site: noahpinionblog.blogspot.com
Speech on Campus
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/speech-on-campus-reply-to-brad-delong.html [noahpinionblog.blogspot.com]
2017-09-26 19:05
tags:
academia
policy
But the danger is that safeguards put in place to exclude this small minority of pool-pissers will wind up - to extend the metaphor - over-chlorinating the pool.
What we didn't get
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/09/what-we-didnt-get.html [noahpinionblog.blogspot.com]
2017-09-23 04:38
tags:
fiction
future
life
physics
tech
This isn’t the first time a generation of science fiction writers has managed to envision the future with disturbing accuracy. The early industrial age saw sci-fi writers predict many inventions that would eventually become reality, from air and space travel to submarines, tanks, television, helicopters, videoconferencing, X-rays, radar, robots, and even the atom bomb.
But there have also been eras of sci-fi that mostly got it wrong. Most famously, the mid-20th century was full of visions of starships, interplanetary exploration and colonization, android servitors and flying cars, planet-busting laser cannons, energy too cheap to meter. So far we don’t have any of that.
The Shouting Class
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-shouting-class.html [noahpinionblog.blogspot.com]
2017-06-05 15:26
tags:
essay
hoipolloi
ideas
social
web
All of social media is like that. Not for the first time, I started to worry that social media technology is hurting our popular discourse and our national politics. But for the first time, I could connect my worry to an identifiable and plausible phenomenon with well-known causes.
I call it the Shouting Class.
A much longer post than I first expected.
The NIMBY challenge
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-nimby-challenge.html [noahpinionblog.blogspot.com]
2017-05-21 16:11
tags:
finance
hoipolloi
urban
valley
Econ 101 supply-and-demand theory is helpful in discussing these issues, but don’t rely on it exclusively. Instead, use a mix of data, simple theory, thought experiments, and references to more complex theories.
Vast literatures as mud moats
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/vast-literatures-as-mud-moats.html [noahpinionblog.blogspot.com]
2017-05-16 16:10
tags:
academia
essay
ideas
And in the world of intellectual debate, this vast literature can function as a mud moat. That is a term I just made up, sticking with the metaphor of political arguments as medieval castles requiring a defense. A mud moat is just a big pit of mud surrounding your castle, causing an attacking army to get trapped in the mud while you pepper them with arrows.
My solution to this problem is what I call the Two Paper Rule. If you want me to read the vast literature, cite me two papers that are exemplars and paragons of that literature.
Is Twitter a dystopian technology?
http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2016/12/is-twitter-dystopian-technology.html [noahpinionblog.blogspot.com]
2016-12-09 15:07
tags:
future
hoipolloi
ideas
social
web
“What will the apocalypse look like? The answer, to use a term generally understood but the specifics of which you cannot imagine, and which this document will attempt to describe, is ‘warfare’.” - William Bell, Fringe
Critiques of Twitter aren’t new, but this one is pretty level headed.
Which is basically a cop-out. “Invent magical new technology that solves the problem.” Check. But since the march of technology only goes forward, if you stumble into a dystopian cul-de-sac, there’s generally no way out but forward into the unknown.