Various web links I found to be of interest recently.
Harvard Business Review
It's very important to know what you don't like. A big part of innovation is saying, "You know what I'm really sick of?" For me, that was talk shows where music plays, somebody walks out to a desk, shakes hands with the host, and sits down. "How are you?" "You look great." I'm also sick of people who are really there to sell their show or product. "What am I really sick of?" is where innovation begins.
Interview with Tyler Cowen
With that said, when I meet actual effective altruist groups or
rationalist groups,
(e.g. LessWrong)
I become hesitant.
The rationalist community can itself be a kind of religion. I don't think
that has to be bad, but I don't view them as the most rational people.
...
They think they are the most rational people, and somehow I doubt that.
I'd love to see a study measuring the decisions people who identify
as rationalist make in their romantic personal lives, for example -
how rational those decisions are, compared to other individuals.
I suspect they'd come out slightly below average.
It seems to me there's something about common sense morality, and
an understanding of the imperfections in real world institutions,
that should be refined in those communities. In that sense, I'm
more influenced by Adam Smith and David Hume. Tradition has embedded
wisdom, even though you can't always defend or justify it.
Andrew Sullivan
It's perfectly clear by now that the United States does not have a
functioning president or administration. It also seems clear that
this does not matter to a sizable chunk of the population. They
just don't care - even when it could lead them to lose their lives
and their livelihoods.
...
For them, the pathology seems to be the point. It is precisely
Trump's refusal to acknowledge reality that they thrill to -
because it offends and upsets the people they hate (i.e., city
dwellers, the educated, and the media). The more Trump brazenly
lies, the more Republicans support him. The more incoherent he is,
the more insistent they are. Bit by bit, they have been co-opted by
Trump into a series of cascading and contradicting lies, and they
are not going to give up now - even when they are being treated
for COVID-19 in hospital.
The Democratic candidate tries to out-hawk Trump, but trying to beat Republicans at their own game is pointless-even dangerous. Peter Beinart
By attacking Trump for being insufficiently nationalist rather
than being insufficiently internationalist, Biden is hastening a
geopolitical confrontation that threatens progressive goals. And
he's sowing doubts about what the Democratic Party actually
believes. He's choosing short-term advantage over long-term
principle.
This is what supporters of Bernie Sanders were worried about,
and Biden is proving them right.
David Sirota
"When you couple it with what Cuomo has done, not moving as quickly to take the steps that needed to be taken, cutting Medicaid in the middle of a pandemic, putting forward an austerity budget that cuts basic public services, public education and the like while he repeatedly refuses Democratic legislation to raise taxes on millionaires and billionaires in New York," he added.
Herd Immunity Is the Only Realistic Option-the Question Is How to Get There Safely
People receiving nursing and elder-care services account for upward of 50 percent of COVID-19 deaths in Sweden, according to Tegnell, in part because many facilities were grievously slow to implement basic protective measures such as mask wearing. Immigrants have also suffered disproportionately, mainly because they are poorer on average and tend to work in the service sector, where working remotely is usually impossible. But Swedish authorities have argued that the country's higher death rate will appear comparatively lower in hindsight. Efforts to contain the virus are doomed to fail in many countries, and a large percentage of people will be infected in the end. When much of the world experiences a deadly second wave, Sweden will have the worst of the pandemic behind it.
Third, the more infectious people believe that COVID-19 is, the less willing they are to take social distancing measures, a finding we dub the "fatalism effect". We estimate that small changes in people's beliefs can generate billions of dollars in mortality benefits. Finally, we develop a theoretical model that can explain the fatalism effect.
It is data, not modelling, that we need now. Matt Ridley
Our mission - an open world, where all non-personal information is open, free for everyone to use, build on and share; and creators and innovators are fairly recognised and rewarded.
All of this leaves me where no reporter wants to be: mired in the miasma of uncertainty. I wanted to believe Reade when she first came to me, and I worked hard to find the evidence to make certain others would believe her, too. I couldn't find it. None of that means Reade is lying, but it leaves us in the limbo of Me Too: a story that may be true but that we can't prove.