Tweet

Noah Smith 🐇

31 Jan, 15 tweets, 5 min read

@bopinion

1/Today in @bopinion, I decide that America can have a little optimism, as a treat!

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

2/The last year made us feel like America was a nation in steep decline. And in some important ways, it *is* in decline.

But not all ways.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

3/On the vaccination front, despite a slow start, we're outpacing most of the rest of the world.

4/COVID has everyone talking about China eating our lunch...and perhaps they may.

But on vaccines, it's not even clear how well theirs work, and they've kinda been reduced to spreading bad rumors about ours!

qz.com/1959855/chinas…

5/Economically, we've bounced back since the summer, and we're now in the middle of the pack for the whole pandemic.

6/U.S. manufacturing is bouncing back somewhat!

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

7/And though poverty has risen as a result of the pandemic, it's only back to the levels of 2018. The pandemic has been terrible, but it has only canceled out 1 year of poverty reduction.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

8/Why hasn't it been worse?

Because Congress (mostly) did its job for once.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-us-gover…

9/The CARES Act was, as the kids say, a banger.

10/And even though some relief measures were interrupted in the summer (thanks Mitch McConnell!), we ended up dishing out a good amount of relief over the year. And now we're doing more, and Biden will do even more.

11/Now let's talk about our biggest *long-term* threat: climate change!

Did you realize that the bipartisan COVID relief bill we passed in December was also a major climate bill?

nymag.com/intelligencer/…

12/And American science, industry, and government policy have combined to produce a massive technological revolution in solar and batteries.

That by itself won't fix climate change, but it has made fixing climate change POSSIBLE!

noahpinion.substack.com/p/climate-chan…

13/So on climate change, poverty relief, and vaccines, America is doing a lot better than people realize. Still not nearly as good as we COULD be doing, but a lot better than lots of people think.

14/This is not to make light of the deep dysfunctions that remain in our country, or the enormous challenges that await us.

15/But if it's not yet morning in America, at least we can say that it's probably after midnight.

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

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More from @Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇

@Noahpinion

1 Feb

1/Here's a thread of my recent newsletter about Taiwan!

Americans have very little "consciousness" of Taiwan, compared to Japan and South Korea. That needs to change!

noahpinion.substack.com/p/taiwan-is-a-…

2/How much does the average American know about Taiwan? Precious little, I'd say. Except for bubble tea, most Americans probably wouldn't even recognize Taiwanese food!

3/Some Americans think of Taiwan as part of China (China's government certainly thinks it is!). This may stop them from thinking about Taiwan as a country.

But most Taiwanese people don't consider themselves "Chinese" in the national sense.

Read 31 tweets

Noah Smith 🐇

@Noahpinion

29 Jan

I know it is expensive to subscribe to Substacks. And I am very grateful for all the people who've shelled out the money for mine! But also note that 6/7 of my posts are free, and that you can get all the free posts by signing up for my free email list!

noahpinion.substack.com

I hope Substack will include a bundling feature soon, so you can subscribe to me and some other writers together at a discount price.

But in the meantime, a newsletter where 6/7 of the content is free seems like a pretty good deal for those who don't have the $ for a sub! :-)

And even if at some point I decide I need more $$ from my newsletter and put more posts behind the paywall, I will always keep a substantial portion of the content free, since I believe in the old ideal of the Blogosphere!

Read 4 tweets

Noah Smith 🐇

@Noahpinion

29 Jan

An old man on the streets of Berkeley once taught me that we compliment other people in part because we want to make ourselves feel more positive about them, but that sometimes this purpose is better served by withholding a compliment and just thinking about it internally.

He also believed that everyone hates each other to some degree, even if they love each other as well, and that honest interaction between people couldn't begin until they said "I hate you" to each other.

Ahh, I see he has his own Wikipedia page. Really interesting guy. I would sit around talking to him at 1 AM. Was sad when I heard he passed away a few years ago.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_Man

Read 4 tweets

Noah Smith 🐇

@Noahpinion

29 Jan

1/A quick thread of my most popular blog posts so far! (In chronological order)...

1. Techno-optimism for the 2020s

noahpinion.substack.com/p/techno-optim…

2/Nobody says hi in San Francisco

noahpinion.substack.com/p/nobody-says-…

3/Tankies!

noahpinion.substack.com/p/tankies

Read 7 tweets

Noah Smith 🐇

@Noahpinion

28 Jan

HOLY SHIT. General Motors will ELIMINATE gasoline-powered cars and SUVs by 2035.

This technological revolution is for real, folks.

washingtonpost.com/climate-enviro…

Some of the replies pooh-poohing this are cynical and arrogant beyond belief.

Internal combustion cars were absolutely dominant for a hundred years, and now they're being phased out in 15? That's unbelievable!!

Also, people who are like "Why isn't it 2030?" or "Why isn't it 2025?" or "Why isn't it yesterday?" don't seem to realize that the marginal effect on emissions of a small delay in car fleet electrification is small until solar/wind grid penetration becomes higher.

Read 4 tweets

Noah Smith 🐇

@Noahpinion

26 Jan

1/Lots of tech companies and workers are making noises about leaving San Francisco, LA, NYC, and other "superstar" cities.

Some are predicting a shift to remote work and distributed companies.

Let's take a hard look at what that would actually require.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/can-knowledg…

2/We're all familiar with the trend of tech companies and other knowledge industries (finance, biotech, etc.) piling into a few tech hubs, raising rents and house prices.

Now some think the advent of Zoom, Slack, etc. might reverse this trend.

blog.initialized.com/2021/01/data-p…

3/But escaping the superstar cities is going to be tough.

The forces keeping tech companies in places like SF are so strong that these regions have essentially become prisons for these companies.

Read 20 tweets

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