Links, Tuesday 10th May

Incredible to see the structural changes in the US economy over the last 70 years - the rich do increasingly well out of economic upturns, everyone else gains less and less (and have actually lost out during the most recent).

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"The story of the spinach myth is itself apocryphal. It’s true that spinach isn’t really all that useful as a source of iron, and it’s true that people used to think it was. But all the rest is false: No one moved a decimal point in 1870; no mistake in data entry spurred Popeye to devote himself to spinach; no misguided rules of eating were implanted by the sailor strip. The story of the decimal point manages to recapitulate the very error that it means to highlight: a fake fact, but repeated so often (and with such sanctimony) that it takes on the sheen of truth." Five38

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"Last October, Uber published data from New York showing that even as driver numbers had doubled, and fares had fallen, “partners” were earning 6.3% more per hour than they were the year before... The only trouble with “Uber math” is how it feels to be part of the labour force that delivers it." Guardian

This reminds me a little of something I posted a while ago about management-via-AI... The problem isn't so much that it doesn't *work*, from a purely economic standpoint, but that it often feels profoundly alienating to be asked not to exercise autonomy or judgement.

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Really good that this is appearing in a high-profile publication like the New York Times. It's not a perfect article, and there's the usual attempt at 'balance, but I think actually just enough to hoist antis by their own petard. When presented in any sort of neutral way, it is very obvious that proponents of decriminalisation have the better side of the argument, and that does come through here.

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"Google is sufficiently confident about its technology that its staff have discussed launching a fully autonomous taxi service in Mountain View as soon as next year, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. The service may initially be restricted to Google employees, which might get around any legal and regulatory issues." FT

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There doesn't seem to be robust evidence that offering people more choices makes them less likely to make a decision, and there are many circumstances where it makes them *more* likely to make a decision.

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"Usually when I talk about oppression, I emphasize impact over intention – because no matter how well-meaning someone is, they can still cause harm. Maybe we should consider the same emphasis when we’re trying to stop oppression. Regardless of our intentions, sometimes the only impact of calling someone out is that we get to feel like we punished them for what they did wrong." Everyday Feminism