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Megan McArdle
@asymmetricinfo
, 15 tweets, 3 min read Read on Twitter
I'm not going to have time to properly tweet storm my column on Jussie Smollett, so I'll just note a few things.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/jussi…
First, conservatives took this to be a column about why we weren't skeptical enough, which it is ... but it's really a column about why *so many* of the high profile stories in this genre turn out to be false.
This happens waaaaayyy more often than I'd expect from random chance.

My answer is that we're actually selecting for the stories that are *most likely* to be fake: the ones that are super-dramatic and completely unambiguous. You know, like crimes in the movies.
Those are the crimes we choose to publicize. Partly because they *feel* really true, and partly because if they happen to fit a political narrative you already endorse, they feel like slam dunk "proof" that narrative is true.
Real crime is very often just messy and complicated and confusing and you have to argue about why, yes, this was a hate crime and not just a bar fight; why yes, this was a rape and not just bad sex.
One of the primary characteristics of the famous hoaxes is that they're inarguable: the attacks are so dramatic that you can't possibly read events any other way.
If you filter for crimes that match the way humans like to tell stories, you're going to end up with a lot of fiction.
Which in turn will convince people that "victims" lie about hate crimes and rape constantly, because their small mental sample of incidents will be littered with fakes.
That's all I have time for, except to mention one random thing: HuffPo is reporting that Smollett was motivated by anger over what he considered to be an inadequate salary.

huffpost.com/entry/jussie-s…

Which ... I can't even.
Leave aside that 18 episodes a year at $65k per episode seems like ... a pretty good salary? I mean, people care most about their comparison group; maybe he felt he was underpaid compared to others on the show, or similar roles on other shows, or whatever.
If it is indeed true that Smollett faked two hate crimes because he thought he was underpaid ... like, how is the action related to the goal of getting paid more?

1. Make up a hate crime
2. ???
3. Higher pay!
It takes my breath away. I am stonkered.
Even assuming that this would, actually, somehow result in higher pay, did he not factor in the possibility of getting caught and his pay going to zero? Or if he did, then just how big a raise was he expecting? I'd like to see that expected value calculation.
Anyway, that's all I got, folks, because I'm off to a conference in sunny Arizona, where tomorrow I will try to muster some taunting tweets for those I've left behind on the coasts. And okay, maybe some tweets about the conference: scetl.asu.edu/content/polari…
Meanwhile please read the column, which, I will remind you, contains much ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONTENT NOT FOUND IN THIS TWEETSTORM, SO READ IT, OKAY?

washingtonpost.com/opinions/jussi…
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More from @asymmetricinfo see all

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Megan McArdle
@asymmetricinfo
My column on Amazon and New York is up. TL;DR: there's a war coming between Big Tech and the left, and it's not clear the right is going to ally themselves with Big Tech: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
One point of confusion I'd like to clear up: a lot of people seem to be operating under a misunderstanding: they think that NYC/NYS can now take the $3 bb in incentives that Amazon stood to collect if all went well, and redirect that into direct government spending.

Ummm ... no.
Most of the incentives were tax incentives--i.e, they meant that Amazon would pay less taxes than it would if it had just located in NYC without any incentives. However, thanks to Mike Gianaris & AOC, NYC will now collect virtually $0 in tax revenue from Amazon.
Read 11 tweets
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Megan McArdle
@asymmetricinfo
There's nothing better than tweet storms on environmental priorities like high speed rail, is there?

FACTCHECK: False. What's better is TWO tweet storms on green stuff.

So close on the heels of last night's tweet storm, we're gonna talk today's column: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
If you make fun of something like the Green New Deal--as I have, richly and at length--eventually some frustrated person will demand to know what YOUR plan is.
This is a logical fallacy--the existence of a problem does not imply the existence of a feasible solution. Doctors who opposed bleeding tuberculosis patients couldn't provide antibiotics, but at least they could not bleed the patients.
Read 30 tweets
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Megan McArdle
@asymmetricinfo
Hey, guys, I know what you're thinking: When's Megan going to tweet storm her article about high speed rail?

Your prayers have been answered, my little chickadees. It's happening right now.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…
This was a fun and anxious one to write. Fun, because I am the daughter of a hardcore train buff who spent decades working on New York's infrastructure. Anxious, because I knew that my Dad would read it.
(He liked it! Phew!)

It is from my father that I gleaned much of my understanding of why American infrastructure is so #@$! expensive and slow to build, compared to the rest of the world.
Read 41 tweets

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Jewhadi™
@JewhadiTM
Jussie Smollett Case to Go to Grand Jury via @TMZ tmz.com/2019/02/17/jus…
TMZ was told investigators didn't believe the 2 alleged attackers screamed "This is MAGA country" because "Not a single Trump supporter watches 'Empire.'"
😂😂😂
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Jewhadi™
@JewhadiTM
Jussie Smollett's neighbors cast doubt on his attack story nypost.com/2019/02/11/jus… via @nypost
“I don’t believe it happened the way he said it did,” said Agin Muhammad, who lives in the same swank high-rise near the Navy Pier as Smollett.

“I’ve been in this neighborhood 5 years. I don’t believe it, not around here … Half the people are gay and the other half are black”
A patron at Lizzie McNeill’s Irish Pub, about a block from the scene of the alleged Jan. 29 incident, said Smollett’s story “doesn’t really make sense.”
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Jerry Dunleavy
@JerryDunleavy
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Hugh Hewitt
@hughhewitt
First read my @washingtonpost column on a new era of judicial modesty at #SCOTUS —washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-s… — then read @rickhasen excellent summary of what to expect from #SCOTUS on redistricting cases: blog.harvardlawreview.org/the-next-threa…
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Ben Chu
@BenChu_
The argument from @scmallaby here that Italy's growing debt-to-GDP ratio since 1999 is mainly due to profligate state spending and an absence of market discipline is flawed... washingtonpost.com/opinions/italy…
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The_War_Economy
@The_War_Economy
(1) A Spotlight On Evan McMullin.
(2) His full name is David Evan McMullin. He was born on April 2, 1976.

onthisday.com/date/1976/apri…
(3) He was born in Provo, Utah.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/cia-o…
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