Congratulations. Also, any chance you can do more work with Karl Smith from Bloomberg? Your recent-ish weeds podcast with him was terrific. Dara’s nice and all but I basically tune her out except to hear her latest word of the day (disambiguate today). Anyway keep up the good work.
Congratulations and best wishes. Niskanen is an excellent and important institution. I believe you will both be better off thanks to the affiliation -- the U.S. surely will be.
this is a good fit. matt has stayed where he is. but niskanen has moved to the left.
10+ years ago will wilkinson was respectfully interviewing jonah goldberg about liberal fascism. but now he's more SJW than klein&yglesias put together ;-)
I promise I will get to the other Niskanen pieces offered but first let me address the open letter to the GND crowd. I thought it accurate and well reasoned as an exposition on the vague tosh that is the GND and its difficulties from a political point of view. But it touches only in the most tangential way of the real difficulties of dealing with climate change. That would be the upfront costs of making significant economic changes and basically ignores the actual technological challenges that people seem to assume readily available alternatives that are ready to go. And they are not.
Perhaps the stupidest popular phrase ever made by a human is that solving this climate crisis is a matter of political will. It is not. We absolutely do not yet have technical solutions to many of these problems and in many cases probably never will given the state science. Yet there are things we could do right now for which we have superior technological solutions that people choose to ignore.
First let say that I quite admire Mr Yglesias for the clarity of his thinking and his expository skill in writing. But today he retweeted a call to take advantage of discounts available to subscribe to local newspapers. Do not do that if you actually care about global warming. Here is why.
Creating a printed newspaper (aka tomorrow's garbage) involves cutting down hundreds of thousands of trees. These are then pulped in an incredibly energy intensive process that is largely fired by burning wood waste that sends CO2 right up the stacks. These rolls of newsprint are then trucked to innumerable printing presses where they are turned into an object that has the lifespan of a mayfly. And then they are distributed, again at great energy cost, to be read and discarded.
A percentage, to be sure, can be accumulated again at a great energy cost and deinked and repulped, also at a great energy cost but then...dammit... you can't really use it except in small quantities to create new newsprint because the recycling process shortens the fibers. And you can't print newspapers that have the stiffness of toilet paper. You can only add some to virgin pulp.
Now I will submit we have a superior perfectly viable alternative in the Internet that allows superior access to information and you don't even have to clip articles or store old newspapers. So if you want to subscribe to a newspaper AND you actually care about global warming then it should be online editions only and ever. The rest of it has to go.
Again, I have not interrogated everyone who works there about everything but my guess is I’m considerably more favorable to the idea of interventionist labor market institutions (minimum wage, unions, etc) than the typical Niskanen view.
(2) I like Niskanen, and I am a longtime fan of Jacob T. Levy among others on their strong team.
(3) This does feel like a bit of a right turn for you, or at least for your personal brand as I perceive it as a consumer of Yglesias content. Jokes about poker buddies aside, I'm curious whether you consider that (a) an intended result, (b) an unintended but acceptable result because there are other benefits from the affiliation, or (c) not to be the case at all.
I have not grilled every Niskanen person on their full ideological worldview, but I expect I would be on the left flank of the Niskanen senior fellows list. I think participating an institution whose center of gravity is somewhat to my right is probably a more effective way to generate change than doing the opposite.
Congratulations. Also, any chance you can do more work with Karl Smith from Bloomberg? Your recent-ish weeds podcast with him was terrific. Dara’s nice and all but I basically tune her out except to hear her latest word of the day (disambiguate today). Anyway keep up the good work.
do think tanks ever have junior fellows?
***I am all of those things!***
Me too.
And congrats.
(Nice piece in WaPo the other day, too.)
Congratulations and best wishes. Niskanen is an excellent and important institution. I believe you will both be better off thanks to the affiliation -- the U.S. surely will be.
Curious what this amounts to - Is this a title, a desk and free coffee? A salary? Access to funding for research if that's a thing you want?
Is the role just hang out, do your blog and put our name on your twitter?
Title, desk, free coffee, and an intern to be named later.
this is a good fit. matt has stayed where he is. but niskanen has moved to the left.
10+ years ago will wilkinson was respectfully interviewing jonah goldberg about liberal fascism. but now he's more SJW than klein&yglesias put together ;-)
I promise I will get to the other Niskanen pieces offered but first let me address the open letter to the GND crowd. I thought it accurate and well reasoned as an exposition on the vague tosh that is the GND and its difficulties from a political point of view. But it touches only in the most tangential way of the real difficulties of dealing with climate change. That would be the upfront costs of making significant economic changes and basically ignores the actual technological challenges that people seem to assume readily available alternatives that are ready to go. And they are not.
Perhaps the stupidest popular phrase ever made by a human is that solving this climate crisis is a matter of political will. It is not. We absolutely do not yet have technical solutions to many of these problems and in many cases probably never will given the state science. Yet there are things we could do right now for which we have superior technological solutions that people choose to ignore.
First let say that I quite admire Mr Yglesias for the clarity of his thinking and his expository skill in writing. But today he retweeted a call to take advantage of discounts available to subscribe to local newspapers. Do not do that if you actually care about global warming. Here is why.
Creating a printed newspaper (aka tomorrow's garbage) involves cutting down hundreds of thousands of trees. These are then pulped in an incredibly energy intensive process that is largely fired by burning wood waste that sends CO2 right up the stacks. These rolls of newsprint are then trucked to innumerable printing presses where they are turned into an object that has the lifespan of a mayfly. And then they are distributed, again at great energy cost, to be read and discarded.
A percentage, to be sure, can be accumulated again at a great energy cost and deinked and repulped, also at a great energy cost but then...dammit... you can't really use it except in small quantities to create new newsprint because the recycling process shortens the fibers. And you can't print newspapers that have the stiffness of toilet paper. You can only add some to virgin pulp.
Now I will submit we have a superior perfectly viable alternative in the Internet that allows superior access to information and you don't even have to clip articles or store old newspapers. So if you want to subscribe to a newspaper AND you actually care about global warming then it should be online editions only and ever. The rest of it has to go.
The Niskanen Center's roster of senior fellows is 🔥🔥🔥
- @mattyglesias
- @jenniferdoleac
- @JamesBessen
- @ProfSchleich
- @JoshuaTMcCabe
- @SarahAnzia
- @dolanecon
- @chavezlinda
- @NateMJensen
- @lkatfield
- @jflier
- @ProfFortner
- @MattGrossmann
- @jtlevy
- @CrimProfessor
matt + doleac weeds ep was solid. def worth a listen.
"moderates’ embrace of empiricism rather than dogma"
lol.
what's the policy area where you have the biggest disagreement with the modal niskanen position?
Again, I have not interrogated everyone who works there about everything but my guess is I’m considerably more favorable to the idea of interventionist labor market institutions (minimum wage, unions, etc) than the typical Niskanen view.
(1) Congratulations!
(2) I like Niskanen, and I am a longtime fan of Jacob T. Levy among others on their strong team.
(3) This does feel like a bit of a right turn for you, or at least for your personal brand as I perceive it as a consumer of Yglesias content. Jokes about poker buddies aside, I'm curious whether you consider that (a) an intended result, (b) an unintended but acceptable result because there are other benefits from the affiliation, or (c) not to be the case at all.
I have not grilled every Niskanen person on their full ideological worldview, but I expect I would be on the left flank of the Niskanen senior fellows list. I think participating an institution whose center of gravity is somewhat to my right is probably a more effective way to generate change than doing the opposite.
center left former chief neolib shill 🤝 niskanen
2021 neolib shill bracket super team
So you're just going to go there and vibe? What will you be doing?
Well, we'll see what happens. They're gonna give me a desk and I'm gonna write my blog and I'm sure we'll find some stuff to do together.
Yea never read them before today now can look them up and read all their stuff.
Weird, why didn't I get this post in email?
I didn't mail this one out because I don't want to spam people too much
I want the spam! I'm paying for the spam!
agreed re: spam!
Same
This is awesome! Congrats on this and I look forward to reading the work that arises from this
This genuinely seems like a good fit. Centrist contrarianism is an underappreciated niche.