Month: September 2011

A pseudonymous professor decries the college premium:

The college premium exists, unfortunately, but it's an artificial construct. Colleges have inserted themselves squarely in the occupational world. Industry and academia march hand in hand to a song of credential inflation: young people who aspire to working at anything beyond fast-food assembly won’t get a look without the college diploma. Most B.A. degrees say little to employers in terms of specific skills; they are a marker, like a hand stamp that gains one entrance to a nightclub. They point to little more than a willingness to pay college tuition and complete degree requirements. Those lacking higher education find themselves ineligible for promotion, herded to lesser career tracks.

Yglesias believes college is in for a transformation on par with the one that has rocked the newspaper industry.

President of Irish budget carrier Ryanair Michael O'Leary poses prior to a press conference in Madrid on September 13, 2011. Ryanair contributed to a 65% increase in air traffic in Spain from January to July, O'Leary announced, making clear the airline's determination to take advantage of the crisis plaguing the country. By Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images.

Arnold Kling points out a paradox:

A job seeker is looking for something for a well-defined job. But the trend seems to be that if a job can be defined, it can be automated or outsourced. The marginal product of people who need well-defined jobs is declining. The marginal product of people who can thrive in less structured environments is increasing.

McArdle seconds him.

That's Jovana J. Grbić's view of the new film Contagion:

“Contagion” manages to sidestep scientific inaccuracies. If anything, it is a science film masquerading as a public service announcement to raise awareness about the possibility of such an outbreak and show that widespread panic can be more dangerous than the virus itself. That’s a lofty goal, to be sure, but too many minutes are invested in forcing actors to deliver technical language, along with clunky lines explaining their meaning. The balance between scientific accuracy and storytelling ultimately has to tip toward storytelling—the linchpin of all compelling films.

Michael Shermer discusses belief formation and its causes. This prompts to Eliezer Yudkowsky to explain his core reason for being a libertarian:

What makes me a small-’l’ libertarian isn’t that I believe it’s impossible—or easy—to reconfigure human brains using sufficiently advanced technology, or any other method. What makes me a libertarian is that the prospect of having that reconfiguration done by the same system that managed to ban marijuana while allowing tobacco, subsidize ethanol made from corn, and turn the patent system into a form of legalized bludgeoning, makes me want to run screaming into the night until I fall over from lack of oxygen.

Jason Kuznicki expands on Yudkowsky's point.

Tim Gardam updates us on Christianity in China, where there are already "more Chinese at church on a Sunday than in the whole of Europe":

The State fears the influence of zealous American evangelism and some of the House Church theology has those characteristics, but, in many other respects, it seems to be an indigenous Chinese movement – charismatic, energetic and young.

(Hat tip: Joe Carter. Photo: Young Chinese Catholics perform during mass at the government sanctioned Southern Church in Beijing, China. Photo by Andrew Wong/Getty Images.)

Ari Kohen tries to engage Paul's "libertarian purism:"

The difference that exists between my own position and that of the Tea Party, at bottom, is that I don’t feel less free when I look at the amount of money that comes out of my check every month, even though I’d rather have that money in my pocket. The reason is that I’m actually making a choice too: I choose to live in this country, with its government and tax structure and social safety nets. In fact, I embrace it. We can certainly do better in terms of those safety nets by working to make our government more efficient and effective, but that’s not what Paul is advocating; instead, he thinks that the vast majority of the government — and the services it provides — should simply be eliminated. To my mind, that would mean we’d be living in a very different political community, one that I wouldn’t like nearly as much. I want to live in a political community that chooses to take care of others, one that is committed to the idea that no one should go hungry or be unable to get critical medical attention…Perhaps I should be wondering instead if these people (who prize individual choice so highly) simply don’t respect my choices. Maybe the choices in which they’re seemingly so invested are only the choices they make.

Amazon is experimenting with a nascent system of "lockers" in local 7-Eleven stores. John Cook previews:

The locker idea, for those who are new to this story, is a novel one (at least in the U.S.). Amazon customers would be able to choose to have packages delivered to a specific 7-Eleven store, receiving an access code that could be used to open one of the lockers where the item is stored. It is a cool idea, and could solve the problem of those shoppers who don’t have a reliable spot for deliveries to be left throughout the day…The idea of delivery locker also could change the way people think about e-commerce, bringing a whole new definition to the word convenience.

Meanwhile, Amazon lays the groundwork for a Netflix-like subscription service for digital books. 

A reader writes:

A handy hint to your NYT link follower.  The Times doesn't keep track of your visits.  It uses your own computer to do the work. Delete your temporary Internet files, and the Times forgets everything.

Another writes:

I am sure others have made this same point, but I thought following links from blogs does not count against the NYT limit?

That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. From the NYT's FAQ:

11. Can I still access NYTimes.com articles through Facebook, Twitter, search engines or my blog?

Yes. We encourage links from Facebook, Twitter, search engines, blogs and social media. When you visit NYTimes.com through a link from one of these channels, that article (or video, slide show, etc.) will count toward your monthly limit of 20 free articles, but you will still be able to view it even if you've already read your 20 free articles.

Like other external links, links from search engine results will count toward your monthly limit. If you have reached your monthly limit, you'll have a daily limit of 5 free articles through a given search engine. This limit applies to the majority of search engines.