Links to Consider, 7/14

Gurwinder on surging mental illness; Pravina Rudra on short men; Thomas Kelly on Advance Market Commitments; Peter Thiel on the significance of the diversity movement

Gurwinder Bhogal writes,

we have a medical industry that is both financially and ideologically motivated to overstate the prevalence of illness, and we have a victimhood culture that encourages people to view themselves as oppressed by things they can’t control. In the middle of this we have ordinary people tempted to blame their problems on medical issues for the sake of easy answers.

…Research shows conservatives tend to have an internal locus of control, which means they believe that their decisions, as opposed to external forces, control their destiny. Liberals, meanwhile, tend to have an external locus, which means they believe their lives are determined by forces beyond their control.

People with an internal locus of control, believing they control their destiny, tend to be happier and have healthier habits, like good diets and frequent exercise, while people with an external locus of control, believing they’re at the mercy of fate, have higher rates of anxiety and depression and are more likely to abuse drugs and neglect their health. When you believe you have no control, you don’t.

But he rejects the solution of teaching young people not to be leftists. Instead,

The ultimate cure to rampant pathologization, then, is to teach the young a time-tested truth, bequeathed to us by history’s survivors: that you are more than the things that happen to you. And you have as much power over your life as you believe you do.

Perhaps if we could do this, then the symptoms of leftism also would abate.

Pravina Rudra writes,

To dismiss a man, rude or otherwise, as ugly or stupid would be distasteful. But somehow, dismissing him as short is often considered funny.

Pointer from Rob Henderson. Again, how did my genes survive?

Thomas Kelly writes,

Could the solution to reining in such wasteful government and nonprofit spending be a commitment to buy only goods and services proven to work? This may sound simplistic, but the idea, called advanced market commitments (AMC), has won influential adherents across academia, governments, and nonprofits.

AMCs are a mechanism whereby a funder, normally a government, promises to buy only a specified quantity of a good or service that meets predetermined criteria.

AMCs strike me as equivalent to prizes. This is particularly obvious in the case of a pharmaceutical. You can commit to buying a pharmaceutical that achieves at least X benefit at no more than Y risk. Or you can commit to paying a prize for the development of such a pharmaceutical, and have the prize serve to buy out the patent.

Kelly is assuming positive motivation here. I fear that often the point of a a system of grants from nonprofits or the government is to provide revenue to the grantee, not to serve some ultimate need. The way to ensure accountability to the ultimate users of a service is to have that service provided by profit-seeking businesses operating in a market. If I could wave a magic wand, I would starve the government/NGO beast.

Peter Thiel argues that the diversity movement signifies that we have lost the ability to focus on what matters. The corruption of science, for example.

Most imagine a scientist to be an independent researcher who thinks for himself, and this figure may still appear in children’s books, but in practice the occupation mostly entails the enforcement of a fixed set of dogmas.

We are told that more government funding of science leads to more innovation. But if you look more closely, it seems to lead to more suppression of innovation. The incentives for rent-seeking work out that way.

Thiel also argues that we have organized our society in such a way that wealth is concentrated in real estate. And universities own much of it.

If you analyze the universities in economic terms, you might even conclude that the dorms and residences are the profit center driving an elaborate real-estate racket.

I recall in a visit to St. Louis several years ago being struck by how much of the city has been taken over by Washington U. and St. Louis U. Their footprints were much smaller when I was growing up.

Thiel wraps up by saying the Communism has been the root of evil for all of our lives.

it would be healthier that, whenever someone mentions dei, you just think ccp.

Pointer from Niccolo Soldo.

Substacks referenced above:

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Saturday Commentary and Review #130

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New York, Social Climbers, Millionaires

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The Pathologization Pandemic