Chris Blattman

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We have so much human capital in the world, random children can do this

7 Responses

  1. One of my favorite John Adams quotes: “I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine.” Seems applicable here. :)

  2. To be fair, I’m not sure this is a “random” set of children. (Is it bad that I think of Stata running a randomization with 7 million observations?)

  3. Good point. As I typed my comment I realised I might sound a bit old-fashioned. I suppose I’m just worried about the kind of future that Charlie Brooker might worry about – where talent is drawn to Youtube performances and writing little, marginal apps for devices, rather than on things that might unlock growth in the long run. I don’t think productive is an end, but neither, I hope, is watching cat videos on the internet. I’m very willing to accept that this might be an irrational fear.

  4. Is productive an end? Late in life Keynes toasted economics and the economists “who are the trustees, not of civilization, but of the possibility of civilization.” He saw his job as making this kin of video possible.

  5. But how much of it is actually productive? I think this is amazing, but it is utterly useless, other than the brief moment of “whoa” it gives.

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