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Assorted links
1. Arnold Kling on Shiller's new book.
2. What music shows about your teen; in my view you want your kid to like indie rock.
3. Do socially dominant males stay in the gene pool? Maybe not.
4. How to test new search engines.
5. Go for it!: the Google test for any human choice.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 5, 2008 at 01:18 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Greg Clark noted that 26% of male English aristocrats during the era of Shakespeare's history plays died violently. So, dominance is a high reward but high risk strategy.
On the other hand, one shouldn't focus exclusively on the male line, which can come to an abrupt end. The daughters and granddaughters of dominant males will often marry upstart dominant males -- e.g., Joe Kennedy Sr.'s granddaughter Maria Shriver has four children by Arnold Schwarzenegger -- so the genes in general carry on.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 5, 2008 1:52:58 PM
1. "indie rock" is pop.
2. the study apparently identifies five types of music that are terrible for your child to listen to. what was the control? not listening to music? seems worse.
Posted by: anon at Aug 5, 2008 1:58:55 PM
This sounds like they just made up stuff. If I were going to rely on this study at all, I would pay very close attention to their methodology. If there are any subjective evaluations not done by the teens themselves, the study is useless.
Posted by: jsalvati at Aug 5, 2008 2:34:54 PM
And when you consider something like "dance music", well Euro style Trance music has an entirely different group of fans than Chicago style House music, which is totally different than say Detroit style Techno music, which is entirely different than New York electroclash style pop music, and entirely different than the geeky IDM laptop crowd, and entirely different than Miami-Bass. You are talking at least 10 extremely different music subcultures.
It is like saying that studies show that people who eat eggs, bread, milk, or cyanide have a much greater chance of death. Sure, if you categorize the rave drug culture in with every other style of dance music, you get bad results for "dance music"... without having a clue of understanding.
Posted by: Rex Rhino at Aug 5, 2008 2:39:56 PM
Regarding the music one: First of all, another study proving the obvious. Secondly, you could say those results apply to the artist of the song, not just the listener. And how do the researchers factor in ubiquitous marketing of certain types of music?
Posted by: Noah at Aug 5, 2008 3:13:42 PM
Well, with respect to kids and music: duh. Kids sort themselves into peer groups and use the music themselves as identity markers, and have done so for at least the last 50 years (in America).
Posted by: gecko at Aug 5, 2008 3:29:13 PM
I wonder what the study determined about Indie rock? Maybe that the kids were pretentious, arrogant and judgmental. Even though given the other choices, I'd still happily select it.
Posted by: Axis at Aug 5, 2008 3:45:27 PM
Oh come on, I listen to jazz, Progressive Death Metal, Folk Metal, Progressive Rock, Classical, and a bunch of other genre's. The study is bullshit. I think that certain lifestyles attract certain kinda of people and as a result those lifestyles usually have a musical niche. Perhaps the causality is not what these researchers think it is.
Posted by: Jon at Aug 5, 2008 4:22:56 PM
Why would you want your kid to like indie rock? Most indie rock is AWFUL. That's why it's indie! Much better to hope they discover The Beatles.
Also:
"...those who attended dance parties were much more likely than their peers to be taking drugs."
I don't think we needed a Serious Study to tell us that!
Posted by: Noah Yetter at Aug 5, 2008 4:24:22 PM
Perhaps Yana likes indie rock.
Posted by: josh at Aug 5, 2008 5:52:12 PM
Indie rock listeners have a higher than average chance of being annoying and listening to lousy music.
Posted by: J. at Aug 5, 2008 7:36:31 PM
Why not give teenagers some useful information. What kind of music would enable them to have sex the earliest and most often?
Posted by: adam at Aug 5, 2008 8:36:08 PM
Indie rock is for white kids with 3 digit IQs.
KROQ in LA, the indie rock superstation, plays exactly the same kinds of guitar rock today as in 1982. All that's changed is that their acceptable styles have gotten narrower: no more bands with girl singers, no more synthesizer dance music, and no more fun songs.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Aug 5, 2008 8:55:11 PM
the study sounds like it was written by an indie snob! only indie snobs say people who listen to pop music are conformist.
Posted by: omgz i love the garden state soundtrack at Aug 5, 2008 9:31:54 PM
Notably absent from the list of music that teens hear: country. I wonder what "country" says. In my experience, listening to country as a teenager means that you argue a lot on the bus about why country is better than rock and rap.
But if I had teens in this day and age, I'd love for them to get into folk.
Posted by: JH at Aug 5, 2008 10:20:23 PM
hate hate hate hate hate
Posted by: Tony at Aug 5, 2008 10:43:39 PM
I just tried the "I should/shouldn't have kissed her." Got about 3.6 million for "shouldn't" and 9 million for should. Still on the should side, but the relative price is not as severe as suggested.
Posted by: Jared at Aug 6, 2008 3:02:20 AM
A propos hypergamy...
"I should have left her": 85600
"I shouldn't have left her": 801
but
"I should have left him": 634
"I shouldn't have left him": 4470
Posted by: vic at Aug 6, 2008 4:46:26 AM
Jared: The searches were with quotes. Try searching for "I should have kissed her" with the quotes - that way, it only finds pages with that exact phrase on them.
Posted by: Aric at Aug 6, 2008 9:03:50 AM
My daughter listens to just about everything. I guess she's a loner suicidal conformist prone to bouts of violence while using drugs to get overly responsible unprotected sex.
Posted by: coynedj at Aug 6, 2008 12:57:11 PM
@ Rex Rhino: I don't wish to be uncivil, but I think that most of the "totally" different" styles you mentioned, and their corresponding subcultures, are a lot more similar than you think. I think you're talking about subdivisions within a subculture, but the aggregation in this case probably obscures very little. I do think that if the psychologists wish to glean any useful information on the questionnaire they will need to be more specific, but I think that the dance/techno/electronica/ecstasy crowd could probably be lumped together somewhat safely.
@ vic: That's pretty funny/interesting, if only because it's about what you'd expect to find. Not that googling certain phrases is rigorous social science, but as more and more people use the Internet for social interaction and personal expression, does your selection bias diminish?
I'm not sure where they draw the line with different types of musical styles, like with R&B/Jazz, or even "Pop." Does rock in a major key automatically count as pop? Is it really helpful to put people who listen to Miles Davis in the same category as people who listen to Lionel Ritchie? I really hope that there's more to the actual methodology than what the write-up is telling us.
Posted by: d.cous. at Aug 6, 2008 1:04:16 PM
"Indie rock is for white kids with 3 digit IQs."
There might be some truth to this, but i guess that most indie rock listeners just want to feel superior to other teenagers. Maybe (atleast those who are comparatively unattractive) 3 digit-IQ-kids, whose talents are not recognized in high school are prone to seek for music that will let them feel superior. A great example of this is the Young Knives. They play simple indie-rock music for those who are not musically talented, but talented and ugly enough to want to feel superior to their peers. Being English always helps.
Posted by: Paavo Ojala at Aug 6, 2008 5:37:56 PM
I'm not sure I care what kind of music my kids listen to, but they're sure as hell going to have a shock when they get old enough to realize that their mom and dad still listen to Fear, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, etc. I noticed the study didn't consider the effects of punk--since I know at least 2 Ph.D. holders who love punk, I'll conclude there's a direct correlation. It sounds as well-founded as this study.
And, by the way, I know I'll be damn proud the day our daughter sneaks out wearing her mom's Motorhead shirt.
Posted by: James Hanley at Aug 6, 2008 10:28:11 PM
Bogus study on music. As if it has no positive effects, a bad not a good.
Posted by: Ben at Aug 7, 2008 3:08:36 PM
On the Google test, vic's parameters are flawed twice--by the lousy Electric Flag song and by the fact that the verb "to leave" has too many meanings. The phrase in quotes "I should have left her" can be completed with "alone" or "the car keys" or "my entire fortune" or "some space" or...
Try "I should have dumped him [her]" on teh google.
Him: 1200
Her: 448
Hypergyny perhaps, or just a reflection the unsatisfactory character of English-speaking males as mates?
Posted by: Jimmy Higgins at Aug 26, 2008 10:36:08 AM
