* The best I’ve read concerning “overrated” novels, courtesy of the Little Professor.
Except that I’m not sure his analogy works, since “intellectual debt” doesn’t have to be “repaid,” doesn’t hurt anyone, and might point the way forward regarding ideas in ways that aren’t necessarily obvious at the time such “debt” is being produced/acquired.
* What kinds of inequalities bother people, and what kind do not?
* In Conniptions from me on urban economics, Tyler Cowen lists his opinions on urban issues, which I essentially agree with save for number 3, which I know nothing about:
1. I would not have brought the U.S. down the path of water subsidies, many of which are pro-suburban. (Admitted they are not always easy to repeal.)
2. I think pollution externalities should be priced in Pigouvian fashion; this would penalize many suburban developments.
3. I oppose the widening of Route 7 at Tysons Corner and I expect a disaster from the current plans.
4. I favor school choice and charter schools, which would make many U.S. cities livable again for couples with children.
5. I would price many roads for congestion, although as Bryan points out this could either help or hurt cars as a mode of transport.
6. I would allow U.S. cities to become much taller, thereby accommodating more residents. I would weaken many urban building codes in the interests of a greener America.
7. I much preferred the time when I lived near a gas station and a 7-11.
* Laws have become too vague and the concept of intent has disappeared. Notice in particular this problematic line: “Prosecutors identify defendants to go after instead of finding a law that was broken and figuring out who did it.” If the theory is that everyone is a criminal if you look hard enough, something very serious has gone amiss in our notions of justice.
* A chat with blogger Penelope Trunk:
Ben: You blog about sex a lot. Why?
Penelope: I think about it all the time. So it comes into my head a lot when I’m writing blog posts. I sort of wonder why it doesn’t come into more peoples’ heads when they are writing blog posts.
Ben: People censor themselves.
Penelope: Yeah. Well. I censor myself too. I guess it’s just we each have different types of self-censoring….
Ben: Alain de Botton has an interesting point on this. He says the professionalization of writing — novelists who write fiction full time — has made it so much fiction is disconnected from life as it’s experienced by most people.
Penelope: Totally agree. And the French have this problem more than any other culture.
* I wasn’t going to write about Dan Brown till I found this hilarious discussion of his expert style. One day I hope to be as great a writer.
* Dvorak keyboard devotees and their battle with smartphones.
* Population growth drives innovation?
* Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic makes the pitch for print. I subscribe to The Atlantic and recommend that others do as well.
* America can’t be the world’s tech leader without immigration reforms.
* The Man Who Saved a Billion Lives has died.
* Megan McArdle and Matt Yglesias on education, in a post I almost completely agree with.
* Wow: from I was an Ambassador and Taken Hostage by Militants:
I learned a lot from my time as ambassador and Marine. Paperwork means stuff to people: really important stuff. Thinking you have to solve every problem on your own is an additional problem to your other problems: one that makes all the others worse. No matter how much you love something, it’s not going to make a square peg fit into a round hole. What people experience in the service has to do with the type of work they do and the unit they are in. Hidden assumptions hurt. A lot….
This “bad experience” changed a passive, wait-for-life-to-happen person into and active, go-make-it-happen person.
(Emphasis added.)
I wish I’d realized the power of paperwork earlier, or how important documentation is in a modern, complex, and bureaucratic society.
What I like in this essay is also an acknowledgement of its limitations (the “cartoon” version of libertarian), but also the acknowledgment that those limitations are useful in describing broader phenomenon.
The Story's Story 