Category: Worth Your Time

1. “The only good thing about Facebook” is… [narrow interest] groups? Maybe someone should tell them about usenet (now Google groups) or reddit? If you want to meet strangers with the same interests but don’t need to see your “friends,” then just use a groups-centric website (business opportunity)?
2. Listen: Michael Lewis on public distrust and the biases of judges
3. Read: An example of the “consumer-industrial complex” at work
4. Read: Is “Historic Preservation” merely for protecting rich whites?
5. Listen: Chris Blattman on war and where Ukraine may be going
6. Read: Why don’t Americans understand climate change? Maybe because schools don’t really teach “earth science”?
7. Listen: This podcast is so deeply interesting, as a reflection on different visions for the future. The “young person” on the panel (Hogan) is one of the smartest I’ve heard…

1. Read: How polyester bounced back (from disco to rock climbing)
2. Read my letter to The Economist on water scarcity in California
3. Listen: This is one of the best discussions of “value” in meme stocks and cryptocurrencies (i.e., value is a social construct) that I’ve heard. Related: Nobody escapes inflation.
4. Read: How the fitness industry (in the US) has failed to improve health
5. Listen: A psychologist discusses happiness, success and “being full”
6. Read: Michael Lewis on why Americans don’t trust experts and (another episode) on how people get screwed by finance companies
7. Read: How to sample before making the right a good decision (37% rule)
8. Listen: Anthony Scaramucci is a lot smarter than his 11 days in the Trump Whitehouse would suggest (or maybe that’s backwards)?

1. Listen to a debate on the EU’s “Green new deal,” which seems to be too little, too late to me. Why? Voters will not approve a reduction in their consumption (e.g., “flying different” rather than “flying less”)
2. Read: Jonathan Haidt explains how social media (and its “viral” algorithms) have undermined American society and democracy.
3. Listen to how a 1906 law (to prevent theft of Texas sand) undermines US port infrastructure.
4. Read: Russia pays locals to attack and undermine their governments (here Slovakia) .
5. Read: “J.R. Harris is one of the most prolific solo hikers the world has ever seen. But he’d never tell you that himself”
6. Watch: The Clothing loop (you should do this!)
7. Explore: How much will your area (in the US) flood due to rising sea levels and river flood risks?
8. Read: How the Netherlands became a narco state
9. Read: Speech by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, on the “Wild West of crypto” and why the ECB wants to regulate it.
10. Read: How Two Internet Nemeses Became Friends (hint: they talked)

H/T to CD

1. Listen: The nitty-gritty of small town, bottom up (self-) governance
2. Listen: What’s a “good” education?
3. Hahaha! An NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold for $2.9 million in March 2021. It was re-listed for sale for $48 million, but only got a bid of $280. That’s a 99.999% drop in “value”. RIP NFTs 😉
4. Listen: Is the U.S. Really Less Corrupt Than China — and How About Russia?
5. Read: Heard of data colonialism? Here’s an example: “Worldcoin promises a fairly-distributed, cryptocurrency-based universal basic income. So far all it’s done is build a biometric database from the bodies of the poor.“
6. Listen: A Ukrainian on how the West is failing and (read) how the rest of the world might kinda support Putin (due to Western hypocrisy among other things).
7. Read: Rising groundwater (fed by rising sea-levels) is going to screw up so much infrastructure!
8. Read: Making friends with flooding 🙂
9. Capitalists are entering the (US) housing market, and it’s looking like they are going to use market power to suck profits (=raise prices) out of people’s pockets. Related: Americans are moving away from climate risks (e.g., wild fires), so expect rising imbalances of supply and demand.
10. Money! In praise of USD (cash), digital money is exciting, and digital money will destroy your life.

1. Read: How to (not) seize an oligarch’s yacht. Related: How Putin’s Oligarchs Bought London
2. Read: Americans are tired of Covid, so they are ignoring the rate of infection, which is leading to data problems that can inhibit a public-health response.
3. Read: Who’s Making Money Off Your Image? “It’s time to prevent “portrait piracy” before the rest of us need to worry too.”
4. Read: The End of Globalization? (Thanks, Putin)
5. Read: Inflation is real, and it’s caused by a mix of factors
6. Read: How to deal with online trolls and bullies
7. Read: How Starbucks replaced people with profit
8. Read: Facebook uses GOP-smear tactics against TikTok
9. Read: The Great Resignation doesn’t mean lots of people don’t love — and identify with — their jobs!
10. Listen: Education is not about facts or authors, but learning to think

1. Read: People don’t hate work; they want better jobs
2. Read: Too much happiness is a bad thing. Related: Choose enjoyment over pleasure.
3. Listen (x3): The world for sale — how commodity traders traitors enable corrupt kleptocrats. Related: How the Brits became the “butler” to the corrupt and how to stop them (and Putin).
4. Read: Ukraine’s fighters have pivoted warfare.
5. Read: Deaf DJs are making a scene on the dancefloor
6. Read: Behind the Accidentally Resilient Design of Athens Apartments
7. Read: Ezra Klein has some wise thoughts on liberalism (vs authoritarian-populism)
8. Read: Ten useful pieces of advice on bitcoin
9. Read: What’s the REAL cost of your consumption?
10. Listen: Ireland’s history

1. Read: Six months in, El Salvador’s bitcoin gamble is crumbling. Related (and good) — listen to two Salvadorians explain how badly it’s going. Related (and amazing): Desperate people are playing the crypto-casino
2. Listen: Many myths of male “biological” advantages debunked.
3. Listen: Animals are too neat to eat.
4. Read: Some people are dropping “smart” for “dumb” phones, to save money and their sanity.
5. Read: Boomers are retiring to Margaritaville, and it’s all party, no responsibility (except to each other).
6. Listen: A great discussion on how to really do higher ed
7. Read: Are we (humans) entering an entirely new era?
8. Read: Exercise is great; the “exercise industry” not so much
9. Read: Transparent (public) salaries reduce discrimination against non-White-males
10. Read: California’s anti-inflation policy is a total fail

1. Read: American cars have been rated by the superior gallons/100 miles (same as liters/100km) for over 10 years, but people haven’t noticed!
2. Read: The suburbs also encouraged corporations to create their “perfect” (=artificial, high modern) campuses (as seen all over Silicon Valley)
3. Watch: Bikes should NOT be taxed out of people’s budgets.
4. Read: Why is Covid-death in the US (nearly 1 million so far) treated so casually?
5. Read: The scientists behind the accuracy of Covid-tests
6. Read: Schwarzenegger’s message to his Russian friends
7. Read: People Deserve to Know Their Houses Are Going to Burn
8. Read: This piece criticizes the way that Daylight “savings” is being stopped, but they are mixing up the problem of jumping clocks with the need for teens (and others) to have light in the morning.
9. Listen: Texas’s electrical grid is a market and government failure

H/Ts to CD and PB 

1. Read: Russia’s Economic Blackout Will Change the World, via some serious breaks in trade and supply chains.
2. Read: Our quest to attention threatens our mental health and society.
3. Listen: This is how a professor should think and teach. He sounds like the kinda person we should have as our next Dean!
4. Read: An expert on Stalin discusses Putin, Russia, and the West
5. Read: The influence of politics on public health (tl;dr: more deaths in Republican states)
6. Listen: The story of “Build-a-bear” as a start-up
7. Read: How to break (or start) a habit
8. Listen: Witchcraft as a tool.
9. Read: Race is not scientific. Skin color is… but what about hair?
10. Ponder: Price of full tank of gasoline (60 l) as a percentage of average monthly net salary across the world:

1. Listen: An interview with the author of Jackpot: How gambling conquored Britain
2. Read: What happens when Americans stay in the same house forever? “No one is suggesting forcibly moving Americans via strategic lava flows. But there are costs to taking the steps that”
3. Listen: An excellent discussion of the economic impacts of sanctions on Russia. Related: A discussion of Russia’s political options and The end of “the end of history” as Russia goes rogue (and the privatization of war?). Read: These are the Russians the Netherlands can squeeze.
4. Listen: Why are there so many bad bosses? The Peter principle is true!
5. Listen: An amazing series — According to Need — looks at the institutional weaknesses prolonging homelessness in the Bay Area (near San Francisco).
6. Read: “The new owner of Argentina’s de facto national treat stopped paying his majority-female workforce — so they seized control of the entire operation.“
7. Read: UC Berkeley has been forced to reduce student numbers as fixed housing supply and increasing demand drives home/rental prices ever higher.
8. Read: The grandsons of “Doctor” Bronner are using their soap profits to fund research into and legalization of psychedelics. Nice.
9. Read: Social sciences need to improve on their medieval standards of evidence and logic
10. Watch: Remember to wash your hands… to save grandpa and just to spread fewer germs!

H/Ts to JH and MG