iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Just want to say that @amiethomasson.bsky.social's "Ontology Made Easy" is really wonderful. Exceptionally clear and clarifying. I can't recall feeling this positively about a book of academic philosophy since Hacking's Representing & Intervening. (Note: It doesn't compete w/ Hacking for humor)

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Just here to say: Pr(Engage in Violence | Very Online) \ne Pr(Very Online | Engage in Violence) This is a bi-partisan error. You may now return to yelling at one another.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

I mean, a promise is a promise, but I'm starting to feel as thought we'd be justified if we were to forget the way they thrilled the nation, with their T-formation.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 13/09/2025

Dear Intro Game Theory Instructors, Martin Osborne conjured a world for all of us in which there is no need to impose the confusion of Dixit and Skeath on the poor, unsuspecting undergrads. Sincerely, Ethan

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

We live in an age of technological wonders. And yet, it is a bi-partisan consensus in the American government that the only way to protect the traveling public from the national security threats posed by a small tub of cream cheese is through TSA confiscation. That's just the price of freedom.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

The Straussian reading of this whole thread is interesting. There is a plausible interpretation that @soashworth.bsky.social doesn't mean any of it. Because if he was writing a thread he believed in, there is no way he would lead with the single-peaked MVT rather than the single-crossing MVT.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

I see a lot of folks posting about that NYTimes article. So I'm just going to say something I know you all already know, but is important. You cannot infer the effect on unemployment of majoring in one topic vs another by comparing the unemployment rates of folks who chose those majors.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

It is that time of year again. This is the world's most perfect gazpacho recipe. It has a few more steps than other gazpacho recipes. But it is 1000 times more delicious. You are welcome. www.seriouseats.com/andalusian-g...

seriouseats.com

Andalusian Gazpacho Recipe

This gazpacho recipe calls for salting and draining the vegetables and then freezing them, which helps extract flavorful juices from their cellular structure.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

This was a fun episode of Not Another Politics Podcast with Adam Mastriani. Plus the last 8 minutes or so include a short rant (mostly from me) on philosophy of science, so the professionals should feel free to laugh at me. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

podcasts.apple.com

Do We Understand Members Of The Other Party?

Podcast Episode · Not Another Politics Podcast · 08/07/2025 · 54m

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Breaking news from the NYTimes opinion page: Did you people know that this Bruce Springsteen seems to be quite a gifted lyricist?

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

I asked AI whether this was safe and it reassured me by pointing out that an important paper by Fearon and Powell (1979) proves that AI-driven nuclear command and control with a human on the loop guarantees lower risk of nuclear war in equilibrium.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

My son is home from college for the summer. He truly has been indoctrinated by high ed ideology. Anyway, after one too many disagreements, I had to lay down the law. I told him that as long as he is living under our roof he will respect our values and be a linguistic prescriptivist.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

We did a Not Another Politics Podcast on the Trump administration’s approach to universities and how it builds on the Obama administration’s. With Jacob Gersen on his and @JeannieSGersen's great papers, "The Sex Bureaucracy" & "The Six Bureaucracy". podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

podcasts.apple.com

Is Trump Copying Obama’s Playbook on Universities?

Podcast Episode · Not Another Politics Podcast · 05/28/2025 · 58m

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

I've been using ChatGPT (both o3 and 4.0 depending on task) to help copy edit a new paper. While improving writing, it routinely introduces mistakes into previously correct proofs. But it also finds errors and logical holes I missed. It contains multitudes.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Really looking forward to spending a couple of days at LSE, including this evening's talk.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

If it weren't for the fundamental problem of causal inference, what would people write op-eds about?

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Two papers I'm thinking a lot about. heinonline.org/HOL/LandingP... www.nber.org/system/files...

nber.org

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Confused about why jet lag exists. There was no email in the evolutionary environment, so how did nature know I needed to wake up at 3:30 AM to get a jump start on my email inbox after vacation?

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Leave aside how endowments work, I'd like people to just understand that if the overhead rate is 60%, that means the university is collecting 35% of the research $ for admin costs, not 60%. Overhead on $1 million grant is $0.6m. So total award is $1.6m and admin percent is .6/1.6 = 35%.

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Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Federal judge simply isn't buying Florida's claims about kids and social media www.techdirt.com/2025/03/11/j...

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

My answer is here: voices.uchicago.edu/ethanbdm/fil...

voices.uchicago.edu

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

The fires are revealing how good elected officials are at their jobs. Unbiased information systematically affects electoral fortunes. This is why natural disasters being bad for incumbents on average isn't evidence of voter irrationality. voices.uchicago.edu/ethanbdm/fil...

voices.uchicago.edu

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

This is the sort of course for the sort of audience we dreamed of when we wrote Thinking Clearly with Data.

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Reposted by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

Zach Binney @binneyz.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Current stats education for medical/other clinical students is bad and misaligned to what they really need to know to function. It teaches them to produce research in 1993, when we should be teaching most of them to be informed consumers today. We *should* teach something like this:

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Even though we are still 18 months from the super intelligence that can do everything, my sister's family let ChatGPT choose my Hanukkah gift and this is the result.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

I'm just hear to acknowledge how much I appreciate the detailed notes on recipes and oven timing various Ethans-of-Thanksgiving-Past have taken.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 25/09/2024

On Twitter they are discussing the proposition that Leonard Cohen is the greatest singer/songwriter of the past 100 years. So that's it for me over there; I'm out.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 22/04/2024

Terrorism is not an ideology. Terrorism is a tactic. It is the use of violence to affect an audience larger than those who are its immediate victims. It has been used by people with all manner of ideologies: communists, nationalists, separatists, religious supremacists, anti-colonialists, etc.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 21/04/2024

Do you know what it's called when I, a descendent of one of the oldest sephardic families on this continent (the oldest Jewish gravestone in N. America is Benjamin Bueno de Mesquita's, in the Portuguese synagogue graveyard in New York City), spend my day making brisket and chicken soup for Passover?

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 21/04/2024

Friends, I'm going to delete some posts. I had a good faith discussion with some people I know IRL. But I am not interested in having a broad public discussion on this topic on social media. (I know, why did I post?) I'll leave the one post that says the heart of what I think.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 02/04/2024

Today I am "the arthritis in my fingers from years of martial arts hurts more when it rains" years old.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 12/03/2024

Looking forward to seeing if Rodgers still owns Chicago...

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 13/02/2024

I can't think why we would concede that "begs the question" means "raises the question" *before* we concede that correlation does in fact imply causation. In terms of common usage mistakes, the latter is far more ubiquitous. Can't we just go along to get along? Why must we be such purist snobs?

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 12/02/2024

I have a new paper on governance of online platforms. The topic is a bit of a departure for me. Comments more than welcome. voices.uchicago.edu/ethanbdm/fil...

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 29/01/2024

Given the level of mastery of the Chief's offense that my until-this-year–totally-uninterested-in-football 15 year old daughter exhibited last night, I'm really hoping that next year Taylor Swift gets super into calculus.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 02/01/2024

It was incomprehensible to the 17 year old why a future college roommate might care what music he likes because, it turns out, it has never occurred to him that he might listen to music on speakers instead of earbuds.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 28/12/2023

Anthony and I wrote Nikki Haley a perfectly intellectually respectable way out of that question. Will her failure to read Thinking Clearly with Data cause her to lose the presidency?

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 25/12/2023

I've always liked this by @pstaniland.bsky.social. It's about lessons from S. Asia for US in Afghanistan. But it is helpful for thinking about the Gaza war and the deep political contradictions of a democracy engaging in state/nation building in the 21st century. foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/24/c...

foreignpolicy.com

Counterinsurgency is a bloody, costly business

By Paul Staniland The current conventional wisdom on counterinsurgency (COIN) focuses on simultaneously building a strong state and creating mass legitimacy for the government. Gen.…

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 21/12/2023

Some thoughts on the congressional hearings, free speech, and campus leadership @bostonreview.bsky.social. Appreciation to @soashworth.bsky.social, @itaisher.bsky.social, @mlord.bsky.social, and Josh Cohen who offered much needed feedback, pushback, and advice. www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

bostonreview.net

The Future of Speech on Campus - Boston Review

Private universities should respond to the charge of hypocrisy with a maximalist approach to free speech.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 13/12/2023

Contrary to popular perception, the Guide for the Perplexed is not a Q&A, but rather a dense work of philosophical theology, suffused with esoteric meaning, seeking to reconcile the rabbinic and Aristotelian world view.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 01/12/2023

Got a new macbook and the TextMate/LaTex integration doesn't work. Something about python 3 I gather from the internet. I've tried the internet's suggestions and still nothing compiles. Anyone have any experience? "Switch text editors" isn't helpful, I'll consider as an absolute last resort.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 28/11/2023

www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-...

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 25/11/2023

WaPo op-ed: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202... Based on this study: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... Only significant difference is btw treated who finished the program and control. Finishing the program is post-treatment. I think op-eds based on such evidence are likely to mislead non-experts.

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Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 18/11/2023

Past Ethan made a document titled "Thanksgiving" with links to all the recipes and a complete shopping list. He was a very good person.

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Reposted by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

daniel f stone @dfstone.bsky.social · 18/11/2023

Very cool paper by @ethanbdm.bsky.social on how strategic partisan behavior by politicians can cause voters to underestimate common ground In the model voters understand the model... In reality of course they likely don't, which likely exacerbates these misperceptions www.nber.org/system/files...

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