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Some people are marching together, some on their own

David Brin's post ""Allocation vs Markets" - an ancient struggle with strange modern implications" asks an important question:

Don't you find it stunning how few bright fools compare their prescriptions to 4,000 years of actual human experience?

We don't usually even have to back 40 years, let alone 4000. When I first heard about those little PlayStation Portables and that there was some new disk format that enables users to play movies on those nifty little machines, I was somewhat skeptical of the underlying assumption that people would want to watch movies on a screen that is not much bigger than a postage stamp. Apparently somebody in the company has now come to his senses, since "Sony Kills Off UMD Movies".

Dennis Mangan seems like a guy that I would like to be in twenty years or so. I will probably not be wearing a lab coat, though. Dennis has put up three posts about the phenomenon of "woman shortage" (part one, two, three), and as he points out, once we get to the fortysomethings and up the original shortage has reversed, for the simple reason that a lot more men fall through the cracks and simply die off, compared to women. Just go take a look at the nearest homeless shelter. The stark reality actually starts to hit in at the big three-oh, when it turns out that some lifestyle choices were simply better than some other ones, and those guys who were so exciting at the age of twenty start looking stupid or a bit scary when they just sit around the pub unemployed at thirty (Europe) or pump gas (USA).

Other interesting new posts by Dennis are "How Much Do You Need for Retirement If You're Going to Live a Very, Very Long Time?" and "Methuselah's Retirement Plan", concerning the question of how much to save for retirement in light of increasing lifespans and life extension and rejuvenation treatments becoming available in the future.

I remember watching some news program a few months ago about the crisis in American public schools. When the reported explained how poor some school is and how it lacks certain things so that, for example, during the gym class kids run outside, I had to wonder what exactly is supposed to be wrong with that school, since it didn't seem that different from the elementary school I went for the first six years when I was a kid. Had no problems there and I remember how in the end of the sixth year, the principal in the end-of-the-year ceremony announced that there had been no need to give even one detention during that year. Well, things certainly turned out to be different when I went to the junior high next year at the next block, but anyways. Fred Reed has a new essay "Reflections On The Boy Crisis" in which he reminisces about his school days back in the day.

Last, Psych Central offers us "List of ethnic slurs". I can't speak any other language than English or Finnish, but I bet that you could pick pretty much any language and it will contain as many racial and ethnic slurs as either of these two.

5 comments

Looking at the data on California school districts available on www.schoolmatters.com, we find that:
- total spending per student has no effect on academic performance
- instruction spending per student has no effect on academic performance
- teacher experience has no effect on academic performance
- the number of students per teacher has a positive effect on white and asian students' scores, and is insignificant for hispanic and black students
- teacher education level (% of teachers with a Master's degree) has a significant, but not very large, effect on white and asian students' scores, and is insignificant for hispanic and black students
- income per capita and hispanic, black and asian enrollment account for 80% of the variance in the Academic Performance Index between school districts

In summary, there are no bad or underfunded schools, only bad students.

Dennis Mangan got his ideas about the Woman Shortage from me. I'd been writing about the issue for some time, and sent him an e-mail describing it in some detail which he published on his blog with my consent.
Not to repeat what's already been said, but I believe that the Woman Shortage has the potential for being one of the most important social trends in decades, with millions of men involuntarily relegated to a single, lonely lifetime. We can't even begin to guess what all of the consequences will be.

Peter
Iron Rails & Iron Weights

Peter: when I have looked at your blog, I have seen posts only about trains and weight lifting. Do you perhaps write and post in some other place about other topics, such as the issue of woman shortage?

May have been some very subtle humor on the part of Peter.

Make the screen a bit larger than a stamp and it becomes quite usefull. Ask anyone with kids on the back seath screaming "are we there yet?". An hour and a half of quiet is a magical thing.

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