Logging

Book:  Twilight of the Elites:  America After Meritocracy by Christopher Hayes

A really good diagnosis of the problem and really underwhelming solutions.  More redistributive taxation?  Estate tax?  These are considered big ideas?  Does anyone actually think this magically solve the problems in America?  Gimme a break.

The solutions to these problems, I imagine, are going to be much more localized and specific.  This huge, nation-wide efforts are just not the way to go.  It's all theoretical.

Why do all these "smart people" try and focus on making, say...eduction in America better?  Or solving the healthcare problem?  Wouldn't their energies be better spent, say, making one public school in one underserved area into a really great school.  And I don't say this flippantly, like this is some really easy task.  I actually think it is an incredibly hard task.  But you have an author saying we need more meritocracy and meritocracy starts with equal opportunity to education -- so why not employ all your genius and be a teacher to kids that need it and help them and then spread your wisdom to the school -- and then go from there.  Or likewise, rather than having some big time expert opinion on how to resolve the healthcare problem -- make a functioning, profitable hospital.  Just one.  Is it just me or isn't this the way to actually fixing things?  These people just want to be pundits and I'm not convinced we need any more pundits.

In my industry, the equivalent of this type of "too large" thinking is people who think about re-imagining the entire studio system or say things like "movies are dead" or perceive an entirely new way the movie business need to work or people who say things like "the digital revolution" and this type of stuff.  I've come to think that thinking in these terms is avoidance of the infinitely more difficult and more needed project of just making one good movie.  And making one at a time.  That's all this business is, really, a bunch of people working on one movie at a time.  In any case, I suppose what I'm saying is our thinking ought to be less broad and perhaps more focused and precise when it comes to dealing with any sort of problem.