The evolution of the legal profession, ChatGPT, Drink yourself sober, and more!
RWL #313
Greetings from the Last Homely House! The syllabi are not quite ready yet, and I haven’t dusted my notes off for my first classes on Tuesday, but I did spend the last two days in the office - the place is suddenly getting buzzy after weeks of quiet. We had some great discussions about how to improve the curriculum and other important issues that often have to get set aside while we’re in the thick of things. I’m looking forward to seeing the students again.
Mixed bag of links this week - a lot of different topics - from the history of the legal profession to ChatGPT. I hope you enjoy them!
I’m in week 3 of my year long challenge to take a photograph every day. The image above is from the train tracks that run behind the LHH. I took this shot after I came home from the office. I saw the water by the side of the tracks and thought it would make a cool image. If you’d like to see every image so far this year, you can see them here.
And that’s it from me. I’ll be back Sunday with an essay. As usual, willing good for all of you!
Read
What: William Henderson, Three Generations of U.S. Lawyers: Generalists, Specialists, Project Managers
Why: This is a very interesting history of the legal profession over the last 130 or so years in the US. Although I am not especially interested in the legal profession per se, I thought it was very interesting how the author explains how the profession evolved in response to larger historical trends. Medicine, and specifically physician practices, have evolved in a similar manner on a similar timeline. I was actually doing research for a physician career paper I am working on and came across this article. Legal review articles are often very readable in a way that most social science journal articles are not. If you have an interest in history and how professions evolve, this is worth a read.
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What: WSJ, ‘The Good Life’ Review: The Habit of Happiness
Why: This is a review of The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, another book I intend to read. The book is about a longitudinal study of happiness and what brings it about.
I liked this quote from the article:
Happiness is not a destination, a goal to be achieved. It is not a state of being but a process of becoming. And the good life is not devoid of disappointments, failures and struggles.
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Watch
What: TEDxLondonBusinessSchool, How I overcame alcoholism | Claudia Christian (15 min)
Why: I read this article in the Free Press about about using medically assisted treatment for alcoholism and was fascinated, so I did a bit of Googling and found this talk. The idea is you use a drug to prevent the pleasure receptors in your brain for working when you drink and it removes the desire to drink. This brings about extinction of the habit. This is way outside my area of expertise, but the idea seems to make sense to me. I believe this is similar to medically assisted treatment for opioid addiction using drugs like suboxone or methadone. Check out the video and the article.
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Listen
What: The Journal, The Company Behind ChatGPT (19 min)
Why: Interesting discussion about ChatGPT. I still haven’t experimented with the program, but I have been hearing a lot about it. What others have shared has convinced me this is going to be a major, economy-shaking, culturally transformative technological advance. Akin to the printing press or the internet. This brief gives you some of the history of the technology (which is now owned by Microsoft).
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What: The Editors, 'Nuclear Energy Now,' a Conversation with John Kotek (30 min)
Why: I am not a climate denier. But I am also not a climate extremist. Instead, I would say I am climate-agnostic. We probably really have anthropogenic climate change. We should take steps to reduce pollution, regardless of climate change. But I really don’t believe we are in immediate danger. And I don’t think that most climate activists do, either, because if they really did believe that, they would take positive action for their personal safety, as well as the personal safety of their loved ones. That would involve buying a house near the Canadian border, for a start, or someplace else that would provide a safe refuge from the coming disaster. And I don’t hear of any mad rush to buy real estate in Pittsburgh, New Hampshire. Climate activists would also be pushing for nuclear energy now, and stop playing around with solar and wind, which are adorable, but not effective at the current state of technology. Yet nuclear is proven and safe (my long post on this here). If you are making arguments for imminent catastrophic climate disaster and you haven’t picked out your new digs in Pittsburgh, I don’t want to hear from you because you are either lying or stupid, and I don’t have time for either of those things.
Kotek talks about a variety of nuclear technology available and in development. Imagine where we could be if, instead of essentially taking a hard pass on nuclear over the last 30 years or so. According to the US Energy Information Administration, only one new nuclear power plant has entered into service since 1996. Nuclear has zero emissions.
Serious people take serious steps to fix problems. Nuclear is a serious answer to a problem I’m pretty sure is real. I don’t understand why so few climate activists who are absolutely certain we are careening toward extinction aren't demanding nuclear now.
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What: Top Traders Unplugged, How China Derailed Its Peaceful Rise ft. Susan Shirk (62 min)
Why: Zhao Lijian, the leading voice behind China's 'Wolf Warrior' diplomacy, which amounted to China’s official internet voice being vile and trollish as a matter of policy, has suddenly transferred to China’s Ministry's Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs as the deputy head, where I assume he probably won’t have access to Twitter any more. This is an interesting sign that Xi may have realized that being a giant a**hole on the world stage isn’t a way to win friends and influence people. It also goes along with the reversal of the zero COVID policy.
This interview is with one of the US’s most senior academics who studies China. She has an interesting perspective and I have her book on order. Her argument basically is that China (really the Chinese Communist Party) reached for power before it had influence. Maybe now it is starting to re-evaluate that perspective. We can hope. Unlike my comments about climate change, I am deeply concerned about war with China. I think we need to build more nuclear power plants and more nuclear-powered submarines to make sure that war is less likely.
I’ll definitely be reviewing the book when I get to it.
Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line at mark.bonica@unh.edu , or you can tweet to me at @mbonica .
If you’re looking for a searchable archive, you can see my draft folder here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jwGLdjsb1WKtgH_2C-_3VvrYCtqLplFO?usp=sharing
Finally, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://markbonica.substack.com/welcome
See you next week!
Mark
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” – Pablo Picaso