Economist Writing Every Day

I suppose books were, for a time, the cheapest way to convey bits of information, before anyone had heard of “bits”. I asked ChatGPT to do my boring work and rehearse the history of the term “bits” so I could get my facts straight for this post.

Based on my other research, I was not confident that this paper called “The Binary System” exists. I could find no evidence of it from 5 minutes of googling. When I asked ChatGPT about it, ChatGPT apologized and said it probably isn’t real.

That kind of error would have been less likely with paper books that had human editors and authors. We hardly thought about this benefit of the old system, until it was gone. Because books had some cost to write and print, it made economic sense to employ an editor to ensure quality. For a while, no one would have thought of spewing out this ocean of associated terms that we get from ChatGPT, because it was too expensive. So, the first underappreciated benefit of printed books was that they were relatively more accurate.

Tyler Cowen released his latest book GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter? online. You can download the PDF or query an AI Chatbot about the book.

This is the first “generative book” that I had ever accessed. I did the worst thing, right away. I asked the Chatbot to give away the ending, and it did.

I wish I could have bought the paper book and read until the end, using the suspense as a device to get me to learn new details about famous economists. Books and movies used to be able to use suspense to keep the audience engaged. Before generative books, that just seemed like the only way.

I didn’t think of books as special until I used a phone to (try to) learn. Now I put more value on the hours I spent reading paper books when I was younger. Authors were manipulating me through that rigid medium. I was forced to wade through pages and pages to get to the point. But what value is the “point” without the context? Getting to the point through arguments and examples, instead of just seeing a tweet, made us smarter. The second benefit of books was that we were forced to work harder.

Generative books are a further step toward poastmodernism.

A middle ground I can imagine is asking the chatbot to play coach instead of search engine. What if the Chatbot could write you a shorter version of the book that cuts out the parts you would have skimmed in a paper book? Still, just knowing that you were skimming certain parts actually created context. I took that for granted, until now.

Something has happened in the world outside of our screens that feels both “full circle” and “anti-Network State”. The BBC announced that an American tech billionaire bought the English pub where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis famously met to talk with a group of friends.

We could just see pictures of that place on the internet. You can see my 2014 pilgrimage to it pictured below. But people want to go in person, if they can afford it. That used to just be the only way to do things. Now that we can see what it is like to live through digital media, we are discovering the value that existed all along in 3-D doings.

Speaking of Tolkien, I’m reading The Hobbit aloud to my son right now and I highly recommend the experience. I’m glad that he is capable of enjoying it, since the pacing is so different from the media and games on screens. To get an elementary-aged boy reading from paper, I also recommend Calvin and Hobbes.

We like to put up recommendations for holiday gifting at this time of year. That paperback of Calvin and Hobbes would make a great gift for a kid (or adult!).

Zachary told us that he has printed out our own blogs for the week to read at home on paper. That’s “full circle.” Maybe print has something for us, even if it is more expensive than scrolling screens.

Buying new hardcover books at a bookshop regularly can be prohibitively expensive. But if you look at used books, you can easily walk out of a rummage sale with 10 quality books for $10.

Also, sometimes ordering older print paperback books or DVDs on Amazon is extremely cheap. Here are some of the cheap Amazon media purchases I made in 2023. I might have found them even cheaper at a local garage sale, but getting it delivered to my house saves a lot of time. I recommend all of these items over scrolling mobile screens.

Where’s Waldo Now? Paperback (for kids)

Camp Out!: A Graphix Chapters Book (Bug Scouts #2) Paperback (for kids)

Apollo 13 on DVD

A Canticle for Leibowitz Paperback (don’t be afraid to go for the “Used” options that are much cheaper and perfectly readable)

The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reflections on Faith, Science, and Economics Paperback by Vernon Smith

Some people might prefer Kindle to paperback because it allows them to maintain a larger “library”. If you have very limited space to store books, then I can understand that advantage. However, I know that I learn better from paper. Printed media might still be worth paying for.

Afterword: I printed out two chapters of Tyler’s new book and it’s excellent.