Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
May 7 6 tweets 3 min read Read on X
I'm incredibly bored of talking about the Palestine protests, but here are some results from the recent Generation Lab survey.

Key fact #1: College students just don't care about the Palestine issue that much.

axios.com/2024/05/07/pol…
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About 8% of students have participated in the protests on one side or the other. That's a substantial number, but less than the 21% who joined BLM protests in May/June 2020 (and the latter were pretty much all on one side of the issue).

collegepulse.com/blog/8-in-10-c…
Image
Only about 1/8 of students blame Biden for the conflict. 34% blame Hamas, and 31% blame either Israel in general or Netanyahu specifically. Image
Many of the tactics that Palestine protesters have used are extremely unpopular among college students. 81% want to punish protesters who destroy property, 67% say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable, and 90% say it's not ok to block pro-Israel students from campus. Image
And this is all DESPITE the fact that 45% of students are sympathetic with the protests to some degree! Image
Upshot: Most college kids don't care that much about the Israel-Palestine issue, don't blame Biden for the conflict, and wish the Palestine protesters would stop being jerks.

That's no surprise to me, but it might come as a surprise to many screamers on this website.

(end)

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More from @Noahpinion

May 2
The Palestine protesters have created a dream Palestine that is almost entirely disconnected from the real place, in which all of their fantasies of a perfect society are realized.

This is a bit like what weebs do with Japan.
FromTheRiverToTheSeaboos
Most weebs don't actually want to live in Japan. They want to live in a local subculture of their own creation, whose values are based on gentleness and romance -- the ideals that attracted them to Japanese fantasies and made those fantasies resonate.

noahpinion.blog/p/weebs
Read 9 tweets
Mar 24
Comparisons between the Cultural Revolution and the Woke Era get laughed at. The Woke Era didn't use violence, of course. But the *motivation* of people wanting to overturn social hierarchies, especially students wanting to overturn academic hierarchies, is recognizably similar.
In 2010s America, there was a widespread desire to overturn local social hierarchies -- the classroom authority of teachers and professors, the cultural power of entertainment stars, the authority of nonprofit execs and heads of civic organizations.
In 1960s China, overturning local hierarchies happened via physical mob violence. In 2010, it happened through online mobs destroying people's reputations on social media. Obviously, the second is far preferable to the first. This is why economic development is good!
Read 10 tweets
Jan 19
Here are some countries that did catch up to other countries.

Poland caught up to Portugal: Image
South Korea caught up to Japan: Image
Ireland caught up to the UK

(graph ends before major Irish tax shenanigans begin) Image
Read 13 tweets
Jan 10
This thread asks how we should deal with inborn inequality, and concludes that the best solution is noblesse oblige.

I think the best solution is public goods.
Public goods have two advantages:

1. They engender material equality more efficiently than any other economic intervention, and

2. They create an equality of respect, through the habit of mutual use.
Although rich people may pay more for a train or a park, when they ride the train or walk in the park, they are equal in social status to everyone else on the train or in the park.

This creates a feeling of equality throughout society.
Read 6 tweets
Dec 7, 2023
1/Here's a thread in which the Economist's Mike Bird tries to rebut my recent post about decoupling. I think this thread is useful for understanding why the doubters are making the mistakes that they're making.

Let's go through it!
2/Here was my original post. I've updated it with a response at the bottom.

noahpinion.blog/p/stop-saying-…
3/Here's @Birdyword's first mistake. To say there's a "case for doubt" means that there's a possibility that decoupling isn't happening.

But just look at FDI into China. It just went negative for the first time in recorded history. That's definitely real. That is decoupling!
Image
Image
Read 14 tweets
Nov 20, 2023
Illegal immigration went into reverse for over a decade, but as of 2021 it's positive again.

pewresearch.org/short-reads/20…
Image
Just over 1 out of 5 U.S. immigrants are unauthorized, according to Census data. Image
Illegal immigration from Mexico continues to go in reverse.

The typical unauthorized immigrant is no longer Mexican. Image
Read 8 tweets

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