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Medicine

Senator Warren's Office of Drug Manufacturing

My latest article published by Ordinary Times is now live, Senator Warren’s Office of Drug Manufacturing. I analyze and comment on the Senator’s proposal for the federal government to manufacture generic drugs. Read and comment on it at Ordinary Times.

Is the rate of production of useful ideas really dependent on the number of people involved?

Conversations with Tyler is one of my favorite long reads at the moment. This recent talk with economist Paul Romer [recent winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics] overlaps nicely with many of my current obsessions [including English orthography!]. Today, let’s look at the rate of production of

What works in healthcare?

Short answer: almost nothing. I’m being flip about a very serious subject, but at the same time I am in fact serious. Modern medicine probably works a lot less well than you probably think it does. How could I say such a thing when you look at graphs like

LinkFest 2018-07-16

LinkFest 2018-07-16

Ways to think about machine learning I've been a skeptic about artificial intelligence in general, and a critic of the ways the actual technology has been hyped. This is a pretty reasonable take from someone who is willing to invest a lot of money in machine learning. Machine

The Long View 2005-08-23: The Perfection of the Species

The image in the header is the image John referenced in his joke about contributing to the state of perpetual surveillance. The man in the image is Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, scourge of the Boers and one of the few generals who thought the Great War would be long.

The Long View 2005-06-07: The New Jersey Primary, and Worse

This is a great quote: When I was young, I was quite a prig about not using drugs, and I have not mellowed over time. On the other hand, I often shock people who know me with the argument that most drugs should be legalized, even for recreational purposes, simply

The Long View: Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science

The kind of thing that John Reilly laments in this book review is alive and well. If you want a taste of it, check out New Real Peer Review on Twitter, which simply reprints abstracts of actual, peer-reviewed articles. A favorite genre is the autoethnography. Go look for yourself, no