Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
(thanks for the heads up re the oopsie, as well as the kind share!)
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
can they take turns?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
they’re awesome with Steak-Umms!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
different countries, different histories i think, but one job of a functional state, i think, is to promote a common language. (but not necessarily exclusively!) so i think there are a lot of "other way arounds".
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World (At The BBC)
Link Preview: Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World (At The BBC): YouTube video by LouisArmstrongVEVO
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
[new draft post] Running on democracy hasn't been tried https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/11/18/running-on-democracy-hasnt-been-tried/index.html
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
is Keyu Jin's book good? www.keyujin.com/the-new-chin...
The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism & Capitalism — Keyu Jin
Link Preview: The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism & Capitalism — Keyu Jin: A revelatory, myth-dispelling exploration of China’s juggernaut economy Although China’s economy is one of the largest in the world, Western understanding is often based on dated assumptions and inco...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
github gone down. (not the website part, ssh authentication is down for me.) i'm ashamed i depend upon it. but boy do i!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
one way to understand Trumpist foreign policy is they view the enterprise the same way tankies do, except they just play the other side.
Loading quoted Bluesky post...
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
Thanks for writing! It’s an excellent piece.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
from @ad-mastro.bsky.social thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/are-roomma... ht @adammongrain.bsky.social
Text: What if a sufficiently affluent country with a lot of land simply will not tolerate this sort of tight-knit communitarian living when it has the option not to? What if banging on about "living in community" is, to most people, like talking about going without air conditioning? I don't think that is true, but sometimes it feels like it is. I think a better analogy is that suburban living (and this isolated way of living which can take place in any setting) is like junk food; something that is not good for us, but which hacks our short-term pleasure centers. Something which is almost impossible to choose to refuse when we can also choose to have it.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
oh, you’re fine! 1/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
but this is the essence of the crisis. @mattdarling.bsky.social points out we spend roughly 30% of income on housing pretty consistently. there are all the homes in the country, and we pay effectively a fixed price relative to income to live in them. 2/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
to a first approximate (perhaps unforgivably overlooking a massive social problem), we are all housed. 3/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
price, then, is not the main dimension where we’d in aggregate expect to see crisis. (though, again, see @kevinerdmann.bsky.social on housing for particularly vulnerable groups). on average, we always get our housing vouchers for 30-ish% of income. 4/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
it’s variation in quality that them becomes the whole story! 5/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
for my 30% of income, are the schools good like they were when i was growing up? is my 30% buying a smaller place in a neighborhood with fewer amenities or higher crime? is it buying only my share of a doubled-up household, when we’d like our own place? 6/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
if these dimensions of *quality* have changed, that can be a housing crisis! 7/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
of course other dimensions of quality will have changed for the better. the average household is bigger, even with more spacer per person i bet! 8/
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
so now we are in the real world, where there are trade-offs to account for we cannot evaluate definitively, in a value independent way! /fin
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
gack! sorry for a the typos, to a first *approximation* we are all housed, *then* becomes the whole story, i am sure more as well!
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
(and apologies to @besttrousers.bsky.social for citing @mattdarling.bsky.social when i meant the well clad Matt Darling, and to whoever @mattdarling.bsky.social is!)
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
in other words, your perception of costs includes your perception of quality. of course it does. if you do not account for quality, you are not accurately gauging costs.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
if the United States comes to have a much smaller role in the world and a smaller economic footprint, how persistent do you think will be the role of English as a kind of international, um, lingua franca?
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
make mistakes. if you don’t get it wrong, no one will correct you, so you may never have an opportunity to get it right.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
“Rent in the most affordable ZIP codes has increased by about 50% more than rent in the most expensive ZIP codes. Think of it this way. Over the past decade, about one-quarter of the variance in rent has vanished.” @kevinerdmann.bsky.social kevinerdmann.substack.com/p/im-afraid-...
I'm afraid the economy isn't improving for everyone
Link Preview: I'm afraid the economy isn't improving for everyone: Alex Tabarrok has a post at Marginal Revolution linking to a post from Jeremy Horpedahl at Economist Writing Every Day about rising real incomes.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
it’s worth stepping back every once in a while and marveling: so much winning. our new golden age.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
sometimes social media is so mean you find yourself feeling bad for the most unsympathetic people.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
they are not independent experiments. the hegemon going fash has knock on effects even in societies that might otherwise have governed themselves reasonably okay.
Steve Randy Waldman
@interfluidity.com
from now on “piggy” is an honorific.