93 Tweets by
Jason Crawford

In creative work, there is a big difference between having a regular deadline to produce *something* vs. a *specific* thing. Shipping/publishing regularly keeps you honest. Pre-determining direction is harmful: it sets constraints right at the moment when you know the least.

Shipping/publishing regularly keeps you honest. Pre-determining direction is harmful: it sets constraints right at the moment when you know the least.

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I want a table/chart of the price of iron (various grades including steel) over the long run, say 1700–present. Surely this is a thing the field of economic history should have produced by now? Yet, the data seems scattered and not unified. Am I missing something?

Surely this is a thing the field of economic history should have produced by now? Yet, the data seems scattered and not unified.

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about 2 years ago

“There has never been a better time to be a nerd.” @paulg paulgraham.com/fn.html

about 2 years ago

Mass transit came before cars. It was good, but not enough. There was tremendous demand for cars, and consumers rapidly switched: pic.twitter.com/x70vnYd0P1

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The more I study nuclear technology the more I think that every problem of today's nuclear tech has a potential solution that has already been identified. They just haven't been brought to market, because the market is sclerotic.

about 2 years ago

The mental gymnastics required to embrace “natural immunity” as a deliberate strategy for anything are mind-boggling. Natural immunity means exactly the thing you want to *avoid*—it means GETTING A DISEASE.

Natural immunity means exactly the thing you want to avoid—it means GETTING A DISEASE.

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about 2 years ago

There are many cases where “<adjective> <noun>” is not in fact a type of <noun> What are your favorites? twitter.com/Noahpinion/sta…

“On the reefs of roast beef and apple pie socialist utopias of every sort are sent to their doom” pic.twitter.com/ZixK3u46Zv

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almost 2 years ago

Two deeply opposed worldviews. Are we the central, active agents in our own story, actively rebuilding and improving our environment? Or simply organisms in that environment that need to fit inside it like any other? @CharlesCMann pic.twitter.com/kgbF1Ja1hI

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Two deeply opposed worldviews. Are we the central, active agents in our own story, actively rebuilding and improving our environment? Or simply organisms in that environment that need to fit inside it like any other?

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The phonograph was invented in the late 1800s, but for decades, recording technology was quite primitive by today's standards: pic.twitter.com/RcVLhkSbKO

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We often ask, why is X so expensive? (housing, pharma…) I suspect the question is backwards. We should ask, how does anything ever get/stay cheap? Everything starts out inefficient, wasteful, and therefore expensive. It takes an intense, dedicated campaign to drive costs down.

We often ask, why is X so expensive? (housing, pharma…) I suspect the question is backwards. We should ask, how does anything ever get/stay cheap?

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about 2 years ago

Why innovation is hard: the idea maze is intricate, and you're groping in the dark. Trying topical applications of penicillin to wounds was a totally reasonable idea, but it didn't work. Easy to get discouraged and not realize you are one tweak away from a breakthrough pic.twitter.com/zmYueMaQ8w

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The idea maze is intricate, and you're groping in the dark. Trying topical applications of penicillin to wounds was a totally reasonable idea, but it didn't work. Easy to get discouraged and not realize you are one tweak away from a breakthrough

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The center of scientific activity shifted many times over the course of a few centuries. It could shift again pic.twitter.com/pwbWVVPrzY

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Leaders: to understand team inertia, imagine piloting a vehicle large enough to hold your team. Two co-founders fit on a motorcycle. A team of 4–5 is a sedan. By 20, you're driving a bus. At 2000, it's a battleship. A motorcycle pivots faster than a ship. That's team inertia.

Leaders: to understand team inertia, imagine piloting a vehicle large enough to hold your team.

Two co-founders fit on a motorcycle. A team of 4–5 is a sedan. By 20, you're driving a bus. At 2000, it's a battleship.

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about 2 years ago

Without industrial literacy, the pre-industrial past seems bucolic. But subsistence farming is nothing like a road trip to go backpacking through a carefully groomed modern state park pic.twitter.com/EfCNmzvYpH

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The transition from urban transit to automobiles was “enthusiastic”. “The twentieth-century urban ridership despised fixed rail transit.” pic.twitter.com/OUlCxig4HR

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Social status and monetary rewards are *not* substitutes. I see this misconception a lot, often from very smart and rational people.

E.g., “Why are you defending billionaires? They are already rich. They don't need praise also.”

It goes the other way too: Scientists and teachers get a lot of praise, but they should probably also be paid more.

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over 2 years ago

“Science was born when, with the progress of technology, the experimental method eventually overcame the social prejudice against manual labor and was adopted by rationally trained scholars” Edgar Zilsel, “The Sociological Roots of Science” (1942) jstor.org/stable/2769053

“Science was born when, with the progress of technology, the experimental method eventually overcame the social prejudice against manual labor and was adopted by rationally trained scholars”

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Job security is much greater today than in the early 20th century and before. Day labor and piece work were gradually replaced with full-time permanent employment. pic.twitter.com/7I5ciw6GTI

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Day labor and piece work were gradually replaced with full-time permanent employment.

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What, to you, is the most interesting school of thought that you don't agree with?

An underappreciated lesson of covid: How fast the world can mitigate a problem when it becomes the world's *number one problem*.

How fast the world can mitigate a problem when it becomes the world's number one problem

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about 2 years ago

Retirement is a 20th-century invention. The machines *did* take our jobs—they took jobs away from the elderly after retirement, from school-age children, and from everyone else after 5pm and on the weekends. And that's a good thing. pic.twitter.com/fAY76f8UM6

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The machines did take our jobs—they took jobs away from the elderly after retirement, from school-age children, and from everyone else after 5pm and on the weekends. And that's a good thing.

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