&mdash makes it all the much sweeter

Would love to see this from the 1920s after the Spanish flu and before the Great Depression. But of course… that’s prehistory

I should say, potentially useful for understanding counting processes from a different perspective?

This seem potentially related to counting processes?

😂

And if I decide to submit something to @worksinprogress.bsky.social, I think it will need to be about how a failure to reckon with the statistical distortions of competing risks impedes technological and societal progress.

For Noema, I think I'll need to ground it more in how the paradox of competing risks affects institutions, policy, etc.

The Aeon pitch covers how the mathematics of competing risks shows that, in theory, I carry around with me the ghosts of all the deaths that didn't happen on April 13, 2025, when I suffered sudden cardiac arrest. It's a philosophical piece.

I've got an Aeon Magazine pitch ready for a story about the paradox of competing risks. I want to submit simultaneously to Noema, so I think I'll come at the story from a different angle.

@cameron.stream, you built this?

Rating: We hate you. 😂 In other words, it's fantastic, homie.

The AI (interacting with the much stronger effect of decades of tech overhiring and talent hoarding due to ZIRP) TOOK URRERR JYAAAAAAABS

Whenever growth rates change substantially, we need to keep our sight on how they accumulate over time scales that humans care about, which are longer than a month and longer than a year.

Monthly point estimates of YoY growth are realizations of an underlying instantaneous growth that has accumulated over a year before that month. But uh.. that growth accumulates over other time scales, too.

ALSO: People do realize the effects of wage and price growth both compound right… right? And that therefore plots of monthly YoY growth against each other tell basically none of the story of how people, who live for longer than a month, experience growth… right?

Turns out half of us aren’t and also the other half.

The density of typos correlates with the level of intellectual frustration.

It’s sort of like how my dissertation advisor once guffawed at how irrational poor people are for trying to fix their own cars instead of saving up for a new one. Always loved hearing that as a guy who used to have to fix his own car.

Like did *any* economist out there grow up poor?

Nor does it mean that people—at the snap of a finger once real wages are growth at least as fast prices—should suddenly be fine with prices. No. There are budget constraints. And also the point estimate of wage growth isn’t its whole distribution.

Similarly, just because real wage growth comes back into alignment with inflation doesn’t mean it’s irrational for people to react negatively to past inflation.

Just because price inflation decelerates doesn’t mean the inflation that has already happens doesn’t still sting.

That said, pointing at real price inflation decelerating over a decade and saying “calm down!” probably isn’t the right political move.

But also: public higher education institutions and academic science in general need funding and the real price inflation that occurred prior to a decade ago shouldn’t be counted against these institutions needing funding.

Similar to the logic that people are justified in their continued frustration about inflation in prices on shorter time scales even when the pace of inflation decelerates.

But here’s the thing: humans live for longer than a decade, which is less than half the length of a demographic generation. So all the rapid real tuition cost growth that occurred prior to ten years ago stings. Thus people are susceptible to rhetoric about those costs, and frustration justified.

And yes I know selection bias is a fact of life, but one-class classification does have *some* merit! Some! Not much! But some! 😂

Same question for @worksinprogress.bsky.social

Do I know anyone who has written for @aeon.co or @noemamag.com? If so, would you be willing to share with me your pitch query? I am going to pitch some stories about different aspects of the competing risks paradox to each of them and don’t want to waste their editors’ valuable time.

Somebody out there: Take advantage of this opportunity!