Flashcards and Recoding America
your Saturday roundup
Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Birth Rates Redux. Last week I touched on declining birth rates, the implications and possible causes. It sparked a lot of conversation and feedback. One loyal reader pointed out that the decline of sperm counts may be overhyped and understudied. As for why people are choosing to have fewer children, the focus was on practical considerations like leave, childcare, cost and logistics. Israel reportedly has supportive policies, strong culture around making room for child rearing. Apparently, the country stands out in higher birth rates. But what about Hungary? Didn’t they spend almost 5% of GDP to increase birth rates and are still below replacement? And Sweden or Denmark are famous for leave policies but birthrates keep declining. Much more to learn!
Why and How to Learn Facts. With information so accessible, you may wonder why you should learn facts. A clear answer is helpful. In fact, on our podcast David Blake argued that a learning goal is more important than curiosity in successful learning. Possible answers include:
Acquisition of new skills: many skills depend on fluency with a core set of facts,
Creativity: much of creativity is about making connections between different facts and that is hard to do if they aren’t contain in one mind,
Understanding: to evaluate new information or arguments.
Convinced? Evidence is mounting that flashcards with spaced retention are the best way to learn new facts. For digital flashcards, Anki is an open source tool with a strong community. I’ve also enjoyed testing the closed source alternative Thought Saver.
Recoding America. The founder of Code for America, Jennifer Pahlka, published a manifesto called Recoding America. In the early 20th century, civil service reforms succeeded in reducing old-style corruption and patronage. Part of that effort was separating policy and delivery. In the second half of the century, the focus increased on outsourcing non-core functions and buying commodities available in the market. As the digital revolution took off, the government did not build enough expertise in digital delivery. Many government services are fundamentally information products (licensing, reporting, and money movement) or expected to have user-friendly digital front ends. Therefore, she argues, digital product management should be a core competency of the government. We want agile rather than waterfall software development. We want policymakers who make decisions with digital delivery in mind. We want a management culture that uses data to steer rather than using data just for after the fact accountability. We want to enable and embrace user research. We want to focus more on outcomes for people rather than just compliance with the process. Can we deregulate the government itself to save cost, improve delivery and increase trust in government? She highlights some bright spots showing it can be done.
Until next week,
Miles