"The uneasy truth is that we can shift time around all we like, if we like, and countries have been playing with the malleability of time zones since their inception. But the way we mark time is as metaphysical as it is economic."
@1 year ago with 30 notes
#economy
"I keep thinking about the extraordinary conservatism of the people running the world economy, running the governments of the largest nations of the world. Let’s compare it to ages past: let’s think about the people who fought World War II, let’s think about the ’50s, the giant structures like the United Nations, Bretton Woods, the space program— those people were capable of thinking big. We don’t do that anymore. The instinct of the people now in power is to figure out how to change things as little as possible. The world political culture has turned into this knee-jerk defensive conservatism of trying desperately to maintain things exactly as they are, for as long a period as possible."
@1 year ago with 156 notes
#economy
"
According to the human capital model, failing (i.e., never knowing) course material should have exactly the same career consequences as forgetting (i.e., no longer knowing) course material. Either way, you lack the skills - and the labor market should treat you accordingly.
According to the signaling model, in contrast, the consequences of failing and forgetting can totally diverge. When you fail to learn useless material, you send a bad signal. When you demonstrate mastery of useless material, you send a good signal - whether or not retain what you learned. Employers naturally snub people who fail, yet smile upon those who merely forget.
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@1 year ago with 41 notes
#economy #education #lifestyle
"The problem with this assumption, however, is that causes are a strange kind of knowledge. This was first pointed out by David Hume, the 18th-century Scottish philosopher. Hume realized that, although people talk about causes as if they are real facts—tangible things that can be discovered—they’re actually not at all factual. Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a “lively conception produced by habit.” When an apple falls from a tree, the cause is obvious: gravity. Hume’s skeptical insight was that we don’t see gravity—we see only an object tugged toward the earth. We look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between. We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact—it’s a fiction that helps us make sense of facts."
@1 year ago with 60 notes
#economy
