How technology has changed the world since I was young

If I were to write my take on how radically I feel the world has changed, it would have a lot of overlap with Noah’s, although it probably wouldn’t be as well written.

But when I look back on the world I lived in when I was a kid in 1990, it absolutely stuns me how different things are now. The technological changes I’ve already lived through may not have changed what my kitchen looks like, but they have radically altered both my life and the society around me. Almost all of these changes came from information technology — computers, the internet, social media, and smartphones.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/how-technology-has-changed-the-world

Sleep-dependent synaptic down-selection – ScienceDirect

We have proposed that this function [of sleep] is to renormalize synaptic weights after learning has led to a net increase in synaptic strength in many brain circuits. Without this renormalization, synaptic activity would become energetically too expensive and saturation would prevent new learning. There is converging evidence from molecular, electrophysiological, and ultrastructural experiments showing a net increase in synaptic strength after the major wake phase, and a net decline after sleep.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1084952121000318

US is recycling just 5% of its plastic waste, studies show | US news | The Guardian

I hadn’t realized the situation was this bad. I’m not going to completely stop using single-use plastic — it’s pretty hard to avoid — but it definitely shifts my tradeoff. Going forward I’ll assume all plastic ends up as landfill.

The Department of Energy also released a research paper this week, which analyzed data from 2019, and came to the same number: only 5% of plastics are being recycled. The researchers on that report wrote that landfilled plastic waste in the United States has been on the rise for many reasons, including “low recycling rates, population growth, consumer preference for single-use plastics, and low disposal fees in certain parts of the country”, according to a press release.

Per NPR, the idea of plastic recycling was never realistic; it was primarily an ad campaign from the oil industry to make people feel better about plastic.

US is recycling just 5% of its plastic waste, studies show | The Guardian

How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled | NPR

Index Funds Are A Proof Of Concept For Market Socialism

This is a really fascinating idea. One place where it maybe breaks down: you could argue that the innovation and competition in a capitalist economy from the parts that aren’t index funds, both on the company side (in companies that aren’t big enough to be part of the indexes) and on the funding side (from wealthy early-stage VCs looking for outsized returns). But then maybe you could rescue this idea by leaving those parts in place, but saying that above a certain size companies ‘graduate’ into these widely shared index funds?

https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2017/08/17/index-funds-are-a-proof-of-concept-for-market-socialism/

The Latest Victims of the Free-Speech Crisis

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, the issue of free speech on college campuses has received a new wave of scrutiny. Palestinian student groups have faced threats of censorship for their statements, donors have warned about pulling funding, and employers have blacklisted students who blamed Israel for Hamas’s attack.

But as far as free speech is concerned, 2023 has been a relatively normal year for colleges and universities. Just don’t confuse “normal” with “good.”

…

Protecting free speech requires defending the rights of both sides of any conflict. That will only get harder if we ignore just how long colleges have been falling short. Today’s headlines can distract from the fact that campuses have been in crisis for the better part of a decade.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/pro-palestine-speech-college-campuses/676155/

A Major Retrospective Celebrates Iris van Herpen’s Mesmerizing Designs at the Intersection of Art, Fashion, and Science

I’ve certainly posted about Iris van Herpen’s work on this blog before, though probably not in the past few years. It’s great to see her remarkable, sculptural fashion get a retrospective in paris.

“Dynamic tension, fluidity, delicacy, and complexity, as well as poetry and philosophy: these are the main elements of the dialogues she establishes between body and clothing, which allow her to convey a new, rich, enthusiastic perspective on the world to come,” writes curator Cloé Pitiot.

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/12/iris-van-herpen-sculpting-the-senses/

Overcoming Baumol

Interesting economic point, but mostly I just love the idea of claistered monks using advanced technology to build gothic cathedrals. Click through to the original post to see (extremely brief) video of what they’re working on.

One way to overcome the Baumol effect is to replace labor with capital. AI and robots are making that possible. Here’s a clip of the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming who are building a monastery in the Gothic style using CNC machines:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/12/overcoming-baumol.html