Playing cornhole at Amanda’s wedding

In Western culture, virtually everything is understood through the process of storytelling, often to the detriment of reality. When we recount history, we tend to use the life experience of one person — the “journey” of a particular “hero,” in the lingo of the mythologist Joseph Campbell — as a prism for understanding everything else. That inclination works to the Beatles’ communal detriment. But it buoys two other figures: Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan.
- Which Rock Star Will Historians of the Future Remember? - Chuck Klosterman
I can’t even really believe that a rising tide will lift all boats anymore. Not only has GDP uncoupled from median wages over the past forty years, but there seems to be a Red Queen’s Race where every time the GDP goes up the cost of living goes up the same amount. US real GDP has dectupled since 1900, yet a lot of people have no savings and are one paycheck away from the street. In theory, a 1900s poor person who suddenly got 10x his normal salary should be able to save 90% of it, build up a fund for rainy days, and end up in a much better position. In practice, even if the minimum wage in 2100 is $200 2016 dollar an hour, I expect the average 2100 poor person will be one paycheck away from the street. I can’t explain this, I just accept it at this point.
- Three Great Articles On Poverty, And Why I Disagree With All Of Them - Scott Alexander

Good hair day

Ultimately the problem is not with p-values but with null-hypothesis significance testing, that parody of falsificationism in which straw-man null hypothesis A is rejected and this is taken as evidence in favor of preferred alternative B
- The problems with p-values are not just with p-values: My comments on the recent ASA statement - Andrew Gelman
Roughly speaking, until the Global Financial Crisis, neoliberalism was the only force that mattered. The typical setup in English-speaking countries was alternation between two neoliberal parties corresponding to the two versions of neoliberalism I mentioned above. The hard neoliberal (in the US, the Republicans) relied on the votes of (white Christian) tribalists and made symbolic gestures in their direction, but largely ignored them, particularly if their interests came into conflict with those of big business. The soft neoliberals (in the US, the New Democrats) relied on the willingness of leftists to support them as “the lesser evil”.
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The three party system — John Quiggin

via @interfluidity

The outlawing of overt conflict at work and the replacing of it with silence and passive aggression is not a good thing. Sometimes it makes sense not to escalate. Other times it doesn’t.
- An old-school reply to an advertiser’s retro threat - Lucy Kellaway

Superbaby wearing his cape and hanging with his pals

But more and more, I felt like I couldn’t do the work I set out to do. I was participating in a profoundly corrupt criminal justice system. I could not, in good conscience, participate in a system that was so intentionally unfair and racist. So after five years on the job, I quit.
- Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are. There’s only one fix. - The Washington Post
Chickenshit Minimalism: the illusion of simplicity backed by megabytes of cruft
- The Website Obesity Crisis - Maciej Cegłowski
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