Various web links I found to be of interest recently.
Peter Gray: Comments on Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation
When you read a book that references research studies supporting the
author's thesis, don't assume the studies truly show what the author
says or implies. This brings me to
The Anxious Generation.
...
When I read, at Jon's request, a pre-publication draft of the
book, I told him I could not support it, and I explained why. I
had at that time already looked quite broadly and deeply at the
research pertaining to questions about effects of screens, Internet,
smartphones, and social media on teens' mental health and found
that, despite countless studies designed to reveal such harmful
effects, there was very little evidence for such effects. If you
survey the research literature selectively, with an eye toward
finding studies that seem to show the effects you are looking for,
and if you don't analyze them critically, you can make what will
seem to readers to be a compelling case. But people who really
know the research and have examined it fully and critically will
see through it.
Ray Dalio, Founder, CIO Mentor, and member of the Bridgewater Board
Over these many years I have also seen capitalism evolve in a way that it is not working well for the majority of Americans because it's producing self-reinforcing spirals up for the haves and down for the have-nots. This is creating widening income/wealth/opportunity gaps that pose existential threats to the United States because these gaps are bringing about damaging domestic and international conflicts and weakening America's condition.
I think that most capitalists don't know how to divide the economic pie well and most socialists don't know how to grow it well, yet we are now at a juncture in which either a) people of different ideological inclinations will work together to skillfully re-engineer the system so that the pie is both divided and grown well or b) we will have great conflict and some form of revolution that will hurt most everyone and will shrink the pie.
Also see by Ray Dalio, The Coming Great Conflict
As you know, based on my study of history, I believe there are now and have always been five big, interrelated forces that drive how domestic and world orders change. They are the 1) the big debt/credit/money cycle, 2) the big internal order/disorder cycle 3) the big external order/disorder cycle, 4) acts of nature (i.e., droughts, floods, and pandemics), and 5) human innovation that leads to advances in technology. Today, I am focusing on why I believe we are approaching the point in the internal order-disorder cycle when you will have to choose between picking a side and fighting for it, keeping your head down, or fleeing.
David Zierler, American Institute of Physics
This transcript may not be quoted, reproduced or redistributed in whole or in part by any means except with the written permission of the American Institute of Physics.
I've been going to presentations at the Simons Foundation in NYC since 2017. After the death of James Simons on May 10 2024, I searched for information about him, especially his history of smoking. Even though he died of lung cancer, details were hard to find. This interview discusses that and also includes lots of information about his life. Fascinating.
Surprising to me, Simons' estimate of the risk of getting lung cancer was not irrational. At The Mystery of Why So Many Lifelong Smokers Never Get Lung Cancer May Be Solved it says:
The findings could help explain why 80 to 90 percent of lifelong smokers never develop lung cancer. It could also help explain why some people who never smoke at all do develop the tumors.
One mystery is how we summon long-term memories into consciousness.
Delayed retrieval occurs because searching unsuccessfully along ineffective retrieval pathways primes unused pathways nearby. If some of these nearby pathways connect to the memory we want, priming makes them more likely to be activated later, leading to successful recall. Delayed recall often occurs unexpectedly because retrieval processes continue operating without our direct awareness.
Institute for Progress, Brian Potter
Bell Labs was made possible by a large-scale, vertically integrated
telephone monopoly that allowed for an unusually long and wide research
and development horizon for an industrial lab. Outside of those conditions
(not likely to be repeated), funding a Bell Labs-style operation does not
appear to be something most companies are willing to do.
...
Jon Gertner likewise posits in
The Idea Factory
that even in the absence
of a justice department lawsuit, the technology that Bell Labs spawned
would have ultimately unwound the AT&T monopoly and thus the very thing
that allowed Bell Labs to exist.
We'll pair you up and give you some psychology-backed question prompts
(but you'll always have the option to pick the question prompt of your
choosing or make up your own), and then have you switch partners
so you'll get to talk to a bunch of people throughout the event.
We always start and end with the same question prompts (that you
can still always opt out of), but our middle question prompts are
always different.
...
While our events are currently centered on guests in their 20's and 30's
and the majority of people who show up tend to be in that age range,
guests of all ages attend and have reported having a nice time.
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