John Paul Brousssard

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

This! A 4-factor explanation of the "dumbing down" phenomenon? Interesting indeed.

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

To update my slide decks for my course “The Political Economy of Early America,” I picked up the latest edition of a mainstream U.S. college history textbook I had used before as source material. (I have no wish to start a fight, so no names; suffice it to say the book is as mainstream as mainstream gets.) I wanted to check whether I was missing any recent developments in scholarship or shifts in coverage.

I was struck by how much the prose and content had been dumbed down. In places, it truly read like a middle-school textbook. I went back to the older editions I had kept, and a side-by-side comparison from 2000 forward shows a clear deterioration with each revision. In 2000, students were reading a serious work. The current edition is not.

As an economist, I suppose I should not be surprised. Four rational agents shape the outcome, and not one of them has any reason to defend quality.

The publisher maximizes revenue per student, not learning. Simpler prose and lighter material may reduce what students learn, but they raise adoption rates: instructors find the book “easier to teach with” and students complain less. Learning outcomes are an externality.

The instructor worries about teaching evaluations and grade inflation. Assign an easy textbook, and students are content; you hand out A’s to most of them, and your workload drops. The instructor who assigns the harder book and earns lower evaluations bears a private cost for a public good. A textbook collective action problem.

The student, given limited information, optimizes for the grade rather than for human capital accumulation. If the exam tests recall from a simplified textbook, the simplified textbook is the rational choice. The cost of shallow learning surfaces only years later, too distant and diffuse to weigh much on today’s decision.

The university cares about retention and graduation rates, not about what anyone learns. A textbook that cuts the failure rate in introductory courses looks good on those metrics, even when it achieves the cut by lowering the bar.

The result is what one would predict: a steady decline in textbook quality that no rational agent in the chain has any motive to reverse.

The only way forward is to break the collective action problem: get universities to curb grade inflation (I am open to suggestions on how; caps on A’s bring their own troubles) and to care about what students learn, rather than about some inane comment on a teaching evaluation.

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@didier_lopes OpenBB is without a doubt, the premier alternative to "traditional" financial and economics data sources and tools. Soon, more and more people will be using it.

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@didier_lopes And what a FANTASTIC product you have built...

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@BojanRadojici10 I am also interested, but as indicated by others, many of these "offers" go "poof." Will you break the chain of non-response @BojanRadojici10 ?

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@samruddhi_mokal GEMINI

[Samruddhi Mokal @samruddhi_mokal]

Gemini 3 + Claude + N8N is absolutely INSANE

This combo just replaced the entire operations team.

No manual work. No $200K/year salaries. No coordination chaos.

Just three AIs working together to run business 24/7.

Here's how it works:
→ Gemini 3 handles multimodal inputs (emails, docs, videos, images)
→ Uses 1M token context to understand the ENTIRE business at once
→ Claude does deep reasoning and strategic analysis
→ N8N orchestrates both AIs to automate workflows
→ System runs continuously without me touching it

Real workflows this can handle:
- Email triage and response drafting
- Meeting transcription → action items → task assignment
- Customer support (understands text + screenshots + videos)
- Research and competitive analysis
- Document generation and review
- Project management and updates

The magic: Gemini 3's agentic abilities + Claude's reasoning + N8N's automation = unstoppable.

While others hire 5-person ops teams, this stack does it better for pennies.

I documented the complete system:
✓ N8N workflow ideas
✓ When to use Gemini vs Claude (and why)
✓ API setup and best practices
✓ Real examples business
✓ How to handle 1M token context

Like, RT + reply "GEMINI" and I'll DM you the guide
(Must be following so I can DM)

Skip this and keep paying $200K/year for ops teams that work 8 hours/day.

[Quant Science @quantscience_]

That's a wrap!

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[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@thisguyknowsai SEND

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@aiwithjainam SEND

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@swinkler78 Really is a shame an alternative is not truly viable....

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@swinkler78

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@0xsero Would love to help. Just let me know by DM.

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@atikcoder0 Canva

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@sabir_huss50540 PYTHON

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

IYKYK!

https://t.co/fDyC08HzMV

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@didier_lopes @alejandroll10 Interested

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@swinkler78 Simple is what simple does...
Wait, is that right? :-)

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@swinkler78 Both parties are proof positive of aliens invading planet Earth!

[John Paul Brousssard @fibrou]

@swinkler78 "The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."

P. J. O'Rourke