Meant to write an email to you, but been super busy.
Your work has not only helped me stay more informed and conscious but also has been intellectually stimulating.
Two years ago I was feeling completely consumed by doomerism and the degrowth echo chamber. Your article on techo-optimism helped me understand the other side of the argument, how we can build our way to a better place!
Back then I was suffering from my chronic illness and everything compounded in my mind. I was depressed and hopeless but your ideas and forward thinking approached helped a lot in my mental recovery. Today I feel better than ever, and I always have the facts to back up what I say, thanks to you.
Noahopinion was my lighthouse in rough stormy seas. Keep the light on sir, it is much appreciated.
Your valued subscriber,
Rithik Jain
Ps : Meeting you at the Japan society event you did earlier this year was one of the best experiences of 2024. Would love to be able to do that again sometime :)
Even though I’m approaching 80, I’m relatively new to this blog business, having only become a multiple subscriber for about two years. This has one become one of my favorites because it does sometimes challenge me to widen my perspective.
I don’t really know what I’d call myself apart from American. I’ve been a registered Independent all my voting life, feeling that party affiliation tends to reinforce a binary parochialism, which to me is a significant part of our national political problems. I’ve been a lot of things in my life - student, soldier, merchant seaman, construction worker, camp director (and of course,a paper boy), and finally for the last 40 plus years a teacher of American and ancient history at the elementary level. So apart from American, that last is how I tend to define myself if I do at all.
And so it does seem to me that at the core of our present dilemma lies a significant misunderstanding, if not a catastrophic ignorance of what it means to be an American. As a partial result of that failure of understanding, for the first time in our history, we’ve managed to elect a man who shares that ignorance, and quite determinedly so; indeed who disdains the whole idea of America in favor of an attempt to make it about himself, his obsessive need for attention and adoration, his accumulation of wealth and power, and his vision of himself as the all-powerful ‘fixer’ of something that, while struggling, wasn’t anywhere near in need of being completely restructured by a narcissistic liar, huckster, and con man.
Yes, the Democrats need to seriously rethink their approach, and the Republicans need to stop cowering before this would-be tinpot dictator. But what really needs to happen all across the political spectrum is a far better understanding of who we were designed to be. Yes, the original design was flawed, as was inevitable given that it was a first time attempt during just one hot summer to define a nation at its inception as something new under the political sun. But to me, that attempt was the most extraordinary experiment in human governance ever attempted, and as it’s political descendants it ought to be our prime responsibility to understand what the Founders were trying to do, and how we can best further their aims in a world they could not have imagined.
Noah, not only is your blog the greatest econ-blog out there, Econ102 is also the greatest econ-podcast out there. Very happy that you're blogging and as long as you're doing so, I'll keep subscribing. Congratulations on 4 years, I hope there are many to come!
Since Bangladesh was the first country in your development economics series, would you consider doing an update on that. Recently we had a revolution that kicked out the PM. Now people are talking about doing a deep constitutional change before doing another election. Some ideas on the table include - proportional representation, term limits for the Prime Minister, going from a parliamentary Republic to a semi presidential Republic, federalism, upper house etc. Would also like your opinion on the institutional changes and possible economic policies.
"going from a parliamentary Republic to a semi presidential Republic"
Oh G*d I hope they don't do that one. Proportional representation of some sort is good, but having a strong presidency and a strong legislature, elected separately, is a recipe for disaster.
The Center for Election Science recommends Sequential Proportional Approval Voting (approval ballots, tabulated with the Jefferson / D'Hondt method). You can apply it to a party-list system or a candidate-centric system.
This is Bengal. It's the birthplace of bullshit. Presumably they wanted an elected President and Vice President to have a check on the PM's power instead of doing the obvious thing of getting rid of the constitutional amendment that bans MPs from voting against their party. Like always Bengalis want a strongman Messiah to come in and solve their problems.
"Like always Bengalis want a strongman Messiah to come in and solve their problems."
How's that working out? Singapore seems to have done very well with that system, although it has some obvious downsides such as no free political speech and some over the top social restrictions. But IDK if lack of freedom to speak your mind is something Bengalis care much about?
OTOH, Venezuela has been decimated by corrupt incompetent "socialism" strongman. Will Bengalis go that path? Are they so impoverished, there is no downside?
This might be a conservative argument but dictatorships are a high risk high reward venture.
Also people overestimate how valuable Singapore's government was to development. East Asian people value hard work and education. They're destined to succeed. If anything the fact that a hard working education obsessed population fell into poverty for a hundred years shows the problem of waiting around for enlightened Messiah to show up.
You should. It was lonely there for a while but econ Twitter moved there heavy a few weeks back. Bluesky is easy because a lot of people have good starter packs to follow people. Personally I left when Elon retweeted a very mild criticism I made of his support for trump and decided I didn't need that attention.
Bluesky censors science: you cannot say the true fact that "trans women are men" over there. Therefore it will never be more than than a left-ideology echo chamber, as Twitter was before Musk liberated it.
I am not sold on Bluesky either but Twitter has become a microphone for Musk and a generally unusable hellhole. Substack is a good substitute for political discourse. Any other suggestions?
I only use substack. I use X for real-time sports scores and clips (I did not need an acccount for this pre-Musk, now I do), and to keep up with the radical feminists who are not on substac and who would be banned on Bluesky for speaking scientific truth, as they were banned on Twitter pre-Musk.
I don't support organizations that censor science. I encourage you to do the same.
Regarding your first point, the fall of progressivism, this isnt just the US. I posted this earlier, but fits in here too I think: the reason populists in both Europe and the US score high is because there is a large voter group that is economically leftwing while culturally rightwing (or conservative).
Note that the meaning of culturally rightwing might differ between Europe and the US (Europe for example does not have the same abortion debate).
Neither the traditional leftwing parties (who became more progressive on cultural issues) nor the traditional rightwing parties (who are economically rightwing) appeal to this voter group.
So if leftwing parties want to win elections again they need to become more conservative on issues like migration.
An example of a social democratic party that is restrictive on migration and wants immigrants from non Western countries to assimilate and did win the elections with this position are the social democrats in Denmark.
I think you are far too blasé about the impacts of the current Israel Palestine conflict. Yes, there have been far too many people who excuse October 7th.
On the flipside, especially outside of the US, the Israeli response has done massive damage to Israel's international standing. This is analogous to when 9/11 happened and even Iran expressed sympathy for the United States. Now, 23 years later, what people remember is how the US used that tragedy to launch a war in Iraq, wrecking the country, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the destruction of America's moral authority. That some idiots in 2004 said "9/11 was justified" or "9/11 was an inside job" did not make the US response any less disastrous.
I feel like your indignation at people who are being pro Hamas has blinded you to how much damage Israel has likely done to itself through its response.
And Palestine protesters have an ideology that seeks the destruction of my country.
Neither of those things is true of pro-Israel people. Israel *itself* does bad things, but there is no global pro-Israel movement that is attacking *my own* society. Therein lies the difference. I don't support giving arms to Israel, but I also don't see Israel as a threat to liberalism in the U.S. and other developed nations.
I think you are really underestimating the damage Israel has already done to the global liberal project.
I am curious about your answer to the following questions.
1. When it comes to building a global coalition to help Ukraine and isolate Russia, do you think US support for the ongoing operations in Gaza and Lebanon have been helpful or harmful?
2. When the US tries to get the rest of the world incensed about Russian warcrimes like Bucha, do you think the unfortunately, far too numerous videos and photos of dead Palestinian children are helpful to that effort?
3. When Joe Biden and the Democrats could have really used a foreign policy win, (to help the cause of liberalism in the US) what was the effect of Israel not having a ceasefire? (Specifically in terms of the cause of liberalism in the US).
4. How do you think the world outside of the US is going to look at Israelis in 15 years?
Pro Hamas protesters and anti Semites are bad. Just as Al Qaida is. That didn't stop the Iraq war from being a massive blow and own goal in the cause of democracy and global liberalism.
I don't think Hamas and anti semites being bad people makes what Israel is doing somehow not threat to the global liberal project of making the case for democracy over autocracy.
1. Harmful, for sure! We apply a double standard to Israel and Russia, looking the other way regarding Israel's territorial conquests, but (rightfully) condemning Russia's.
2. Well, in my experience, many of those photos were actually from Syria. But sure.
3. I doubt this mattered much if at all.
4. About the same as before October 7th, honestly.
1. Shouldn't this be reflected in the posts about how the US can combat Russia? It seems like this a major handicap for the US on the diplomatic front.
2. Luckily, we've found out that people in free societies are really good at sorting fact from fiction and that lies don't go viral. /s
3. You don't think a ceasefire in June would have been very helpful for Biden? The Gaza issue was always an "issue in being," it forced the Democrats to avoid certain actions and do other actions because they didn't want to bring it up. For example, we barely heard anything about Trump's Muslim ban. I think Harris was successful at tamping it down, but I think she was handicapped by the need to dance around it.
(This is the "fleet in being" strategy. The threat of the Italian or German Navy in WW2 wasn't that it could defeat the Royal Navy. The Italians/Germans knew that, the British knew it too. But the Axis also knew that just having the ships existing in port somewhere like Norway or Italy would force the British to expend a ton of resources just to counter the potential threat.)
4. That would be nice, but I am curious what you are basing that on. Being an American abroad certainly changed after the Iraq war.
That's a super interesting survey. But it seems to support the thesis that the perception of US unbridled support for Israel has eroded the reputation of the US abroad and harmed our ability to persuade other nations about the dangers of Russia and China. Trump will make all of this worse of course.
The Palestinians are enemies of the US our ally Israel and allies of our enemy Iran, so we shouldn't lift a finger to help them. Perhaps a different path could have been taken, but it wasn't, and we are where we are.
Is there any rational reason why Israel should concern itself with the opinions of states without skin in the game and who (note the UN) regularly condemn Israel but ignore far worse from others? The only path offered as an alternative is to defer to the murderous organization which publicly delights in cleverly hiding among the civilians it controls.
I would not count a properly financed expansion of social insurance -- more generous unemployment benefits, higher subsidies under ACA, a child allowance -- as essential parts of Progressivism, but rather part of garden variety Liberalism that should be restored.
Expansion of the welfare state used to be canon for progressives before they got sidetracked (well-to-do progressives turned out to be not that interested in redistributing their money). Whether rebranded as a version of liberalism or classic progressivism I agree it should remain a key focus for the centre left.
Way more wealthy democrats than republicans these days. Complaining that they don't get to subsidize their expensive state taxes by paying less federal tax says a lot more about who they are than those virtue-signaling lawn signs proclaiming that they proudly wear three masks in the shower.
Then maybe do something about it so it does not keep happening? Easier said then done when you still want their votes. It's a problem for both major parties. You get a lot of undesirable whack jobs in those big tents. Maybe time to stop with the two-party system? The Republican Party is a nullity at this point. Who knows what it will look like or what policies it will support in 4+ years. The Democrat Party needs to move on from Clinton-Obama, but move on to what? the door is wide open ...
Dems need to embrace the idea of "Supply-Side Liberalism", or "the Abundance Agenda". Ezra Klein has a book coming out soon about it. I recommend reading Jen Pahlka for some ideas about how this stuff would be put into practice. Or look at Jared Polis and Colorado Democrats' success -- they were a bright spot in the past election; they did not see the kind of swing to Trump we saw in other places where people are mad at Democratic governance failures, because they were _relentlessly_ focused on incremental policies to control cost of living and deliver for the voters.
"they did not see the kind of swing to Trump we saw in other places"
Or - perhaps - it is because the front range communities that are a big majority of the population are saturated with California transplants? The only reason Harris was close to Trump in the popular vote is she has differential of millions of votes in California alone. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump was not allowed on their ballot, which is insanely partisan and undemocratic. But if their court reflects the majority of their voters, then hard to say they went Harris because of Jared Polis et al. Maybe, but I'd be more convinced if it was "Democrats' success" in Missouri (for example). I mean, Illinois went big time for Harris, and Chicago is one of the most terribly governed cities in the country (which says a lot).
Perhaps putting in comments that say, I’m a liberal, but (Progressive position X) makes no sense. In reading lots,‘I’ve only heard silence from the left for years.
As we know, historically, technological change has its detractors. That aside, the attention and surveillance economy is a non-trivial threat to individuals and institutions.
“By the time Facebook came to life, and Reddit, Twitter, and then all the rest, we'd doubled our user base again. We were creating wealth and novelty out of sunlight and thin air, almost like trees. A colleague-turned-competitor of mine would one day call it "Moore's Law for Everything." Everyone would soon have more riches and power than they knew what to do with. That was the goal. That was the game's win condition. It never occurred to me that it might also be the losing one.”
Thanks for your illuminating perspectives on so many topics. China's relation to the world is tragic. Providing the world with the solar panels and batteries we need to effect the green energy transition on time could make them heroes in the fight against global warming.
Congratulations on four years of writing and reading at a frenetic pace and sharing the essence of those efforts with readers. Hopefully, the snowball effect will continue to accrete readers and subscribers. All you need is a mountain and a lot of wet snow.
Congratulations on your anniversary, Noah! I really appreciate what you do. I share your "techno-optimism". It is not just AI, but advances in all sectors (energy, finance, biotech, healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, supply chain) are on the brink of becoming operational. Maybe, as you say, it will just make workers more productive but the scale at which is now possible is much greater than in even the very recent past. In fact, I think technology will be the driving force in global politics going forward. It will force a change in the role of government. Those that choose to control it with a scarcity mindset will stifle innovation and fall behind those that embrace its potential. Government's role in the latter will be to guide and nurture, prune out the bad shoots, and enforce adherence to principles. What we really need is the fall of complacency, and a switch to an innovation mindset. If the Democrats choose to do that and lead with both compassion and competence (getting shit done for the American people), then that's great. If not, the Bros are going to continue to gain steam because they seem to get this.
Happy Anniversary! I value your posts. And, forgive my posting here, but in the last few months I've gotten optimistic about AI and the space it leaves for humans and human judgement. I think that space will be more valuable every year. https://hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/ai-and-the-last-mile
Hey Noah,
Meant to write an email to you, but been super busy.
Your work has not only helped me stay more informed and conscious but also has been intellectually stimulating.
Two years ago I was feeling completely consumed by doomerism and the degrowth echo chamber. Your article on techo-optimism helped me understand the other side of the argument, how we can build our way to a better place!
Back then I was suffering from my chronic illness and everything compounded in my mind. I was depressed and hopeless but your ideas and forward thinking approached helped a lot in my mental recovery. Today I feel better than ever, and I always have the facts to back up what I say, thanks to you.
Noahopinion was my lighthouse in rough stormy seas. Keep the light on sir, it is much appreciated.
Your valued subscriber,
Rithik Jain
Ps : Meeting you at the Japan society event you did earlier this year was one of the best experiences of 2024. Would love to be able to do that again sometime :)
Wow, that really means a lot. Thank you so much!!
Even though I’m approaching 80, I’m relatively new to this blog business, having only become a multiple subscriber for about two years. This has one become one of my favorites because it does sometimes challenge me to widen my perspective.
I don’t really know what I’d call myself apart from American. I’ve been a registered Independent all my voting life, feeling that party affiliation tends to reinforce a binary parochialism, which to me is a significant part of our national political problems. I’ve been a lot of things in my life - student, soldier, merchant seaman, construction worker, camp director (and of course,a paper boy), and finally for the last 40 plus years a teacher of American and ancient history at the elementary level. So apart from American, that last is how I tend to define myself if I do at all.
And so it does seem to me that at the core of our present dilemma lies a significant misunderstanding, if not a catastrophic ignorance of what it means to be an American. As a partial result of that failure of understanding, for the first time in our history, we’ve managed to elect a man who shares that ignorance, and quite determinedly so; indeed who disdains the whole idea of America in favor of an attempt to make it about himself, his obsessive need for attention and adoration, his accumulation of wealth and power, and his vision of himself as the all-powerful ‘fixer’ of something that, while struggling, wasn’t anywhere near in need of being completely restructured by a narcissistic liar, huckster, and con man.
Yes, the Democrats need to seriously rethink their approach, and the Republicans need to stop cowering before this would-be tinpot dictator. But what really needs to happen all across the political spectrum is a far better understanding of who we were designed to be. Yes, the original design was flawed, as was inevitable given that it was a first time attempt during just one hot summer to define a nation at its inception as something new under the political sun. But to me, that attempt was the most extraordinary experiment in human governance ever attempted, and as it’s political descendants it ought to be our prime responsibility to understand what the Founders were trying to do, and how we can best further their aims in a world they could not have imagined.
Noah, not only is your blog the greatest econ-blog out there, Econ102 is also the greatest econ-podcast out there. Very happy that you're blogging and as long as you're doing so, I'll keep subscribing. Congratulations on 4 years, I hope there are many to come!
Wow thanks!!
Since Bangladesh was the first country in your development economics series, would you consider doing an update on that. Recently we had a revolution that kicked out the PM. Now people are talking about doing a deep constitutional change before doing another election. Some ideas on the table include - proportional representation, term limits for the Prime Minister, going from a parliamentary Republic to a semi presidential Republic, federalism, upper house etc. Would also like your opinion on the institutional changes and possible economic policies.
I will do that!
"going from a parliamentary Republic to a semi presidential Republic"
Oh G*d I hope they don't do that one. Proportional representation of some sort is good, but having a strong presidency and a strong legislature, elected separately, is a recipe for disaster.
https://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doomed
The Center for Election Science recommends Sequential Proportional Approval Voting (approval ballots, tabulated with the Jefferson / D'Hondt method). You can apply it to a party-list system or a candidate-centric system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_proportional_approval_voting
This is Bengal. It's the birthplace of bullshit. Presumably they wanted an elected President and Vice President to have a check on the PM's power instead of doing the obvious thing of getting rid of the constitutional amendment that bans MPs from voting against their party. Like always Bengalis want a strongman Messiah to come in and solve their problems.
"Like always Bengalis want a strongman Messiah to come in and solve their problems."
How's that working out? Singapore seems to have done very well with that system, although it has some obvious downsides such as no free political speech and some over the top social restrictions. But IDK if lack of freedom to speak your mind is something Bengalis care much about?
OTOH, Venezuela has been decimated by corrupt incompetent "socialism" strongman. Will Bengalis go that path? Are they so impoverished, there is no downside?
This might be a conservative argument but dictatorships are a high risk high reward venture.
Also people overestimate how valuable Singapore's government was to development. East Asian people value hard work and education. They're destined to succeed. If anything the fact that a hard working education obsessed population fell into poverty for a hundred years shows the problem of waiting around for enlightened Messiah to show up.
Are you coming over to bluesky? Miss seeing you on Twitter.
Maybe soon!
You should. It was lonely there for a while but econ Twitter moved there heavy a few weeks back. Bluesky is easy because a lot of people have good starter packs to follow people. Personally I left when Elon retweeted a very mild criticism I made of his support for trump and decided I didn't need that attention.
Abandon the Bad Place! (I technically still have my account there because I don't want the name stolen by some spambot. But I'm done with it.)
Bluesky censors science: you cannot say the true fact that "trans women are men" over there. Therefore it will never be more than than a left-ideology echo chamber, as Twitter was before Musk liberated it.
I am not sold on Bluesky either but Twitter has become a microphone for Musk and a generally unusable hellhole. Substack is a good substitute for political discourse. Any other suggestions?
I only use substack. I use X for real-time sports scores and clips (I did not need an acccount for this pre-Musk, now I do), and to keep up with the radical feminists who are not on substac and who would be banned on Bluesky for speaking scientific truth, as they were banned on Twitter pre-Musk.
I don't support organizations that censor science. I encourage you to do the same.
But don't leave Twitter. Expand into the echo chamber, but don't retreat into it.
We love you Noah, thanks for every single word your share :)
Thank you!!
Regarding your first point, the fall of progressivism, this isnt just the US. I posted this earlier, but fits in here too I think: the reason populists in both Europe and the US score high is because there is a large voter group that is economically leftwing while culturally rightwing (or conservative).
Note that the meaning of culturally rightwing might differ between Europe and the US (Europe for example does not have the same abortion debate).
Neither the traditional leftwing parties (who became more progressive on cultural issues) nor the traditional rightwing parties (who are economically rightwing) appeal to this voter group.
So if leftwing parties want to win elections again they need to become more conservative on issues like migration.
An example of a social democratic party that is restrictive on migration and wants immigrants from non Western countries to assimilate and did win the elections with this position are the social democrats in Denmark.
I have been a subscriber for a while.
I think you are far too blasé about the impacts of the current Israel Palestine conflict. Yes, there have been far too many people who excuse October 7th.
On the flipside, especially outside of the US, the Israeli response has done massive damage to Israel's international standing. This is analogous to when 9/11 happened and even Iran expressed sympathy for the United States. Now, 23 years later, what people remember is how the US used that tragedy to launch a war in Iraq, wrecking the country, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and the destruction of America's moral authority. That some idiots in 2004 said "9/11 was justified" or "9/11 was an inside job" did not make the US response any less disastrous.
I feel like your indignation at people who are being pro Hamas has blinded you to how much damage Israel has likely done to itself through its response.
Well, the difference is what the two sides do to *my* society -- and to the world in general.
Palestine protesters are fomenting antisemitism around the world, disrupting cities and getting violent:
https://www.barrons.com/news/trudeau-condemns-violence-anti-semitism-at-montreal-protest-e8428a84
And Palestine protesters have an ideology that seeks the destruction of my country.
Neither of those things is true of pro-Israel people. Israel *itself* does bad things, but there is no global pro-Israel movement that is attacking *my own* society. Therein lies the difference. I don't support giving arms to Israel, but I also don't see Israel as a threat to liberalism in the U.S. and other developed nations.
Does that distinction make sense?
I think you are really underestimating the damage Israel has already done to the global liberal project.
I am curious about your answer to the following questions.
1. When it comes to building a global coalition to help Ukraine and isolate Russia, do you think US support for the ongoing operations in Gaza and Lebanon have been helpful or harmful?
2. When the US tries to get the rest of the world incensed about Russian warcrimes like Bucha, do you think the unfortunately, far too numerous videos and photos of dead Palestinian children are helpful to that effort?
3. When Joe Biden and the Democrats could have really used a foreign policy win, (to help the cause of liberalism in the US) what was the effect of Israel not having a ceasefire? (Specifically in terms of the cause of liberalism in the US).
4. How do you think the world outside of the US is going to look at Israelis in 15 years?
Pro Hamas protesters and anti Semites are bad. Just as Al Qaida is. That didn't stop the Iraq war from being a massive blow and own goal in the cause of democracy and global liberalism.
I don't think Hamas and anti semites being bad people makes what Israel is doing somehow not threat to the global liberal project of making the case for democracy over autocracy.
1. Harmful, for sure! We apply a double standard to Israel and Russia, looking the other way regarding Israel's territorial conquests, but (rightfully) condemning Russia's.
2. Well, in my experience, many of those photos were actually from Syria. But sure.
3. I doubt this mattered much if at all.
4. About the same as before October 7th, honestly.
Thanks for answering!
1. Shouldn't this be reflected in the posts about how the US can combat Russia? It seems like this a major handicap for the US on the diplomatic front.
2. Luckily, we've found out that people in free societies are really good at sorting fact from fiction and that lies don't go viral. /s
3. You don't think a ceasefire in June would have been very helpful for Biden? The Gaza issue was always an "issue in being," it forced the Democrats to avoid certain actions and do other actions because they didn't want to bring it up. For example, we barely heard anything about Trump's Muslim ban. I think Harris was successful at tamping it down, but I think she was handicapped by the need to dance around it.
(This is the "fleet in being" strategy. The threat of the Italian or German Navy in WW2 wasn't that it could defeat the Royal Navy. The Italians/Germans knew that, the British knew it too. But the Axis also knew that just having the ships existing in port somewhere like Norway or Italy would force the British to expend a ton of resources just to counter the potential threat.)
4. That would be nice, but I am curious what you are basing that on. Being an American abroad certainly changed after the Iraq war.
Surveys indicate a small negative effect in 2024, but I expect this to be swamped by the effect of Trump's return to office.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/globally-biden-receives-higher-ratings-than-trump/
That's a super interesting survey. But it seems to support the thesis that the perception of US unbridled support for Israel has eroded the reputation of the US abroad and harmed our ability to persuade other nations about the dangers of Russia and China. Trump will make all of this worse of course.
The Palestinians are enemies of the US our ally Israel and allies of our enemy Iran, so we shouldn't lift a finger to help them. Perhaps a different path could have been taken, but it wasn't, and we are where we are.
Is there any rational reason why Israel should concern itself with the opinions of states without skin in the game and who (note the UN) regularly condemn Israel but ignore far worse from others? The only path offered as an alternative is to defer to the murderous organization which publicly delights in cleverly hiding among the civilians it controls.
I would not count a properly financed expansion of social insurance -- more generous unemployment benefits, higher subsidies under ACA, a child allowance -- as essential parts of Progressivism, but rather part of garden variety Liberalism that should be restored.
I agree
Expansion of the welfare state used to be canon for progressives before they got sidetracked (well-to-do progressives turned out to be not that interested in redistributing their money). Whether rebranded as a version of liberalism or classic progressivism I agree it should remain a key focus for the centre left.
Way more wealthy democrats than republicans these days. Complaining that they don't get to subsidize their expensive state taxes by paying less federal tax says a lot more about who they are than those virtue-signaling lawn signs proclaiming that they proudly wear three masks in the shower.
I wonder if it wasn’t more subtle. Raising taxes for social insurance is hard. Pro X stances are easy.
I shed no tears for Progressives but I am furious at how they screwed it all up and allowed Trump to return.
Then maybe do something about it so it does not keep happening? Easier said then done when you still want their votes. It's a problem for both major parties. You get a lot of undesirable whack jobs in those big tents. Maybe time to stop with the two-party system? The Republican Party is a nullity at this point. Who knows what it will look like or what policies it will support in 4+ years. The Democrat Party needs to move on from Clinton-Obama, but move on to what? the door is wide open ...
Dems need to embrace the idea of "Supply-Side Liberalism", or "the Abundance Agenda". Ezra Klein has a book coming out soon about it. I recommend reading Jen Pahlka for some ideas about how this stuff would be put into practice. Or look at Jared Polis and Colorado Democrats' success -- they were a bright spot in the past election; they did not see the kind of swing to Trump we saw in other places where people are mad at Democratic governance failures, because they were _relentlessly_ focused on incremental policies to control cost of living and deliver for the voters.
"they did not see the kind of swing to Trump we saw in other places"
Or - perhaps - it is because the front range communities that are a big majority of the population are saturated with California transplants? The only reason Harris was close to Trump in the popular vote is she has differential of millions of votes in California alone. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump was not allowed on their ballot, which is insanely partisan and undemocratic. But if their court reflects the majority of their voters, then hard to say they went Harris because of Jared Polis et al. Maybe, but I'd be more convinced if it was "Democrats' success" in Missouri (for example). I mean, Illinois went big time for Harris, and Chicago is one of the most terribly governed cities in the country (which says a lot).
I don’t think California transplants are normally particularly liberal. Unless all the liberal ones just headed over to Colorado for some reason.
Perhaps putting in comments that say, I’m a liberal, but (Progressive position X) makes no sense. In reading lots,‘I’ve only heard silence from the left for years.
If 1% of voters had switched from Trump to Harris, she would have won. It’s really hard to know what motivated that 1%.
Very true
I just posted 4 dissents from this post. For me, that is a demonstration of the value of Noahpinion, the reason I'm a happy subscriber.
Happy Birthday times four! :)
As we know, historically, technological change has its detractors. That aside, the attention and surveillance economy is a non-trivial threat to individuals and institutions.
“By the time Facebook came to life, and Reddit, Twitter, and then all the rest, we'd doubled our user base again. We were creating wealth and novelty out of sunlight and thin air, almost like trees. A colleague-turned-competitor of mine would one day call it "Moore's Law for Everything." Everyone would soon have more riches and power than they knew what to do with. That was the goal. That was the game's win condition. It never occurred to me that it might also be the losing one.”
— Playground, Richard Powers
Thanks for your illuminating perspectives on so many topics. China's relation to the world is tragic. Providing the world with the solar panels and batteries we need to effect the green energy transition on time could make them heroes in the fight against global warming.
Congratulations on four years of writing and reading at a frenetic pace and sharing the essence of those efforts with readers. Hopefully, the snowball effect will continue to accrete readers and subscribers. All you need is a mountain and a lot of wet snow.
Thanks, John!
Congratulations on your anniversary, Noah! I really appreciate what you do. I share your "techno-optimism". It is not just AI, but advances in all sectors (energy, finance, biotech, healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, supply chain) are on the brink of becoming operational. Maybe, as you say, it will just make workers more productive but the scale at which is now possible is much greater than in even the very recent past. In fact, I think technology will be the driving force in global politics going forward. It will force a change in the role of government. Those that choose to control it with a scarcity mindset will stifle innovation and fall behind those that embrace its potential. Government's role in the latter will be to guide and nurture, prune out the bad shoots, and enforce adherence to principles. What we really need is the fall of complacency, and a switch to an innovation mindset. If the Democrats choose to do that and lead with both compassion and competence (getting shit done for the American people), then that's great. If not, the Bros are going to continue to gain steam because they seem to get this.
Happy Anniversary! I value your posts. And, forgive my posting here, but in the last few months I've gotten optimistic about AI and the space it leaves for humans and human judgement. I think that space will be more valuable every year. https://hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com/p/ai-and-the-last-mile