dies of cancer per year has risen by almost 20 percent. But this isn’t because cancer has become more dangerous – it’s because of rising life expectancy. Cancer is much more common in old age, and more people now survive to that point. Age-adjusted cancer death rates have actually fallen by more than 20 percentThis is also a good thing to keep in mind with health statistics in general. Better hospitals get more difficult cases. Longevity in general is not a great measure of a society's health (though it's a pretty good measure of yours). The percentage of people dying of a particular cause has a lot to do with the causes that have dropped off the list altogether.
Stefan Schubert
The World Happiness Report is a Sham by Yascha Mounk. What I have been saying for years, but better researched and more thorough. Scandinavians see through the questions and want to make their society look good.
But perhaps the biggest problem with the World Happiness Report is that metrics of self-reported life satisfaction don’t seem to correlate particularly well with other kinds of things we clearly care about when we talk about happiness. At a minimum, you would expect the happiest countries in the world to have some of the lowest incidences of adverse mental health outcomes. But it turns out that the residents of the same Scandinavian countries that the press dutifully celebrates for their supposed happiness are especially likely to take antidepressants or even to commit suicide.
Book club did Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins this month, and I was puzzled for a good deal of it. Not that I couldn't pick anything up, but events unfolded that had little connection to each other, and even well into the book, when the various subplots were building and connecting internally, how they fit with each other remained obscure. I figured out a some interesting things I noticed and found a tag line I thought would hold up: What is wrong with mankind, and what can be done about it?
It was good to listen to smart people who loved the book. Pieces came together. But as they came together, I realised that I had dropped basic information that I had been given. Had I recollected those I would have done better, as I could have asked myself good questions after 100 pages. First is the title, Love in the Ruins. Always keep the title in mind, right? It's important. The protagonist is in love with three women but the relationships are fragmented and he believes the world is about to either end or change drastically. So when puzzled, asking yourself "Why is this book called Love in the Ruins?" Whenever I remembered the title, I diverted into thinking "Wasn't that a movie with Katherine Hepburn? Was that connected with the poem by Browning? Is this book going to tie into one of those somehow?" None were helpful thoughts in understanding this book. Keep it simple.
One of the participants read from the first page of the novel. Every paragraph not only introduced the themes and subplots, but pointed to exactly what was central about them. So go back and read the first page again. Pay attention to names. The protagonist was named Thomas More and was one of his descendants. I just took it as a generic historic religious figure, telegraphing that there were going to be religious topics and themes. No. It was important that it was Thomas More. The town in Louisiana was named Paradise. I thought that was merely ironic. There was lots more where this came from.
Some others picked up that this was about the lack of integration between parts of the personality, as well as between parts of society, and parts of the Church. As the kaleidoscope keeps turning, it finally comes to some stable picture at the very end. Strange, but recognisable and looking healthy rather than pathological. If you know that going in, and remember the title and pay attention to the names, the book may reward a reading.
The Assistant Village Idiot is supposed to make his contribution by paying attention to the obvious things that everyone else has overlooked. I got that backwards, failing about as spectacularly as possible.
I've never skied Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington myself. Never seriously considered it. I have friends who have, one in particular who grew up in Gorham and skied it often. He still skis at 72, just finishing a vacation at Gore Mountain in the Adirondacks where he skied 15 straight days, opening to closing. This is where they just had the gondola breakdown two weeks ago, which he just missed. His was the last gondola that could be exited before it ground to a halt, stranding over 5 dozen skiers aloft.
So he is still having adventures. He skied for the US Army in Germany in the 70s and works for some unexplainable Minotaur AI defense intelligence company in Virginia now. His eye is on retirement to get back to the Adirondacks. I don't quite know how I got distracted into this. I was talking about Tuckerman's.
I can see why you would want to ski it in the summer, when it is the only place in the East with snow year-round. I don't get choosing a workout like this in February, when you could get in more skiing anywhere with a lift. Wildcat is right across the highway. I'm grateful there are GoPro cameras that can give me a vague idea of the experience.
Generic Novel Tim Sample with a classic old Mainer's joke
Metaphor for Memory - Computer analogy or video? Application to Borderline Personality Disorder.
California Dreamin' with the Hullabaloo Dancers. Fairly disquieting
Fraidy Cats I am still hearing that it is conservatives who are afraid of change. I am even more convinced now that this is backwards.
Pete Seeger had just died. James's link in the comments to a First Things essay at the time still works
We are having fish tonight, which always reminds me of this joke when it happens on a Friday.
Maureen O'Rourke went to the priest to complain about her family and ask what she should do with them. "I make fish every Friday like my mother and grandmother before me, as a good Catholic woman should, and they whine about it the whole dinner."
"Don't they like fish?" Father asked
"They love fish. They just don't like being old fashioned, so now that the rules have softened they want to be all Vatican II about it."
"Do they complain about it when you serve fish on other nights?"
Mother O'Rourke paused, eyes darting from side to side. Then one side of her mouth turned up in a grin. "Thank you for your help, Father. They're going to get fish every blessed Wednesday for the rest of their lives."
Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers died several days ago at 85. He was known as a solid high-innings, high-strikeout pitcher with a bit of an attitude. Mickey was not a 20-game winner until his 30s but had some spectacular seasons late in his career.
He was overshadowed during the 1968 regular season by Denny McLain's 31 victories, an extreme statistical outlier even at the time. Lolich was even sent to the bullpen for a couple of weeks for ineffectiveness. But he managed to win 17 games anyway, earning 3 starts in the World Series. This time it was McLain who disappointed, losing games 1 and 4. Lolich won twenty games the hard way, with three complete-game victories, including Game Seven on two-days rest. Key to that win was picking off Lou Brock* and Curt Flood in one inning.
McLain's career disappeared, embroiled in bookmaking scandals. Mickey went on to have his best seasons.
*The replay shows that Brock was actually safe, but players argued with umpires less about that then.
Weaknesses in the Nurture Hypotheses. Nurture says that stereotypes have a large effect on children's attitudes toward themselves, which is why they are so damaging. Do they? Did the expectations of the older ladies in "The Music Man" affect the little girls of the 60s? (Multiply by a thousand other examples - still not much effect.)
The 30-Year Success Story the FDA ignored Ruxandra likes the Australian model
The Gospel of Shut Up David Foster sends along this tale of criticising Hamas and paying for it at Guelph University
Are Girls Smarter Than Boys? According to Cremieux, the new study just means "I can win this argument if you let me redefine all the words"
Government jobs are among the least merit-based in America, prone to nepotism, affirmative action, political appointment, longevity and tenure, Old Boy (and now Old Girl) networks, and outright bribery. Yet imagine if it were the one area where merit was most sacrosanct. There would be a prestige that attracted talent. It would require a massive reform effort; likely no one would attempt it. But Singapore does it, and Lipton Matthews compares the result to the UK and Jamaica
Oh, this was fun. Colin Gurrie at Dead Language Society composed a story based around London that goes back progressively in style and vocabulary to the year 1000. How far back in time can you understand English?
1500
I went forthe among the people, and as I paſſed throughe the market and the ſtretes of the towne, euer lokyng aboute me with grete care, leſt I ſholde agayn encountre ſome peryl, thee appeared, from oute of the prees that ſame man whom I ſo dredde. And he was passyng foule was of vyſage, as it ſemed to me, more foule than ony man I had ſene in al my lyf.
He turned hym towarde me and ſayd, “Straunger, wherefore art thou come hydder?”
And I anſwerd hym nott, for I knewe nott what I ſholde ſaye, ne what answere myght ſerue me beſt in ſuche a caas.
He then goes back over the territory, explaining the changes in each era. I commented there about prose being easier to follow than the poetry we are usually given for each era.
Gurrie is the author of Osweald Bera, which teaches Old English in the form of a story about a talking bear. I haven't read it, but it looks like fun and relatively painless.
Things Have Changed (sidebar) has the blogger's career experiences with environmental degradation in non-capitalist places, in response to the frequent accusation that it is capitalism that has caused pollution. Experiencing the Environment.
That same year, a colleague went on a due diligence trip to Volgograd (the former Stalingrad) to look at a factory our company was thinking of acquiring. Upon his return, he reported that the toxic waste from the plant, and every other factory in the area, was transported by a pipeline some miles to a local lake where it was dumped without any treatment.
What, are you doubting his lived experience?
Transwomen are not Women Mary Dyer. An online and irl space I know little about, other than the statements about them by others. A statement that recognises that autogynephilia is a real thing.
...“transwomen” are not, in fact, women, but are males who feel sexually entitled to women and will use male tactics like colonization, dominance, and usurpation to get what they want. If they can’t invade our bodies they invade our spaces. They take our words. They redefine us out of existence.
"The Dwarves are for the dwarves!"
Zimbabwe vs Botswana Magatte Wade is a happy warriorPooh's Vocabulary "This morning, my 4-year-old told me that the clementine he was having with his morning tea was “Very pleasant to eat.” About 85% of this child’s vocabulary comes from Winnie the Pooh and I am not mad about it."
Nothing to See Here, Move Along I thought I'd give another source because this one is mostly behind the paywall, but there is a Bright Future Fund related to Down's Syndrome scholarships, a Bright Futures Catholic school charity, a Florida general scholarship charity, and that's not even getting into the Brighter Futures Fund. But this one has the usually-reputable Fidelity Investments in it. Click on the tax return to see the mission statement...
