All of Virginia Postrel's Comments + Replies

Since you've highlighted the women in these paintings, it's worth noting that one of the first scientific studies advocating the use of masks in surgery was written by Alice Hamilton, a Chicago physician, in 1905. Quoting my article here (it may be paywalled):
 

In 1905, Chicago physician Alice Hamilton publishes an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, reporting on experiments measuring the amount of streptococci bacteria expelled when scarlet fever patients cough or cry. She also measures the strep bacteria from healthy doctors a

There's also the cultural pushback--the ick factor, the Frankenstein fear, Leon Kass's "wisdom of repugnance"--against anything too big in biology. People find big biological dreams much creepier than big dreams involving inanimate objects.

I suspect the day-to-day tedium (or perceived tedium) of biology turns off more people than a lack of big-picture dreams. Suppose you dream of regrowing limbs. How will you actually be spending your days?

In 1991, economic historian John Nye published an article called "Lucky Fools," which I wrote about in the wake of the dot-com bust (remember that?): https://vpostrel.com/articles/a-vital-economy-suffers-fools-gladly

The paper is hard to get online, so I'll quote myself:

Suppose we think of "the entrepreneur as the valiant, but overoptimistic investor rather than the heroic seer," he wrote. In this story, entrepreneurs miscalculate their odds of success. They start more businesses than they should, but those mistakes lead to social benefits....

If the few big... (read more)