Essential Science Fiction Movies. People always put Metropolis on the list, or bemoan the fact that they haven’t seen it. What do you think of it? I quite enjoyed, but much of the greatness of the film seems to be that it prefigured so much of what was to come.
The Real Estate Collapse. Jonah Lehrer suggests that the problem with prices not declining (or at least listed prices) has a lot to do with loss aversion/sunk cost fallacy. I agree. On the other hand, many Americans who are older bought into the idea that real estate was the “safe” place to put their savings, and now are looking at taking a big loss. If you have 15-30 good years left it might be really hard to simply “move on” when you don’t have the time left to rebuild equity.
Our advice re: donations for Pakistan flood. The idea is to get the most bang-for-your-buck. From what I have heard ~20 million people have been impacted by the floods. I guess it gives you a sense of what a Pakistani peasant’s life is worth to the world.
Generation X More Loyal to Religion. This looks more likely to just be the law of diminishing returns. The disaffection of the Baby Boomers from organized religion correlates with a relaxation of social norms. The distribution of religiosity among Gen-X probably more accurately reflects their individual preferences.
This Hauser thing is getting hard to watch. David Dobbs reviews some of the issues with l’affaire Hauser. Basically everyone who is a blogger of note seems to be getting emails from people who wish to remain anonymous. Draw whatever conclusions you want to from that.