Matthew Yglesias Profile picture
May 29, 2023 6 tweets 2 min read Read on X
It has come to my attention that some folks feel:

(1) That this is a question &
(2) That I should “answer Elon’s question”

My reply:

(1) That’s not a question!
(2) Every time Twitter is asked by a government to censor something they have a choice about whether to comply Image
It is certainly possible that if Twitter took an anti-censorship stance in response to government requests to do censorship that the censoring government would retaliate by banning Twitter or in some other way. It’s also possible that the censoring government would back down.
Elon Musk is a much more accomplished businessman than I am, and he surely knows better than I do that “invariably back down when faced with threats” is a questionable negotiating strategy.

But beyond that, the whole issue here is I poked fun at his claim to be an “absolutist.”
If Elon wants to say “it turns out that standing up against censorship comes with downsides and trade offs and I don’t think it’s categorically worth doing” that seems like a plausible business claim.

But then you’re not an absolutist.
Lots of people are not “free speech absolutists.” You might instead be a “profit-seeking businessman” or a “pragmatist who looks to a balance of considerations.”

But if you proclaim yourself to be an absolutist and then do a lot of censorship, people will poke fun at you.
That is my complete answer: I have no answer whatsoever to the question “how should @elonmusk run Twitter.”

It’s his company and he can do whatever he wants with it.

But I will continue to make fun of the absolutist thing as long as he deserves it, as is my right.

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More from @mattyglesias

Mar 20
In case anyone is still covering the IVF question, today's new Republican Study Committee budget specifically endorses the idea that embryos have the full legal rights of persons under the 14th Amendment. Image
They're not going to say "we support Rep Mooney's bill to ban IVF" but that's a ban on IVF as well as a national ban on all abortions at any week with no exceptions.
Also importantly while they say they are going to pass a law, you don't actually need new legislation if you can just put judges on the bench who agree with that interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

We know Trump loves his Federalist Society judges.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 13
Braindead rightists are enraged by my suggestion that people worried about the budget deficit should support the candidate who has proposals to reduce the budget deficit.
To be clear, I’m not even asking anyone to vote for Joe Biden.

If your priority is corporate tax cuts and such then by all means vote for Trump!

But don’t run around pretending to be motivated by the national debt while you do that.
If you are just incredulous about my claim and also too lazy to check, then good for you — nobody needs to spend their time become informed about the issues if they don’t want to — but again, I’m just asking you not to lie to me (or to yourself) and pretend you care.
Read 4 tweets
Feb 11
One notable thing about the 2024 primary is it’s easy to find polling evidence that Nikki Haley would be a stronger candidate than Trump, but GOP primary voters and most conservative influencers apparently don’t care.
Conversely, in the 2020 primary there was a good deal of polling evidence that Joe Biden was a stronger nominee than Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and it seems like Dem elected officials — and ultimately voters — cared a lot about this.
Evidence is everywhere, meanwhile, that voters are currently bothered by Joe Biden’s age.

So I keep looking for clear evidence that some different younger candidate would do better in a matchup against Trump — it seems like a reasonable hypothesis! — but it’s hard to find.
Read 7 tweets
Feb 4
The context for something absurd like “Woke Kindergarten” is that 10-20 years ago there was a lot of interest in trying to advance equality by improving basic schooling which generated stakeholder demand for reasons why pushing schools for measurable results was actually racist.
Image
Image
This is also related to the effort to get people to stop saying that diversity (or lack thereof) in the workplace is in part a downstream consequence of stuff that happens in school.

slowboring.com/p/why-progress…
Image
In the real world, schools aren’t magic and can’t single-handedly redress every inequality in the world.

But it’s still the case that school quality matters a lot — especially for kids from less privileged backgrounds.

slowboring.com/p/good-schools…
Read 4 tweets
Jan 7
Really interesting paper on the realities of household financial decision-making

nber.org/papers/w24161
Image
A related one — while in theory high interest credit products could be serving a useful market niche, in practice the people using them don’t know what they’re talking about.

nber.org/papers/w18969
Image
This kind of thing helps explain why rising living standards, low unemployment, etc don’t cure all forms of financial distress — in the presence of uncertainty + credit, bad decisions + bad luck can put you in trouble at any income level.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 18, 2023
What happens to grocery prices if the government spends a bunch of money on deporting 14% of the agricultural workforce?

slowboring.com/p/trump-wont-m…
Image
If you’re a native born American who specifically aspires to go pick fruit in the Central Valley or work in a slaughterhouse this program will raise your wages, but for anyone who works in a store or an office or construction site or factory it just means higher prices.
I think it’s important for the 2024 campaign to not just fixate on whatever outlandish thing Trump just said but to try to take people’s complaints about the world seriously and really ask if Trump’s program will fix them.
Read 5 tweets

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