Sixth Day Six | 9.10.2022
Sixth Day Six | 9.10.2022
Would building Jurassic Park help us achieve the American Dream?
Does Jurassic Park actually send us the wrong message about innovation?
I think Matthew Yglesias brings up an interesting argument in an article he wrote a while back. The rest of the pieces today talk about other ways to achieve the American Dream (sans dinosaurs), a great Christian apologist and three very short videos.
The video at the end is a great story about the late Queen Elizabeth II that’s worth hearing - funny story!
What is the Sixth Day Six? Click here to learn what it’s about.
We should build Jurassic Park | Slow Boring
Should we? Matthew Yglesias takes issue to the movie franchise, saying there’s an anti-progressive message baked into the story discouraging us from trying bold new things. He argues there’s risk with any innovation and that we should try big bold new ideas as a society.
In the world of progress, it’s not that rare for things to go awry one way or another — perhaps due to sabotage or lack of foresight or bad luck or just a bad idea.
But we forge ahead and try to build on what worked and what we learned. Of course your dinosaur park is going to be a commercial failure if the security system is disabled and the animals escape and start trying to eat the scientists you brought in to do a safety certification. At the same time, Hammond solved a very difficult problem: he successfully created viable dinosaurs of several different species, providing an incredibly useful proof of concept with an array of potential applications.
I’d love to see a Jurassic Park reboot in which the point of the story is, yes, they face sabotage and their lives end up at risk but ultimately they defeat their adversaries and get the park up and running. Because a park full of real, live dinosaurs would be amazing.
Click here to read the full article.
The Secret to Reclaiming the American Dream | Work In Progress
Living the American Dream is alive and well in some places and/or for some people. It’s very much not for others. Why is that? Are there common characteristics that come into play when thinking about upward mobility?
…children who move from neighborhoods with historically low social mobility to neighborhoods with high social mobility reap huge returns over their lives. This says something both optimistic and pessimistic about America. The optimistic story is that opportunity exists. Families can move to a different city and change the trajectory of their kids’ life. The dark side is it suggests that talent in America is widespread but opportunity isn’t evenly distributed. So children have to either win the lottery by being born into the right family or move to where lottery winners already exist.
Click here to read the full article. | Listen to the podcast episode on Spotify
“The Karen Formula” | Jason Pargin
This is a quick video that Jason Pargin put together. If only outrageous things are what get our attention, then algorithms will only feed us outrage. If we always see outrage, then we’ll eventually believe the outside-the-norms stuff is actually quite common (when it’s not). Anyway, his video here comments on that more succinctly than I just did.
Click here to view tweet on Twitter.
Can America get the important stuff right? | Scott Galloway
In a recent “Chart of the Week,” Scott Galloway breaks down how it’s statistically more likely that someone in the United States has a smartphone than access to clean drinking water. That’s insane. He highlights how we are good at doing incredible things but overlook getting the easy stuff right too often. Oddly enough, this video was created before the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi.
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
Pastor Timothy Keller Speaks to the Head and the Heart | The Wall Street Journal
I have always admired and appreciated Tim Keller and his work. He speaks to the mind in the same way apologists like CS Lewis did back in the day. This brief piece on him in The Wall Street Journal sheds a little light on his background and approach to ministry and politics.
Dr. Keller’s model of evangelism is often described as “winsome.” He avoids talk of fire and brimstone and never raises his voice. Instead he uses logic and the occasional joke to make a case for the Christian worldview: “You can’t prove it but you can reason for it,” he says.
and on politics:
He worries about efforts to impose Christian values that may not hold up if put to a vote. “I’d rather be in a democracy than a state in which the government is officially Christian,” he says. “Instead of trying to take power, I think what Christians ought to be doing is trying to renew their churches.”
Click here to read the full article.
A Funny Story About the Queen
In light of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing, this story about her shared on Twitter is an absolute delight. It sounds like she had a great sense of humor. Worth watching.
What book am I reading?
I’m still wrapping up Effortless by Greg McKeown (have read very little this last week TBH) and am learning a lot. I would still recommend! Next on my list is No Point B by Caleb Gardner.
As always, if you are reading something interesting, feel free to share it! You can reach out by responding to this email or clicking here. Would love to hear from you!