Links to Consider, 4/5

Noah Smith on recent chaos; Tove K on producers and regulators; John PSmith on the learning process; me on Coleman Hughes

Noah Smith writes,

Looking back, it’s easy to see that the early to mid 2010s — the period between 2012 and 2015 — was a turning point in both American society and world events. Figuring out why is harder. As far as I can tell, it was a lucky [sic] confluence of several events — technological, economic, political, and geopolitical.

He actually thinks that these phenomena had results that were unlucky: higher incidence of depression, reduced fertility, intense political polarization, higher incidence of war, expansion of authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, and elsewhere.

I find it plausible that our increased engagement with the computer/communications revolution is responsible for much of this. As people turn inward and forget to “touch grass,” human relationships deteriorate and tension increases.

Tove K writes,

The simple and boring answer is that no one knows which rules, inspectors and bureaucracy are actually necessary. Some of them doubtlessly are. I can in no way claim that all inspectors and other politically motivated people are unnecessary. It is not like everyone who works in production is doing something good and everyone who inspects production is there to put obstacles in their way. For example, if someone emits toxic chemicals while making useful things, the inspector who stops it will be the hero. 

…The tricky question is how many and what kind of people are needed. Where does the essential task of holding society together end and where does fluff and overregulation begin? Which people are honestly trying to build a better society, and which people are most of all after a good position for themselves?

She suggests that as technology improves, we can get by with fewer producers and support more moochers. This leads to an increase in mooching, which can take the form of actively inhibiting the producers.

John PSmith writes,

Have you ever noticed that there are two very different kinds of “knowing” something? There’s the kind where you can parrot an explanation somebody else gave you, but the details are all a bit fuzzy, and you would quickly fall apart under questioning. Then there’s the kind where you inhabit the knowledge, it’s like an old friend or like the neighborhood you grew up in, you know its strengths and weaknesses, where it came from, how it got to be that way, and where it’s probably going.

…the first kind of knowledge, the shallow and fuzzy sort, is what you get by memorizing or absorbing new information. The second kind is only produced when the student is actively creating or reframing their own internal mental models in their own language.

I taught AP Statistics for 15 years. As I became a better explainer, I became a worse teacher. When I struggled to explain a concept, the students struggled with me. In the process, they took ownership of the concept. But as I gained experience, I headed straight to what I thought was the clearest explanation. This seemed efficient, but it meant that students did not own the concept as well as when they struggled along with me.

I have a review of Coleman Hughes’ book on racial politics.

In recent decades, we have seen a viewpoint become popular that regards all Black people as oppressed and all White people as oppressors. Proponents of this viewpoint call themselves anti-racists. Hughes finds that label misleading.

…Hughes instead terms this viewpoint neoracism….Hughes believes that neoracism takes us in the wrong direction, away from the individualism he thinks we should strive for and instead in a direction of perpetual racial conflict.

I provide my “rock, paper, scissors” metaphor concerning the difficulty of resolving the race debates.

substacks referenced above:

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REVIEW: Mindstorms, by Seymour Papert

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Everybody wants a piece of Marc Andreessen

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Why did the world break in the early 2010s?