“Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.”
Publication bias in the social science
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, commencement address, Harvard University (June 7, 1978)
The East German woman had a job, was economically independent, self-confident, and divorce-happy; at a time when only 50 percent of West German women made their own money, 90 percent of women in East Germany were employed.…the East German woman didn’t consider her male partner an enemy but rather a partner who, economically speaking, had little or nothig on her. Indeed, the average East German man, unless he had managed to gin a foothold in the regime’s upper echelons — but what woman would want a man like that? — wasn’t in a position to boast any typically macho privileges. He couldn’t show off with money, fast cars, or a house on Ibiza. he had to rely on his potential talent as a lover and his qualities as a father and partner. As a result, he tended to cultivate a rather “soft” masculine image.…And, on top of all this: the suppression of free movement in public in East Germany had led both sexes to develop a relatively uninhibited attitude toward sex. What other unregulatable pastime did East Germany have to offer its citizens?
That is from the newly translated book by Peter Schneider, Berlin Now: The City After the Wall. Much of that passage makes sense, but one part confuses me: does “rely on his potential talent as a lover” support or contradict “cultivate a “soft” masculine image”?
Beijing Rules Out Open Election in Hong Kong WSJ. Candidates must be screened.
Publication bias in the social science
Are these the most boring or the most interesting people in the UK? “But these things become detached from what it’s OK to have curiosity about.” I thought this was a truly excellent piece. And here is the SneezeCount website. Read this too, and this. After those, you don’t need to look at anything else on the internet today.