we are getting bad at managing migration just before when we will need so much of it. https://fediscience.org/@rahmstorf/115729127242139985
@ike what a coincidence! i answer to that as well!
i’m 55 years old, but when i talk to myself i still refer to myself as “kid”.
"According to the…annual Harris Poll, for the first time, a majority of Americans believe billionaires are a threat to democracy. A remarkable 71 percent believe there should be a wealth tax. A majority believe there should be a cap on how much wealth a person can accumulate." https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/opinion/billionaires-politics-money.html
if the world lifted all tariffs but deficit countries committed to filling any domestic demand gap created by trade imbalance with efficiently implemented military build-up, perhaps surplus countries would seek a more balanced path.
(not really recommending this. it’s a thought experiment.)
life marinated in contemporary communication technologies is neverending moral injury.
my favorite platform is the public internet.
pricing power is the root of all evil, except of course when you’re the one doing the pricing.
principle is like kryptonite to the unprincipled.
Traditionally, we favored novelty.
i encounter a lot of worry over online porn and the effect ubiquitous AI-generated porn might have on users, but less discussion of the producer side, of the likelihood AI is the end of the porn industry, porn in all its fetish and variety simply becomes too cheap to meter.
to say that it’s a fallen world is optimistic. it suggests the world is not still falling.
from a really excellent piece by #KevinErdmann https://kevinerdmann.substack.com/p/are-we-underestimating-who-is-poor
![Text:
Both of these pictures show how carless families would buy groceries.
Figure 1 [Image of a 1920s-ish vibrant pedestrians streetscape (left) next to an empty, contemporary bus stop on a suburban artery (right)]
By any reasonable statistical measure, the people on the left were poorer than a person who might be sitting at that bus stop surfing the internet on their smartphone. Are the statistics that say the right picture is better wrong or are the vibes that say it may not be better wrong?](media_attachments/files/115/713/572/286/003/589/original/99ef40bd5ffcaeab.jpeg)
Text: Both of these pictures show how carless families would buy groceries. Figure 1 [Image of a 1920s-ish vibrant pedestrians streetscape (left) next to an empty, contemporary bus stop on a suburban artery (right)] By any reasonable statistical measure, the people on the left were poorer than a person who might be sitting at that bus stop surfing the internet on their smartphone. Are the statistics that say the right picture is better wrong or are the vibes that say it may not be better wrong?
we talk so much about making the world safe for democracy; we should talk more about making the world sane for democracy.
maybe we should amend the Constitution to repeal Article 2, and leave it to the legislature to establish executive agencies.
that you support a thing doesn’t mean you support every implication of the thing. i support highway speeds faster than 40 mph, which may well imply more traffic fatalities. but that doesn’t mean i am for traffic fatalities.
An amazingly rich and thorough long read on rent control as an institution and the importance of security of tenure to the formation of public goods like vibrant and secure neighborhoods, by @phillmv.
One of the best things I’ve ever read on rent control and the issues surrounding it.
https://okayfail.com/2018/rent-control-great-security-of-tenure.html
i for one think we should bring the second best available evidence to the problem.
For a cause to be just, there has to be a telos, a desired end-state, that offers a decent outcome to everyone, even those perceived to be on the other side of the cause. 1/
"Decent" doesn't mean an outcome everyone desires or would at present consent to. If that were the case, there would be no conflict. 2/
But a just cause offers outcomes it can credibly argue all parties *should* consent to, all parties would be fairly served if they did consent to, even though for now they do not all consent. /fin
"the public sector ought to have, and in practice generally does have, a much lower discount rate than the private sector. This used to be a big part of debates on the economics of climate change. But it’s also relevant to housing." (see also CA Prop 13)
an excellent post by @jwmason
https://jwmason.org/slackwire/what-kind-of-housing-is-being-built-in-new-york/