Noah Smith 🐇 Profile picture
Sep 14, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read Read on X
I thought I remembered playing Starcraft II #WhenLehmanCollapsed, but that must be a false memory since Starcraft II wasn't released until 2010. So in fact, I can't remember what I was doing. I don't recall being very concerned at the time.
I do recall that on 9/11 I mostly played Super Smash Bros. with @bennpeifert.
When Osama bin Laden was killed, I was sitting on my couch reading the internet. I cracked open a beer and listened to Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue"...
When Trump was elected I was asleep in an Airbnb in Japan. I remember waking up and taking a walk and thinking about how my country could be saved.

I never came up with a great answer and I still haven't...
When the Soviet Union fell, I was a little kid, and I remember hearing the radio on in my parents' room (the only time that ever happened). I remember not caring about anything at school, just being happy that the human race wasn't going to nuke itself to death.
When the Iraq War began I was...out protesting the Iraq War in SF. Then my car got towed and I got thrown in a holding pen. Long story.
When they called the 2000 election for Gore, I was in my dorm at Stanford, and I remember a kid on my hall saying "Nope. They're going to pull some shit in Florida. You watch." I still can't believe he called it.
When the tech bubble burst I was also in my dorm room, and I remember some guy on our hall screaming and cursing because he had just lost all the money he had made buying call options on AMD in the bubble. I'm sure he's plenty rich now.
Weirdly, just about the only important world event I *can't* really remember is #WhenLehmanCollapsed.

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More from @Noahpinion

Oct 7, 2018
Yes, we have been more divided than we are now. Within living memory.
Labor disputes used to kill hundreds of people! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_…
In 1932 Douglas MacArthur called in tanks on protesting veterans, injuring over a thousand people!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army
Read 12 tweets
Oct 6, 2018
"Noah" is at the point where it's a common enough name where there are lots of Noahs around, but still uncommon enough that people get us confused a lot.
I keep feeling guilty about being mistaken for Noah Feldman and angry about being mistaken for Noah Berlatsky...
Then there's that guy Noah Smith who does computer science at the University of Washington, who is way handsomer and more successful than I am...but nobody mistakes me for him because I'm much louder and more online... :D
Read 4 tweets
Oct 4, 2018
1/OK so, I might as well give my take on this new Sokal Hoax on culture studies: motherjones.com/kevin-drum/201…
2/Sokal hoaxes are funny pranks - at least I find them funny.

And they probably do point to an important problem in academia - the "publish or perish" ethos that forces many academics to publish low-quality papers, often (though not always) in low-ranked journals.
3/Our country has decided that research is the mark of a good professor, but the demand for professors as teachers far outstrips the supply of good research to be done.

So tons of profs spend their time doing useless signaling.

That's what Sokal hoaxes are picking up on.
Read 13 tweets
Oct 3, 2018
Democrats' midterm enthusiasm advantage over Republicans seems to have evaporated: npr.org/2018/10/03/654…

Is this from Kavanaugh? Something else?
Plus GOP approval ratings are up. Wild. news.gallup.com/poll/242906/re…
Here's a third poll showing basically the same things.

washingtonexaminer.com/washington-sec…
Read 4 tweets
Oct 1, 2018
Today's @bopinion post is about the EITC, which is awesome, and about @RoKhanna's plan to expand the EITC, which is also awesome.

bloomberg.com/view/articles/…
Here's a picture of how the Brown-Khanna plan would change the EITC. It's a very big expansion, but the cost ($140B/yr) is worth it, given how effective this program is at fighting poverty.
Another idea is to add a modest Universal Basic Income to the EITC. That would keep the EITC's work incentive, but would also provide much-needed income support to people who can't work.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 30, 2018
1/Here's a thread about why it kind of annoys me when people talk about "elites" in America.

I don't think the American elite is unified. I think what we have are a bunch of different elites that often don't even talk to each other or like each other that much.
2/Here are some groups in America who might reasonably be called "elites":
1. Tech industry businesspeople
2. D.C. lawyers and politicos
3. NYC finance people
4. Hollywood people
5. Academics at universities scattered throughout the country
6. Writers
7. CEOs
3/Now, the first thing to notice is the geographic separation between these clusters of elites.

Tech people in SF try to keep track of what D.C. lawyers are thinking and vice versa, but...it doesn't usually seem to work out that well. And the cultures are VERY different.
Read 9 tweets

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