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Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
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15 Sep, 4 tweets, 1 min read
It pisses me off that there's so much cool stuff in China that now might get killed by Xi Jinping's "profound transformation".
These celebrities and dramas that China's government is calling "sissy pants" and banning are another example.

That's interesting, original stuff that the whole world might have enjoyed.

vice.com/en/article/xgx…
Friends have also told me about an awesome mid-2010s club scene in China that has now been shut down. Another cool thing I'll never get to see!
Even if you could turn your nation into a bunch of patriotic traditionalist he-man factory workers and soldiers by banning everything interesting or fun...why the hell would you? What kind of a world is that?

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More from @Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
16 Sep
After watching many hours of sword comparison videos, I can now confidently state my assessment that a katana is, in fact, better than a medieval longsword, but a zweihander is better than a nodachi.
The reason for the former is that longswords were made to be highly versatile weapons, but this meant that you had to be an expert in each particular use (cutting, thrusting, close-in fighting) in order not to screw it up, which basically negated the benefit of versatility.
And the reason for the latter, ironically, is that zweihander were even more versatile, but since they were only used by a few specially trained troops, this was actually a strength rather than a weakness.
Read 5 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
15 Sep
Myanmar looks like it might be descending into civil war. Seems extremely unlikely the ruling military government could lose, though.

ft.com/content/492bd2…
Meanwhile, Ethiopia's civil war rages on...

bbc.com/news/world-afr…
The wars in the Middle East and North Africa -- and the Muslim world in general -- seem mostly to be winding down, and wars are springing up in other regions.
Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
13 Sep
1/A quick thread about the origin of "Nigerian aircraft carrier", generally regarded as my most far-out idea (because I haven't told you the even crazier ones)...
2/I was walking through Shibuya with a Canadian friend of mine who lives in Japan, and he was telling me how he'd been reading about the bizarre racial supremacy theories that Japan's militarist leaders promulgated in the 30s and 40s.
3/In some ways, these theories were the mirror image of Western theories of White supremacy, as detailed in the book "War Without Mercy".

amazon.com/War-Without-Me…
Read 13 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
12 Sep
This post is actually quite encouraging. It shows that U.S. military spending is shifting rapidly in the direction of R&D. That's exactly what the military should be spending money on.

If you use the internet, you're benefitting from U.S. military R&D!

adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-36…
A lot of people bash defense spending, but not all defense spending is created equal.

Historically, military spending is the kind of R&D that we've been able to get both parties to sign off on.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Research by Moretti, Steinwender, and Van Reenen shows that military R&D boosts private-sector economic activity.

That should come as no surprise to anyone who has read "The Entrepreneurial State" or "Jump-Starting America".

nber.org/papers/w26483
Read 4 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
7 Sep
Score one for CRT!

pnas.org/content/118/37…
I say, if you want to ban CRT, you need to come up with another way of credibly telling minority kids that their society doesn't view them as trash.
CRT seems to me like a medication with a statistically significant effect size and a lot of side effects. But here's the thing...doctors prescribe that kind of medication every day. That's standard practice. If you don't like it, come up with a better medication.
Read 5 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
4 Sep
Do it. Texas has better BBQ.
Also I would put Central Market up against any grocery store in Afghanistan.
And I bet you have to drive 2 hours just to find a good fajita place in Afghanistan.
Read 4 tweets

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