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Twitter can’t handle the truth [Judd Legum, Popular Information]

By Spencer Chen
In [Popular Information]
January 24, 2023
290 views
T

• Popular Information reported that the Manatee County School District instructed teachers to make their classroom libraries inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution.
• The directive was issued as part of an effort to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R).
• After the report was posted on Twitter, a “Community Note” was appended stating that “all books are not being removed from classroom libraries”, which is inaccurate.
• Teachers in Manatee County have been told to remove all books from their classroom libraries.
• The Community Note feature has been championed by Elon Musk, the billionaire who purchased Twitter for $44 billion in the fall.
• Musk has argued that Community Notes will be a corrective and cannot be biased towards the right, but since taking over Twitter, he has repeatedly catered to the far-right.

Published January 24, 2023
Visit Popular Information to read Judd Legum’s original post Twitter can’t handle the truth

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Joe Biden’s conditional optimism about America [Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring]

By Spencer Chen
In [Slow Boring]
January 24, 2023
157 views
J

• Joe Biden sees America as beset by a crisis of self-confidence, and believes that with the country’s advantages, it can surmount problems and lead the world if united.
• Biden’s ability to demonstrate profound interpersonal empathy serves him in the work of presidenting, as he works with his opponents’ genuine desires and sees the world through their eyes.
• Biden’s approach to domestic legislation is based on understanding Republicans’ actual needs, and he has been able to wring a considerable amount of legislative juice out of unpromisingly small majorities.
• Biden is attempting to maintain a strategic advantage for the democratic bloc in key areas like chips and artificial intelligence, while understanding the need to manage all aspects of the situation and only get into dealmaking mode when it would be constructive.
• Biden has the smallest cultural footprint of any American president of my lifetime, and his project of unifying the country has to take place on a social and psychological level.
• Biden needs to be more present in our lives, more outspokenly normal, and more encouraging of other people to be more outspoken about their normal views.

Published January 24, 2023
Visit Slow Boring to read Matthew Yglesias’s original post Joe Biden’s conditional optimism about America

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Actually, Japan has changed a lot [Noah Smith, Noahpinion]

By Spencer Chen
In Noah Smith [Noahpinion]
January 24, 2023
198 views
A

• Rupert Wingfield-Hayes’ farewell essay paints a picture of Japan as a stagnant and static society, but this is inaccurate.
• Japan has changed in important and visible ways, such as its built environment, fertility rate, immigration policy, and role of women in the workforce.
• Aging is a real problem, but Japan’s fertility rate is higher than any other developed country in its region.
• Immigration policy has changed substantially, with the number of foreign-born workers in Japan doubling in the first few years of Abe’s administration.
• The percentage of women in corporate management has increased from 11% to 15%.
• Japan’s choice not to tie middle-class wealth to housing prices is a smart one, as it has allowed for affordable housing and economic growth.
• Westerners should not essentialize Japan, as this will limit their ability to offer meaningful solutions to the country’s problems.

Published January 24, 2023
Visit Noahpinion to read Noah Smith’s original post Actually, Japan has changed a lot

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Actually, Japan has changed a lot [Noah Smith, Noahpinion]

By Spencer Chen
In Noah Smith [Noahpinion]
January 24, 2023
205 views
A

• Rupert Wingfield-Hayes’ farewell essay paints a picture of Japan as a stagnant and static society, but this is inaccurate.
• Japan has changed in important and highly visible ways, such as its built environment, fertility rate, immigration policy, and role of women in the workforce.
• Gerontocracy is a major problem in Japan, both politically and corporately, and low-productivity menial jobs are a big reason why Japanese people earn such low and stagnant wages.
• Japan’s depreciating real estate is actually a strength, as it allows for dense development and frees up household cash to be put into stocks and bonds.
• Japan has done better in terms of housing policy, construction, landscaping and urbanism than just about any country in the West, and its fertility rate is higher than any other developed East Asian country.
• Immigration policy has changed substantially in the past decade, and the number of foreign-born workers in Japan has doubled.
• The percentage of women in corporate management has increased from 11% to 15%, and Japan’s female employment rate now exceeds America’s.
• Westerners should not essentialize Japan, as this will prevent them from offering the country outside perspectives that could help it solve its very real problems.

Published January 24, 2023
Visit Noahpinion to read Noah Smith’s original post Actually, Japan has changed a lot

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Who Predicted 2022? [Scott Alexander, Astral Codex Ten]

By Spencer Chen
In Scott Alexander [Astral Codex Ten]
January 24, 2023
257 views
W

• Last year, 508 people were asked to assign percentage chances to 71 yes-or-no questions about the future.
• Log-loss scoring was used to grade everyone’s probability estimates, with lower scores being better.
• Superforecasters outscored 84% of other participants, and an aggregate created by averaging all 508 participants’ guesses scored at the 84th percentile.
• Prediction markets did extraordinarily well, scoring at the 99.5th percentile.
• The single best forecaster of the 508 participants got a score of 25.68.
• Seven people placed in the top five spots, including a data scientist at Amazon’s forecasting division, a high school dropout, and a former trader and professional Magic player.
• Users with self-reported IQ > 150 may have outperformed everyone else.
• Sam, Eric and Scott are running a repeat version of the contest for 2023, with 3500 entries so far.
• Superforecaster aggregation and prediction markets are expected to beat most individual predictors.
• Estimating the chance of a cease-fire in Ukraine is difficult and uncertain, but various methods can be used to increase accuracy.
• These methods include various groups, sources, and aggregation methods, but none of them are the most accurate source of forecasts.
• The most accurate source of forecasts would be Putin and Zelenskyy, who could have secret plans they haven’t announced.
• The goal is to increase knowledge efficiency by using the information available to the general public and a few minutes of reflection to gain as much accuracy as possible.

Published January 24, 2023
Visit Astral Codex Ten to read Scott Alexander’s original post Who Predicted 2022?

 

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Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution [Judd Legum, Popular Information]

By Spencer Chen
In [Popular Information]
January 23, 2023
262 views
F

• Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom libraries inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution, in order to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R).
• The policy is based on the premise that teachers and librarians are using books to “”groom”” students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies.
• The law requires that all library books selected be free of pornography and material prohibited under s. 847.012, suited to student needs and their ability to comprehend the material presented, and appropriate for the grade level and age group for which the materials are used or made available.
• Teachers must make their classroom libraries inaccessible to students until they can establish that each book has been approved by a librarian.
• The process of restoring student access to classroom libraries is complex and requires cross-checking each book in their classroom library with the district library catalog, and any book not currently held in the district libraries must be individually evaluated and approved by a librarian.
• The review must also be consistent with a complex training, which was heavily influenced by right-wing groups like Moms For Liberty and approved by the Florida Department of Education just last week.
• The Parental Rights In Education Act prohibits all instruction on “”sexual orientation or gender identity”” in K-3 classrooms and instruction in other grades that is “”not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.””
• The teacher training approved by the Florida Department of Education, however, does not inform librarians that the Parental Rights in Education Act and Stop WOKE ACT do not apply to library books.
• Manatee County schools have already removed several books from school libraries because they contain LGBTQ characters or themes.

Published January 23, 2023
Visit Popular Information to read Judd Legum’s original post Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution

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Netflix’s New Chapter [Ben Thompson, Stratechery]

By Spencer Chen
In Ben Thompson [Stratechery]
January 23, 2023
229 views
N

• Netflix was founded by Marc Randolph and funded by Reed Hastings, who eventually took over as CEO.
• In 2004, Blockbuster launched Blockbuster Online, which caused Netflix’s stock to plunge.
• Netflix waited out Blockbuster, knowing that the company was carrying $1 billion in debt and would eventually have to raise prices.
• Blockbuster responded by cutting prices and launching Total Access, which was a great bargain for customers.
• Netflix eventually offered to buy Blockbuster Online, but the offer was declined.
• In recent years, Netflix has faced competition from other streaming services, which has caused revenue growth to slow.
• Netflix believes that some of its competitors will seek to build sustainable, profitable businesses in streaming, and that its focus as a pure-play streaming business is an advantage.
• Netflix is now profitable and generating positive free cash flow, while its competitors are struggling to make money in streaming.
• Netflix has an advantage as a pure-play streaming business, and its aim is to be the first choice in entertainment.
• Netflix gets less leverage off of its international content than it once hoped for, and its old content holds less value than bulls once assumed.
• Reed Hastings stepped up to the CEO role and shifted the company’s culture away from Randolph’s family of creators to a top-down organization.
• Hastings excelled at execution, but the chief task for Netflix going forward is creativity and producing compelling content at scale.

Published January 23, 2023
Visit Stratechery to read Ben Thompson’s original post Netflix’s New Chapter

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Fevers 101 [Emily Oster, ParentData]

By Spencer Chen
In Emily Oster [ParentData]
January 23, 2023
268 views
F

• Fever is a body’s response to infection and is not necessarily a sign of a worse illness.
• Treating fever does not affect recovery in a positive or negative way.
• Treat fever if it makes your child feel better, and not if they seem fine.
• If a child is totally unconsolable or is very hard to wake up or hasn’t been peeing at all, this is when you worry.
• Ibuprofen seems to work better on fever in randomized trials.

Published January 23, 2023
Visit ParentData to read Emily Oster’s original post Fevers 101

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Climate Activism Has a Cult Problem [Zion Lights, The Free Press]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Free Press]
January 23, 2023
234 views
C

• Extinction Rebellion is a movement that fights climate change by demanding governments stop using and producing fossil fuels immediately.
• Their methods seem unorthodox, and the author used to be a part of the movement.
• The author was part of Camp for Climate Action, where they protested a different corporation every year, and was part of the collective that took over Waterloo Bridge in London for two weeks.
• The author was asked to join the XR Media and Messaging Team, and her days were spent writing for the national press, feeding journalists quotes and information, and editing their newspaper, The Hourglass.
• The author was instructed to cry on television and bring her children to climate marches to manipulate emotions, and the XR office had a sign to keep shoes on due to people walking around without them.
• Roger Hallam, a 56-year-old organic farmer-turned-radical, is the most dominant leader of the climate change movement Extinction Rebellion (XR).
• He preys on the guilt and anxiety of his followers, mostly young men and women, and has been compared to a cult leader.
• Greta Thunberg, another prominent figure in the climate change movement, has been heavily influenced by XR.
• In October 2019, XR shut down the London Tube, which caused a lot of public backlash and splintered the movement.
• Roger’s extreme rhetoric and actions, such as his proposal to fly drones over Heathrow Airport, have caused many members to leave XR.
• Roger has since rebranded the most extreme faction of XR, Just Stop Oil, which is supported by the Climate Emergency Fund.
• His apocalyptic rhetoric has become more lurid, and he has been accused of brainwashing innocent children to do his bidding.

Published January 22, 2023
Visit The Free Press to read Zion Lights’s original post Climate Activism Has a Cult Problem

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Bret Easton Ellis’s Great Defense of Gen X [Peter Savodnik, The Free Press]

By Spencer Chen
In [The Free Press]
January 22, 2023
286 views
B

• Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards, is set in the Century Towers, which can be seen from his 11th-story condo in West Hollywood.
• Ellis wrote the novel over the course of 16 months, and it is about a serial killer named The Trawler and the kids whose lives are turned upside down by him.
• The novel is a reflection of Ellis’s own experiences as a teenager in the fall of 1981, and is about the search for freedom and independence.
• Ellis reflects on the transformation of the younger generations since the early nineties, and how the uncool earnestness of the signallers and brand builders has replaced the cool of the Gen X-ers.
• Ellis believes that no one can save us, and that the novel is a nostalgia for the past and a lamentation of what we have become.

Published January 22, 2023
Visit The Free Press to read Peter Savodnik’s original post Bret Easton Ellis’s Great Defense of Gen X

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