Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. Loneliness, Inc.

Over the last few decades, there has been a surge of columnists and social scientists writing about “the loneliness epidemic.” In a masterful essay, the sociologist Claude Fisher of UC Berkeley reviews the evidence and concludes that most of the claims are bunk:

I reviewed… the research literature on trends in Americans’ reports of loneliness and concluded that — much as in the case of friendlessness — the data on loneliness over years did not support claims of a long-term increase, with the possible exception of teenagers since 2010. (For a couple of decades before 2010, teenagers had been reporting declining loneliness.) Other serious reviews of the loneliness claims concluded much the same.

2. The European Start-Up Failure

Economists and politicians have long debated why Europe has a weaker start-up environment than the US. Many point to the lack of European venture capital. Others claim that it’s high-tech founders that make the difference. A new academic paper offers a different theory: in Europe, the price of failure is too high. The authors offer this illustration:

Two large companies are considering whether to pursue a high risk innovation. The probability of success is estimated at one in five. Upon success they obtain profits of $100 million, and the investment costs $15 million. 

One of the companies is in California, where if the innovation fails the restructuring costs $1 million. The other company is in Germany, where restructuring is 10x more expensive, it costs $10 million (a conservative estimate). 

The expected value of this investment in California is a profit of $4.2 million. In Germany the expected value is a loss of $3 million.

3. Brand Is Dead 

Scott Galloway, marketing professor and former consultant, describes the death of “brand” as a force in marketing and society. No marketing executive is spared in this brutal takedown:

I’ve advised lots of big consumer brands about their marketing, and I’ve noticed that CMOs recognize their days are numbered and are desperate to show visible motion, whether it makes sense or not. Often that activity, devoid of progress, means spending lots of money on a “new” agency stocked with sharply dressed young people who will host events giving awards to whoever’s spent the most money across the advertising industrial complex.

4. Who Pays, Who Benefits?

Last month, Anthem, one of the largest US health insurers, announced that it would no longer pay for anesthesia care if the surgery went on too long. An uproar ensued and Anthem backed down. According to Eric Levitz in Vox, they shouldn’t have:

This particular fight was not actually about putting the interests of patients against those of rapacious corporations. Anthem’s policy would not have increased costs for their enrollees. Rather, it would have reduced payments for some of the most overpaid physicians in America. And when millionaire doctors beat back cost controls — as they have here — patients pay the price through higher premiums.

5. Retreat from the Future

“Progress used to be glamorous,” writes social historian Virginia Postrel. In her essay, The World of Tomorrow, she tracks how “the once-enticing future morphed into a place of pollution, overcrowding, and ugliness.” She describes a common reaction:

The yearning to feel capable and in control shows up all over contemporary culture. We see it in the growth of cooking classes and of mixed martial arts, of weight lifting and craft hobbies, even blacksmithing. “It’s all things that make us use our hands, make us use tools, make us master something that seems beyond us at first,” Elizabeth Kronfield, director of the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology, told The New York Times. Here mastery is a goal in itself, rather than an economic imperative or another form of competition. Community arises from sharing tips and tools, time and space.

6. On the High Lantern Group Nightstand

In a December tradition, everyone at High Lantern Group shares their favorite book they read this year. Then we all select one of the books as a holiday gift. We are happy share this list with you, faithful readers of the HLG Notebook.

Websites Worth Reading

Big Ideas in 2024: A list from Andreessen Horowitz

AI Rizz Generator: Flirting just got easier

Knausgaard’s Bookshelf: What the Norwegian author wants to read

Feeds We Follow

@JedKolko: Declining mobility

@NikoMcCarty: Niko McCarty, Biologist, science trends

@AmalHanano: Lina Sergie Attar, Syrian reporter