untoward data science

[Matthew Lubbeck @matthewlubbeck]

Why is the Canadian smoke now just a thing in the last couple of years? You're telling me there were never fires before in Canada that caused the smoke to filter down to the states? I was outside all the time as kid & teenager, I don't remember one summer when we had bad air.

[Nathan Cofnas @nathancofnas]

My father was a PhD student at UChicago in the 1980s, supported by a fancy scholarship. He lived in a tenement with a bunch of roommates. I grew up hearing stories about how they would swat cockroaches "until we got bored."

The so-called "affordability crisis" mostly refers to the fact that people's standards have gone up even faster than their wealth. No one (including me) is willing to live like boomers did when they were 25-34.

Young people spend a lot of money on housing that, to any previous generation, would have been unimaginably luxurious. They can afford to do this because—as every objective measure shows—they are the richest 25-34-year-olds in history.

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

Also a demonstration of sliding down a slippery slope

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

The UK really is finished. I don't know how you look at that country and have much hope.

[Kevin Weil 🇺🇸 @kevinweil]

This is an amazing quote, and it's true well beyond politics.

There is no they.
Everyone is figuring it out as they go.
You can just do things.

[Bryan Caplan @bryan_caplan]

I oppose guardrails for awesome new technologies.

Instead, I favor guardrails for the people who build guardrails for awesome new technologies.

They're the ones with a terrible track record of derailing progress.

[Ryan B. Anderson @OldHollowTree]

It's honestly amazing that New England has the forests it does, given we practically clearcut it in the 1800s.

You're living through one of the greatest stories of forest revitalization in history but it doesn't really make headlines does it?

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

Where will you get the time to do all this extra work?

[Ben Schifman @BenSchifman]

"Just do the work" applies to the work I know best, litigation.

I was always surprised at how often even senior lawyers didn't do this -- perhaps relying on memos or summaries prepared by associates. LLMs make such shortcuts even more tempting.

Instead, just do the work:

- Read the primary source documents (the challenged agency decision, the contract, etc);
- Read the text of the law and/or regulations at issue;
- Read the other party's briefs;
- Read the primary cases they cite (including the footnotes);
- Repeat until you have a deep understanding of the facts, law, and arguments.

Simple; but not easy.

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

Voters are the problem

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

Rent control is a stunning policy.

The literature, the experts, and the repeated experience of reality all stand undivided in saying it's bad.

But the public loves it. It's insanely popular. It's basically a 75:25 issue and voters want more of it.

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

And just humans are most fertile at that age. Why not have babies before work gets harder? Like college age, before they even have work responsibilities?

[Tradvocate @TradAdvocate]

Have you ever thought about how awesome it would be to have most of your kids when you're 16-25 and get to meet your grandkids by the time you're 35?

A lot of modern women are having their first baby after 35! 😭

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

Paul Krugman on the US versus Europe: “Yes, Europeans have smaller houses and cars than Americans do. Many of them also, as everyone has lately become aware, lack air conditioning. But they have much more economic security than most Americans, lower economic inequality, longer life expectancy, and more leisure time.”

I like including "lower economic inequality” on the plus side for Europe. They might roast alive because of lack of air conditioning, but they can die knowing that there isn’t an upper class that is too comfortable.

This reflects a sick value system.

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

Maybe they should raise their prices

[Seth Largo @SethLargo]

I regret to inform you that Yellowstone National Park has fallen. Only available for enjoyment in winter now.

[YIMBYLAND @YIMBYLAND]

Imagine a city with more kids than dogs.
Imagine a city where your kid's teacher lives next door.
Imagine a city where grandma is a 10 min walk away.
Imagine a city with young families on every block and playgrounds full of joy.

This is the future @americanhousing is building.

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

No kidding. Building those things is illegal now.

[Richard Hanania @RichardHanania]

Piketty, Stiglitz, and many other left-wing economists are literal degrowthers.

They want you to be poorer.

This used to be an extreme exaggeration about the left. "They want you to be poor." It's never been true. Stalin, Marx, Lenin, Mao, FDR, whoever you wanted to call the left, no matter how misguided they were, they traditionally wanted people to be wealthier.

Even if they're not advocating mass killing, there's something uniquely evil about this, because the ultimate goal is to make people worse off.

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

Anyone who's net positive in expected value to the bottom line? That's the vast majority of most would-be immigrants!

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@paulg Immigration to a country should follow the same principles as successful companies follow with recruiting

[Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis]

The strangest part of believing in abundance is how lonely it can feel in a room full of worry. I have made my peace with it. Being early always looks a lot like being wrong, right up until the moment you're not.

[PhilosophiCat @Philosophi_Cat]

In Europe, it was not acceptable for even a single person to die from Covid and no measure was too extreme to save even one person from the coof.

In Europe, you’re only allowed to die for government-approved reasons: heatstroke, migrant machete attacks, and euthanasia.

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

Amen

[Nick Harris @NickHarrisFWST]

My only big gripe with this sport:

If the ball is in the box, there should be no offside. You should have to defend the box, period.

The fact that this is offside is soooo ridiculous.

[Kimberly Brooks @1KimberlyBrooks]

Today I stopped by a neighborhood estate sale of a widow who died at 99, married an engineer and had two children, both deceased, therefore no heirs. The house was filled to the brim with history, music and art books, china, clothing and art collected over a lifetime. Of the two daughters, one died of a drug overdose, the other married with no kids but died of cancer leaving the entire estate to her husband .

I only learned this because it was incredibly sad to see the entirety of someone's life picked at by strangers. I asked, "What's the deal? no one wanted to keep anything?" They lady working the cash register behind the wallets and WWII hat (must have been from her husband) said, "no heirs, no grandchildren, the son in law didn't want any of it." There was bad abstract art all over the walls clearly by one of the daughters. I'm sure she was told, she was so talented pursue your dreams. It made me think of so many of my friends whose daughters aren't having or waiting too long to have kids. This is what is in store for their lineage. It just ends. All that history, all those stories, just gone. It felt like a thousand deaths.

[untoward data science @UntowardDataSci]

Were these returns accounting for signaling?

[Peter H. Diamandis, MD @PeterDiamandis]

The GI Bill sent eight million veterans to school and returned about seven dollars to the country for every one it spent. Educating people was and will always be the highest-return bet a society could make.