This Week’s Posts
Monday, September 19th - On Free Speech and Cancel Culture, Letter Two
My first contribution to a dialogue with Parker Molloy.
Tuesday, September 20th - No, Covid Learning Loss Doesn't Prove That School Works*
*to close relative gaps.
Wednesday, September 21st - Building More Housing Supply is Sort of Like Automation Creating More Jobs
YIMBYs need to be more forthright about the fact that there are time lag problems with building more housing as a way to lower prices.
Friday, September 23rd - On Free Speech and Cancel Culture, Letter Four
My second volley.
Friday, September 23rd - My Rules for Sports Gambling (subscriber only)
How I stay solvent and have fun betting on NFL football.
From the Archives
Song of the Week
Book Recommendation
What Kind of Creatures Are We?, Noam Chomsky, 2015
Chomsky has a vast corpus of published work, and it’s generally divided between his academic work and his political work. (Which are themselves subdivided, as he is such a wide-ranging thinker.) It can be hard to know where to start. This book does a good job of laying out the basics of the revolution in cognitive science and linguistics that Chomsky started, and the latter half does an OK job of explaining how this scientific perspective leads to his political activism. There’s the typical high Chomskyism here - the introduction flatly states that only the internal structures of language are suitable for scientific study, not the expressions of language themselves, which I find laughable - but this is the man at his most elemental.
NFL Picks of the Week
We’re 3-0. Time to come crashing back to earth, probably, but… I liked the line a little better this week when it was six, but I still like the Detroit Lions +5 over the Minnesota Vikings. Dan Campbell is kind of a football guy cliche, but his players have clearly bought into the program. All week long I’ve been reading that the Lions have the best running game in the league, and their defense has some real playmakers. Justin Jefferson could make me eat my words, but an offense led by Kirk Cousin just doesn’t pop for me. I’ll take the Lions and the points.
Season record: 3-0-0
Comment of the Week
Gambling is not my thing. But I understand - people have always gambled and people always will. I'm certainly not a prohibitionist...but I am deeply uneasy at the way the gates have been flung wide open and every entity connected with professional sports is now continually, aggressively PUSHING gambling. Basketball is the only sport I care about, and now that Fanduel is an "official partner" of the NBA, every game broadcast, every Ringer basketball podcast is a nonstop effort to get you to try a big parlay. Will the increased ease and opportunity to throw down a wad on the Sixers be no problem for many - even most - people? Sure. It will also be the absolute ruination of some marriages, the destruction of some families, all to make already wealthy corporations even richer. Like I said, I know people will gamble, but I don't think any benefit lies in making it so absurdly easy to do, especially since it seems like no one has even asked the question, “Hey - is this really what we should be doing? What's the downside?” - Thomas Parker
That’s it. See you tomorrow.
Since comments are off on the Molloy dialogue, I will restrain myself from commenting here; but I hope Freddie will give us the opportunity once it’s concluded.
"YIMBYs need to be more forthright about the fact that there are time lag problems with building more housing as a way to lower prices."
It is telling with respect to the economic illiteracy of the population that this explanation would be required.
In fact, the "lag" circumstance is a key missing understanding of the general American voter that explains much of our social and economic problems. Presidents and economic outcomes are an example. Generally the policies put in place by an administration would not pay dividends or cause disruption until later when the next administrations takes over. There are exceptions of course if the administration takes direct and profound action like canceling organic energy exploration and production following the dumping trillions in the economy. But most policy changes are more subtle and there would be a lag until the results were experienced.
But the people don't seem to get that and vote in an irrational and reactionary way that requires the strongest of crisis before they can be nudged in a common direction.... but then they freak again that the problem is not solved and vote for the next shiny new thing.
Once the tents start going up in the exclusive liberal enclaves, only THEN will we see support for profound enough housing policies. But then the activists against it will keep up the propaganda that it is not working immediately and they will manufacture other crises related to the actions taken, and the people will vote for the next immediate fix of those problems which will defeat the goals of the previous.
I have started a few businesses in my life from the ground up. One of them is a family-run craft distillery. We give tours. People ask our background (no previous background in it) and comment that they cannot fathom building something like this.
But what many of them lack is the understanding of persistence working on long-term goals with incremental progress. The family knows about it because we did most of the work ourselves and we have all the bruises and scars from doing all that work.
We are an instant gratification society today... and people... especially young people... don't understand the path to success at almost anything worthwhile, including solving our housing problems, will take a vision, a plan... and then persistence working that plan until the goals can be achieved. It took us decades to get to this point of inadequate affordable housing... and it is not a problem that can be solved overnight.
But we absolutely cannot make any material progress in solving our problems with NIMBYs in control.