Crooked Timber

It still exists (although reduced) but the trouble is breaking in. For economics my favorite is http://economistsview.typepad.com/ which has a huge blogroll, and those blogs, say http://crookedtimber.org/ have their own blogrolls and so on. What are some of your guys' favorites?

If you're not familiar with the author, Dan Davies, he's been a contributor at Crooked Timber (http://crookedtimber.org). A great intro would be his choose-your-own-adventure intro to the Greek financial crisis from 2012 (http://crookedtimber.org/2012/02/16/so-what-would-your-plan-for-greece… Paul Krugman called this post from 2004 one of the great blog posts of our era: https://dsquareddigest.wordpress.com/2004/05/27/108573518762776451/

Kieran is one of the writers at the excellent group blog Crooked Timber http://crookedtimber.org/ which is one of the best places on the web for smart discussion of economics, political science, sociology, philosophy, etc.

Cosma Shalizi has a great article on these themes, arrives at similar conclusions https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-prob…

My favorite thing about Wilhoit's law, aside from the law itself in its elegant simplicity, is that it is by Frank Wilhoit, but not that Frank Wilhoit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Wilhoit). Instead, it is from a one-off, though typically excellent, comment on Crooked Timber (https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#co…

I'll also note that all of this still mostly reinforces your main thesis. One major issue with central planning is that it usually lacks the internal feedback mechanisms necessary to properly account for all of these factors. Price signals usually work faster, and thus more efficiently! The USSR even had an economic reform where they introduced mechanisms that could be described as "shadow prices" within their own system [1]. It was the driving force behind one of the independent discoveries of linear programming. I'd highly recommend "In Soviet Union, Optimization Problem Solves You" [2] and the novel (historical economic fiction, a nerd's nerd literary category if there ever was one) Red Plenty to learn more. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1965_Soviet_economic_reform 2. https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-prob…

Thanks for the link, that's a worthwhile click - their previous article is great too: https://crookedtimber.org/2024/03/08/occasional-paper-the-iron-snow-be…

More than ten years later this was one of the organiser’s reflection. > think the best way to understand Graeber is as a writer of speculative nonfiction. He is often wrong on the facts, and more often willing to push them farther than they really ought to be pushed, requiring shallow foundations of evidence to bear a heavy load of very strongly asserted theoretical claims. https://crookedtimber.org/2023/07/08/debt-4102-days-later/

I recommend this seminar on the book, which contains both strong critiques and a lot of interesting and positive discussion. https://crookedtimber.org/category/david-graeber-debt-seminar/

The fiscal-progressive nature of the New Deal earlier in the century was so successful it created the middle class in the post-war era (90% marginal tax rates!) and it was being followed up by a socially-progressive era of the civil rights movement in the 60s and the powers that be had to make a concerted effort to derail both. The takeover of the political dialog by economism using the Freshwater/Chicago school of economics started in earnest around this time and was so remarkably successful that Democratic presidents were spouting the neo-liberal conservatism[0] hogwash by the time of Clinton. I am a member of the Cory Doctorow school[1] of political thought. [0] https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#co… [1] https://pluralistic.net/tag/political-science/

OTOH, with that title I thought it was about the very long-running group blog[1]. 1. https://crookedtimber.org/

For the record, I also think nudging in and of itself is a bad thing and incompatible with democracy. Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi have a great essay on that [1]. [1] https://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/23/cognitive-democracy/

In this article, one can read about the parent's quote: > is often credited to Francis M. Wilhoit, who died in 2010, it was actually written in 2018 by a different Frank Wilhoit, a composer.[10] :) And in this article: https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wi… > But in fact it’s the work of another Frank Wilhoit, this one not a professional scholar of American politics but a 63-year-old classical music composer in Ohio, who wrote the adage as part of a longer point in the comments section of the political science blog Crooked Timber [0]. [0]: https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#co…

I enjoy https://crookedtimber.org/! It's indirect and all over the place, but it's opinion from people of a bit of a different political bent. Doesn't feel like the NYT / Daily show style propaganda, is in fact actually progressive made by people with minds and voices

Tobacco companies promoted this myth about how great DDT is because they were trying to undermine health science generally. It’s a right-wing scam. Don’t fall for it. http://crookedtimber.org/2007/05/30/ddt-tobacco-and-the-parallel-unive…

For those more interested in this, there's a follow-up to comments, which results in this (still on-going?) exchange: - The original article (linked by OP): http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl… - A comment made by Paul Cockshott (a Marxist economist and computer scientist, most known for "Towards New Socialism" book): http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl… - Shalizi's response to Cockshott, among his other responses to other comments: http://bactra.org/weblog/919.html - Cockshott's response to above: https://paulcockshott.wordpress.com/2018/06/25/plan-balancing-algorith…

"In soviet union, optimization problem solves YOU!" (The article includes a link to an article with such name, a good read for an in-depth discussion / comment trail regarding optimization in the USSR / CCCP:) http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl…

I also highly recommend this blog post, which this article references and links to frequently: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl…

Bailout by Neil Barofsky is very good. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00818J57W For critical responses to Graeber's book, the Crooked Timber seminar on it is well worth reading. http://crookedtimber.org/category/david-graeber-debt-seminar/

Chris Hayes' book is a favorite of mine, and critical to understanding the current paradigm. To those unfamiliar with the book, I recommend Aaron Swartz's review which I was lucky enough to read as my introduction to Chris Hayes: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/06/18/guest-review-by-aaron-swartz-chris…

Yes, sure, but there's a slightly deeper meaning to the joke: fascism as an ideology has always been built around the glorification of death. If you want to spot capital-E Evil in real life, look for the people loudly proclaiming their devotion to death. Maybe they cover it up with "God is great!" sometimes, but then they pop out, "We love death as you love life!"[1]. Sometimes, rarely, they do you the favor of actually printing the Chaos Star of the occult on their book-covers[2] (and I seriously thought that was a pop-culture reference until I found the link proving its truth). Or maybe they're just cheering, "Let him die! Let him die!"[3]. [1] -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfagPS6490 [2] -- http://crookedtimber.org/2015/03/10/who-is-aleksandr-dugin/ [3] -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PepQF7G-It0

Red Plenty is fantastic. Well worth reading. There was a virtual seminar at the Crooked Timber group blog which is worth reading if you enjoyed the book: http://crookedtimber.org/category/red-plenty-seminar/

Also, see Cosma Shalizi's excellent review of "Red Plenty", which includes a mini-introduction on the application of linear programming to economic policymaking. http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl…

If this interests you, you might like the book "Red Plenty". It alternates between novel and essay about Khrushchev-era USSR, when people on both sides of the curtain thought there was a pretty good chance that the Soviets would succeed, if not as a Socialist Utopia at least in economically overtaking the west in output and quality of life. Also, this excellent essay about the computational aspects of Gosplan, the USSR's mostly human-powered predecessor to Cybersyn: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl… (which is where I learned about Red Plenty)

Without discussing the merits of your ideas, I can see that they're echoed by the idea of "post-democracy," to use a term Crooked Timber describes in greater detail here: http://crookedtimber.org/2013/02/11/post-democracy/ . If you're looking for a longer discussion, the Colin Crunch book linked by the CT author is a good place to start.

_Red Plenty_ was great, although it's not quite what I had expected. Anyway, anyone even remotely interested in central planning must read Cosma Shalizi's http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl… (I'd say that's much more interesting than the Chile stuff, but that's just me.)

I suggest you read this excellent piece my Cosma Shalizi. http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/30/in-soviet-union-optimization-probl… There he talks about the computational complexity and limits to planning. He also talks about markets, how non convexities leads to inefficiencies (allowing polarization of wealth) and why large firms form: difficulty in setting prices and being informed enough to make optimal decisions benefit concentration of complementing talent. As computational power increases and communication friction decreases I expect we will start to see company size decrease and lifetimes to within an order of magnitude of the sceanrio in alluded to in Rainbows End where companies are old at 5 years and large ones have 3 people.

Your responsibility to your shareholders is not to maintain the highest profits/employee - it's to deliver the highest total profit per share. Management is legally obligated to act in the long-term best interests of the company; that is NOT the same as "deliver the highest total profit per share." For more, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule http://crookedtimber.org/2008/07/25/what-obligation-maximise-what/

Worth reading this response: http://crookedtimber.org/2009/04/13/zomg-facebook-use-and-student-grad…

The article has a rather convoluted definition of 'bullying': > "Bullying, a form of peer victimisation, can take place between children, between adolescents or between adults. It is not bullying when a parent or a teacher is abusive towards a child. While the terms peer victimisation and bullying are often used interchangeably, peer victimisation is not equivalent to bullying. For example, it is not bullying when two people of about the same strength quarrel or fight, but it is peer victimisation. An especially important feature of bullying is the power imbalance between those who perpetrate bullying behaviours and their victims..." The notion that parental or teacher abuse can't be called bullying is nonsensical, as it produces the same kind of behavior in children (fearful, submissive, avoidance, etc.). The general psychological concept is 'operant conditioning', essentially brainwashing by authority figures enforced by violence, humiliation, and so on. It's a key feature of all authoritarian systems. There's little doubt that schoolyard bullies are merely aping the behavior of adult authoritarian figures: https://www.thoughtco.com/operant-conditioning-definition-examples-449… The best literature on bullying (and also a criticism of the British school system) IMO is "Lord of the Flies" (William Golding, 1954). Note it was not a critique of so-called 'human nature' in general but of a particular societal…