Readings – July 2015
As one of those things that sounds great in theory, but might actually suck in practice: Does Nevada’s new school choice program hurt low- and middle-income students? The basic problem is that the amount the state will pay is less than almost all private schools, so the private school users get subsidized, and the people who can’t pay up the difference between the subsidy-voucher and the private tuition end up in a worse-funded public school.
From Twitter, a great example of the Crime-IQ link. Yet another reminder that anything we can do to increase average IQ is likely to pay huge dividends everywhere else in society. It’s also nice support for the “leaded gasoline – crime” link, which really didn’t need any more help.
I’ve been getting more into prediction markets lately (I’m betting on PredictIt), so it was pretty interesting to see a partial takedown on the efficiency and wisdom of markets: The ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ Is Not That Wise. I’m not sure I fully agree with it- the biggest example they use of a cock-up, the early payout from Paddy Power Plc, happened because the bookmaker didn’t wait for the real results. To me, that’s a failure of one guy’s confidence, not an indictment of prediction markets themselves.
Remind me to send this to someone next time they ask why I don’t take Republicans who quote Ayn Rand seriously: The Many Lives of Ayn Rand.
Advanced math and physics are sometimes hard to link to people’s everyday experiences in a relatable and easy-to-understand way. It’s even worse when charlatans are out there faking intuitive links to stuff like quantum mechanics. So here’s a good one to add to “cellphones” when someone wants to know how quantum mechanics affects our macro-scale world: Quantum Mechanics When You Close Your Eyes.