HWFO Reading List May 2023
HWFO Reading List May 2023
Compilation of articles, new and old, being discussed by the HWFO community
Peter Boghossian keeps stealing my material, or rather, replicating it independently with wider reach right after I write something. Which is cool, it’s no big deal, the important thing is the distribution of sane concepts for the betterment of society. But I did notice his director of content reads HWFO, so that’s sorta funny.
Hey Gina, if you’re reading this, reach out and see if you can squeeze me in as a guest. I’ll buy you a beer.
David Yamane of Wake Forest and Gun Culture 2.0 fame wrote this great piece about absolute vs relative risk.
Joel Kotkin wrote this in 2020 for Quillette, characterizing the two different kinds of middle classes we have in America, yeomanry and clerisy.
The Wikipedia article on Folk Theorems (game theory) is interesting because it describes how the Nash Equilibria change depending on whether you’re playing a game once or playing it in infinite series. Applicable to social evolution / etc.
October 2021 Spectator Throwback talks about how the New York Times broke, and broke the rest of journalism in the process.
The Manhattan Institute did a numbers breakdown on the 2020 homicide spike that’s quite good.
A recent study in Neuropsychopharmacology identified the dose-response relationships of LSD experiences in humans.
A fascinating article in The Critic discusses oikophobia, and the cycle of self-contempt.
Media Be Craycray:
More Haidt on social media / mental illness:
And again, since that’s his thing:
Which ties in well with this.
And this.
Scott Alexander puts together a headscratcher, which seems to indicate that some portion (but probably not all) of Long Covid is mental.
Basic game theory principles are so useful, tit for tat will iterate infinitely unless one side decides to take the immediate hit and be a first mover to opt out (in return for the LR benefit of not wasting resources on the game aka don’t fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy), the prisoner’s dilemma highlights how our fears/fixed beliefs incentivize us to choose suboptimal choices/not trust/listen to the devil on our shoulder... it was game theory that did the most in terms of educational payoff for me
Dear HWFO,
My hands are waving and I’m freaking out after seeing the accusation of Peter Boghossian (or me, as his Director of Content) stealing your material!
You published an article about crime and absent fathers on April 20, 2023, while we released a video on the same topic on May 2, 2023. The thing is, our video (featuring Matt Thornton) was recorded months ago ahead of the release of his book, “The Gift of Violence.” Matt’s book was released on April 11, 2023 and addresses the exact same topic. Peter produced the video and wrote the afterward to the finished manuscript last year.
Back in November 2022, Matt was a guest on our “All Things Re-Considered” series (about the collapse of NPR’s journalistic integrity) and spoke about these issues. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb-ApHyd01I&t=3742s
Now, I wouldn’t dream of accusing you of stealing content from our channel (or from Matt’s book). I’d chalk it up to “great minds think alike” (plus “anyone with a brain can see what the media is doing”).
Regarding your request to be a guest with us, that’s an absolute possibility! While Peter is traveling over the next several weeks, I’ll see if he’d like to have a conversation later this summer.
Regarding the beer: Yes, please! What coast are you near?
Sincerely,
Gina