Every week I publish the best, most timeless material you'll find anywhere on the web – books, articles, podcasts, research, videos, Twitter threads. These are the things you'll read and remember for years.
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Hi friends!
Just this last week I published my book notes on Zero to One, and David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster. Both excellent and worth flipping through at a minimum.
On to the newsletter….
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The Tragedy of SID (Status-Income Disequilibrium) (article)
“The sufferers of this malady have jobs that give them high status but low income. They lunch on an expense account at The Palm, but dine at home on macaroni. All day long the phone-message slips pile up on their desks -- calls from famous people seeking favors -- but at night they realize the tub needs scrubbing, so it's down on the hands and knees with the Ajax. At work they are aristocrats, Kings of the Meritocracy, schmoozing with Felix Rohatyn. At home they are peasants, wondering if they can really afford to have orange juice every morning.”
One of the most fascinating things about America to me that’s almost never discussed is the relationship between status & wealth. E.g. electricians make bank, but their status is far lower than say, a university professor.
This is interesting because when we talk about class it’s almost always in terms of income and wealth, never culture or status. Economic class, not social class.
When we talk about the underprivileged we almost universally talk about their inability to advance in terms of economics, not in terms of social class. This is a big deal because to treat the problem we first need an accurate diagnosis.
Even worse is that if you’re in a different class you have no idea of all the rules you’re breaking relative to higher classes. For example, people who write emails in ALL CAPS. Or more subtly, applying to a job using an AOL email address.
Those are class distinctions, even if we don’t talk about them that way.
See also this post that goes into even more detail about social vs economics class.
Surveys are bullshit (article)
Every time I read a paper whose data is based on surveys of people hired from Mechanical Turk my brain bumps a small WTF alarm (“surely this can’t be normal?”) but I had never seen anyone question this methodology until I read the above.
And God - dear reader - I feel vindicated.
It turns out some of the most popularly cited & pop culture’d findings are based on surveys:
“What I don’t think is widely known is how much “knowledge” is based on survey evidence, and what poor evidence it makes in the contexts in which it is used. The nutrition study that claims that eating hot chili peppers makes you live longer is based on surveys. The twin study about the heritability of joining a gang or carrying a gun is based on surveys of young people. The economics study claiming that long commutes reduce happiness is based on surveys, as are all studies of happiness, like the one that claims that people without a college degree are much less happy than they were in the 1970s. The study that claims that pornography is a substitute for marriage is based on surveys… Medical studies of pain and fatigue rely on surveys. Almost every study of a psychiatric condition is based on surveys, even if an expert interviewer is taking the survey on the subject’s behalf… Many studies that purport to be about suicide are actually based on surveys of suicidal thoughts or behaviors.”
Surveys are bad for a few reasons:
This fits nicely into the narrative of public’s suspicion of elites & the replicability crisis.
The 80-hour Myth (short article)
“Let’s get serious. Nobody works eighty hours a week. Not eighty real, productive hours. Look closely at workaholics (and I’ve been one, and worked with ones), and a lot of the time is spent idling, re-charging, cycling, switching gears, etc. In the old days this was water-cooler talk. In Silicon Valley, it’s gaming, email, IM, lunches, and idle meetings. Let’s drop the farce, ok?”
The most insipid mistake knowledge workers make is measuring their productivity by their inputs instead of the outputs. In the modern workplace you can put in a full 8 hour day, be genuinely exhausted, and not have produced anything whatsoever.
Don’t pat yourself on the back for working long hours and not making anything. And on the flip side - don’t be hard on yourself for not working long hours if you’re cranking out solid work in only 2 hours a day.
How Morning Brew launched their college ambassador program
“Old institutions (government, media, education, deep state, religion, cities, art, etc) are crumbling under the combined assault of a revolt by the public (cf Gurri) and overproduced elites fighting over the bones (cf Turchin). New institutions have not yet risen to replace them.” (by @yashkaf)
I tried reading the book a while back and couldn’t get into it. Kevin breaks it down nicely in a way that’s comprehendible and still interesting.
Soul (movie on Disney+)
Pixar’s latest unfortunately wasn’t released in theaters, but it is truly excellent. While kids will enjoy it, I believe this is the most adult-oriented movie they’ve done. Highly recommended, and this might be my new favorite Pixar movie.
The director Pete Docter is underrated & under discussed as a critical part of Pixar & (now) Disney.
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