Alice Evans Profile picture
Mar 14 5 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Have we passed peak intelligence?

In international tests, student scores for reading and maths sunk to a new low.

US teens are struggling to concentrate & evaluate information.

The excellent @jburnmurdoch

Warning: this thread is dark 🧵 Image
What's going wrong?

US 18 year olds increasingly say they have trouble concentrating and learning new things

As you can see, that line was stable till 2013

What caused the sudden spike? Image
Almost half of US teens said they "hardly ever" spend their leisure time reading a book Image
The share of adults who are unable to “use mathematical reasoning when reviewing and evaluating the validity of statements” has reached

- 25% in high-income countries
- 35% in the US Image
.@jburnmurdoch suggests there's a "broad erosion in human capacity for mental focus and application"

My question: how do we reverse this trend?

Superb piece!! ft.com/content/a8016c…Image

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More from @_alice_evans

Nov 24
If you enjoyed the brilliant TV series “Shogun”,

I strongly recommend Eiko Ikegami’s book on the “the Taming of the Samurai: honorific individualism and the making of modern Japan” 🇯🇵 Image
Image
As I have emphasised, the Ethnographic Atlas has been terribly misused and mistreated.

Many take it as a fossilized relic of “traditional societies”, effectively compressing history.

Ikegami, by contrast, suggests that Japan’s honour culture only emerged with the samurai Image
The samurai distinguished themselves through their unique sense of honour, and honour defined their relationships to each other. Image
Read 6 tweets
Jun 28
Sweden is perhaps the most gender equal country in the world, partly due to wage compression & labour market protections for low wage workers.

However, it has done the *worst* in integrating migrant women’s economic participation & equal place.

Why is this? Image
The economic inactivity rate is especially high for women who come after age 15. Image
This may be partly about composition

Sweden has been especially welcoming of refugees, which made up a large share of its migrants

And Syria, for example, only has a female labour force rate of 13%.

(Graph shows data for 2004-2013) Image
Read 14 tweets
Jun 23
Why do so many people complain about dates “ghosting” or being “flakey”?

I think this partly is due to the breakdown of moral policing.

If people date outside their work & social networks, then “bad” behaviour doesn’t affect future interactions.

One can shirk/ cheat/ ghost
Fundamentally, everyone seeks status and social approval within their group.

So if one wants to curry favour, one conforms to the group’s ideals.

But if it’s not a “repeated game” (to use Econ speak) and no one you care about ever knows,

Then,

Shirking is costless.
The more I study culture, the more I realise the importance of moral policing.

We conform because we seek social approval in that group,

But if behaviour is unobserved, if no one whose approval we cherish actually watches,

Then the Panopticon is broken.
Read 10 tweets
Apr 3
Today, I gave a talk on the economic implications of falling fertility

And two young women were unsure…

“Surely it’s a great win for women that many are exercising autonomy?”

To which I replied,…

🧵
1) Absolutely, in the past, many stayed in unhappy marriages due to economic dependence, shame and stigma of singledom

So increased freedom is a great advance

However …
2) In the U.S. & UK, the most educated (most autonomous) women are coupling up, because they’ve found loving partnerships and emotional connections which make them happy!!

It’s the most disadvantaged who struggle Image
Read 7 tweets
Mar 8
Did I steal or bribe my way to an advance copy? 😛

Saturday is for book reading on the sofa!

Especially if it’s Malika Zeghal’s new opus with @PrincetonUPress Image
Zeghal constructs fantastic data sets on religiosity over time

As you can see, over time, the Turkish government is now spending a much higher share of GDP on religion Image
In 1950, she estimates that only 4 in a million Turkish people were enrolled in Islamic higher education Image
Read 23 tweets
Feb 15
Male-female friendships are a under-rated driver of gender equality.

When women can fraternise freely, they can share ideas, gain respect, & build empathy with men who care about their wants & welfare.

Countries with high male-female friendships score better on equality 👇 Image
Even controlling for religion, education, age, marital status, immigration status, gender, and employment status,

Societies with more mixed gender facebook friends express stronger support for gender equality

- at university
- work
- politics
- equal rights Image
Sérgio Milliet was a close friend and great champion of Brazilian modernist artist Tarsila do Amaral, organising a major retrospective of her works in São Paulo.

His support (combined with her clear talent) cemented her reputation.

Here’s Tarsila’s portrait of Sergio. Image
Read 7 tweets

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