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The Symphony Orchestra And The Industrial Revolution Tech

Tyler Cowen | Marginal Revolution | 22nd April 2018
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Technology determines cultural change as it does industrial change. “Sometimes I think of the Industrial Revolution as fundamentally a Cultural Revolution. The first instantiation of this Cultural Revolution was the rise of early Renaissance Art, based on a series of technological developments including the reintroduction of paper into Europe. The Industrial Revolution was different only in that it came to sectors — energy, transport, and textiles — that boosted living standards immensely” (365 words)

Parag Pathak Society

Kevin Bryan | A Fine Theorem | 20th April 2018
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Notes on the work of Parag Pathak, winner of the John Bates Clark medal for economics for his work on matching markets. “As Becker took economics out of pure market transactions and into a wider world of rational choice under constraints, the work of Al Roth and his descendants, including Parag Pathak, has greatly expanded our ability to take advantage of choice and local knowledge in situations like education and health where, for many reasons, we do not use the price mechanism” (1,500 words)

The Key To Everything Science

Freeman Dyson | New York Review Of Books | 20th April 2018
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Review of Geoffrey West’s work on complexity and scale. West argues that universal laws govern the growth of complex entities such as organisms, cities, economies, and companies. Dyson’s commentary is disjointed, but with plenty of interesting ideas; for example, that some pivotal changes in human history, such as the Renaissance in Florence and the Industrial Revolution in Manchester, were caused by “genetic drift” — concentrations of genius arising from interbreeding within small cities (3,983 words)

Video of the Day: New York City In 1911

Documentary footage shot by the Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern, restored by Moma (7’45”)
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Brain: An apparatus with which we think we think

Ambrose Bierce
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