Lead-Lag Live, Neutrality, Status Tax

Recent appearance + links and recommendations

I recently spoke with Michael A. Gayed about luxury beliefs and propaganda on his Lead-Lag Live podcast on Twitter Spaces. Check out the conversation here:

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Links and recommendations:

• Once A Mother, Always A Mother (Just Ask Your Brain). by Winnie Orchard

• Foreign Factories Should Be More Dangerous by Matthew Yglesias 

• Is Critical Thinking Epistemically Responsible? by Michael Huemer 

• Escape from the Ivory Tower by April Bernard

• Why we pick the wrong holiday destinations by Rory Sutherland

• Universities Should Adopt Institutional Neutrality by Mark McNeilly

• The sugar conspiracy by Ian Leslie

• Follow me on Instagram here

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Three interesting findings:

1. The most common high school grade for girls is now an A. For boys, it is a B. Girls now account for two-thirds of high schoolers in the top 10%, ranked by GPA, while the proportions are reversed on the bottom rung. (source: Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves).

2. An interesting historical twist on aristocracy: The Manchus in 17th century China implemented an inheritance tax on social status. They had a system of nine aristocratic ranks. A given family would drop one rung on the ladder with each new generation. Thus, if you were born to third rank parents, you would inherit a fourth rank title, unless the emperor re-promoted you for “conspicuous merit.” Automatic family status depreciation was an incentive for the younger generation to prove themselves in the eyes of the emperor. (source: The Search for Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence). Perhaps the modern equivalent would be something like penalizing (rather than the current system of favoring) legacy admits to elite universities.

3. Study on handgrip strength and personality: Among men, handgrip strength is negatively correlated with Neuroticism and positively correlated with Extraversion. That is, physically stronger men tend to score relatively low on neuroticism and high on extraversion. There were no other personality correlates for male handgrip strength. Among women, handgrip strength was associated lower Agreeableness—stronger women tend to be relatively disagreeable. There were no other personality correlates for female handgrip strength.

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Rob Henderson @robkhenderson

Two mice are in B.F. Skinner's laboratory. One mouse says to the other, "See that guy?" and gestures toward the research assistant. "He was trained by me. Every time I push this button, he gives me something to eat."