Robert Cottrell

This photograph has acquired a new salience, no?

@PhysInHistory "The discovery that nucleic acids are the substances that embody genetical information is the most important discovery in modern science. I shall not argue the point because nothing turns on whether you agree with me or not" — Peter Medawar

In your opinion, what is the most important discovery in the history of humankind? ✍️

@CaryLiljohn06 Thanks for your kind post. I wish I'd waited another day before publishing, but an accident of timing is a very small price to pay for a world without Prigozhin. Here's an update I posted to the website yesterday:

Not at all how I imagined Yevgeny Prigozhin's business partner [svetskyspb.ru/files/issues/m…]

@NotoriousTIB Re magic: Possibly useful bibliography at the end of this paper peterleeson.com/god_damn.pdf

@adwooldridge Not if you were prepared to stand by your decision, and argue the case, and apply the principles generally. But I doubt that is the case here.

You have to be a very incompetent organization to make Nigel Farage look like a righteous victim

@ByrneHobart Thanks, all good. I want somewhere to practice degrowth — doing small things slowly; most of the time just reading — without feeling that I am endangering humanity by my example. I greatly admire your writing on financial markets, I just don't want to live there.

@robertcottrell So it's not a question of trusting *me*, but a question of trusting everyone who'd make the decision after me.

Degrowthers are working towards a world where it will be possible to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, fight off my enraged neighbor because I took the village’s only fishing pole in the evening and die of sepsis from my wounds after dinner.

@annemcelvoy Isn't it easier to work while they stay in bed?

At what point, if you’ve already been working for two hours, is it okay to suggest that the young home for the hols actually go out of bed and do something – or is this pass agg displacement?

@mrianleslie Did nobody speak out in favour paying tax in the ordinary sort of way? It's generally clear what tax (25-40%) the government intends one to pay; yet even the pro-tax rich (Buffett, Gates) see tax avoidance as reasonable, and tax avoidance by those in government hardly helps.

The Civic Future event was heterogeneous but leaned libertarian right. It was full of people passionate about growth and there was a sense of a movement forming. Yet I heard almost nobody mention tax (or spending cuts). Striking omission. This is not reheated Thatcherism.

Last week @civic_future held a two day conference on economic growth and why Britain doesn't get enough of it. It was fascinating, depressing, and heartening all at once. Here's a 🧵of my impressions.

@mrianleslie @adwooldridge Isn't it rather than we are choosing to have the infrastructure of a poor country, despite having the income of a rich country?

Or you can read this by another attendee, @adwooldridge #selection-4729.0-4729.263" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">archive.ph/iGCb5#selectio…

@ByrneHobart And do you find Brazil an example which argues in favour of the "modern" approach?

@robertcottrell Brazil is a decent example of how difficult this is, while Israel is a counterexample where you can have a modern country in which a meaningful share of the population chooses a very different lifestyle.

@NotoriousTIB @HenryEOliver texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post… readingreligion.org/9781785333293/… cepr.org/voxeu/columns/… scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/fil… international-review.icrc.org/articles/armed…

@phl43 It seems to me that some people have a gift for languages, and, if so, then why not for maths? But if it's a matter of pedagogy, and (almost) everybody agree on the primacy of maths, why haven't we done a better job teaching?

I thought that not everybody was equally capable of understanding mathematics, but a bunch of Fields medalists assured me that it was just a matter of pedagogy, so I guess I was wrong.

@ojblanchard1 One can be proud of one's country without being proud of one's country's government or the actions of one's country's government. Please be proud of France, it is full of wonderful things and people.

re: Fiona Scott Morton. As a french person in the US whose nationality was never an issue, I am not proud of my country.

@benedictevans Excellent essay. Maybe you have a new law in there: "Work expands to fill technology available"

@BeijingPalmer yah, sorry, principles. though the principal also not a non-issue

@BeijingPalmer But even so, and if we don't argue the merits of Twitter from first principals, what's the downside to being able to buy occasional paywalled articles without taking out a subscription, if pubishers play along?

@benedictevans Petrol car > electric car Yo Sushi > Itsu Zagat > Trip Advisor Wintel PC > Mac CDs/DVDs > Streaming Credit cards > debit cards MySpace > Facebook Marriage > Civil partnership

@brettmartin just to say how much I enjoyed your burger piece; below is my recommendation in yesterday's @thebrowser newsletter