More of them
That when cyanobacteria arose 2 billion years ago and filled the atmosphere with oxygen which killed off most species and removed methane from the air so temperatures crashed and the entire planet was encased in ice, this didn’t quite extinguish all life but eventually led to the rise of eukaryotes...
If you get a CT scan (or an X-ray or a nuclear medicine scan) is it worth worrying about the radiation?
You're probably aware that if you get a CT scan, that exposes you to a fair of radiation. But I've always wondered—how much should I care about that? So here's an attempt at a rough estimate. As always, I think the right way to quantify things is in terms of...
Unless you're careful, conditional prediction markets have all the same problems as observational studies.
We all want to make good decisions. But it’s hard because we aren’t sure what’s going to happen. Like, say you want to know if CO₂ emissions will go up in 10 years. One of our best ideas is to have people bet. For example, I might wager my $4...
Wouldn't it be quite a coincidence for this to be the moment public opinion got it right?
It's tempting for the moderate to strut. Isn't it enlightened to see truth in both sides? To calmly rise above the squabbling? But there's a strong argument against moderation: Public opinion has been evolving for hundreds of years. Many things that are moderate today were 'extreme' very recently. Isn't it...
What if you and Monty decide to cheat?
The Monty Hall problem has now been a pox on humanity for two generations, diverting perfectly good brains away from productive uses. Hoping to exacerbate this problem, some time ago I announced a new and more pernicious variant: What if you and Monty try to cheat?
After decades of research, we now have a huge body of studies and meta-reviews to summarize it. What do they say?
I was wrong about gratitude. I thought it was a guaranteed way to become happier and went around proclaiming we should be thankful because: "Hokey, unfashionable techniques like practicing gratitude turn out to have strong scientific evidence behind them." Sorry about that. In my defense, the internet is rife with...
On asking people to consider stuff that sounds crazy
It’s frustrating to propose an idea and have people dismiss it just because it’s weird. You’ve surely seen people ridicule ideas like worrying about wild animal suffering or computers becoming sentient or comets crashing into the planet. I’ve encountered some of this for claiming aspartame is likely harmless but ultrasonic...
Why are prestigious outlets often so mediocre, and why do we read them anyway?
Here’s a thing that happens sometimes: Somebody thinks that A causes B. They gather data and find that A and B are correlated. They write a paper. In it, they’re careful to only say that A is “associated” with B, and that the data is imperfect, and that they only...
Noise, Indian cheetahs, and Fighting Joe
I think the bluetooth speaker is a pox on our civilization. Random noise makes it hard for me to concentrate. I tried the obvious thing and created a passive-aggressive mathematical model, but that unexpectedly failed to make the problem go away. So I recently looked into technological solutions. The most...
That's what she said, a rabbi resolves a dispute, and six categories in the Philogelos
I've noticed a disturbing phenomenon: Many people who only recently watched the US version of The Office seem to think that Michael Scott invented That's what she said. Of course, the actual joke was supposed to be a ghoulish delight at seeing someone cluelessly use a joke that was so...
A potent anti-humor technology
No soap, radio is a sort of prank where you tell a "joke" with a meaningless punchline. The hope is that your victim will laugh despite not understanding it, thereby enabling you to ridicule them. Apparently, this works best if you do it with an accomplice who will pretend to...
People don't seem to try very hard to make themselves happier. Why not?
Everyone I know is scheming for the future. They've got big goals and get up every day and work like mad to try to achieve them. I've always found something odd about that: Despite all this effort, people don't seem to think too much about the specifics of what would...
Why not tax businesses for the misdeeds of their customers?
Say you're a dictator fed up with your citizens' littering. What can you do? Option 1: Make littering illegal. This is obvious, but it's clearly no magic bullet since everyone's already done it and yet littering hasn't perished from the earth. Why? Primarily because it's hard to catch people. You...
Sixteen observations on Albania, Montenegro, and Macedonia
People say the cafes in Albania are great. This is true. They are similar to Italy but with environments that are more laid-back and… better? Standards are remarkably high even at roadside cafes next to petrol stations.
Nine observations about what happens when you eat only potatoes
You've probably heard about the potato diet. If not, here it is: 1. Eat potatoes. 2. As many as you want. 3. Oil and salt are OK. 4. Don't eat other stuff. I thought this sounded delightfully absurd so I tried it for a few weeks. Here are some observations....
Gorillas, penguins, noise location, air quality, and a conversational pattern that needs a name
Has a gorilla killed a human? Gorillas, despite their immense size and strength, are not aggressive. They are vegetarian except for eating insects and occasionally small rodents. In 1986, a five-year-old child fell into the gorilla pit in the Channel Islands zoo and was knocked unconscious. The crowd watched in...
What are letters of marque and reprisal, and who is on the US's list of Block Persons?
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution reads: "The Congress shall have Power to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;" What are these Letters of Marque and Reprisal? Essentially: Permission for private citizens to carry out...
A debate about humanity's ultimate adversary
Evil. The problem is people doing bad things that they know are bad. Everyone just needs to stop demanding bribes and littering and murdering each other. Moral confusion. No, in reality, most people try to do the right thing most of the time. The problem is that our idea of...
The Wirecutter's review of the IKEA air purifier is a mishmash of scientific errors, shoddy testing, and self-contradictory logic.
IKEA has recently made some moves into the air purifier space. The Wirecutter is not impressed. They allow that this purifier is inexpensive and pretty. But still, it's terrible and you should instead buy a different purifier that totally coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions. When reading this review,...
Investigating the (aspartame → phenylalanine → dopamine) theory
"Very ambitious and successful and competitive and rich person loves Diet Coke" has been in the news recently, and friend of the blog Aaron Bergman proposes a theory as to why. Spelled out in more detail, it goes like this: 1. There are nine essential amino acids, one of which...
Commonsense morality is an OK-ish utilitarianism
1. In college, I had a friend who was into debate competitions. One weekend, the debate club funded him to go to a nearby city for a tournament. When I asked him how it went, he said: Oh, I didn’t have enough time to prepare, so I just skipped the...
A mathematical model of who turns on their bluetooth speaker at the beach.
Say you're at a park or a beach. How many people will have bluetooth speakers on? It seems to me there are three types of people: The main characters always turn on their speakers regardless of what anyone else is doing. The haters never turn on a speaker, no matter...
More on teaching, hot in-laws, medical diagnostics, and some questions thrown into the void
Here's a collection of a few disconnected follow-ups plus some questions thrown into the void. Contra me on teaching. A couple of months back, I took issue with Parrhesia's proposal to make final exams worth 100% of the final grade, on the grounds that it wouldn't work in practice. "You...
Why did the oracle of Delphi go into a trance state? Does it have anything to do with ethylene?
In ancient Greece, the Oracle of Delphi operated out of the Temple of Apollo. This temple was destroyed in AD 390 by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the name of Christianity. Still, it's a real place and the ruins still exist today. You can go see them. How did...
Who can deny that many store-bought tomatoes have a certain similarité to acidic balls of cardboard?
Ethylene is the source of a lot of confusion, particularly when it comes to tomatoes. In *Tomatoland*, Barry Estabrook writes: "An industrial Florida tomato is harvested when it is still hard and green and then taken to a packinghouse, where it is gassed with ethylene until it artificially acquires the...
Reflections on a phenomena that's unique to culture-war topics
There's a certain phenomenon I often wonder about, one that only seems to occur with culture war topics. I usually try to avoid culture war, but it's impossible to discuss this phenomenon without an example and I don't see the point of tiptoeing around. So, abortion. For better or for...
The puzzling movement reduce diagnostic tests because of harmful downstream treatments
1. Say we’re detectives. We’re getting a drink and have the following conversation: Me: Ah, this case is killing me. You: Then why don’t you go talk to Big Eddie? Me: Nah—that would do more harm than good. You: How’s that? Me: Well, we all know Big Eddie often lies....
Nations could build nuclear warheads much more powerful than they have now. But they have no interest in doing so. Why is that?
The Little Boy bomb detonated over Hiroshima in 1945 was a fission weapon where a critical mass of uranium-235 created a chain reaction of atoms splitting into lighter atoms, releasing energy and neutrons. While such weapons are very destructive, they are “inefficient” in that as the bomb starts to explode,...
Imagine you’re flying a plane full of babies. Initially, they’re all sleeping peacefully. But if one wakes up, they’ll start crying. That will eventually wake up some of the neighbors who will also start crying, and soon your plane will be an unhappy place. In this situation, you’d try very...
Ethylene gas, how it works, and how to manipulate it in your kitchen
Amos answered Amaziah, "No prophet am I, not any prophetic symbol, but a shepherd am I, who used to prick the sycamore fruit that it might duly ripen for the market." —Amos 7:14 (translated by Samuel Cox) While I'd like to understand the world, reality isn't structured to make that possible....
Dark patterns in social behavior
I was working in a cafe when a woman sat nearby and asked me if there was anywhere in the neighborhood she could see some art. Hoping to get back to work, I made a couple of suggestions. She asked many follow-up questions. Where were these places? Did I like...
Do we really know what the future needs?
The argument for long-term thinking goes something like this: ● There are X people alive today. ● In the future, there will be Y≫X people alive. ● All people have equal moral weight. ● Therefore the state of the world in the future is more important than the state of...
We should encourage more public disagreement.
Probably most social norms are like that---even if we disagree with them, they're too entrenched to change. That's why it's important to watch for critical points where norms could go either way. Here's one such case: Say someone wrote something. You think they're wrong, so you write a manifesto arguing...
We like lists because they are an objectively good way to organize information. They allow readers to quickly and easily get what they want.
Say you want to learn about sleep. You see two articles: 1. "Theory and practice of effective sleep" 2. "Seven insights about sleep" Are you drawn to the second? I am. Of course, I hate myself for this because I've internalized the idea that lists are cheap and low-class. But...
Here are some things that I hated as a student. At the time, I thought my teachers didn't understand or care how terrible they were.
In a recent post, Parrhesia suggested that course grades should be 100% determined by performance on a final exam—an exam that could be taken repeatedly, with the last attempt being the course grade. (See also the discussion at r/slatestarcodex.) The idea is that grades are supposed to measure what you...
History suggests that poor countries have the same growth as rich countries on average, just with much higher variance.
I used to have a mental model that economic growth was about: 1. Figuring out clever ways to do stuff. 2. Doing it. Rich countries are at the technological frontier, so they have to do both of these things at the same time. Since figuring things out is hard, they...
Observations on the dynamics of writing and commenting.
I'm not famous or successful, so why should you care what I think? Well, I have some observations about the dynamics of writing on the internet that I think my (even more non-famous and non-successful) self would have benefited from when I started. The whole idea of writing is crazy:...
A review of the thought experiments in Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (part three)
You want to go to Mars. There’s a machine that will scan and destroy all the matter in your body, send the locations of every atom to Mars, and then recreate it. You worry: Does this transport you, or does it kill you and make a new copy?
Five proposed rules to make sure you're using analogies for good
To fix the analogy, you'd need some bizarre scenario where during the party America had lots of fun and created lots of dirty dishes but also, like, discovered new partying methodology and new ways to use dishes so they are easier to wash?
An analogy between coat racks, desire paths, arguing, vacuuming, reading, social media, drinking, vacations, and colonoscopies.
You learn a lot about people from their bedrooms. Some have TVs or books or laptops. Some have blackout curtains or stuffed animals or bottles of pills. But, vast as human experience is, one thing is consistent: Everyone has once-worn clothes strewn on the furniture. Why? In one sense, it's...
Why does evolution do what it does? And if you're a sentient being created by it, what should you think about that?
Here are two things that seem to be true: Homosexuality has a significant genetic component. Most pre-enlightenment cultures had norms against homosexuality. Huh? Genetic evolution kept the genes associated with homosexuality around, suggesting those genes don’t hurt reproductive fitness. Yet, cultural evolution favors norms against homosexuality. Why would two different...
When does talking about a plan ruin it? Marriage, CO2, religion, self-promotion, edgelords, and Chinese medicine.
You're in love. The two of you want to share the rest of your lives. So, being good game theorists, you have a romantic dinner and plan how to align your interests for mutually beneficial optimal strategic behavior. Your goals are (1) to Odysseus yourself so that even if you're...
A review of the thought experiments in Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (part one)
You live with a group of utterly rational and self-interested people on an island, gathering coconuts to survive. Tired of working so hard, Alice builds a machine and implants it in her brain. This machine leaves her rational except when it comes to fulfilling threats, which she always does regardless...
We could be a lot better at taking care of ourselves.
Here are some things I'd like to know about how to live my life: 1. If I eat Brussels sprouts for dinner tonight instead of pizza, how much longer do I live (in expectation, in minutes)? 2. What should I eat to avoid getting tired after lunch? 3. If I...
What's the history of attempts to abolish the death penalty in the U.S.? And what did people think about them at the time?
Early America inherited much of Britain’s bloodthirsty but arbitrary approach to the death penalty, with theoretical penalties for things like theft and rebellious children that were rarely carried out. However, executions did happen for crimes short of murder: Death was a common penalty for repeated theft, and in 1644, a...
30 underrated reasons to be thankful, starting with the fact that atomic bombs don't ignite the atmosphere
That our atmosphere has low enough pressure and levels of deuterium that nuclear fission in air doesn’t cause hydrogen atoms to fuse into helium, meaning that the first nuclear bomb test in 1945 didn’t in fact ignite the atmosphere and engulf the planet in flames, which was still a bit...
How did France ban the death penalty? And what did people think about it at the time?
Capital punishment was debated during the French revolution (1789-1799). Due to the influence of Beccaria and Voltaire, the discussion was similar to how the death penalty is discussed today. Robespierre said “The state’s execution of the death penalty is legalized murder.” (Though as Hammel points out, “given his later role...
How did the U.K. ban the death penalty? And what did people think about it at the time?
When Beccaria wrote On Crimes and Punishments in 1764, there were around 150 crimes punishable in Britain by death. This “bloody code” included crimes as small as the theft of some items worth 1 shilling. For context, a skilled worker at the time could earn around 20 shillings in a...
How did Germany ban the death penalty? And what did people think about it at the time?
Germany came close to banning the death penalty several times in its early history: In the 1848 revolution, the new constitution almost completely banned it, but this was immediately overturned by the conservative restoration. When Germany unified in 1870-1871 it again came very close to abolition before a late intervention...
What does abolition of the death penalty teach us about who is in change?
Who is really in charge? In democracies, policies are correlated with public opinion, but why? The obvious explanation is that people choose representatives, and those representatives give them what they want. But maybe the causal arrow points in the other direction—maybe elites choose policies, and the public gradually figures that...
Many people see a homelessness crisis, but what does the data say? We examine different locations, rates of change, types of homelessness, and mental health and substance abuse issues.
Is the US in the midst of a homelessness crisis? Many people think so, but that's largely based on based on anecdotes. What does the data say? At a glance, this doesn't look very crisisy. Since 2015, things have gone up by less than three percent. Still, I think there...
Why did a huge alcohol RCT get cancelled? A strange story of science, academia, bureaucratic maneuvering, ambition, politics, capitalism, the deep state, secret emails, and slippery ethical slopes.
What does drinking do to your health? We can say two things with confidence: 1. Drinking is associated with lots of health problems. 2. Heavy drinking is bad for you. Here's a graph of some associations. Someone who averages 10 drinks per day is 50x more likely to get cirrhosis...
If culture war is intractable, what should we do instead?
The Guadalcanal campaign was the first major offensive operation by the Allies in the Pacific theater of World War 2. This nightmarish battle ran for six months and—while an Allied victory—involved losses so high the US Navy refused to release casualty figures for years afterward. When this campaign ended in...
How polarized are we? An overview of what people of different political parties, education levels, races, and political engagement think about politics.
We’re here on Earth for such a short time. So, I often wonder—what do people spend their days thinking about? Judging from the ever-increasing amount of screaming everywhere, the answer would seem to be politics. But is that right? What opinions do normal people really have?
A review of correlations between human performance on physical and mental tasks, plus a description of how factor analysis is like a cigar
Is there a general factor of intelligence? This question is a trap. If you try to answer it, you’ll find yourself beset by semantic questions. What’s intelligence? What’s a factor? And if you get past those, you’ll then find a bleak valley of statistical arcana. What do the eigenvalues look...
What happens if you cut your brain in half?
What happens if you cut your cortex in half? When this was first tried on animals, the answer seemed to be not much. But starting in the late 1950s, a series of experiments found that very weird things happen under careful testing. These experiments are fascinating for their implications into...
Why you shouldn't torture yourself when training to run.
I used to think the people I saw running were insane. They were confused about life. Whatever the benefits of running, nothing could justify that much suffering. Runners were cut from a different cloth. They had a strength of will I lacked. I would never be one of them.
Explains through a model of selling coconuts while value added taxes distort the economy less than sales taxes.
It turns out that sales tax has a huge, gigantic, terrible flaw: It punishes specialized businesses. A value added tax (VAT) has no such problems.
There's many suggested policies to address police violence. What do we know about if they actually work?
You can’t measure police bias using simple population ratios. A better idea is to check if police behave differently when it’s dark, but this doesn’t give any firm conclusions either. What else can we do?
The ethical theory of Utilitarianism applies to many situations, but runs into problems when choices might create new beings.
Cedric and Bertrand want to see a movie. Bertrand wants to see Muscled Duded Blow Stuff Up. Cedric wants to see Quiet Remembrances: Time as Allegory. There’s also Middlebrow Space Fantasy. They are rational but not selfish - they care about the other’s happiness as much as their own. What...
What do we know about how to communicate effectively and find the truth?
Talking about sugar Nick and Maria want to talk about sugar. Does it reduce lifespan? They disagree, but are honest and principled. They want to find the truth and agree on it. How should they talk? Take turns? Try hard to be polite and respectful? Allow interruptions? Search for origins...
Explains comparative advantage through trades of coconuts and bananas. Also, why it might be smart to blow up your island.
Economists say free trade is good because of “comparative advantage”. But what is comparative advantage? Why is it good? This is sometimes considered an arcane part of economics. (Wikipedia defines it using “autarky”.) But it’s really a very simple idea. Anyone can use it to understand the world and make...
Designs for a quieter, more energy efficient purifier, and data proving it really works.
I love box-fan based air purifiers. They are cheap, trivial to build, and people around the world have done experiments to show they actually work.
Why the air you breathe matters, and what to do about it.
What do you worry about more: Getting exercise, eating vegetables, or the air you breathe? While most things that clearly improve health are well known, one is insanely underrated: Fixing your air. I suspect this is often the most effective health intervention, period. Nothing else is so important while also...
Why did the Asian flush evolve? What does this say about alcoholism? What does this have to do with Odysseus?
Say you’re an evil scientist. One day at work you discover a protein that crosses the blood-brain barrier and causes crippling migraine headaches if someone’s attention drifts while driving. Despite being evil, you’re a loving parent with a kid learning to drive. Like everyone else, your kid is completely addicted...
People with the same big five personality types tend to be more happy, successful, intelligent, creative, and popular. Why aren't there more tradeoffs?
I don't know if you like parties. I don't know if you're organized or punctual. But I bet you don't like rotting smells or long swims in freezing water. That is to say: People are different, but only in certain ways. What's the difference? Hypothermia enthusiasts have few kids, so...
How the immune system's memory cells are like the Russian strategy for resisting Napoleon's invasion.
In June of 1812 Napoleon assembled the largest European army in history and invaded Russia. After months of bloody fighting, the French finally arrived in Moscow in September, surprised to find the city mostly abandoned. That night, remaining Russians set fires across the city, eventually burning most of it to...
You can make a DIY air purifier in 30s. To test if it works, I generated smoke, and measured how well it removes tiny particles.
Bad air is bad for you. The air purifier market, though, is a mess. Every purifier uses incompatible proprietary filters, presumably to lock you into buying replacements. How do we know these actually work? Few seem to publish lab tests. And why does it cost $100-$300 for a big plastic...
Common arguments for universal basic income are about liberty or automation of jobs. The "real" argument is much more mundane.
Universal basic income (UBI) is an odd duck. Proponents range from futurists to libertarians to social democrats. Why this weird range of people?
Some claim that more feminist countries have fewer women in STEM. Others say this is nonsense. Who is right?
The gender-equality paradox is the (disputed) idea that countries with more gender equality have fewer women in STEM careers. While there’s lots of debate in the scientific literature about the causal implications of this paradox, there’s no agreement about a more basic question: Does the paradox even exist, or is...
It's this simple: Do you want what's behind one door or the other nine?
Here’s an Obvious Problem: There are 10 doors. A car is behind a random door, goats behind the others. Do you want what’s behind door 1, or what’s behind all the other doors? That’s easy, right? Well, how about the Monty Hall problem? There are three doors. A car is...
Why it's better not to use an ultrasonic humidifier
Let me state two things upfront: It is possible to use ultrasonic humidifiers safely. Regardless of how they’re used, we don’t know for sure that ultrasonic humidifiers are dangerous. Absolutely true! However, as typically used, ultrasonic humidifiers might cause health problems. This is supported by an abundance of peer-reviewed research...
How much do statins extend lifespan? An analysis based on a meta-analysis of six peer-reviewed papers.
It’s hard to say how much running increases lifespan. To test it, you should take thousands of people, tell half to run, and then follow everyone for years while making sure they follow their instructions. That’s not easy, and even if you did it, you still have to worry: Did...
Rich countries are not monolithic. However, outside the US and a few microstates, they vary in a limited range.
With abortion in flux in the US, I realized I didn’t have a clear picture of how things looked in the rest of the rich world. When I searched, I found lots of maps, like the following from Politico and Wikipedia:
Like it or not, there's a clear scientific consensus
Look, I get it. Diet Coke tastes sweet because it has aspartame in it. Aspartame is a weird synthetic molecule that’s 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Half of the world’s aspartame is made by Ajinomoto of Tokyo—the same company that first brought us MSG back in 1909.
What heritability really is: A fluid statistic that changes whenever society changes.
All psychological traits are heritable. This is the best replicated finding in all of behavioral genetics. Some recent numbers include: Religiosity: 44% Schizophrenia: 79% Big five personality traits: ~40% But what, exactly, does "heritability" mean? I used to have a mental model something like this: Each person has some number...
Since around 2009, methamphetamines have been made with phenylacetone (P2P). Is there a chemical different causing schizophrenia?
Sam Quinones was recently on Econtalk and in the Atlantic talking about methamphetamines and homelessness. He points out that “old” meth was made from ephedrine and that “new” meth is made from a chemical called Phenylacetone or P2P. He suggests that new meth might be chemically different in a way...
How dangerous is it to drink acetone or nail-polish remover? Here's the key scientific facts, compared to ethanol.
Question: Should you drink acetone? Answer: No. But, out of interest, what if you did? This question is asked repeatedly on the web, with with many answers smugly stating that even tiny amounts of acetone will instantly kill you, you idiot. But they provide no evidence. Fact #1: Acetone bottles...
Does cola contain a drug to prevent you from throwing up from the sugar? And is Mexican Coke somehow better than American Coke?
Our first conspiracy theory has all the best qualities: 1. It sounds insane. 2. At first, the facts seem to support it. 3. Later, the facts lead to disquieting reevaluations of the medical system. So here's the conspiracy: "Cola has so much sugar in it that you'd throw up from...
We believe stuff because it benefits us to believe it, not necessarily because it is true.
We believe stuff because it benefits us to believe it, not necessarily because it is true. Phrased that way, it seems like an obvious point—of course evolution made us like that, what else could it have done? But this has surprising explanatory power.
From atoms to big boom.
1. You’re in the mood for destruction. One day, you hear about this phenomenon of “radiation” where matter gives off energy. You think—perhaps you can harness this property of nature to make a big boom. Apparently matter is made of discrete objects called atoms, which have nuclei made up of...
Some claims that test scores don't predict college success don't add up.
Here are some claims about how grades (GPA) and test scores (ACT) predict success in college. "In a study released this month, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found—after surveying more than 55,000 public high school graduates—that grade point averages were five times as strong at predicting college...
FROM BEING A WASTE TO THE BATHER AND COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING IT BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLICK
Europe is in an energy crisis. There are lots of things that might be done, but most are slow or expensive or painful or don't accomplish much. But here's a little daydream: 1. We use lots of energy to heat our homes. 2. We use lots of energy to heat...
More of them
That when cyanobacteria arose 2 billion years ago and filled the atmosphere with oxygen which killed off most species and removed methane from the air so temperatures crashed and the entire planet was encased in ice, this didn’t quite extinguish all life but eventually led to the rise of eukaryotes...
FROM BEING A WASTE TO THE BATHER AND COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING IT BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLICK
Europe is in an energy crisis. There are lots of things that might be done, but most are slow or expensive or painful or don't accomplish much. But here's a little daydream: 1. We use lots of energy to heat our homes. 2. We use lots of energy to heat...
If you get a CT scan (or an X-ray or a nuclear medicine scan) is it worth worrying about the radiation?
You're probably aware that if you get a CT scan, that exposes you to a fair of radiation. But I've always wondered—how much should I care about that? So here's an attempt at a rough estimate. As always, I think the right way to quantify things is in terms of...
Unless you're careful, conditional prediction markets have all the same problems as observational studies.
We all want to make good decisions. But it’s hard because we aren’t sure what’s going to happen. Like, say you want to know if CO₂ emissions will go up in 10 years. One of our best ideas is to have people bet. For example, I might wager my $4...
Wouldn't it be quite a coincidence for this to be the moment public opinion got it right?
It's tempting for the moderate to strut. Isn't it enlightened to see truth in both sides? To calmly rise above the squabbling? But there's a strong argument against moderation: Public opinion has been evolving for hundreds of years. Many things that are moderate today were 'extreme' very recently. Isn't it...
What if you and Monty decide to cheat?
The Monty Hall problem has now been a pox on humanity for two generations, diverting perfectly good brains away from productive uses. Hoping to exacerbate this problem, some time ago I announced a new and more pernicious variant: What if you and Monty try to cheat?
We believe stuff because it benefits us to believe it, not necessarily because it is true.
We believe stuff because it benefits us to believe it, not necessarily because it is true. Phrased that way, it seems like an obvious point—of course evolution made us like that, what else could it have done? But this has surprising explanatory power.
After decades of research, we now have a huge body of studies and meta-reviews to summarize it. What do they say?
I was wrong about gratitude. I thought it was a guaranteed way to become happier and went around proclaiming we should be thankful because: "Hokey, unfashionable techniques like practicing gratitude turn out to have strong scientific evidence behind them." Sorry about that. In my defense, the internet is rife with...
On asking people to consider stuff that sounds crazy
It’s frustrating to propose an idea and have people dismiss it just because it’s weird. You’ve surely seen people ridicule ideas like worrying about wild animal suffering or computers becoming sentient or comets crashing into the planet. I’ve encountered some of this for claiming aspartame is likely harmless but ultrasonic...
Why are prestigious outlets often so mediocre, and why do we read them anyway?
Here’s a thing that happens sometimes: Somebody thinks that A causes B. They gather data and find that A and B are correlated. They write a paper. In it, they’re careful to only say that A is “associated” with B, and that the data is imperfect, and that they only...
Noise, Indian cheetahs, and Fighting Joe
I think the bluetooth speaker is a pox on our civilization. Random noise makes it hard for me to concentrate. I tried the obvious thing and created a passive-aggressive mathematical model, but that unexpectedly failed to make the problem go away. So I recently looked into technological solutions. The most...
That's what she said, a rabbi resolves a dispute, and six categories in the Philogelos
I've noticed a disturbing phenomenon: Many people who only recently watched the US version of The Office seem to think that Michael Scott invented That's what she said. Of course, the actual joke was supposed to be a ghoulish delight at seeing someone cluelessly use a joke that was so...
A potent anti-humor technology
No soap, radio is a sort of prank where you tell a "joke" with a meaningless punchline. The hope is that your victim will laugh despite not understanding it, thereby enabling you to ridicule them. Apparently, this works best if you do it with an accomplice who will pretend to...
People don't seem to try very hard to make themselves happier. Why not?
Everyone I know is scheming for the future. They've got big goals and get up every day and work like mad to try to achieve them. I've always found something odd about that: Despite all this effort, people don't seem to think too much about the specifics of what would...
Why not tax businesses for the misdeeds of their customers?
Say you're a dictator fed up with your citizens' littering. What can you do? Option 1: Make littering illegal. This is obvious, but it's clearly no magic bullet since everyone's already done it and yet littering hasn't perished from the earth. Why? Primarily because it's hard to catch people. You...
Sixteen observations on Albania, Montenegro, and Macedonia
People say the cafes in Albania are great. This is true. They are similar to Italy but with environments that are more laid-back and… better? Standards are remarkably high even at roadside cafes next to petrol stations.
Rich countries are not monolithic. However, outside the US and a few microstates, they vary in a limited range.
With abortion in flux in the US, I realized I didn’t have a clear picture of how things looked in the rest of the rich world. When I searched, I found lots of maps, like the following from Politico and Wikipedia:
Nine observations about what happens when you eat only potatoes
You've probably heard about the potato diet. If not, here it is: 1. Eat potatoes. 2. As many as you want. 3. Oil and salt are OK. 4. Don't eat other stuff. I thought this sounded delightfully absurd so I tried it for a few weeks. Here are some observations....
Gorillas, penguins, noise location, air quality, and a conversational pattern that needs a name
Has a gorilla killed a human? Gorillas, despite their immense size and strength, are not aggressive. They are vegetarian except for eating insects and occasionally small rodents. In 1986, a five-year-old child fell into the gorilla pit in the Channel Islands zoo and was knocked unconscious. The crowd watched in...
What are letters of marque and reprisal, and who is on the US's list of Block Persons?
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the US Constitution reads: "The Congress shall have Power to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;" What are these Letters of Marque and Reprisal? Essentially: Permission for private citizens to carry out...
A debate about humanity's ultimate adversary
Evil. The problem is people doing bad things that they know are bad. Everyone just needs to stop demanding bribes and littering and murdering each other. Moral confusion. No, in reality, most people try to do the right thing most of the time. The problem is that our idea of...
The Wirecutter's review of the IKEA air purifier is a mishmash of scientific errors, shoddy testing, and self-contradictory logic.
IKEA has recently made some moves into the air purifier space. The Wirecutter is not impressed. They allow that this purifier is inexpensive and pretty. But still, it's terrible and you should instead buy a different purifier that totally coincidentally happens to pay affiliate marketing commissions. When reading this review,...
Like it or not, there's a clear scientific consensus
Look, I get it. Diet Coke tastes sweet because it has aspartame in it. Aspartame is a weird synthetic molecule that’s 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Half of the world’s aspartame is made by Ajinomoto of Tokyo—the same company that first brought us MSG back in 1909.
Investigating the (aspartame → phenylalanine → dopamine) theory
"Very ambitious and successful and competitive and rich person loves Diet Coke" has been in the news recently, and friend of the blog Aaron Bergman proposes a theory as to why. Spelled out in more detail, it goes like this: 1. There are nine essential amino acids, one of which...
Commonsense morality is an OK-ish utilitarianism
1. In college, I had a friend who was into debate competitions. One weekend, the debate club funded him to go to a nearby city for a tournament. When I asked him how it went, he said: Oh, I didn’t have enough time to prepare, so I just skipped the...
A mathematical model of who turns on their bluetooth speaker at the beach.
Say you're at a park or a beach. How many people will have bluetooth speakers on? It seems to me there are three types of people: The main characters always turn on their speakers regardless of what anyone else is doing. The haters never turn on a speaker, no matter...
More on teaching, hot in-laws, medical diagnostics, and some questions thrown into the void
Here's a collection of a few disconnected follow-ups plus some questions thrown into the void. Contra me on teaching. A couple of months back, I took issue with Parrhesia's proposal to make final exams worth 100% of the final grade, on the grounds that it wouldn't work in practice. "You...
Why did the oracle of Delphi go into a trance state? Does it have anything to do with ethylene?
In ancient Greece, the Oracle of Delphi operated out of the Temple of Apollo. This temple was destroyed in AD 390 by the Roman emperor Theodosius I in the name of Christianity. Still, it's a real place and the ruins still exist today. You can go see them. How did...
Who can deny that many store-bought tomatoes have a certain similarité to acidic balls of cardboard?
Ethylene is the source of a lot of confusion, particularly when it comes to tomatoes. In *Tomatoland*, Barry Estabrook writes: "An industrial Florida tomato is harvested when it is still hard and green and then taken to a packinghouse, where it is gassed with ethylene until it artificially acquires the...
Reflections on a phenomena that's unique to culture-war topics
There's a certain phenomenon I often wonder about, one that only seems to occur with culture war topics. I usually try to avoid culture war, but it's impossible to discuss this phenomenon without an example and I don't see the point of tiptoeing around. So, abortion. For better or for...
The puzzling movement reduce diagnostic tests because of harmful downstream treatments
1. Say we’re detectives. We’re getting a drink and have the following conversation: Me: Ah, this case is killing me. You: Then why don’t you go talk to Big Eddie? Me: Nah—that would do more harm than good. You: How’s that? Me: Well, we all know Big Eddie often lies....
Nations could build nuclear warheads much more powerful than they have now. But they have no interest in doing so. Why is that?
The Little Boy bomb detonated over Hiroshima in 1945 was a fission weapon where a critical mass of uranium-235 created a chain reaction of atoms splitting into lighter atoms, releasing energy and neutrons. While such weapons are very destructive, they are “inefficient” in that as the bomb starts to explode,...
From atoms to big boom.
1. You’re in the mood for destruction. One day, you hear about this phenomenon of “radiation” where matter gives off energy. You think—perhaps you can harness this property of nature to make a big boom. Apparently matter is made of discrete objects called atoms, which have nuclei made up of...
Imagine you’re flying a plane full of babies. Initially, they’re all sleeping peacefully. But if one wakes up, they’ll start crying. That will eventually wake up some of the neighbors who will also start crying, and soon your plane will be an unhappy place. In this situation, you’d try very...
Ethylene gas, how it works, and how to manipulate it in your kitchen
Amos answered Amaziah, "No prophet am I, not any prophetic symbol, but a shepherd am I, who used to prick the sycamore fruit that it might duly ripen for the market." —Amos 7:14 (translated by Samuel Cox) While I'd like to understand the world, reality isn't structured to make that possible....
Dark patterns in social behavior
I was working in a cafe when a woman sat nearby and asked me if there was anywhere in the neighborhood she could see some art. Hoping to get back to work, I made a couple of suggestions. She asked many follow-up questions. Where were these places? Did I like...
Do we really know what the future needs?
The argument for long-term thinking goes something like this: ● There are X people alive today. ● In the future, there will be Y≫X people alive. ● All people have equal moral weight. ● Therefore the state of the world in the future is more important than the state of...
We should encourage more public disagreement.
Probably most social norms are like that---even if we disagree with them, they're too entrenched to change. That's why it's important to watch for critical points where norms could go either way. Here's one such case: Say someone wrote something. You think they're wrong, so you write a manifesto arguing...
We like lists because they are an objectively good way to organize information. They allow readers to quickly and easily get what they want.
Say you want to learn about sleep. You see two articles: 1. "Theory and practice of effective sleep" 2. "Seven insights about sleep" Are you drawn to the second? I am. Of course, I hate myself for this because I've internalized the idea that lists are cheap and low-class. But...
Here are some things that I hated as a student. At the time, I thought my teachers didn't understand or care how terrible they were.
In a recent post, Parrhesia suggested that course grades should be 100% determined by performance on a final exam—an exam that could be taken repeatedly, with the last attempt being the course grade. (See also the discussion at r/slatestarcodex.) The idea is that grades are supposed to measure what you...
History suggests that poor countries have the same growth as rich countries on average, just with much higher variance.
I used to have a mental model that economic growth was about: 1. Figuring out clever ways to do stuff. 2. Doing it. Rich countries are at the technological frontier, so they have to do both of these things at the same time. Since figuring things out is hard, they...
Observations on the dynamics of writing and commenting.
I'm not famous or successful, so why should you care what I think? Well, I have some observations about the dynamics of writing on the internet that I think my (even more non-famous and non-successful) self would have benefited from when I started. The whole idea of writing is crazy:...
A review of the thought experiments in Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (part three)
You want to go to Mars. There’s a machine that will scan and destroy all the matter in your body, send the locations of every atom to Mars, and then recreate it. You worry: Does this transport you, or does it kill you and make a new copy?
Five proposed rules to make sure you're using analogies for good
To fix the analogy, you'd need some bizarre scenario where during the party America had lots of fun and created lots of dirty dishes but also, like, discovered new partying methodology and new ways to use dishes so they are easier to wash?
An analogy between coat racks, desire paths, arguing, vacuuming, reading, social media, drinking, vacations, and colonoscopies.
You learn a lot about people from their bedrooms. Some have TVs or books or laptops. Some have blackout curtains or stuffed animals or bottles of pills. But, vast as human experience is, one thing is consistent: Everyone has once-worn clothes strewn on the furniture. Why? In one sense, it's...
Why does evolution do what it does? And if you're a sentient being created by it, what should you think about that?
Here are two things that seem to be true: Homosexuality has a significant genetic component. Most pre-enlightenment cultures had norms against homosexuality. Huh? Genetic evolution kept the genes associated with homosexuality around, suggesting those genes don’t hurt reproductive fitness. Yet, cultural evolution favors norms against homosexuality. Why would two different...
When does talking about a plan ruin it? Marriage, CO2, religion, self-promotion, edgelords, and Chinese medicine.
You're in love. The two of you want to share the rest of your lives. So, being good game theorists, you have a romantic dinner and plan how to align your interests for mutually beneficial optimal strategic behavior. Your goals are (1) to Odysseus yourself so that even if you're...
A review of the thought experiments in Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (part one)
You live with a group of utterly rational and self-interested people on an island, gathering coconuts to survive. Tired of working so hard, Alice builds a machine and implants it in her brain. This machine leaves her rational except when it comes to fulfilling threats, which she always does regardless...
How much do statins extend lifespan? An analysis based on a meta-analysis of six peer-reviewed papers.
It’s hard to say how much running increases lifespan. To test it, you should take thousands of people, tell half to run, and then follow everyone for years while making sure they follow their instructions. That’s not easy, and even if you did it, you still have to worry: Did...
We could be a lot better at taking care of ourselves.
Here are some things I'd like to know about how to live my life: 1. If I eat Brussels sprouts for dinner tonight instead of pizza, how much longer do I live (in expectation, in minutes)? 2. What should I eat to avoid getting tired after lunch? 3. If I...
What's the history of attempts to abolish the death penalty in the U.S.? And what did people think about them at the time?
Early America inherited much of Britain’s bloodthirsty but arbitrary approach to the death penalty, with theoretical penalties for things like theft and rebellious children that were rarely carried out. However, executions did happen for crimes short of murder: Death was a common penalty for repeated theft, and in 1644, a...
30 underrated reasons to be thankful, starting with the fact that atomic bombs don't ignite the atmosphere
That our atmosphere has low enough pressure and levels of deuterium that nuclear fission in air doesn’t cause hydrogen atoms to fuse into helium, meaning that the first nuclear bomb test in 1945 didn’t in fact ignite the atmosphere and engulf the planet in flames, which was still a bit...
How did France ban the death penalty? And what did people think about it at the time?
Capital punishment was debated during the French revolution (1789-1799). Due to the influence of Beccaria and Voltaire, the discussion was similar to how the death penalty is discussed today. Robespierre said “The state’s execution of the death penalty is legalized murder.” (Though as Hammel points out, “given his later role...
How did the U.K. ban the death penalty? And what did people think about it at the time?
When Beccaria wrote On Crimes and Punishments in 1764, there were around 150 crimes punishable in Britain by death. This “bloody code” included crimes as small as the theft of some items worth 1 shilling. For context, a skilled worker at the time could earn around 20 shillings in a...
How did Germany ban the death penalty? And what did people think about it at the time?
Germany came close to banning the death penalty several times in its early history: In the 1848 revolution, the new constitution almost completely banned it, but this was immediately overturned by the conservative restoration. When Germany unified in 1870-1871 it again came very close to abolition before a late intervention...
What does abolition of the death penalty teach us about who is in change?
Who is really in charge? In democracies, policies are correlated with public opinion, but why? The obvious explanation is that people choose representatives, and those representatives give them what they want. But maybe the causal arrow points in the other direction—maybe elites choose policies, and the public gradually figures that...
Many people see a homelessness crisis, but what does the data say? We examine different locations, rates of change, types of homelessness, and mental health and substance abuse issues.
Is the US in the midst of a homelessness crisis? Many people think so, but that's largely based on based on anecdotes. What does the data say? At a glance, this doesn't look very crisisy. Since 2015, things have gone up by less than three percent. Still, I think there...
Since around 2009, methamphetamines have been made with phenylacetone (P2P). Is there a chemical different causing schizophrenia?
Sam Quinones was recently on Econtalk and in the Atlantic talking about methamphetamines and homelessness. He points out that “old” meth was made from ephedrine and that “new” meth is made from a chemical called Phenylacetone or P2P. He suggests that new meth might be chemically different in a way...
Does cola contain a drug to prevent you from throwing up from the sugar? And is Mexican Coke somehow better than American Coke?
Our first conspiracy theory has all the best qualities: 1. It sounds insane. 2. At first, the facts seem to support it. 3. Later, the facts lead to disquieting reevaluations of the medical system. So here's the conspiracy: "Cola has so much sugar in it that you'd throw up from...
Why did a huge alcohol RCT get cancelled? A strange story of science, academia, bureaucratic maneuvering, ambition, politics, capitalism, the deep state, secret emails, and slippery ethical slopes.
What does drinking do to your health? We can say two things with confidence: 1. Drinking is associated with lots of health problems. 2. Heavy drinking is bad for you. Here's a graph of some associations. Someone who averages 10 drinks per day is 50x more likely to get cirrhosis...
If culture war is intractable, what should we do instead?
The Guadalcanal campaign was the first major offensive operation by the Allies in the Pacific theater of World War 2. This nightmarish battle ran for six months and—while an Allied victory—involved losses so high the US Navy refused to release casualty figures for years afterward. When this campaign ended in...
How polarized are we? An overview of what people of different political parties, education levels, races, and political engagement think about politics.
We’re here on Earth for such a short time. So, I often wonder—what do people spend their days thinking about? Judging from the ever-increasing amount of screaming everywhere, the answer would seem to be politics. But is that right? What opinions do normal people really have?
A review of correlations between human performance on physical and mental tasks, plus a description of how factor analysis is like a cigar
Is there a general factor of intelligence? This question is a trap. If you try to answer it, you’ll find yourself beset by semantic questions. What’s intelligence? What’s a factor? And if you get past those, you’ll then find a bleak valley of statistical arcana. What do the eigenvalues look...
What heritability really is: A fluid statistic that changes whenever society changes.
All psychological traits are heritable. This is the best replicated finding in all of behavioral genetics. Some recent numbers include: Religiosity: 44% Schizophrenia: 79% Big five personality traits: ~40% But what, exactly, does "heritability" mean? I used to have a mental model something like this: Each person has some number...
Some claim that more feminist countries have fewer women in STEM. Others say this is nonsense. Who is right?
The gender-equality paradox is the (disputed) idea that countries with more gender equality have fewer women in STEM careers. While there’s lots of debate in the scientific literature about the causal implications of this paradox, there’s no agreement about a more basic question: Does the paradox even exist, or is...
What happens if you cut your brain in half?
What happens if you cut your cortex in half? When this was first tried on animals, the answer seemed to be not much. But starting in the late 1950s, a series of experiments found that very weird things happen under careful testing. These experiments are fascinating for their implications into...
Why did the Asian flush evolve? What does this say about alcoholism? What does this have to do with Odysseus?
Say you’re an evil scientist. One day at work you discover a protein that crosses the blood-brain barrier and causes crippling migraine headaches if someone’s attention drifts while driving. Despite being evil, you’re a loving parent with a kid learning to drive. Like everyone else, your kid is completely addicted...
People with the same big five personality types tend to be more happy, successful, intelligent, creative, and popular. Why aren't there more tradeoffs?
I don't know if you like parties. I don't know if you're organized or punctual. But I bet you don't like rotting smells or long swims in freezing water. That is to say: People are different, but only in certain ways. What's the difference? Hypothermia enthusiasts have few kids, so...
Why it's better not to use an ultrasonic humidifier
Let me state two things upfront: It is possible to use ultrasonic humidifiers safely. Regardless of how they’re used, we don’t know for sure that ultrasonic humidifiers are dangerous. Absolutely true! However, as typically used, ultrasonic humidifiers might cause health problems. This is supported by an abundance of peer-reviewed research...
Some claims that test scores don't predict college success don't add up.
Here are some claims about how grades (GPA) and test scores (ACT) predict success in college. "In a study released this month, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found—after surveying more than 55,000 public high school graduates—that grade point averages were five times as strong at predicting college...
Why the air you breathe matters, and what to do about it.
What do you worry about more: Getting exercise, eating vegetables, or the air you breathe? While most things that clearly improve health are well known, one is insanely underrated: Fixing your air. I suspect this is often the most effective health intervention, period. Nothing else is so important while also...
Designs for a quieter, more energy efficient purifier, and data proving it really works.
I love box-fan based air purifiers. They are cheap, trivial to build, and people around the world have done experiments to show they actually work.
Why you shouldn't torture yourself when training to run.
I used to think the people I saw running were insane. They were confused about life. Whatever the benefits of running, nothing could justify that much suffering. Runners were cut from a different cloth. They had a strength of will I lacked. I would never be one of them.
How the immune system's memory cells are like the Russian strategy for resisting Napoleon's invasion.
In June of 1812 Napoleon assembled the largest European army in history and invaded Russia. After months of bloody fighting, the French finally arrived in Moscow in September, surprised to find the city mostly abandoned. That night, remaining Russians set fires across the city, eventually burning most of it to...
You can make a DIY air purifier in 30s. To test if it works, I generated smoke, and measured how well it removes tiny particles.
Bad air is bad for you. The air purifier market, though, is a mess. Every purifier uses incompatible proprietary filters, presumably to lock you into buying replacements. How do we know these actually work? Few seem to publish lab tests. And why does it cost $100-$300 for a big plastic...
Explains through a model of selling coconuts while value added taxes distort the economy less than sales taxes.
It turns out that sales tax has a huge, gigantic, terrible flaw: It punishes specialized businesses. A value added tax (VAT) has no such problems.
Common arguments for universal basic income are about liberty or automation of jobs. The "real" argument is much more mundane.
Universal basic income (UBI) is an odd duck. Proponents range from futurists to libertarians to social democrats. Why this weird range of people?
There's many suggested policies to address police violence. What do we know about if they actually work?
You can’t measure police bias using simple population ratios. A better idea is to check if police behave differently when it’s dark, but this doesn’t give any firm conclusions either. What else can we do?
The ethical theory of Utilitarianism applies to many situations, but runs into problems when choices might create new beings.
Cedric and Bertrand want to see a movie. Bertrand wants to see Muscled Duded Blow Stuff Up. Cedric wants to see Quiet Remembrances: Time as Allegory. There’s also Middlebrow Space Fantasy. They are rational but not selfish - they care about the other’s happiness as much as their own. What...
What do we know about how to communicate effectively and find the truth?
Talking about sugar Nick and Maria want to talk about sugar. Does it reduce lifespan? They disagree, but are honest and principled. They want to find the truth and agree on it. How should they talk? Take turns? Try hard to be polite and respectful? Allow interruptions? Search for origins...
It's this simple: Do you want what's behind one door or the other nine?
Here’s an Obvious Problem: There are 10 doors. A car is behind a random door, goats behind the others. Do you want what’s behind door 1, or what’s behind all the other doors? That’s easy, right? Well, how about the Monty Hall problem? There are three doors. A car is...
How dangerous is it to drink acetone or nail-polish remover? Here's the key scientific facts, compared to ethanol.
Question: Should you drink acetone? Answer: No. But, out of interest, what if you did? This question is asked repeatedly on the web, with with many answers smugly stating that even tiny amounts of acetone will instantly kill you, you idiot. But they provide no evidence. Fact #1: Acetone bottles...
Explains comparative advantage through trades of coconuts and bananas. Also, why it might be smart to blow up your island.
Economists say free trade is good because of “comparative advantage”. But what is comparative advantage? Why is it good? This is sometimes considered an arcane part of economics. (Wikipedia defines it using “autarky”.) But it’s really a very simple idea. Anyone can use it to understand the world and make...