the Roman “grain dole”, the annona, was not really “welfare” exactly, in its original form. Like many premodern cities, Rome had central granaries and fixed grain prices for them, but this was only about 20% of the city’s food supply. By the time of Augustus, the price was lowered to free. this had the effect of keeping grain prices low overall. it’s a price stabilization measure. it means, in times of shortage, food is “rationed” by luck rather than by wealth—which might have been a way to prevent bread riots among the poor.
great science is either a pile of hard labor by many ordinary researchers, or a sudden discovery by a lone genius...not so much in between.
implications:
you want either very high individual autonomy, or very coordinated group work with top-down management. you never want someone to be told what to work on by an ad hoc or unsystematic process, or held “accountable” by anyone who isn’t explicitly and actively in a position of authority over them. either you are your own boss, or you have a boss.
grants should either be low accountability (“some people get a pile of money, no strings attached, lots of randomness/variance in the selection process”) or high accountability (“we are starting a new org with a defined mission and structure and you can get a job working there and you need to produce measurable results”) but not in between.
links 8/7/25: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/srcpublic/page/08-07-2025
https://www.experimental-history.com/p/face-it-youre-a-crazy-person career advice from Adam Mastroianni
https://react.dev/learn react tutorial & documentation
https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/wat the classic “Wat”
https://acoup.blog/2024/12/20/collections-on-bread-and-circuses/
the Roman “grain dole”, the annona, was not really “welfare” exactly, in its original form. Like many premodern cities, Rome had central granaries and fixed grain prices for them, but this was only about 20% of the city’s food supply. By the time of Augustus, the price was lowered to free. this had the effect of keeping grain prices low overall. it’s a price stabilization measure. it means, in times of shortage, food is “rationed” by luck rather than by wealth—which might have been a way to prevent bread riots among the poor.
https://www.reinvent.science/p/science-is-an-extreme-phenomenon Ben Reinhardt on science.
great science is either a pile of hard labor by many ordinary researchers, or a sudden discovery by a lone genius...not so much in between.
implications:
you want either very high individual autonomy, or very coordinated group work with top-down management. you never want someone to be told what to work on by an ad hoc or unsystematic process, or held “accountable” by anyone who isn’t explicitly and actively in a position of authority over them. either you are your own boss, or you have a boss.
grants should either be low accountability (“some people get a pile of money, no strings attached, lots of randomness/variance in the selection process”) or high accountability (“we are starting a new org with a defined mission and structure and you can get a job working there and you need to produce measurable results”) but not in between.
https://www.alexkesin.com/p/the-day-novartis-chose-discovery Alex Kesin on the rise & fall of Novartis’s NIBR discovery unit.