8 things better than Brady
Get in these good reads before kickoff
Welcome to the Weekend Reccs by Harrison Satcher. This newsletter delivers a lovingly-tailored collection of thought-provoking goodness for your Sunday. Inside you’ll find: (1) a weekly column on economics, politics, or something unexpected, (2) a curated list of links for your enjoyment, (3) a lagniappe (because everyone deserves lagniappe), and (4) a collection of interesting, relevant charts. Grab a coffee and enjoy your morning.
New here? Be sure to subscribe to join the community and never miss an issue.
If you enjoy the Reccs, I’ve made it super easy to share.
The links marked with asterisks (*) are the recommended reads.
Hi friends,
No long read this weekend — just eight links. Enjoy.
The Links
Upending Indivisible* Democrats and the left more generally are bad at politics. Here’s a diagnosis of some problems with an advocacy organization and ideas for how we can do better.
American Exceptionalism* In some domains this is very real. Concentrating the highest output academics in fluid networks where they can easily connect and improve their ideas is good for the world. America should lean into her privileged position here.
The unemployed and their beliefs* Two interesting insights. (1) Almost all surveyed overestimated their probability of becoming reemployed and did not revise their estimate downward the longer they were unemployed.
(2) Those who underestimate their likelihood of becoming employed take jobs too soon while those who overestimated their probability wait out for better jobs that won’t come. This leaves the pool of remaining unemployed weaker, as low probability “overestimaters” are removed much more slowly than they would under a perfect matching scheme. This prolongs the aggregate length of unemployment experienced as those folks unfortunately remain unemployed.
If you’re tired of infinite scrolling on Netflix, there are these things called “channels” where they pick the content for you* [$] Next there will be channels where you decide the streamed content, and then streaming services where you select from channels of streamed content that you had previously curated into channels and then…
In all seriousness, this is a good reminder that analysis paralysis is definitely a thing. If I ran design at Netflix, you’d have to select one or two genres after five minutes of scrolling. You’d then be given five titles from which to choose. If you didn’t want any of those five you could “see other titles” but would be prevented from watching any of those five for 24 hours. This is at least worth an A/B test.
Robins can be confused by pointy “eggs”* [$] But when the axis of change is something that would happen in nature (e.g. changes in width), they are well-suited at discerning between eggs. A good reminder that evolution selects for adaptations that meet the needs within the ancestral environment, not for the “best” adaptation.
Cult of personality* [$] Good piece on how journalists' use of Twitter is challenging the traditional authority of their publishers. For those interested, we discussed a similar tension with academics and their institutions back in July.
Some models leak data* That’s bad but not inevitable.
Jootsing* A guide to creativity.
Amos Tversky famously said that the secret to doing good work is being a little unemployed so you always have hours in the day to waste as you wish.
Lagniappe
This week I started a streak on 750words, a website designed to inspire ~3 pages of free writing each day. I think it is a good habit. Freewriting can serve as a hybrid between meditation, planning for your day, and journaling. You just write whatever comes to mind for at least 750 words.
Graph(s) of the week
[WSJ] I am embarrassed by how wrong I would have been if asked to estimate beer’s % of beverage alcohol market share by revenue. I would have said under 30%. Also surprising that the craft beer revolution is not apparent at all on this graph.
[Brookings] In case you weren’t aware, there are a ton of Baby Boomers.
[WSJ] I think most people would be surprised by this graph…I knew there was a January/July effect but the magnitude is insane.
Keep the faith,
Harrison