流动的网络

The People's Republic of The Future [ https://youtu.be/taZJblMAuko ]

挺喜欢 Bloomberg 的 Hello World 系列视频。深圳夜间的神采，早高峰汹涌的人潮，从业人员脸上那种信心，和我记忆中的印象有些模糊的偏差。高度城市化的国家已经历这个过程——基建大规模更新，快速的房产迭代，产业加速，我们处在哪个阶段？

Esther Duflo on Management, Growth, and Research in Action [ https://bit.ly/36Qky4Y ]

几年前从沈诞琦的文章《贫困的细节》了解到 Esther Duflo 和她创办的 J-PAL，MIT 在 Edx 上有她主讲的一系列经济学课程，陆陆续续也学了些。去年在某群中与他人提起她力推的 RCT method 还被大大嘲讽了一番，没想到今年得了奖。这期播客节目里另一位经济学家 Tyler Cowen 和她对谈，其中一个片段让我入神：

COWEN: Does child-rearing in France strike you as more sensible than child-rearing in the United States?

DUFLO: Oh very much so, very much so.

COWEN: And why?

DUFLO: You know that book, Bringing Up Bébé?

COWEN: Yes.

DUFLO: I think she picked up on something which rings so true to me, which maybe is a marginal point about the US versus France. In France people are reasonably content to just go with the flow and do what everybody does. Every kid eats the same thing at 4:30, has dinner at the same time, has gone through the same experiences, learned the same songs, and everybody thinks they are totally free. But in fact, they are all on this pretty sensible railroad. And also, they don’t agonize about it.

In the US, child-rearing is one more occasion to make a statement about your identity. You’re the kind of mother that carries the baby, or you’re the kind of mother that puts the baby in a stroller. And somehow it almost can predict what you’re going to think about Donald Trump. That’s crazy. Some people are so concerned about what they do. Not only they feel that they have to invest a ton in their children, and they feel inadequate if they are not able to, but also, exactly what they do creates them as people.

In France that’s not there, and I think that makes everybody so much more laid back, children and adults.

好像是这几年的某种变化，过往视若日常的行为不再被默许。Duflo 提到美国人和法国人的育儿方法差异和差异背后那种 make a statement 的决定。 "me too" 运动迫使每个人思考这个问题：艺术家的作品和其艺术创作之外的行为能否分别看待？ 对于普通人，更多的选择卷入带有政治意味的争端中，界限在哪里？有很多问题，我骑在墙上想答案。

Europe Notes [ https://bit.ly/35BnMJt ]

晨读， Marginal Revolution 上这篇推荐 The cultures that are northern Europe [https://bit.ly/2Pzumuc] 把我笑翻。每日忍不住要感谢互联网。

My Danish coworkers were complaining about how young people today find nudity awkward. Both of them viewed the acceptance of nudity and human bodies as a traditional value that was disappearing in the modern danish world. One of them said that their sports club makes it a point to do big group bathing together after practice to set a good example for their children. The other told me that at a job he had long ago, the employees went on a ski trip together and they would share beds with their coworkers. He said his bed was so small and his sleeping partner was so big he had to physically hang on to him to stay in the bed. He presented this as a kind of ideal; that thats how things were in the good old days.

And:

I read an article on Scandanavian dating norms, which basically said “Scandanavian people dont date”. The article said in a comedic tone, that Scandanavian people dont date, they just get really drunk with their opposite sex friends, have drunken sex, and then thats it: its a relationship. One of my Scandanavian coworkers said exactly the same thing.

另，Matters 的文本编辑功能未免太过简洁，如果能加入markdown支持就好了。