Ever wondered how how #TylerCowen, #ClimateDenial, the #KochBrothers and #libertarian ideas go together? Check out this book chapter by Nancy MacLean:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/disinformation-age/since-we-are-greatly-outnumbered/CBDB4C142EAB32191BFF33EE899641A5

Highlights include:
"Cowen found that “the freest countries [defining freedom as economic liberty] have not generally been democratic” – with Chile under General Pinochet as “the most successful” case in point."

Who was the most important critic of the printing press in the 17th century?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/02/who-was-the-most-important-critic-of-the-printing-press-in-the-17th-century.html

#FrancisBacon ( #LordVerulam ) had some surprising insights into the ills created by printing. Or maybe this is all fabricated by #ChatGPT — I'm insufficiently familiar with Bacon's works to have an answer myself. Shame on #TylerCowen if he's disseminating lies.

#technology #progress #printing #Gutenberg
#MarginalRevolution

"My summary of Tyler Cowen's approach to leading an intellectually fulfilling life" by David Gasca https://mysticalsilicon.substack.com/p/my-summary-of-tyler-cowens-approach
#TylerCowen #selfActualization

There's a discussion of the #Westminster system of government over at #MarginalRevolution . I've said my piece there, but I'll be checking back at the comments from time to time today.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/12/why-i-am-disilllusioned-with-the-westminster-system-of-government.html

#TylerCowen #parliament #ukpol

#TylerCowen 's Best non-fiction books of 2022
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/11/best-books-of-2022.html#comments

Self-recommending.

#BookList
#MarginalRevolution

"7. America is in general a high-variance country, due to large market size, ethnic diversity, relatively open and competitive markets, and the looseness of many of its social norms.  A higher-variance country will have many more people clustered in the unsatisfactory behavior patterns."

#TylerCowen

This is a basic truth about the United States that helps explain many, many phenomena, good and bad.

Why so much drug use in the United States?
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/why-so-much-drug-use-in-the-united-states.html

#USA
#MarginalRevolution

"Some of the most consequential changes come upon us silently, almost without notice. The world is in the midst of one right now: Our doctrines of nuclear deterrence are obsolete and in desperate need of an update."

#TylerCowen

Putin’s Nuclear Threat Makes Armageddon Thinkable
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-20/putin-s-nuclear-threat-makes-armageddon-thinkable?sref=htOHjx5Y

Via #MarginalRevolution

#NuclearWar #MAD #WMD #deterrence
#Bloomberg

"I think that some of the problem, though, is not so much in the intellectual weaknesses of a lot of conventional postgrad education, but simply almost the crime against humanity of having whole generations of smart people spend the first 30, 35 years of their lives in a total bubble, where they’re in this academic setting [...] The American academy is actually a terrible place for coming to understand how world politics works."

#WalterRussellMead

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/my-conversation-with-the-excellent-walter-russell-mead.html

#TylerCowen

"In other words, the price is too low, and government failure is the reason why.  A higher price is no fun for a relatively poor set of Jackson buyers, but the city’s per capita income is 22k or so, and plenty of countries in that income range have satisfactory water systems where you can shower without closing your mouth.  You just have to get the institutions and incentives right."

#TylerCowen

Water problems in Jackson, Mississippi
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/09/water-problems-in-jackson-mississippi.html

#MarginalRevolution

More #NiallFerguson :

"If you ask English voters [about Irish unification] they’re like, “Oh, maybe. Who cares?” You ask them the same question about an independent Scotland. They’re like, “Sure.” The thing that’s important is that the English don’t care about this stuff anymore, and they used to care. They just don’t care anymore. I think that indifference is the more powerful force."

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/niall-ferguson/

#Scotland #Ireland #ukpol #scotpol
#TylerCowen

"Can we expect there to be progress at all?  James Barry argues for the universality of progress, but Swift doubts whether moral progress is likely.  Burke wishes to take progress in baby steps.  Berkeley is skeptical altogether.  If you are ruled by the Brits, the richest society to date, but they are still bastards to you, maybe you will be more skeptical about moral progress."

#TylerCowen on the #Irish #Enlightenment

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/07/scottish-enlightenment-vs-irish-enlightenment.html

#EdmundBurke #JonathanSwift
#MarginalRevolution

#TylerCowen on #covid19

"I know many of you like to say “No worse than the common cold!”  Well, the thing is…the common cold imposes considerable costs on the world.  Imagine a new common cold, which you catch a few times a year, with some sliver of the population getting some form of Long Covid.  One 2003 estimate suggested that the common cold costs us $40 billion a year [... not including] the sheer discomfort of having a cold."

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/05/the-new-covid-equilibrium.html

#MarginalRevolution

#TylerCowen asks today "When were US home prices at their worst?" He links to an analysis comparing mortgage payments with median household income, showing that 1981 was worst; the study shows that home *prices* in comparison with median household payments are at their worst now.

But what grabbed my attention was "Canada and New Zealand seem to be the truly scary places."

#housing
#MarginalRevolution

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/05/when-were-u-s-home-prices-at-their-worst.html

Who loses status from the war in Ukraine, according to #TylerCowen ? Inter alia:

"1. An entire generation of German politicians.
2. Those who argued that the Russia misinformation machine was swinging major outcomes such as Western elections.  Said misinformation machine just doesn’t seem that good!
2b. Those who argued the UFO footage was possibly of a Russian military craft."

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/03/who-gains-and-loses-status-from-the-war-in-ukraine.html

#Ukraine #depol #UFO
#MarginalRevolution

"Another habit that will be hard to break is tracking the severity of the virus by counting cases. Until now, cases have been pretty good predictors of subsequent hospitalizations and then deaths. If cases become more detached from bad outcomes, will institutions and authorities be able to respond rapidly to that new reality?"

#TylerCowen

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-09/omicron-spread-even-mild-variant-could-create-chaos-in-early-2022

#covid19

"Economists have gotten a lot wrong over the course of this pandemic, and long before that, but there is one whose ideas have never looked better: Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate who died in 2006."

#TylerCowen

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-11-18/milton-friedman-is-more-relevant-than-ever?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-economics&utm_content=economics&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&sref=htOHjx5Y

#MiltonFriedman
#Bloomberg

#TylerCowen 's conversation with #DanaGioia is one of his best:

https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/dana-gioia/

#poetry #opera #art #jello #catholicism

"I have been reading science fiction for half a century, having spent my childhood consuming it in various forms. Now, for the first time in my life, I feel like I am living in a science fiction serial." -- #TylerCowen

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-05-17/science-fiction-is-coming-to-life-all-around-us

Via #MarginalRevolution , where else?

@Columbkille I got it from here https://mobile.twitter.com/ModeledBehavior/status/1386769707294892033

But I've seen similar claims before, like #TylerCowen asking #ReidHoffman why the Internet has had such a small effect on #productivity growth. Can't remember what his answer was...

2020 Scientific Progress - #TylerCowen

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-24/2020-in-review-maybe-it-wasn-t-quite-as-horrible-as-it-seemed

Personally, I'm most excited about battery technology. A #malaria vaccine would be amazing too.

#science
#Bloomberg