Joshua Rothman considers lookism—discrimination against people who are unattractive—and whether we should see it like other forms of discrimination, such as racism.

The United States is the best at soft power. Everyone’s wearing our blue jeans and listening to our rock music. America is the envy of the world: all other nations wish they were us, and we are happy to share our glory and superior way of life with them. That’s why everyone loves us.

Right?

Or is there something more to that notion? What comes first, the soft power influence, or the hard power coercion? Can speaking softly work without the threat (and gratuitous use) of the big stick? Let’s find out together.

In this article, the author describes sweeping changes in the gender system and offers explanations for why change has been uneven. Because the devaluation of activities done by women has changed little, women have had strong incentive to enter male jobs, but men have had little incentive to take on female activities or jobs. The gender egalitarianism that gained traction was the notion that women should have access to upward mobility and to all areas of schooling and jobs. But persistent gender essentialism means that most people follow gender-typical paths except when upward mobility is impossible otherwise. Middle-class women entered managerial and professional jobs more than working-class women integrated blue-collar jobs because the latter were able to move up while choosing a “female” occupation; many mothers of middle-class women were already in the highest-status female occupations. The author also notes a number of gender-egalitarian trends that have stalled.

Very convincing, depressingly so.

We should update our labeling laws to require manufacturers to use the amount a consumer could reasonably extract. If you have a wide mouth transparent container with smooth insides, a rubber scraper can get it all. If you have a narrow mouth squeeze bottle, then only count what squeezes out. Maybe manufacturers would shift to more efficient packaging, or maybe consumers would accept higher unit cost for more convenience. The important thing is aligning incentives: pay for what you can use.

This makes perhaps too much sense LOL.

“The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream”

Ridicules tariffs and protectionism

“The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the “public use” provision of the “takings clause” of the 5th Amendment of the Constitution permits the use of eminent domain for economic development purposes that provide public benefit under a Connecticut statute.”