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20 Dec, 6 tweets, 3 min read
My second essay on the decline of decline of novelty in art, science, and technology in the 21st century

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

In Hollywood, at the NIH/NSF, and in US energy policy, our markets are failing to promote new ideas that drive progress and growth.
Since 1999, the box office share of sequels, remakes, and adaptations has surged.

Did US screenwriters become less creative? Very unlikely.

What changed wasn't our minds, but our markets: The domestic/international market for blockbusters was transformed. Image
The box office globalized at the same time that cable and streaming welcome serialized original stories. Meanwhile, the rising cost of blockbusters pushed studios to bet safer projects, creating a self-perpetuating loop of audiences saving their scarce tickets for sequels. Image
That's art. How about science?

American scientists are smarter than ever. But our marketplace of science funding creates a bias toward older investigators; for expertise over outsider exploration; and for plausibility over radical research

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
That's art & science. Now tech:

As @yayitsrob writes, America's world-leading investment in solar tech failed to make us the global leaders in manufacturing, because we never built a marketplace to translate the science of solar into a thriving industry.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv… Image
In art, science, and technology, our outcomes are lagging indicators of our markets. For better results, build better markets.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

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More from @DKThomp

Derek Thompson Profile picture
22 Dec
I wrote about the mystery of the moment: Is Omicron less severe?

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

I’ve seen the real-world data. I’ve seen the lab conclusions. It’s not a clean picture. But I have a tentative answer.
The severity conundrum contains an easy & hard question.

The easier Q: Is O milder than previous strains for ppl w/ immunity from infections/vaxx? The answer at this point leans strongly toward yes.

The hard Q: Is O *intrinsically* milder? The evidence here is much more uneven.
What I wanted to do with this piece is provide a synthesis of the real-world and lab conclusions, with all the proper caveats, on Omicron and severity

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

This thread provides a brief summary, but I'd encourage you to read the piece to get the full flavor.
Read 9 tweets
Derek Thompson Profile picture
21 Dec
New ep with @morganhousel (!!):

4 BIG ECONOMIC MYTHS

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

1. The inflation rate doesn't exist (as a singular entity)
2. The Great Resignation isn't about resignations
3. Robots *should* take our jobs
4. The "golden age" of retirement? Actually, it sucked
1. Some inflation rates

Gas +58%
Rental car 37%
Hotels 26%
Steak 25%
Bacon 21%
...
Rent 3.5%
Watches 1%
Girls apparel: -0.4%

Meat-lovin’ road trippers in rented cars and urban dads buying dresses for their young daughters are living in two different worlds right now.
2. The Great Resignation is really the Great Reshuffle. It's about job-hopping, not pure quitting.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

The industries with the most quits—restaurants and hotels—are also the industries adding the most jobs.
Read 5 tweets
Derek Thompson Profile picture
11 Dec
December 11 Omicron update from Europe

- all cases for which there is available information have been asymptomatic or mild
- no deaths so far

It’s the same story everywhere: Too early to draw strong conclusions, but the lack of bad news on severity is good news
Link ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events…
“High transmissibility, high breakthrough rate, low observed severity per infection” has been the story for about a week—and I don’t think I’ve seen anything to change it yet.

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 6 tweets
Derek Thompson Profile picture
9 Dec
THREAD

Here is my overview of the week in Omicron news:

- the latest data from South Africa
- the major findings from preliminary vaccine studies
- the lessons of specific outbreaks in Oslo and the NYC anime convention

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
SOUTH AFRICA p1

Case growth is absolutely ferocious, and the evidence of breakthroughs is overwhelming. The estimated reproduction rate is higher than any other point of the pandemic. Omicron is spreading very, very fast right now. Image
SOUTH AFRICA p2

The share of hospitalized patients in the ICU or on O2 is 50% lower than during same stage of Delta. Some evidence that the avg hospital patient is being discharged faster, too.

Read 12 tweets
Derek Thompson Profile picture
8 Dec
I wrote about the myths of the "Great Resignation"

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

1. It's not about "quitting", but low-wage job-switching (ht @JHWeissmann)

2. It actually has very little to do with professional burnout

3. It's more about early retirement than news reports suggest
(1) The Great Resignation isn't actually about what most people think of as "resignations."

The low-wage service-sector economy is experiencing the equivalent of “free agency” in a professional sports league. That makes it more like the Big Switch than the Big Quit.
Restaurants and hotels have been hardest hit by the Great Resignation.

So, are they shrinking?

No! Accommodations and food services added ~2 million employees in 2021! That's almost one out of every three net new jobs this year. They're raising wages and scrambling to hire.
Read 7 tweets
Derek Thompson Profile picture
18 Nov
A novel crypto movement just raised $30+ million in a matter of days to buy a rare Constitution through a decentralized corp.

Even if you think crypto is just stupid—and I don't—a technology for firing a bazooka of money at [anything] seems like an important thing to watch.
Obviously, "firing a bazooka of money at something" is not an unprecedented invention. And crypto is more than just a shadow stock market.

But imagine for one second this movement is *nothing more* than the creation of a gazillion dollars in wealth.

That's massively important!
I follow a lot of smart people who say "crypto has no broad consumer use case right now" and "what's going to be the first killer app here?"

What if the first killer app of crypto is ... an absolutely absurd amount of money? Capable of being deployed for any purpose?
Read 4 tweets

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