Optimistic problem solver | To be or to do?
Austin, TX
Joined June 2009
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Patrick Ward retweeted
If you are starting company right now or recently. Seriously look at whether should reincorporate because of changes to qsbs that go into effect today
von Neumann’s game theoretic logic of nuclear deterrence was not entirely wrong—in some cases, it’s exactly correct
Patrick Ward retweeted
Part of why it's so important to have a hard line about absolutely no violence at a protest for any reason - even in response to govt violence - is that there are a lot of people who don't care about your cause but want an excuse to destroy things.
Patrick Ward retweeted
What happened when the U.S. sent 400,000 Mexican workers back to Mexico in the 1930s?
The employment rate of native workers went down noticeably as a direct result.
(Yes, you read that correctly.)
Patrick Ward retweeted
The less you have to learn things the more learning things becomes an edge, and I think that’ll stay true for quite a while at least
Patrick Ward retweeted
Stupid policy passes 100-0 bc it seems to benefit everyone - workers get more, businesses don’t have to pay for it.
But the carve-out costs billions that could 2x the EITC for all low-wage workers, not just tipped ones.
soundbites over sound policy, as per usual :(
Patrick Ward retweeted
Cato published my review of the ~240 Venezuelans the US government renditioned 2 months ago to Salvador’s notorious prison. We identified FIFTY who came legally, never violated any immigration law, but are imprisoned at the US government’s request and at US taxpayer expense.
Purely individual decisions often produce the same paradox.
Some forecast better than others, and improvement is always possible. But misprediction—and, with it, surprise and regret—are unavoidable.
In addition to these obviously correct points, Trump’s demand for ideological diversity at Harvard makes one more carryover mistake from DEI: assuming ideological diversity in academia should be achieved through self-similar diversity within each institution.
In any healthy market-based system, inter-institutional variation will account for much of the overall diversity on any important dimension. It won’t all appear as intra-institutional diversity.
Me in The Economist on the problem with Trump's demand for "ideological diversity" at Harvard:
It is understandable where the concern with ideological diversity comes from. Conservatives have been discriminated against by universities through practices like diversity statements, which screen for the acceptance of certain left-wing ideas. That said, the theory that one needs present discrimination to overcome past discrimination is the precise logic of DEI. Conservatives in that case understand that the cure can be worse than the disease, as forcing factors unrelated to merit into the processes of hiring and admissions ends up creating more unfairness and resentment. Moreover, certain fields have nothing to do with politics at all. There are few reasons to worry about a left-wing bias in mathematics. The position that there is no such thing as politically neutral scholarship is another terrible idea from the left that conservatives would be better off not borrowing.
Patrick Ward retweeted
The absolute hardest thing to convince people of is that the optimal amount of fraud in a system is not zero. Obviously it would be ideal if there were no fraud, but at some point the cost of catching it outweighs the benefits
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Patrick Ward retweeted
The timing of the anti-neoliberal story just doesn't add up.
Wage growth stagnated before globalization took off. When globalization took off, working-class men's wages started growing again.
Patrick Ward retweeted
Free trade didn't destroy the Rust Belt.
It was labor unions.
"The Rust Belt’s manufacturing decline isn’t primarily about jobs going to Mexico. It’s about jobs going to Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee."
Patrick Ward retweeted
I’ve got an article out in the Washington Post today explaining how the South is doing so well in manufacturing and why neither party wants to talk about it. The #1 auto exporting state isn’t Michigan, it’s Alabama. How did that happen? 1/4 (link below)
Patrick Ward retweeted
I am begging everyone: do not turn educational improvements into a culture war. This is not a red state / blue state thing.
Every kid in America could benefit from this
Follow @karenvaites, read about this incredible turn-around
karenvaites.org/p/the-southe…
Patrick Ward retweeted
I think I'm beating a dead horse, but this is still new info to a lot of people:
Mississippi's educational improvements are replicable! They shifted to a science-based reading curriculum and it's working!
Your state could do this too!
xitter.cf/ProfDBernstein/status/…
Characterizing MAHA as Nietzschean works well at the aesthetic level.
But the epistemic pathologies Derek points to in MAHA—and that MAGA broadly shares—have deeper, independent roots.
Beyond the obvious anti-institution vibes, there’s a very Nietzschean undercurrent to MAHA. The whole movement seems fairly disgusted by illness and obsessed with ubermensch concepts of optimizing health.
That’s how you get a bunch of people, some of whom have a real facility with data, who are obsessed with finding fault with official therapies (anti-vax, anti-GLP, skeptical of pharma cures) yet consistently incapable of seeing the same downsides in substances that merely improve health in healthy people —like supplements (many of which are pure BS) or psychedelics (which are interesting! but whose risks deserve real consideration, not blind faith)