How to Decrease Inequality

The President's proposal to raise the capital gains tax rate to 28% is a good first step on the road to reversing some inequality-favoring policies. Cutting capital gains was meant to increase business investment, but what it's done instead is to provide convenient tax shelter for extremely wealthy individuals and an incentive to take one's compensation in the form of dividends. Here's a good summary of Danny Yagan's paper on the 2003 cap gains tax cut, Paul Krugman on the same. We should not, as a function of government, care how you make your money, so ideally, you would pay one set of progressive rates on the whole of your income, whether you got it as an hourly or annual wage, interest, dividend, or what have you.

Second, there needs to be an ongoing focus on deconcentrating industries generally and inhibitng large scale mergers & acquisitions among market leaders in particular. Why? Because these mergers have a hollowing out effect on the industry so that only very large scale companies remain. They also inhibit competition and internal investment, making inorganic growth more attractive. Access to public capital markets should be fostered instead, making public offerings simpler and less costly.

Third, intellectual property reform needs to move in the direction of weaker IP protection, with tighter restrictions on the length, breadth, and permissible categories of protection. Business process patents should be eliminated entirely, and safe harbor exceptions should be broad and automatically available. There exists a point at which additional protection actually decreases IP value, and I think it's clear we're well past that point. Some good signs are showing up in the new EU draft proposal in this area, but the current round of proposed trade agreements, starting with TPP, are unfortunately steps in the wrong direction.

Lullian Combinatoric Lamps - Giordano Bruno

Chapter VI
Member III

The width of the scale permits many ways of examination: | first, the extension of the meanings of the terms (of which more is said later), that is to say that goodness not only extends to its physical meaning but also to its ethical one (similarly applicable to greatness and the others); second by duplication of them in their concrete and abstract forms, so to speak, goodness and good, greatness and great; third by distinctions of -ivi, -abilis, and -are, for example, bonificativum [the capacity of goodness or to do good], bonificabile [the capacity to receive goodness or to be improvable], bonificare [to improve, reclaim, restore], where ivum signifies the active principal part, abile the passive principal part, and are the copulative principal part, or ivum the principal effective or communicative part, abile the principal receptive or participatory part, and are the principal connective or actual part; fourth, by distinctions of affirmative and negative, additive and subtractive, thus to the extent that one can be said to be taken affirmatively, the other is take negatively, where one is excessive, the other is deficient; fifth, by distinctions of explicit and implicit, because they are in terms not solely contained in their system, but also everything that can be said and imagined through absolute predicates, as is made clear in the Tract Regarding the Multiplication of the Terms; sixth by distinction of proper and appropriated, insofar as some of these have a natural convenience, some by and from themselves [per se & a se, instrinsically], others extrinsically and from others, some I say are from natural substance, some from infusion, some from acquisition.

Magnetic Memory Podcast

Anthony Metivier was good enough to interview me over at Magnetic Memory Method Podcast. We talked about Giordano Bruno, memory palaces, and how you can improve your techniques for learning and memory.

So, if you've enjoyed seeing me burble on in print, now you can get the definitive audio experience as well. Hope you enjoy.

Tatiana Plakhova - Globe

complexitygraphics.com

Best Books of 2014*

The Peripheral William Gibson
Multidimensional shennanigans, in which a possible future outsources work to a possible past, culminating in a series of capers.

 

Nothing is True, Everything is Possible Peter Pomerantsev Nonfiction that reads like fiction. A postmodern horror story about the changes in Russian society in the 21st century, featuring the PR flacks who run the media and opposition parties for the Kremlin, filmmaking gangsters, architectural historians, entrepreneurs hounded out of their own companies and country, and Vladimir Putin. America is exactly half as crazy as the Russia of this book, in many of the same ways.

Deathless Catherynne M Valente
Fiction that reads like the true history of 20th century Russia. Koschei the Deathless, Tsar of Life, marries Marya Morevna. This is the story of their marriage and their war with the Tsar of Death, set against the rise of communism and two world wars. Luxurious, funny and sad. Any book recommended to me by three people is a must read; this book was recommended by many, many more than three.

Redeployment Phil Klay

Short stories about soldiers in or returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are no protocols or etiquette to govern much of the modern experience of war, resulting in a lot of anxiety, restlessness and improvisation. If these stories are collectively about anything, they're about that.

Demon Camp: A Soldier's Exorcism Jennifer Percy

One day, while driving though rural Indiana, I heard a Pentecostal call-in show in which a listener called to ask for an exorcist, because demons were attacking her house right that minute. The hosts of the show promised to send someone over shortly. Apparently, this sort of thing went on a lot around there. Demon Camp describes that same sort of high-intensity, near hallucinatory religious experience among a group of people for whom PTSD, alcohol or sex addiction are caused by demons and healed by ritual.

 

Afghan Post Adrian Bonenberger
Bonenburger joined the military after graduating from Yale. This memoir in epistolary form describes an education before, during and after his wars. Like Jarhead in the previous generation of war memoirs, it's a search for meaning in experience, and for the meaning of one's experiences that drives the book.

 
The Goldfinch Donna Tartt
This was on everyone's Best List when it came out at the end of last year, and deservedly so. Starts with an art heist and kicks into high gear when Boris shows up. One perfect Tartt novel a decade is about right, but I don't know how she can hold herself back from writing faster.

The Bone Clocks David Mitchell
There's always one of the linked novellas in any Mitchell book that make me want to throw the book across the room. Here, its the fourth section, which focuses on the intrigues of a writer who unknowingly writes books about the supernatural conspiracy underlying the other sections of the book. Holly Sykes and Marinus, however, the two main characters throughout, are full people, and worth the read. It's rare to find characters who change over the course of their life as believably as Holly does, or across their multiple lives, as Marinus does. Also on a lot of Best lists this year.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Excellent advice on thinking big and building things that matter. Occasionally slips into Randian sermons, but otherwise one of the better books on entrepreneurship that's out there.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty
The most important book on economics in the past year, even if you don't agree with it. The concentration of wealth in the OECD economies will present a huge challenge over the coming decades, and understanding the history of the issue is a good first step to working our way out.

Derek Jarman's Sketchbooks Derek Jarman
Gay punk filmmaker Derek Jarman made movies of astonishing beauty and invention on a microscopic budget, and in the process turned his entire life into art. Here's what the inside of his head looked like.

What Makes This Book So Great Jo Walton
Literary criticism at its best. This book will remind you why you liked all of those science fiction and fantasy books you read as a kid, and how those informed your life & writing. At least, it did this for me.

The Magician's Land Lev Grossman
Brilliant conclusion to the trilogy. Quentin Coldwater grows up at last, and all of the women wronged in the course of the books end up getting justice. Worlds end, worlds are born, and we find out who's the greatest magician alive today, this side of the Neitherlands.

*Read, not necessarily published, in 2014. This post was originally sent out to my mailing list. To subscribe, enter your email in the form located to the right of this page.

Links for Later 11-2-14

1. Judex: "There has been a bird."
2. "What David Fincher doesn't do"
3. The evolution of Robert Bork's Constitutional and jurisprudential theory. 
4. What is the male equivalent of "distaff"?
5. Underdressed for flying in a Speedo and inflatable ducky.
6. Tim Geithner's uncharitable opinions of everyone else during the crash.
7. Vladimir Putin gives a speech. Club Orlov applauds. Everyone else shrugs.
8. Jeff Hawkins: Why neural networks are not the road to strong AI.
9. Josh Seiden: “When you are writing, you are not a samurai. You are a waterfall or some shit”
10. Keynes was right.
11. Syllabus for an Archives, Libraries & Databases class by Shannon Mattern
12. Alchemical processes represented by birds.
13. Sharp waves organize memory/recall & possibly decision-making as well.
14. Would like to know more about this: "cells from [presumably olfactory bulb] used to regrow man's spinal cord."
15. Better headline: "You have chemoreceptors in every cell of your body. Some of these are also part of your sense of smell."

Laurie Anderson - Another Day in America

A Gentle Risk Assessment

Just a reminder: No matter how many people terrorists kill, the current Ebola outbreak will kill a thousand times more. Where should those dollars and our attention be directed? No matter how many people the current Ebola outbreak kills, AIDS will kill a thousand times more. Diabetes will kill a thousand times more. Which one are you most worried about? No matter how many people all three of these diseases will kill, global warming could kill everyone. Where do you put your attention?

Book Release: Giordano Bruno - On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds

The new English translation of Giordano Bruno's On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds is now available in several locations online and in the real world. Buy it at:

Amazon:

 

Barnes and Noble

For NOOK eBook

 

 

On the Infinite is one of Bruno's most insightful cosmological works. Written in 1584, it argues for a boundless, infinite universe, containing innumerable planets, all of which are inhabited. This was a revolutionary idea for the day, opposed to the traditional Aristotelian model of a unique Earth-centered system, encapsulated within a set of planet-bearing crystalline spheres, and surrounded by an outermost sphere of fixed stars.

Bruno's ideas and struggle with the Church authorities were recently featured on an episode of Cosmos, and excerpts from the book 

73 Questions with Daniel Radcliffe

Q. What's the most American phrase? A. A whole 'nother.

Links for Later 7-28-14

1. The daily routines of Vladimir Putin. Very weird and very sad.
2. "Is Russia Pregnant with Ukraine?" "Like a play we cannot leave."
3. The New York Times calls for legalizing marijuana. Considering how retro their trend pieces usually are, legalization may have already happened several years ago.
4. George RR Martin really feels like he should finish that book now.

Links for Later 7-22-14

1. What Fourier tranforms can do for you.
2. Andrew Gelman: "Bayesian methods are presented as an automatic inference engine, and this raises suspicion in anyone with applied experience, who realizes that different methods work well in different settings" as quoted in this critique of Bayesian stats.

Five for Dinner

Look at this from 10 years ago: Jon Favreau, Colin Farrell, Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck and Kevin Smith. None of them have any idea where they'll be in 2014.

You've been Wrong about Every Prediction in the Last Five Years

Steve Liesman points out Rick Santelli's forecasting record. Paul Krugman points out why the traders (who lost money listening to Santelli) still applaud him

Why You Should Use Tor

The EFF's brief on why and how you should use Tor, the anonymizing & encrypting software for browing securely.

Links for Later 7-13-14

1. The Baroque theater designs of C. Howard Crane.
2. Documentary budgets
3. Terraforming the moon. The surprising thing is that the Moon is not terribly reflective right now, with an albedo of something like 0.1 or less. With terraforming, it would be substantially (>5x) brighter due to the reflectivity of water and clouds, just like the Earth.

Harry Potter Visits Quidditch World Cup

JK Rowling has posted a brief gossip column by Rita Skeeter, giving us an update on 35-year-old Harry Potter and his friends as they visit the 2014 Quidditch World Cup.

Emo Philips on Religion

I've been talking a lot about heresy lately, and repeated this joke without remembering where it came from. Turns out, it was Emo Philips all along.

Links for Later 6-25-14

1. Amartya Sen refutes the Just Desserts Theory of Distribution (via Brad DeLong)
2. David Friedberg of Climate Corporation gives an impressive interview to First Round Review. Pay attention to his strategic thinking. (via Tim Ferriss)
3. Amazon's maximalist bargaining position with Hachette. The POD terms are interesting.
4. All-in bargaining positions like Amazon's tend to win. Here's why you should never go for piecemeal bargaining.
5. Jon Gnarr and the Best Party won big in Iceland's elections a few years ago. They did it by not being serious.

 Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

-Bertrand Russell 

Links for Later 6-9-14

1. China's economy has some big challenges ahead (capacity utilization is at 60%, lots of bad credit on the market, etc.) (via Marginal Revolution)
2. Syllabus for Lynda Barry's drawing class.
3. "Really, Edwin..."
4. Bishop Synesius On Dreams (De Insomniis)
5. Academics getting fed up with the highly profitable academic publishing industry.

Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus

Early alchemical manuscript, part of the Corpus Hermeticum

Isaac Newton's translation, per Wikipedia:

1. Tis true without lying, certain & most true.
2. That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing
3. And as all things have been & arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
4. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse.
5. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
6. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
7. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
8. It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior.
9. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world
10. & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
11. Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing.
12. So was the world created.
13. From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world
14. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended.

Book of the XXIV Philosophers

Translation in progress of 12th century manuscript (pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus?), as requested by Ted Hand. List of twenty four theses about God from various philosophers (Meister Eckhardt, Thomas Bradwardine, Nicholas da Cusa, etc.). Each of the 24 theses has accompanying commentary; further layers of commentary are available in the French and German translations, which I do not currently have before me. The Latin original can be found on Markus Vizent's blog (http://markusvinzent.blogspot.com/2012/10/book-of-24-philosophers.html).

Book of the 24 Philosophers – Libri Viginti Quattuor Philosophorum

Only one question remained among the twenty four philosophers: what is God? Let us agree, granted by general consent, that each of us shall in turn define God by his own proposition, extract anything that we might agree upon, and decide [upon who has the best definition]:

 

I.                   GOD IS A MONAD GENERATING A MONAD, REFLECTING THE FIRE OF LOVE BACK UPON ITSELF.

II.                GOD IS AN INFINITE SPHERE, WHOSE CENTER IS EVERYWHERE, AND WHOSE CIRCUMFERENCE IS NOWHERE.

III.             GOD IS ALL IN EVERY PART.

IV.             GOD IS A MIND, GENERATING A WORD, PRESERVED CONTINUALLY.

V.                GOD IS THAT,  WHICH NOTHING BETTER CAN BE IMAGINED.

VI.             GOD IS THAT ONE, NEXT TO WHOM SUBSTANCE IS ACCIDENT, YET IS NO ACCIDENT.

VII.          GOD IS THE ORIGIN WITHOUT ORIGIN, THE PROCESS WITHOUT VARIATION, THE END WITHOUT END.

VIII.       GOD IS LOVE, MORE OBSCURE THAN AIR.

IX.             GOD IS WHATEVER IS PRESENT WHATEVER TIME IT IS.

X.                GOD IS THAT WHICH CANNOT BE NUMBERED, WHOSE EXISTENCE CANNOT BE CIRCUMSCRIBED, AND WHOSE GOODNESS IS WITHOUT END.

XI.             GOD IS BEYOND BEING, NECESSARY, ABIDING ALONE IN ABUNDANCE, SUFFICIENT.

XII.          GOD IS HE WHOSE DIVINE WILL, POWER AND WISDOM ARE EQUAL.

XIII.       GOD IS THE ETERNAL ACTIVE IN ITSELF, WITHOUT DIVISION OR SEPARATION.

XIV.       GOD IS THE OPPOSITE OF MEDIATED BEING.

XV.          GOD IS THE WAY OF LIFE, THE FORM OF TRUTH, THE UNITY OF GOODNESS.

XVI.       GOD IS THAT EXCELLENCE WHICH WORDS CANNOT TRULY TELL, NOR THE MIND RIGHTLY DESCRIBE ITS LIKE.

XVII.    GOD IS HE WHO UNDERSTANDS HIMSELF ALONE, NOT DEPENDENT ON ANY RECEIVER.

XVIII. GOD IS A SPHERE OF MANY CIRCUMFERENCES AND MANY POINTS.

XIX.       GOD IS PERPETUALLY MOVING THOUGH IMMOBILE.

XX.          GOD IS HE WHO LIVES ALONE IN HIS INTELLECT.

XXI.       GOD IS THE SHADOW IN THE SOUL AFTER ALL LIGHT HAS DEPARTED.

XXII.    GOD IS THAT WHICH HAS NO DIVISIONS WHATEVER, WHICH HAS NO VARIATIONS, AND WHICH HAS NOTHING COMMINGLED WITH IT.

XXIII.  GOD IS THAT WHICH CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD THROUGH IGNORANCE.

XXIV. GOD IS THAT LIGHT WHOSE PARTS NEITHER INCREASE NOR PASS, BUT ARE GODLIKE FORMS IN THEMSELVES.

Dustin Lance Black's Creative Process

He has a very deep way of working with the index cards at the post-note pre-first-draft phase. It's worth thinking about all the annotation and grouping methods that you could use in your own work to deliver this level of richness at the stack-of-cards level. Two useful questions that sit behind everything in this clip: "Why the film...?" and "How the film...?"

Links for Later 3-21-14

1. Supertaskers: the ~5% of people who do better when multitasking.
2. Report from the Extreme Memory Tournament.
3. An extremely good interview with Rory Sutherland about behvioral economics, and also the difference between scientists and business people with regard to evidence.

Craig Chester and the Ghost of Montgomery Clift

Nicholas da Cusa - On Learned Ignorance

De Docta Ignorantia
II,3

“God enfolds all things, and so all things in Him are Himself; He unfolds all things, and so He is all things in themselves.”

II,4

“ Therefore, that which was written the Absolute Maximum in Book One, appropriate to the Maximum Absolute absolutely, all of this applies to the contracted maximum in a contracted way…God is the Absolute Maximum and Absolute Oneness, who preceeds and unifies all distance and difference,… an absolute which is everything, in which everything absolutely begins and ends, and in which it has its absolute being and in which all are without plurality in that same Absolute Maximum, most simple, indistinct, as are infinite lines in every figure. Similarly, the world or the universe is a contracted maximum or unity as opposed to one that preceeds contraction…existence is contracted, and includes all that begins and ends in contraction, exists in contraction, infinite contraction or contracted infinity, in which all pluralities are contained within this maximum contraction, with contracted simplicity and indistinguishability, as maximal lines are contracted by and contract all figures.” So that God is the absolute quiddity of the universe; the universe is that same quiddity, but contracted, that is, implemented (as that which is spoken is to the speaker, so to is the effect of existence to [God]). The absolute unity of God is free of every plurality “But a contracted unity such as a universe is a maximum unity even though contracted and not a greater absolute…this is a unity through the contraction of plurality, as infinitude from finitude…God, since He is immense is neither in the Sun nor in the Moon, though in them He is absolutely that which they are…Since the universe is a contracted quiddity, it is neither the Sun nor the Moon, but is neverthess when it is in the Sun it is the Sun, and when it is in the Moon it is the Moon; the identity of the universe is in diversity, as the unity of it is in plurality…So our universe, though it is neither Sun nor Moon, is yet the Sun in the Sun and the Moon in the Moon, where it is the Sun and the Moon without plurality and diversity.”

-from Nicholas da Cusa

De Docta Ignorantia

On Learned Ignorance 

Links for Later 5-8-14

1. Josh Eidelson interviews Thomas Piketty at Salon.
2. Charlie Stross: The Snowden Leaks, a Meta-Narrative.
3. Tesla's plans for a "gigafactory": "Like an office park all under one roof"

Frank Quitely - What Do Artists Do All Day?

BBC Documentary

Links for Later 5-3-14

1. Kip Manley writes an open letter to John C. Wright.
2. Cat Valente writes an open letter to John C. Wright.
3. Hal Duncan and the Elders of Sodom write an open letter to John C. Wright.
4. John C. Wright takes his post down in response to a large number of open letters objecting to it.
5. Aaron Hedlund notes some issues with Piketty involving, among other things, questions about what variables are properly endogenous and exogenous to growth & production models. Interesting critique.
6. Noah Smith notes Tyler Cowen's anti-Piketty posts, their frequency & intensity, and the similarity of Cowen's predictions about inequality to Piketty's. So why the friction?
7. List of the "30 most influential living psychologists". Weirdly, I have heard of all of them except for their choice for #1.
8. How to write an essay.

Seth Roberts

Seth Roberts, psychologist and self-experimentation pioneer, died this week while hiking. Andrew Gellman has a good remembrance here. Nassim Taleb is organizing a scientific memorial this summer.

More on Piketty's Capital

Robert Solow presents a very clear explication of Piketty's arguments at New Republic. Capital in the 21st Century is, as Solow says, a serious book.

Brad DeLong rounds up the criticism of the book. I have been groping for a way to describe its reception among economists, which is that there are a number of criticisms with parts of it, but that no one I've read feels that it's in any way stupid or misguided. In other words, it is a serious  book. As Brad says, everyone agrees with about 70%, disagrees with 10-20% and isn't sure about another 10-20% but can't agree on which parts to agree or disagree with. There are several useful critiques, and several critiques which argue from derp, from which to choose.

Tyler Cowen is less laudatory and more critical, but still recommends reading the book. Suresh Naidu also has an interesting take.

From a cultural perspective, it's weird to see a dense tome on economic distribution and growth reach number one bestseller status. I haven't seen Piketty on any of the national talk shows yet. I dread that day.

Thomas Piketty - Capital in the 21st Century

Distributional effects of the current economic system have received growing interest as the distribution of income and wealth within the largest economies has grown steeper. It seems that this month, Capital in the 21st Century is on the bedside table of every economist I know, as Michael Lewis's book is on the table of every trader. And as with Flash Boys, everyone's has a problem or two with Piketty's theses, while the consensus is that it's an important book even after taking the flaws into account.

Brad DeLong's "Finger exercises" provide a simple model to play with, and begins with a discussion of four different possible return rates (r) that might relate to the growth rate (g) in Piketty's models. He then looks at the levels of r, g, and wealth to income (W/Y); the results of the model suggest that at least to some extent, the inverse relationship of return rates to capital and accumulation of wealth does in fact hold.

James K. Galbraith's review provides a number of interesting critiques, and finds that while the book contains good information on "flows of income, transfers of wealth and the distribution of financial resources in some of the world's wealthes countries," it does less well in proposing remedies appropriate to the times, and in clarifying the various meanings of "capital"; he also appears to muddle the precedents of the growth model he uses to drive his argument.

[T]he argument of the critics was not about Keynes, or fluctuations. It was about the concept of physical capital and whether profit can be derived from a production function. In desperate summary, the case was three-fold. First: one cannot add up the values of capital objects to get a common quantity without a prior rate of interest, which (since it is prior) must come from the financial and not the physical world. Second, if the actual interest rate is a financial variable, varying for financial reasons, the physical interpretation of a dollar-valued capital stock is meaningless. Third, a more subtle point: as the rate of interest falls, there is no systematic tendency to adopt a more “capital-intensive” technology, as the neoclassical model supposed. 

In short, the Cambridge critique made meaningless the claim that richer countries got that way by using “more” capital. In fact, richer countries often use less apparent capital; they have a larger share of services in their output and of labor in their exports—the “Leontief paradox.” Instead, these countries became rich—as Pasinetti later argued—by learning, by improving technique, by installing infrastructure, with education, and—as I have argued—by implementing thoroughgoing regulation and social insurance. None of this has any necessary relation to Solow’s physical concept of capital, and still less to a measure of the capitalization of wealth in financial markets. 

There is no reason to think that financial capitalization bears any close relationship to economic development. Most of the Asian countries, including Korea, Japan, and China, did very well for decades without financialization; so did continental Europe in the postwar years, and for that matter so did the United States before 1970. 

And Solow’s model did not carry the day. In 1966 Samuelson conceded the Cambridge argument!

DeLong finds fault with Galbraith's critique, and Galbraith responds in the comments on DeLong's post. Chris Bertram reviews Rawls' Economic Justice in light of Piketty over on the Crooked Timber group blog. Paul Krugman has a laudatory review of the book up at the NYRB.

*

 



My own first impression is to think that it would be quite difficult to maintain a return on capital much in excess of the growth rate in cases where capital provides nearly all of the factor input of production, at least for the time periods we're talking about (50+ years). I could be mistaken, otherwise if r-g is large for any substantial length of time, then the quantity of capital would greatly exceed the entire output of the economy of which the capital is a part. Mathematically, these two growth rates have to converge as one becomes closer to another. Moreover, we would also expect that r would fall before that, due to diminishing returns. Piketty's exploding models, in which one factor totally predominates seems less appealing than some kind of pendulum model.

We are in a second Gilded Age, according to the evidence, and the question is what to do about it, and how bad might it get?Rather than raising the income tax to confiscatory levels as Piketty reommends, the most promising policy prescriptions available to us at this time seem to be to neutralize the favorable tax treatment of dividends and capital gains relative to wage income, to invest in public goods (both tangible and intangible), and to strengthen the social safety net.

Some questions I'm still thinking about: If wealth and income inequality are increasing in certain economies, but moderating globally, how much of the argument still holds? Has Piketty chosen the correct definition of r? Is Noah Smith correct in saying that this is just a restatement of the robots vs. globalization argument?

Giordano Bruno

For here is a philosophy that opens the senses, contents the spirit, glorifies the intellect, and produces the humane and true state of blessings that humanity desires, consists through balance, frees from care and pacifies sorrow, causes one to rejoice in the present and not to fear the future; for that Providence or fate or chance in life which determines our course through our particular vicissitudes neither wants nor permits us to know about one thing without ignorance of another, so that at first glance, we are always doubtful and perplexed. But, when we consider more profoundly the being and substance of the universe in which we immutably dwell, we see that neither we nor any real substance truly dies; for nothing is diminished in its substance, but all things that travel in infinite space change in aspect. And since we are all subject to the same Ultimate Efficient Cause, we should not believe, expect or hope otherwise than that, since everything comes from good, all is good, for the good and to the good; from good, through good, to good; anyone who believes the contrary apprehends nothing but what is present, as the goodness of a building is not manifest to one who sees only a tiny piece of it, like a stone affixed with a bit of cement to a garden wall, but which is visible  to one who sees the whole inside and out, who has the ability to see how each part converses with all the others. We have no fear that what has accumulated in this world could, through the vehemence of some errant spirit, or the wrath of Jove’s thunderbolt, be dispersed through this little sepulcher or cupola of the heavens, or shaken or scattered like dust throughout this starry mantle; and in no other way could nature be made to empty itself of subsistence, except when to our eyes it appears that air compressed within the concavity of a bubble vanishes on release, because there is nothing known in the world where one thing does not always succeed another, nor is there some ultimate deep of the world where being is finally dispersed into nonbeing by the Maker’s hand. There are no ends, boundaries, limits or walls which defraud or deprive us of the infinite multitude of things. Therefore, the earth and sea are fecund, therefore the sun burns forever, eternally supplying fuel for the voracious flames, as vapors feed diminished seas, therefore the infinite perpetually bears forth new material.

Giordano Bruno

On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds

Prefatory Epistle

Links for Later 3-20-14

1. Strategist Lawrence Freedman on the Ukraine crisis, and why making friends is often the best strategy. Exaggerates neither the dangers nor the ease of the current situation.
2. Strategist Edward Luttwak is less sanguine.
3. Hugh Howey on why every writer should self-publish.
4. The greatest juggler alive leaves to run a concrete business.
5. Cyberpunk tumblrs.
6. PTSD and moral injury.
7. Visiting Andre Linde, who proposed the inflationary model, on the occasion of the observation of gravity waves, supporting his theory.

Giordano Bruno - On the Infinite, the Universe and the Worlds

Prefatory Epistle

Written for the most illustrious

Signeur Michel de Castelnau

Signeur of Mauvissiere, Concressault and Joinville

Councilor of the Privy Council,

Captain of 50 men at arms,

And Ambassador to Her Serene Majesty of England.

O most illustrious Knight, if I had driven a plow, herded sheep, cultivated a garden, or trimmed a garment, then no one would have held me in much regard, few would have seen me, and even fewer chosen to deal with me, and then I could well try to please everyone. But, because I have tried to describe the field of nature, consider the disposition of the soul, partake of the life of the mind, and travel like a master artificer through the maze of the intellect, those who have regarded me have threatened me, those who have seen me have assailed me, those who have encountered me have tried to bite me, and those who have understood me have tried to destroy me; not just one, nor a few, but many, or virtually all. If you want to understand why this is so, I will tell you the reason: everyday people displease me, commoners are odious, the multitude discontent me, and only the singular one is my beloved: through her I have freedom in subjection, happiness in sorrow, wealth in poverty, and life in death; through her I escape envy of those who are servants in freedom, have pain even in pleasure, are poor despite their wealth, dead though living; for in their body is that chain that binds them, in their spirit is the hell that oppresses them, within their soul is the sin that sickens them, within their mind is the sloth that kills them; for they lack the magnanimity that grants resolve, the endurance for success, the splendor of the illustrious, and the knowledge that enlivens. Thus, I do not avoid the arduous path for want of energy, nor spare my arm from this work for laziness, nor in cowardice shrink from the enemy who confronts me, nor, dazzled, turn my eyes from the splendor of the divine; I am aware that I have a bit of a reputation as a sophist, more interested in seeming to be clever than in truly being wise, more ambitious to establish a new and false sect than to support that which is old and true; a bird catcher, trying to capture splendor and glory; an unquiet spirit, trying to undermine the foundations of good discipline by using siege engines of perversity.

Therefore, My Lord, let the saints disperse those who unjustly hate me, may I always do what is pleasing before my God, may I gain favor with the rulers of this world, may the stars grant me fertile land for my seed and abundant seed for my land, that I might harvest abundant fruit from my labors, that the spirits be awoken and the hearts be opened of all who suffer in darkness: for I certainly make no falsehood, if I err, it is by accident, and I do strive for love of victory itself (because empty success and hollow victory are enemies of God, vile and without honor, and such are not truly triumphs); rather, I suffer, torment and tire myself for love of true knowledge and true contemplation. All this shall I make manifest through demonstrative arguments, dependent on lively reasoning, supported by moderated senses, admitting no false particulars, rather arriving like true ambassadors of objective Nature, presenting themselves to the searcher, appearing to the observer, clear to those who would understand, plain to those who would comprehend. So here I present my contemplation of the infinite, the universe and the innumerable worlds.

---

[1] Literally: to do what Daedalus did.

Andy Othling - Daydream (Tycho cover)

Tycho's new album, Awake, comes out tomorrow in the US. Have you ordered your copy yet?

Bruce Sterling closing keynote at SXSW 2014

The chairman speaks.

Bigger After the Bang

Scientists using data from the BICEP2 telescope array uncovered the signature of inflation in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang (10 ^-25 seconds after the beginning of the universe) by looking at polarization of light caused by gravity waves. More here. BICEP data releases available here.

Cosmos - Giordano Bruno segment

Links for Later 3-10-14

1. William Ackman shorts Herbalife, then tries to make the short pay off by whatever means are at his disposal.
2. Is there a tradeoff among equity, efficiency and freedom in economic systems? Paul Krugman says, not so much.
3. Bill Janeway on the present and future of venture capital (via Brad DeLong)
4. The US military looks a lot like Sweden. (via Helen DeWitt)

Roentgen Furniture

Exquistely made furniture from the father and son furniture makers Abraham and David Roentgen was displayed recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pieces were built with intricate mechanisms for opening and closing drawers, compartments and components.

More info over at BLDG BLOG.

Links for Later 2-27-14

1. Sexy diagrams of glutamate receptors in the central nervous system, featuring stepwise activation by multiple subunits.
2. Hot, hot, hot! Article on ITAR fusion reactor project.
3. Dreamy description of government debt and government assets spooning.
4. Not sexy: GHCQ spied on your Yahoo! video chats, 3-11% of which involved nekkid people of one sort or another.

Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

    -John Steinbeck

(via explore.noodle.org)

Leopoldo Lopez

Video made prior to his arrest yesterday.

"I am a Ukrainian"

A video from the Euromaidan protests in Kiev.

(via AmericaBlog)

Links for Later 2-18-14

1. Nic Pizzolotto interview.
2. Another one.
3. 28 books you should read.
4. Visited Wikileaks? They're watching you. Well, they're watching you anyway, but you know.

Links for Later 2-1-14

1. Orhan Pamuk's tour of Istanbul.
2. Excerpt from Luke Harding's new book on Edward Snowden.
3. Stanley Bosworth of St. Anne's School.
4. Democracy vs. Inequality.
5. An 18th Century book of folk magic.

Links for Later 1-25-14

1. The NSA broke the Internet, a summary.
2. Patti Smith interview.

Tintypes

I'm a sucker for alternative and historical photographic processes, so Victoria Will's photographs of celebrities at Sundance are visual catnip. I have a tintype of my great grandfather where he looked like Flea in the picture above. Same piercing blue eyes. The process itself is unretouched and the photographs taken in harsh lighting conditions, so you end up with a very detailed and unforgiving photograph.

(via Esquire and kottke)

Links for Later 1-21-14

1. Will Wilkinson on liberalism, libertarianism and the surveillance state.
2. Lawrence Freedman at Google Authors on Strategy: A History.
3. Rory Stewart believes that the anti-conspiracy theory of history is true with regard to the 21st century UK. "The secret of modern Britain is there is no power anywhere."
4. Oxfam reports: Richest 85 people have as much wealth as poorest 50% of the world, top 1% has 65 times as much as bottom 50%.

Philosophy and Magic

New post up over at DeUmbrisIdearum.com on Philosophy and Magic. Multiple readings of both the term "magic" and the role of "magical" material are discussed.

Yuna - Here Comes the Sun Again

from the Savages soundtrack.

MIA - YALA

John McPhee's Structural Diagrams

In the latest installment of The Writing Life column in The New Yorker, John McPhee discusses his method of collecting and arranging notes for each of the essays he's writing. The essays are then organized by some interesting and useful structure, a technique he learned in high school composition from his teacher, Olive McKee, who had her students write three essays a week, submitted with a structural diagram.

 

 

Links for Later 1-7-14

1. Mapping emotions to the body
2. David Papineau on Choking, the Yips, and Not Having Your Mind Right
3. GetYourShitTogether.org, a checklist for setting up wills, living wills, and all the other things you've been putting off because they make you anxious about death.
4. Valproate may be able to reset the nervous system's critical period, enable rapid & effective learning of skills like perfect pitch.

Wheels

There's a new post up over at the De Umbris Idearum site.

Includes notes on the combinatoric wheels in Bruno's memory system: why they're there, where he took them from, and what some potential additional functions they might have.

Some Notes on 60 Minutes, the NSA and Snowden

1. The NSA's credibility is so bad at this point that you can't help them by defending them. You can only ruin your own credibility by trying.
2. Sending a former DNI staffer to interview NSA staffers on national TV is an ironic choice.
3. If Edward Snowden passed the hacker test by hacking the test, overriding the administrator's permissions, and setting his own score, it's pretty clear that he deserves to pass the hacker test.
4. If he can do all of that as a high school drop out, he gets bonus points.
5. If he's coding at home with a towel over his head, maybe you should think about asking your other coders to do the same thing. Evidently, Ed Snowden has better opsec than the rest of your guys.
6. He's also got a clearer concept of the legality & constitutionality of this business than most of the senior management over there. 
7. Maybe you should put him in charge instead of trying to prosecute him.

Elsewhere: Boingboing has a nice little critique over here.

The Year in Reading 2013

In the next two weeks, I should be finishing 2013 with around 80 books read, excluding rereads, book-length online reading and books discarded midway through. This is roughly flat in comparison to last year.

As with previous years, I spent a lot of time binge reading specific authors. This year, I read most of Iain [M] Banks' writing, following his cancer diagnosis and before his death. Most recommended of the Culture novels: Look to Windward, Excession, Surface Detail. Best of the non-SF novels: The Steep Approach to Garbadale, about the family dynamics of an extended Scottish clan descended from the inventor of a Risklike game.

Seth Godin's books also popped up a lot. TryThis might Work, or Whatcha Gonna Do with that Duck? which samples his blog posts over the years. Good insights arrive through accumulation of small ideas.

Anne Carson wrote Red Doc> her second volume in the magnificently sad & funny poetic cycle about red, winged Geryon and Hercules (now called Sad But Great) & their friends and families. I kept going back and dipping into the book for a little reread at bedtime. It produced strange dreams.

In the process of putting together De Umbris Idearum, I spent a lot of time in the 16th and 17th centuries. Stephen Clucas' collection of articles Magic, Memory and Natural Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, James Connor's Kepler's Witch and Lawrence Principe's latest book on the actual chemistry behind alchemy helped situate Bruno's mix of science, philosophy and magic in the context of the period, as did Michael Flynn's online serialized article "The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown", about Galileo and his contemporaries' roles in the heliocentrism debate, which, though not in book form, deserves mention here as one of the best long-form web works of the year.

Rounding out the list are three uncanny slipstream books. First: Kathleen Davis' Duplex, which was recommended to me so much that I hestated to read it. Boy, am I glad I did. Second, Voice of the Whale by Sjon: totally unique voice from a great Icelandic author. Third, Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, a tour of del Toro's home and notebooks that provides a window into creativity.

I should also send out a cheer for two of my friends who published books for the first time this year: Matthew Alan, with One Degree and The Hero, and David Day, with The Tearstone. All three works are available for Kindle or paperback. You should buy copies for all the people on your Christmas list, and give some away to stranger on the street. They will thank you for it, and Matt and David will write more for you.

I'm writing more for you, too. In 2014, you should expect to see Startup Geometry, which has all my best tricks for starting and growing businesses, and Seeing the Forest, about strategy, wisdom and neuroscience. I'm a powerfully slow writer, which means that Geometry should be done already, but is not, and Forest still exists mostly as a really big PowerPoint deck, and waits conversion once Geometry is done.

Links for Later 12-7-13

1. "Why Life Does Not Exist". tl;dr: Life is a porously bordered concept of arbitrarily defined complexity.
2. "Is Growth Getting Harder?" Brad Delong quibbles with the Great Stagnationists
3. Econometrics and Big Data
4. Third Way tries to knock Elizabeth Warren down a peg, becuase they don't like the fact that she's appearing on magazine covers. It doesn't go well for them.
5. Most of the deficit in economic opportunity in the US results from faulty government policies. That's good news.

Glenn Greenwald on HardTalk BBC

It does no good for your reputation to be a reporter who is reflexively prostrate to government statements. It does you no good to get in a slanging match with Glenn Greenwald. He's better at debating than you are.

Links for Later 11-19-13

1. Topological modification of network data for AI applications.
2. Archaic humans interbred with Neanderthals, Denisovians, and some other close neighbor hominids we havn't identified yet.
3. Krugman on Cochrane on Keynesian economics. More here.
4. Krugman on Summers on the "permanent slump".
5. The current state of risk management and financial forecasting. 30 potential risk measures surveyed.
6. Analysis of the recently leaked sections of the TPP.

Night of the Doctor

Well, well, well, Paul McGann back as the Eighth Doctor for a brief prelude to Day of the Doctor.

Dr. Keynes Revisited

In which University of Chicago professor and asset pricing guru Dr. John Cochrane criticizes the traditional Keynsian view that government spending has a positive multiplier at the zero lower bound, only to be refuted by Drs. DeLong and Krugman, and the question "Does anyone believe this stuff anymore?"is answered.

On Memory Palaces

New content up on DeUmbrisIdearum.com: a short post containing the basics of the memory palace system, according to Giordano Bruno.

Links for Later 11-1-13

1. What is Ender's Game really about? Terrible choices in war, or child abuse?
2. The Donna Minkowitz/Orson Scott Card interview referenced in (1). Jawdropping.
3. Michael Flynn's marvelous series of articles on Galileo's role in the Copernican controversy of the 1600's begins here. Read the whole thing. One of the most fun and informative articles on the history of science in the late Renaissance/Early Modern period I've ever read.
4. Brad DeLong's scenario analysis of the US economy going forward.
5. Edward Snowden may be invited to testify on NSA spying in Germany.

Links for Later 10-16-13

1. The Roman Empire as seen by a 2nd c. Chinese historian.
2. Daniel Radcliffe is a normal person with a weird sense of humor.
3. Neil Gaiman on the worth of libraries.
4. The "Northampton Clown" is unmasked as student Alex Powell. He'd been getting death threats from people who took his act a bit too seriously.
5. I do not have a working theory of mind on Eugene Fama for his views on the macroeconomy.

Fruit Flies of Finance

Excellent interview with Richard Thaler on behavioral finance issues, including the imperfections in the EMH, how nudging should be done, and why he and Gene Fama have offices on opposite sides of the building.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics in Memoriam of Alfred Nobel

Commonly called the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded today to three economists working in the area of finance: Eugene Fama, Lars Hansen and Robert Shiller. The advancements are in the area of the "empirical analysis of asset prices: Fama for his work on the Efficient Markets Hypothesis and related areas, Hansen for the widely used Generalized Method of Moments statistical technique, and Shiller for work on failures of rationality including financial bubbles. Tabarrok and Cowen provide good summaries over of Marginal Revolution (Fama, Fama, Hansen, Hansen, Shiller, Shiller).

Dresden Dolls - "Missed Me"

At the Becca Rosenthal Tribute Concert

Waterspout slalom

Two guys and a dog take a boat ride through a cell of waterspouts. This could have gone very badly very quickly, like most really fun things.

Box

(via Jay Lake)

Links for Later 9-26-13

1. Giordano Bruno's prediction of the infinite worlds and an infinite God made the Catholic Church freak out.
2. Using vector space mathematics to resolve linguistic problems.
3. Entrepreneurial sales: five models, four steps to success.
4. Urban exploration with Bradley Garrett.
5. Steve Albini's letter to Nirvana about producing.
6. Brad DeLong about the economics of global warming. Can we afford to do something? Can we afford not to?
7. OODA loops and markets.

Brian Eno at Youth Torino

I'd like to read a book consisting entirely of his diagrams.

Links for Later 9-9-13

1. The ormolu gilders of Paris rarely lived past 40, due to mercury fumes. They were given bread or a silver coin in a pouch in their mouth as a detection device. If they'd inhaled mercury nitrate fumes, the coin would turn "to gold". They also tried a snorkel-like mask, but all measures weree ineffective until mercury was eliminated from the process.
2. In the 18th Century, there was a newspaper called the New York Occasional Reverberator (via @ManhattanPast)
3. Demons enter our world through tinted SUV windows, angels nibble skyscraper light to stay afloat, and the Blue Lady will protect you from bullets if you know her secret name. The myths of the street children of Miami.
4. The funeral of the Empress Jose I Sarria, the Widow Norton, founder of the Imperial Court of San Francisco, WWII vet, first openly gay political candidate in America, held at Grace Cathedral this past weekend.