Category: Of Random Interest

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I really do wonder if our society’s legal structure is untenable. There comes a point when there are so many laws that people are forced to ignore or disobey that people must begin to disparage the law more generally. We are certainly there in some people’s minds — how long until contempt for the legal system undermines our ability to function as a society?

No One is Innocent

I broke the law yesterday and again today and I will probably break the law tomorrow. Don’t mistake me, I have done nothing wrong. I don’t even know what laws I have broken. Nevertheless, I am reasonably confident that I 

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I wonder if this is true of other disciplines as well. How interesting.

Academic economics is more winner-take-all than you might think

John P. Conley and Ali Sina Onder write (pdf): We study the research productivity of new graduates of top Ph.D. programs in economics.  We find that class rank is as important as departmental rank as predictors of future research productivity. 

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This is a very interesting read, especially because most people who talk about internet porn are either absolutely convinced that it is addictive or are adamantly insisting that it is not.

Was I Actually ‘Addicted’ to Internet Pornography?

Addiction isn’t a term to be thrown around lightly. But some argue that it’s possible to become neurologically dependent on porn. 

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This never occurred to me, but it makes a lot of sense.

Our government will end up thwarting tech innovation and balkanizing the web

…Google Glass + NSA PRISM essentially amounts to a vision in which a foreign country is suddenly going to be flooded with American spy cameras. It seems easy to imagine any number of foreign governments having a problem with that