Links For October

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/links-for-october

[Remember, I haven’t independently verified each link. On average, commenters will end up spotting evidence that around two or three of the links in each links post are wrong or misleading. I correct these as I see them, and will highlight important corrections later, but I can’t guarantee I will have caught them all by the time you read this.]

1: Our World In Data - we are winning the war on oil spills:

2: @incunabula: “Cheese is one of the 5 things the Western book as we know it depends on. The other four are snails, Jesus, underwear and spectacles. If even one of these things was absent, the book you hold in your hand today would look completely different. I'll explain why…”

3: Mansana de la Discordia (“the block of discord”) is a city block in Barcelona where four of the city’s most famous architects built houses next to each other in clashing styles: It’s also a pun on manzana de la Discordia, “Apple of Discord”

4: As late as the 1930s, most upper-middle-class American families had servants. By the end of World War II, almost nobody did. The transition was first felt as a supply-side issue - well-off people wanted servants as much as ever, but fewer and fewer people were willing to serve. Here’s an article on the government commission set up to deal with the problem. I first saw this linked by somebody trying to tie it in to the current labor shortage.

5: Harvard Gazette reviews Stephen Pinker’s new book on rationality. Someone sent this to me for the contrast with Secret Of Our Success - Pinker argues that hunter-gatherer tribes use critical thinking all the time, are skeptical of arguments from authority, and “owe their survival to a scientific mindset”. I’d love to see a debate between Pinker and Henrich (or an explanation of why they feel like they’re really on the same side and don’t need to iron anything out).

6: It’s hard to talk about IQ research without getting accused of something something Nazis. But here’s a claim that actually, Nazis hated IQ research, worrying that it would “be an instrument of Jewry to fortify its hegemony” and outshine more properly Aryan values like “practical intelligence” and “character”. Whenever someone tells you that they don’t believe in IQ, consider calling them out on perpetuating discredited Nazi ideology.