En sak jag lärde mig under Trump-åren är att det mest användbara analytiska ramverket för att förstå den populistiska högern är att fråga "vem försöker de trycka till nu?" /1

https://twitter.com/Bringselius/status/1676120084090089474

Enligt den här analysen drivs den populistiska högern inte i första hand av en vilja att göra världen bättre, utan att trycka till människor man tycker har det för bra: bättre än 'vi' eller bättre än de förtjänar. /2

Writing in today’s @IrishTimes, Minister for Public Expenditure @Paschald calls How Economics Can Save The World “delightful … beautiful and wise” 🙏 @IrishTimes @Paschald From the review: "The author skilfully introduces contemporary economists and their research. This book is delightful in demonstrating how economic theory has developed new and unexpected frontiers." >

There's a simply massive sea change going on in Swedish politics rn, which appears to have gone largely unnoticed. (Graph from pollofpolls.se) 🧵 /1 The center-left Social Democrats (S) have shot up to 36.9% in recent polls, up from 30.3% in the November 2022 election and 23.9% in February 2020. The increase puts them *way* ahead of the competition. pollofpolls.se /2

Every day there's new evidence that the Swedish 🇸🇪 Gov't is hilariously bad at negotiations. 🧵 /1 The Swedish Gov't wants Turkey 🇹🇷 to let Sweden join NATO. Turkey wants weapons, extraditions, crackdowns on Kurdish activists, and a laundry list of other actions. /2

If I told you there's a way to enjoy delicious meat at zero marginal cost to the animals or the environment, would you believe me? 🧵 /1 Where I live, anyway, there'a huge wild boar population with effectively no natural predators. They cause ~10.000 traffic accidents a year and about SEK 1B worth of damages to the agricultural sector. /2
naturvardsverket.se/om-oss/publika…

More evidence that we saw in #Sweden was the collapse of the center right – rather than the surge of the extreme right or an increase in polarization. Chart from pollofpolls.se #val2022 #valet2022 /1 The support for the Sweden Democrats (yellow line) rose in 2014–15, when Sweden had a record number of asylum seekers scb.se/hitta-statisti… It's been relatively constant since. In Dec 2015, support for SD was 20%, within the margin of error of the election result (20.5%). /2

The Swedish center right is celebrating as though they won the recent election. But the four traditional right-wing parties lost a cumulative 4.5% of the vote. That's considerably more than the extreme right gained (3%), meaning they must have lost voters to the left & right. /1 It would be incorrect to describe the outcome in terms of political polarization. On the other side of the political spectrum, the center left gained at the expense of the former Communists. It would be more accurate to talk about the collapse of the center right. /2

On NATO expansion and availability bias: lessons from behavioral science and 9/11 🧵 /1 Following the 9/11 terrorist attack, the share of Americans who were 'very' or 'somewhat' worried about falling victim to a terrorist attack reached 58%. /2
news.gallup.com/poll/4909/terr…

We can’t even request a new coffee machine at the University without extensive deliberation over the course of several weeks. But the Gov’t can decide to join Nato in a matter of days, with only perfunctory public discussion 🤷‍♂️ I tried to get a conversation started, multiple times, during the Trump era. Nobody – not even the proponents – had the slightest interest. I couldn’t get a single friend or acquaintance to engage.

A thread about why philosophers are so widely disliked and disrespected quickly turned into an occasion to bash economics – a discipline about which philosophers know precious little.

Maybe that’s your answer right there. Philosophers have the most annoying habit of criticizing things they’ve made no serious effort to understand. Doing so generates zero new insight, and it alienates people from whom they could have learned something new.

Monthly excess mortality in Sweden 🇸🇪 and the EU 🇪🇺 2020–21. Data from Eurostat: ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache… #Eurostat #COVID19 #Sweden I think the graph illustrates two things, both of which can be true at the same time: (1) Sweden did well in int'l comparison, all things told. (2) The first peak didn't have to be that tall: early, decisive action could have shaved the top off of it.

One of the most long-standing critiques of Swedish corona policy is that it is, represents, or results from, some kind of national chauvinism. The critique gets it backwards, but it's interesting anyway: it's basically the most Swedish objection ever. /1 The line "Sweden has picked the worst possible time to experiment with national chauvinism" appeared at the very beginning of the pandemic, alongside the new term of art "public-health nationalism," e.g. in this piece. (It's been repeated many times.) /2
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…

This is great: One community increased vaccination rates from 49 to 67 percent simply by having trusted health-care partners call people up and address their concerns in a culturally sensitive way.
dn.se/sverige/vaccin… When you talk to people, you learn things. For example, many young women in this community believed, falsely, that the vaccine causes infertility. When trusted health-care partners explained that was not true, the women were more likely to get vaccinated.

Quick English summary: There is no doubt that mandates and monetary rewards can motivate people to get vaccinated. Money in particular is an excellent incentive. But! /1

https://twitter.com/ErikAngner/status/1461610137198768129

The benefits risk being temporary. Suppose you offer your teenage kid a tenner to take out the trash. It's pretty likely they will, in fact, take out the trash. That's not the problem. /2

Conservatives attacking the modern University might wish to reflect on the fact that it has got to be one of the most successful spontaneous orders of all time. /1 It's spontaneous in the sense that although it is the result of human action, it is not the result of human design. It's not as though the current mode of organization was envisioned and intended back when the University was founded in the 12th century. /2

My father, Jan Angner, died at age 75 in an offshore sailing incident on August 26. A Twitter memorial. /1 An experienced sailor, Jan was on his way from Lickershamn (Gotland) to Häradsskär near the mainland, when something went terribly wrong. The boat veered off course, and hit outlying rocks several nautical miles Southwest of where he was headed. It sunk shortly thereafter. /2

This article remains the best discussion of the ethical underpinnings of Swedish corona strategy, if anyone is still interested. The author is a leading political scientist, formerly of Uppsala University, and a long-standing member of policy circles. /1
dn.se/debatt/sverige… The central normative ideas behind the Swedish legal framework that governed the response were equality, dignity, and autonomy – and the notion that human beings must never be treated as mere means, but always as ends in themselves. /2

Can't believe nobody has asked economists how to fix that boat situation yet.

"First, assume a really large crane…" And anyway, in equilibrium boats don't get stuck.

Periodic reminder that in terms of outcomes, Swedish corona policy is thoroughly average in EU comparison – not exactly a model to be emulated by the rest of the world, nor a crime against humanity that should be prosecuted in the Hague. Only about two weeks separate Sweden and the EU in this graph, which shows cumulative confirmed COVID-19 deaths per 1M people. Source: ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-da…

One point that the pandemic has brought home to me is just how narrow people's expertise is. I'm regularly surprised by how a celebrated professor of X can exhibit a sub-college-level understanding of Y, even when X and Y are related. /1 Ask a professor of (say) virology about the properties of viruses and I assume you'll get a dependable answer; but ask about human behavior, public policy, causal inference, the law – or God forbid, ethics – the answer can go whichever which way. /2

In re Hanno Sauer's declaration of victory in the "reason wars": A thread. /1

https://twitter.com/kevin_dorst/status/1296714660767567872

Let me preface this by saying I think "war" is a terrible analogy for scholarly discourse: (a) it trivializes the real thing, (b) it suggests science is a zero-sum game, (c) it triggers norms suggesting that "all is fair," and (d) it encourages people to choose teams. /2