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Megan McArdle Profile picture
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7 Jun, 4 tweets, 1 min read
This sounds extremely compelling and also, for all I know, might be pseudo-scientific gibberish. This is a broad problem with technical arguments.
After a public argument with a left-wing economist, one of his fans tried to shame me for fooling people--"You make these complicated, impressive sounding technical arguments I can't follow, and you'd probably fool people if we didn't have Professor X to tell us why you're wrong"
I gently pointed out that what she was actually saying was that she had no idea whether I was right or wrong, because if she couldn't follow my argument, she couldn't follow Professor X's argument either. She was just picking the gibberish that agreed with her priors.
Predictably, she got very mad.

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Megan McArdle Profile picture
8 Jun
I thought the ProPublica analysis of billionaire taxes was going to be exciting. Instead, it told me things I already knew: that the US tax code offers deductions for charitable donations, loan interest, and business operating expenses, and only taxes capital gains when you sell.
The most exciting thing is wondering who gave them the information, and how long that person will spend in jail when they're caught, as I suspect they will be.
This isn't a case where you could have gotten one person's partial records from an accountant or a disgruntled ex-spouse. Practically speaking, unless all the billionaires have the same tax attorney, I suspect the only place the data could have come from is the IRS itself.
Read 6 tweets
Megan McArdle Profile picture
1 Jun
I don't doubt there's a lot of worry, but I'm also watching people who don't want to return to the office (because they moved to Idaho or whatever) generate things to worry about which explain their desire to stay home in more socially acceptable terms than "personal convenience"
Me, I've been working mostly from home since 2006, I like working mostly from home, & I think most firms should go hybrid to leverages the social-capital-building benefits of in-person *plus* the convenience and low distraction of at-home. But not b/c I'm afraid of covid-19.
Also, workers who think all firms should offer 100% work-from-home should consider that if your job can be done 100% from your house, it can also probably be done 100% from Bangalore, so you actually have a personal stake in preserving the office.
Read 4 tweets
Megan McArdle Profile picture
26 May
A few days ago I remarked that the coming demographic crash was going to have a bunch of bad effects. I got a lot of responses along the lines of "We need to rethink capitalism's stupid reliance on perpetual growth". With respect, this is not thinking things through.
Look, I agree the planet cannot stand exponential growth forever! But there is a difference between achieving steady-state population and having a rapid demographic crash. Who takes care of all the old people if there are twice as many of them as young people?
And this has nothing to do with capitalism--socialism needs warm bodies too.
Read 10 tweets
Megan McArdle Profile picture
25 May
I'm going to write a longer column on this but I think that the people reassuring each other that the urban crime spike is only homicide, while other violent crime fell last year, should not assume that those trends will keep diverging.
It's hard to assault/rob/rape someone who is home in their living room behind a locked door, rather than out on the street or in a bar or a parking lot where you can find them.
If the homicide spike was an anomalous reaction to the emotional and economic pressures of the pandemic, then homicide will fall back towards other crimes. But if homicide was driven by depolicing, and that continues into reopening, then likely other crime will rise instead.
Read 5 tweets
Megan McArdle Profile picture
18 May
It was reasonable to think that an explanation which sounded like a movie plot was less likely than the usual way we get new viruses, from animals

The problem is, people went full-frontal jerk about it, treating it as the equivalent of "the freemasons are poisoning the wells"
I mean, it would be surprising, but ... when outbreak is right next to a virology lab that studies these very viruses, "sheer coincidence" actually seems less intuitively plausible than lab leak. Folks insisted that was not merely wrong, but obviously risible, based on...what?
Best I can tell, based on "The World Health Organization said so". You mean, the same WHO that told us they had no evidence that human-to-human transmission was occurring, at the same time China was locking a city of 10 million people into their homes? WTAH?
Read 7 tweets
Megan McArdle Profile picture
12 Apr
To me the biggest question about Haidt's (very important and impressive work) has always been whether the left's clustering on the "fairness" and "care/harm" axes tells you how they're actually making moral judgements, or how they feel they have to describe their moral judgments.
For example, Haidt asks respondents whether it's okay for someone to have sex with their frozen chicken, then cook and eating it. WEIRD lefties and libertarians say they have no problem with this. I believe they believe this.
But I think most of them would actually be reluctant to come over for a nice chicken dinner.
Read 4 tweets

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