Dear Cary,I’m a month into my 30s, an age I always looked forward to because by then I should have my life together, know what I want, know my purpose, and know who I am.As is the irony of life, my life is in shambles, I am unemployed (for almost a year!) and in debt. I want to be a paid television writer. I think writing is part of my life’s purpose, but I haven’t had any success due to a series of compulsively squandered job opportunities and years hiding in the petrifying fear of showing up to my career — all of which I blamed on my youth. I am still, at the age of 30, on the square before square one while many of my peers have passed me by and are writing on successful shows.Even though I was wrong about most of what achieving 30 would mean, I, with the help of five years in a 12-step program, thought I knew who I was, or at least what I was not. I recently discovered I qualified for three additional programs in addition to my first. So, instead of victorious self-awareness, I’ve had a whole new surprising part of me exposed, a part that was a total mystery, one of which is my debtor behavior. Continue Reading… … Read More
How to prevent future Reinhart-Rogoff meltdowns
In the midst of the Reinhart-Rogoff meltdown, a commenter was aghast to learn that their paper was not peer reviewed.* She asked, reasonably, how could the newspapers report findings that had not gone through that process?It’s a fair question, and I should expand on the too glib remarks from my post:So the answer is to only accept peer-reviewed work as economic knowledge, right? Nope. That would be a) too limiting, and b) wouldn’t advance the epistemological cause as much as you think. Peers have their own sets of biases, particularly as gate keepers.First, had R&R gone through the peer-review process, I’m fairly confident that a) the spreadsheet error would NOT have been found, but b) the paper would have been sent back to them for failing to provide even a cursory analysis of the possibility of reverse causality (slower growth leading to higher debt/GDP ratios vs. the R&R claim of the opposite). Re “a,” peer reviewers do not routinely replicate findings, though they should when possible (more work these days is with proprietary data sets which cannot legally be shared).Continue Reading… … Read More
Elizabeth Wurtzel refuses to grow up, Twitter reacts
The Atlantic published an Elizabeth Wurtzel essay on Thursday, and it is very Elizabeth Wurtzel-y.In a piece called “I refuse to be a grown-up,” the “Prozac Nation” author explains how she manages to look so young at age 45 (no marriages, no kids, nightly applications of Retin-A) and how her many habits (speaking her mind, not speaking her mind, drinking red wine, not drinking white wine) separate her from her 40-something peers.The essay took off, and reactions generally fell into one of two camps: Team “Leave Elizabeth Alone” believes that hers is no greater a sin of navel-gazing than those committed by other animal, vegetable and mineral. The second group feels that Wurtzel is very, very annoying and would like her to stop writing these kinds of essays.A roundup.For the defense:[embedtweet id="322743536791457792"][embedtweet id="322478088166449154"][embedtweet id="322467503685115904"][embedtweet id="322423350985109504"]For the prosecution:[embedtweet id="322463283762323456"][embedtweet id="322701214980644864"][embedtweet id="322471528333717505"][embedtweet id="322704968744321025"] ; ;Continue Reading… … Read More
Anti-Semitism row rocks top Social Democrat
Former party leader Mona Sahlin has questioned her Social Democrat peers for electing a member with ties to anti-Semitic propagandists to the governing board. … Read More
Teenage rape victim commits suicide after being bullied by peers
A teenage girl from Nova Scotia in Canada was driven to suicide after photos of an alleged sexual assault led to her being shunned and harassed by her peers. The 17-year-old girl, Rehtaeh Parsons, died Sunday in a hospital after attempting to hang herself. “Rehtaeh is gone today because of…
Conversations with Great Minds – Dale Stephens, Hacking Your Education – P2
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Conversations with Great Minds – Dale Stephens, Hacking Your Education – P1
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