Six Ideas That Made Us Think

1. When India’s Economy Became Free

The 1991 Project, sponsored by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, examines what happened after India liberalized its economy 30 years ago. In the opening essay, Shruti Rajagopalan offers a wonderful mix of economic history, Indian sociology, and personal reminiscence – including this anecdote on orange juice:

For my mother, the change manifested in freshly pressed orange juice. Pre-1991, orange juice was reserved for special occasions or for when someone was sick, and the squeezing had to be done manually. This was quite literally a pain for my mother, a professional musician with permanent blisters and cuts on her fingers from playing the Veena. Thanks to the withdrawal of import tariffs, juicers, along with a bewildering variety of other kitchen gadgets, made life easier.

2. The New Globetrotters

After this year’s NBA Finals, everyone wants a piece of Giannis. The Niskanen Center uses the success of the Milwaukee Buck’s power forward to explore global immigration policy – and to ask how international players have changed professional basketball:

Antetokounmpo might be the most prominent foreign-born NBA player, but the league is now replete with remarkable international talent. For the 2020-2021 season, the NBA had an international player on every roster — in all, 107 from 41 countries as of opening night, including a record 17 Canadians and record-tying 14 Africans. The league announced it was the seventh consecutive season of 100+ players. One-fourth of the league is now foreign-born. Compare this to the 1991-1992 season when the NBA had just 23 international players from 18 countries.

The essay also makes an important point about sports and American international relations: “Seeing the U.S. as an evil foe is difficult for young people when they grow up with a poster of Antetokounmpo on their bedroom wall.”

3. Is Advertising to Blame for the STEM Gender Gap?

Scientific American analyzes another possible explanation for why fewer women pursue careers in STEM:

When an advertiser pays for digital ads, including postings for jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), it is more expensive to get female views than male ones. As a result, ad algorithms designed to get the most bang for one’s buck consequently go for the cheaper eyeballs—men’s.

Women are pricier to reach because they generally make more household purchasing decisions than men do. Marketing algorithms apparently recognize women’s substantial purchasing power and set higher prices for their views.

On the topic of blaming advertising, don’t miss Duke University’s analysis of the recent practice of banning some political ads for “misinformation.” The study reaches an unequivocal conclusion: “There is little evidence that bans have meaningfully reduced the impact of misinformation. In fact, the bans may have been counterproductive by making it harder for committees to address misleading organic content.”

4. How to Fix College Football

As Oklahoma and Texas get ready to blow up the Big 12 to join the Southeastern Conference, Deadspin offers a sensible plan for conference realignment. But like any piece on college sports, it takes a shot at the NCAA:

If the NCAA were truly a governing body, rather than a sophisticated money laundering and court case losing operation, it would step in and say enough of this already. Yes, getting an Oklahoma-Alabama football matchup every year or two, instead of practically never, is fantastic television, but also, we live in a world where Texas Tech and West Virginia are in the same conference, which means someone’s poor volleyball team has to fly five and a half hours, and bus for another hour and a half, just to play a conference game.

5. Twitter Cold Turkey

Caitlin Flanagan’s tale of 28 days drying out from Twitter is a post-pandemic masterpiece. Like all addicts, Flanagan starts with admitting she has a problem:

The indignity of it! Couldn’t I have gone out on a champagne bender or bet the house on a poker game, or even clogged my heart with so much gelato and fried chicken that the life force was squeezed out of me midway through a slice of cheesecake? Why did it have to be this common, embarrassing habit that just about everyone on Earth knows is a scourge?

6. Bollywood Tragedy

Dilip Kumar, who died earlier this month, was a pioneer of Bollywood who established an approach to method acting that shaped modern Indian cinema. The Guardian tries to capture the depth of his influence:

It was Kumar’s films of the 1950s that established him as the “tragedy king” in Bollywood, with unrequited love as a recurring theme. In Devdas (1955), his character’s childhood sweetheart marries someone else, and he turns to drink and eventually dies of tuberculosis on her doorstep. “Dilip Kumar made unrequited love and sacrifice fashionable for an entire generation,” the Bollywood screenwriter Kamlesh Pandey wrote. “Heartbroken, healthy young men prayed to get TB.”

Websites Worth Reading

Ad Age’s weekly highlights: Top 5 creative campaigns right now

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A new exhibit on the American style of dress

TED: In-person TED returns in August

Feeds We Follow

@MickJagger : Preparing for a fall tour

@100YearsAgoLive: Century-old news

@munkdebate: August vacation listening