NYTimes: “In-game or live betting [has] become ubiquitous and are one of the fastest-growing areas of the sports gambling industry in the United States. They range from wagers on the result of a game while it is underway to what are known as microbets on events that are resolved quickly, sometimes in a matter of seconds, like the speed of a baseball pitch. Others are on outcomes of random events — for instance, will the halftime point total be an odd or even number?”
Steven Pinker: “Why do we accept a piece of paper in exchange for something of value? We know other people will accept it and give us something of value. Why do they do that? They know that still other people will. Everyone knows that everyone knows that money has value. That’s what gives it value, as long as they do. That can unravel when you have hyperinflation, or a bank run, or a currency attack. Political power. No government can have snipers on every rooftop and telescreens in every room surveilling you 24/7 with the Stasi ready to pounce on you if you break a law. A lot of our laws, a lot of recognition of authority, who’s the boss, depend on just common knowledge, namely, he’s the boss or she’s the boss. She gets her way because she knows I’ll obey. I’ll obey because I know she gets her way. For as long as that lasts, as long as that common knowledge lasts, you have structures of authority and reporting and power and responsibility. Again, since it depends on nothing but common expectations, it can unravel as when you have a big public demonstration where people see each other, seeing each other, seeing each other opposing the regime, and then the authority of the regime can evaporate.” WSJ reviews his new book: “The oddities of social life—and our efforts to cooperate and coordinate—may turn on our assumptions about the knowledge we share.”
Oura Health CEO Tom Hale: “The business model is to propose that people become the C.E.O.s of their own health journeys. One of the ways is to give their body a voice by putting on a wearable that gives them information and insights about their health that they might not otherwise get. We do that through a combination of a ring wearable, a very elegant software application and A.I. in the background.”
WSJ: “In “How Progress Ends,” Mr. Frey investigates the historical relationship between social structure and economic growth. His sweep is wide, stretching from the Western Zhou dynasty in China three millennia ago to the European Union today. Both free marketeers and die-hard central planners may find that his conclusions challenge their view of the world. “Sustained progress,” he writes, “depends on balancing these forces, shifting between decentralization for exploration and centralization for exploitation.” Mr. Frey builds on the work of the economist Mancur Olson, whose 1982 book, “The Rise and Decline of Nations,” posited that as countries grow wealthier, they become dominated by groups that undermine economic growth by protecting their members’ narrow interests. Olson argued for policies that prevented such rent-seeking. As Olson put it, “the best macroeconomic policy is a good microeconomic policy.””
