"Cowen’s first rule of reading is as follows: You need not finish. He takes up books with great hope and no mercy, and when he is done -- sometimes after five minutes -- he abandons them in public, an act he calls a “liberation.”. . . Cowen had been skeptical himself, but saw too many bits of evidence to ignore: sports salaries, data on executive compensation, the gulf between J.K. Rowling’s fortune and what other authors make."
The problem with Cowen is the same as for most young savants after they grow up: they are able to use their advanced processing ability to collate a sea of information a mile wide and more than an inch deep, but are unable to filter and ruminate about all that information to come to new and worthwhile conclusions. There are a few historical exceptions, maybe someone like von Neumann, but it's largely the rule. It is fascinating though how the long-broken educational system will greatly reward these savants while largely eschewing those with original thought in their own lifetime- Boltzmann comes to mind- only to later teach the original thinkers' work when they are inevitably proven right. :) Further evidence that academia is a dustbin that needs to be thrown away.
Tyler Cowan consumes books like I consume potato chips; voraciously.
ReplyDeleteTyler Cowan's Great Stagnation has created quite a stir in economics and publishing.
Prof. Perry presented the argument "Maybe the Yardstick's Deficient, Not Growth" in response to Cowan's Great Stagnation hypothesis.
How do you measure "Consumer Surplus" makes a lot of sense to me. Regardless, Tyler Cowan gets people engaged in a cascade of interesting ideas.
"Cowen’s first rule of reading is as follows: You need not finish. He takes up books with great hope and no mercy, and when he is done -- sometimes after five minutes -- he abandons them in public, an act he calls a “liberation.”. . . Cowen had been skeptical himself, but saw too many bits of evidence to ignore: sports salaries, data on executive compensation, the gulf between J.K. Rowling’s fortune and what other authors make."
ReplyDeleteToo, funny.
I think this particular commentary is far & away my favorite Cowen commentary: The Inequality That Matters
ReplyDeleteLeave it to that idiot David Brooks to insult Cowens though...
The problem with Cowen is the same as for most young savants after they grow up: they are able to use their advanced processing ability to collate a sea of information a mile wide and more than an inch deep, but are unable to filter and ruminate about all that information to come to new and worthwhile conclusions. There are a few historical exceptions, maybe someone like von Neumann, but it's largely the rule. It is fascinating though how the long-broken educational system will greatly reward these savants while largely eschewing those with original thought in their own lifetime- Boltzmann comes to mind- only to later teach the original thinkers' work when they are inevitably proven right. :) Further evidence that academia is a dustbin that needs to be thrown away.
ReplyDelete