Here’s links with commentary on what I thought interesting this week. 1. Mark Mulligan on the Spotify playbook to become its own music label. I’ve slowly come around to the idea that Spotify is on the cusp of becoming its own music label, and thus will commodtize the existing labels. Here’s Mulligan: If Spotify is… Continue reading Sunday Links 28-Oct-2018: Spotify playbook, Ben Thompson on tech regulation, exponential overdoses, Hilary Greaves on consequentialism

The over arching theme of my blog is how technology trends drive social change. And since genomics is on a Moore’s law price curve, no surprise it’s mentioned several times below. Genomics is a technology lurking in the background, growing exponentially more powerful, which will leap into prominence. First slowly, then all at once. And with… Continue reading Monday Links 22-Oct-2018: Warren and genetic testing, Polygenic scores and racism, Wealth increases gender differences

Here’s my list of links for this week, with commentary. 1. Khashoggi murder and Crude Oil. Michael Brendan Dougherty notes: “Saudi Arabia is partly a country, partly an organized-crime family, and partly an institution of radical religious entrepreneurism.” Saudi’s are starving 7 million people in Yemen, and have been exporting jihadism for decades. So why has the… Continue reading Saturday Links 13-Oct-2018: Khashoggi murder and crude oil, IPCC climate economics, Harvard as elite finishing school

Each week I do a post with links/commentary. Here’s what I liked this week, and why. 1. Tyler Cowen’s Straussianism — explained. Tyler Cowen comments on his podcast interview with David C. Wright: “It starts with an extended discussion of Tyrone and more or less ends with a take on the meaning of Straussianism and… Continue reading Monday Links 8-Oct-2018: Tyler Cowen Straussianism explained, Banksy shreds, China v English prose

1. Flashbulb memories and Kavanaugh. The best way to make your tribe hate someone is to attack their motives. It’s not enough to show the evildoer is mistaken, or disagrees, or has different values. No. The evildoer must desire evil. Then we can hate with relish. The flip side of this point is claims of evil… Continue reading Saturday Links 29-Sep-2018 Flashbulb memories and Kavanaugh, China-US trade, Facebook and mob violence, climate change

I accidentally sent out a blank version of this post earlier today. Sorry if you subscribe by email. Below is the intended post. Also, I usually post on Saturdays. But skipped a weekend due to travel. Hence I’m sharing the good links below with a catch up, mid-week post. On to it! 1. Dickinsonia is… Continue reading Tuesday Links 25-Sep-2018: Dickinsonia is an animal!, demography of poverty, China US rivalry, Insitome and Ezra Klein podcasts

1. Ben Thompson on Facebook/Google regulation. Ben Thompson argues in an excellent 3000 word piece the current EU approaches to Facebook/Google regulation are backfiring, and transparency is a better solution. I don’t think this will get many pageviews, but at a theory and explanation level it’s outstanding. Old style consumer companies with physical goods tended to… Continue reading Saturday Links 22-Sep-2018: Ben Thompson on internet regulation, Apple reviews, micromobility, Kipchoge’s ridiculously fast marathon

1. Kessler syndrome and space junk. Nature news has an article on the accumulation of space junk (dead satellites, rocket shards, etc) in low Earth orbit. The chart below is a nice visual. Of the 20,000 tracked objects, half come from two events: 1) Chinese government blew up a satellite in a missile test in… Continue reading Saturday links 8-Sep-2018: Kessler space junk, unsupervised play is good, white flight Asian edition

1. Twilight of the Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza era. Cavalli-Sforza died on August 31. He helped create many of the modern techniques of population genetics, and his life’s work was an attempt to fit all of humanity into a single family tree. If you’re interested in an overview of his career, see this excellent post by… Continue reading Sunday links 3-Sep-2018: the Cavalli-Sforza era, text editing methods, some excellent charts