Links to Consider, 2/2
Emily Oster's favorite study; Thales Academy book; N.S. Lyons on the defenders of democracy; Virginia Postrel on the fertility crisis;
they studied a dead salmon. They put this dead salmon into an fMRI machine, and they gave it a task. As they write: “The salmon was shown a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations with a specified emotional valence, either socially inclusive or socially exclusive.” The study is careful. They provide a mirror to ensure the salmon can see the faces.
The authors then looked at what areas of the salmon’s brain lit up when the fish saw the photos, compared with a period of no photos. They found two areas of the brain that appeared significantly more electronically active during the photos.
This paper showed that we ought to be a little cautious about fMRI studies.
A reader recommends The Thales Way, by Bob Luddy, who founded that set of private schools.
we believe in holding each member of our community to the same high standards and to lifting each other up in pursuit of them. As such, we think our dress code is a clear way to respect a person’s dignity. These standards reflect long-standing American traditions. When we ask students to order their appearance and treat the school day like it has special value, we are showing them respect and are helping them learn to respect themselves.
I think that in order to make school a bonding experience, you probably want it to feel a bit like a cult. Some students might not like it. Your school will not be right for everyone.
“Democracy has won” in Poland following the election of a new government in October – or at least so declared the country’s new prime minister, Donald Tusk. The former top European Union official’s party only won 30% of the vote compared to the 36% of his incumbent conservative, EU-skeptical rivals, the Law and Justice (PiS) party, but was nonetheless able to assemble a coalition of leftists to take power. Since entering office, Tusk has moved quickly to prove his particular commitment to “democracy.” Which is to say that, in a particularly striking example of what all of us can now increasingly anticipate whenever “democracy” wins elections in the West these days, he immediately began trampling the constitution in order to jail his political opponents.
If you do not allow the main opposition party to compete, then you are doing democracy wrong. I have a feeling I will be saying that a lot this year.
Some careers are “greedy,” to use economist Claudia Goldin’s term. Greedy jobs are distinct from jobs that require child care during predictable work hours. They demand long hours, on-call work schedules, or frequent travel. They do not easily accommodate the demands of family life, which has its own greedy demands. Greedy jobs are often the highest paid or most prestigious in a particular field, industry, or society.
…suppose an ambitious young woman meets and marries her ideal mate by her mid-20s. Biologically she can easily have a several children. But to do so she must forgo developing vital human capital until she is in her 40s. Her male peers, meanwhile, will be building theirs. At 40, she will be the resume equivalent of, say, a 28-year-old man—but her education and skills will likely be, or be perceived as, out-of-date.
The happiest people I know are embedded in thick, multi-generational family trees. There are many cousins, and they are close to one another. Marriages start relatively young, and they are durable.
In the pursuit of other ideals, like sexual identity or a high-status occupation, a lot of men and women have lost the plot.
substacks referenced above:
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I'm unimpressed by Lyons's article, especially compared to the normal standard of these links. It feels like a typical American reading of domestic politics into a foreign country's'. He has an odd definition of liberalism that verges on asymmetric insight ("Acceptance of social engineering as a proper approach to reforming society" is very much the opposite of liberalism as I personally see it). It also contains bizarre errors that a simple Wikipedia search could correct, for example:
> He was convicted during Tusk’s previous regime (2007-2014) for allegedly abusing his power while pursuing government corruption with “excessive zeal,” but was officially pardoned by then-new President Andrzej Duda in 2015
Every source I've seen says that he was convicted in 2015, and his re-arrest hinges on whether the pardon, issued during his later appeals trial, could be valid before the final verdict, so this is hardly a minor point. (As an aside, what kind of phrasing is "convicted [...] for allegedly abusing"? Isn't the point of a conviction that a court has determined allegations to be true?)
I think him noticing that the conflict here is whether institutions should be "politicized"/accountable democratically (despite the scare quotes around the first, these are not really different) is interesting, though.
For a while, I thought that if you take the position that democracy is mostly interesting for creating a framework for peaceful transitions of power, insulating as much of civil society as possible from democracy seems desirable. But maybe now that there's an expectation that everything be subject to democracy, trying to put the genie back into the bottle will itself cause unstable transitions, as we see in the constitutional crisis in Poland (and similarly in pre-war Israel).
But ultimately my main issue with the article is that while I'm sympathetic to the claim that the left's (the fact that PO isn't recently left-wing is another issue) opposition to authoritarianism is self-serving and hypocritical, that doesn't make it *incorrect*. Sometimes the cure really is worse than the disease.
“and marries her ideal mate by her mid-20s. Biologically she can easily have a several children. But to do so she must forgo developing vital human capital until she is in her 40s. Her male peers, meanwhile, will be building theirs.“
Is her ideal mate also one of these peers, or just sitting on a couch paying video games all the time? Or is he using his comparative advantage to work, so she can focus on the kids (note for the easily triggered: it can be the reverse and the guy can have the comparative advantage as a stay-at-home dad).
I find that one fundamental problem with the modern day view of marriage that Ms. Postrel expresses views the guy and the gal as autonomous units in competition with each other, even after marriage.
For some reason, one of the greatest insights of economics—the ability of the spouses to specialize in work and home—gets thrown out the window when it comes to this topic.