Tim Smith

Applied economist interested in economic mobility and history. In fact prefer movies to politics:

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

@Willynumnum FWIW in my chapter this has been an ongoing, cyclical fight that has gone on for at least 7 years with a rotating cast of characters, and the mass politics people have gotten stronger by winning it. Same has happened in nyc, la, and Atlanta; I hope to see it continue expanding.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

The lesbian bar story is useful because nearly every time you hear some innuendo about a successful Dsa chapter being a ‘bad coalition partner’ or ‘not listening to the community’ it’s because they wouldn’t play ball with a clique of entitled narcissists like the one in the story

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

Stakeholder vetoes and participatory democracy are mutually exclusive though! Successful membership orgs often use actual democracy (formal procedure with specific resolutions, governing and enforcing real decisions) to mitigate this kind of insanity, it’s not one thing!!

[Jerusalem @JerusalemDemsas]

you're obsessed with the lesbian bar's mask policy because of woke.

i'm obsessed with the lesbian bar's mask policy because it reveals the psychotic levels of entitlement bred by stakeholder-veto culture and participatory democracy.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

My team hired a zoomer a couple years ago. She’d written a very good undergraduate thesis, which demonstrated that she would easily succeed in the role. I expected we’d lose her to a better offer. If you’ve done this, you can have wet hair/iced coffee, but I suspect most haven’t.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

@brent858 The Kennedy center protest would be good even if they were big standard libs, but most of those people vote for Dsa candidates, and a decent number pay dues and come to events. I’m glad they’re my neighbors!

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

In all this talk of misaligned ai we’ve forgotten about misaligned corporations: it is irresponsible for blizzard to release wow forever right before the midterms!

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

I’m more ambivalent about Christianity than I used to be, but it is really sad seeing evangelicals freak out about gerwig narnia as if narnia is this towering achievement of some great tradition. It’s true it’s most of their intellectual patrimony, but that’s what’s so sad.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

This is because “many people in and around a rural town are vaguely unhappy about something” was solved in 1872!

[Liza Libes @pensandpoison]

A disturbing amount of contemporary literary fiction can be summarized as “a highly educated person in a major city is vaguely unhappy about something.”

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

People also know how to weight feasibility and salience pretty adroitly: everyone knows high info high income high attainment voters do this, but I strongly suspect others do too. Polling ideology is fine, but it feels like looking for your keys under the streetlight.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

Someone does this it feels like every couple years, and it’s fine I guess, even good insofar as it reminds people that the structure of our political system is stupid, but my takeaway — based on doing full contact politics — is that most people hold their nominal views lightly.

[Searchlight Institute @SearchlightInst]

The American electorate is heterodox — only 14% is completely conservative and 10% is completely liberal.

We mapped out that heterodoxy for the New York Times and @germanrlopez. Here's what we found.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

Tempted to cynically ask if this is good, but as a social scientist (speaking in my personal capacity) I’m gonna go ahead and say I’m pretty confident it isn’t.

[The Washington Post @washingtonpost]

Nearly one in 6 Americans ages 16 to 29 is neither working nor studying, and that share has been rising. We want your help to understand why.

If you’re a young adult who falls into this category, or know someone who is, we want to hear from you ⤵️ https://t.co/wYYGi62fZp

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

@leylaaa31 Really confused about what — other than patronizing dismissal — the liberal arts modifier here is supposed to be doing. Like yeah I know I’m woke and most people aren’t, that’s why I try to convince others to get worker…

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

Putting down a Halloween costume marker: Everett b true. I am confident this will not be stolen bc dc guys with the correct body type are Honorable.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

Tina has joined Groundwork

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

@trash_panda97 Yeah that’s a good idea. It doesn’t solve every problem here in dc but I really think it does help.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

This discourse is silly: the left doesn’t have that much control over candidate recruitment, many working class people have degrees, and most young people have spent at least some time at college. Jackson is great, but making him the prescription is pundit bs.

[Jacobin @jacobin]

The Left's next generation of candidates need to come from shop floors and labor unions, not think tanks and NGOs: https://t.co/aQT4IGvhQL

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

Cowardly. It’s not a stretch to describe God as nonbinary as an extension of Athanasian orthodoxy, which talaricos theology otherwise affirms. I #standwithjasmine.

[Acyn @Acyn]

FOX: You said God is non-binary. Do you still stand by that?

Talarico: I was being provocative with that statement, I get that. What I was trying to say is that you can't use human categories to define God. That is not controversial theologically.

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

If ranchers were at war with xenomorphs I’d support the xenomorphs, supporting the wolves is a no brainer

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

@LadyofCarcosa I feel like this war game must have given us mechs or something, that’s probably the issue…

[Tim Smith @tsmith8976]

it seems that nathan fielder has learned the right lesson from close up, a great film about a cool guy who young men should emulate, like taxi driver