iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

rude also, we read the books and thought about them in the old college

020

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Obviously the best decade for television (especially if you include afternoon re-run culture).

010

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Great for music and Bears' Super Bowls. Bad for research design.

010

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Bonica shows a problem with the primary RD design for later periods, which Hall & Thompson agree with. They conclude we lack statistical power to conclude anything about changes over time. (Note: the second paper in my first post is not an RD paper). www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/hall_thompso...

andrewbenjaminhall.com

110

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

I think these by Hall et al are the most convincing: www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/Hall_APSR.pdf onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

andrewbenjaminhall.com

110

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Just for the record, though, and not defending any of these analyses that belong in the 1980s, the well identified studies we do have suggest that there are positive electoral returns to moderation.

170

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

I think Kevin is likely referring to a scenario in which you are being chased by your enemies

130

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

Alternative headline: "Eagles' Arrogance Trumps Bears' Incompetence in Race for Third Seed"

010

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

I'm taking credit for you reading fiction in 2025.

000

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

My whole mental model of you is broken by the absence of the Wellness reporting from this list.

020

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

I mean, I see what you are saying. But I'll be damned if I'm going to hand it to Adorno.

080

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)

250

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Why? If I want to discover that I don't really understand what's going on in my proof, I can just try to write the text explaining the result. Or did you have in mind that I would try and succeed?

010

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.

051

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.

020

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

290

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

I mean, is it really worse than Automatic for the People?

010

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.

110

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.

020

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

I would be disappointed if you did...

010

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that all CS majors were 1st gen and all art history majors were from well-connected families. Even if CS actually provides better job opportunities,we'd observe CS majors having worse job outcomes, despite the causal effect going the opposite direction.

010

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

That seems likely to be true. But my point is, you cannot even tell the sign of the effect, let alone its magnitude, from this sort of evidence.

210

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.

3224

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

Just for the record, this difference is definitely not an unbiased estimate of the causal effect of changing from art history to a computer engineering major on unemployment.,

000

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.

080

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

Our producer cut the part where I said that the clearest way of saying what I think is that I think what Ian Hacking says. You can definitely spray your kid. So your kid exists.

020

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

290

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

Come to think of it, there's a genre here: "I'm a nearly 60 year old columnist for the paper of record and I've just discovered..." "...Springsteen, and did you know that he's quite an evocative lyricist?" and "...Augustine, and did you know that he's really quite spiritually deep?"

010

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?

040

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.

040

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

I've been trying to come up with a rationalist explanation for your reading a column by Ross Douthat but can only conclude that it was the hand of god.

030

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Two thoughts. First, I don't like those Updike novels at all. Second, given where this post ended, Tony Judt's Postwar is magnificent and well worth your time.

020

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Given the number of books he still produces, I operate under the assumption that my dad does not devote much time to podcasts.

010

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

feeling grateful that my mother does not listen to my podcast

100

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

For the record, 20 years ago Scott was saying, "I can’t help but think our political science discourse would be better if everyone read Schervish in high school."

110

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 28/06/2025

Yes. But don't worry. It only lasts forever.

020

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

No, it was something where the descriptivist argument was clearly correct (I think latest vs last, maybe?)

010

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.

160

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

020

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

I haven't. I feel locked in to ChatGPT because it is so good at writing memos in my voice and, sadly, it turns out that that is most what my kind of work is these days...

110

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.

240

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

I'm choosing to believe that the frequent mentions of Maimonides means that there is an esoteric reading of this blog post too deep and subtle for me to comprehend.

060

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

There are many surfaces right here on earth and bazillions of surfaces on bazillions of other planets. What are the odds human beings would somehow magically be optimized for living specifically on land specifically on planet earth? Totally implausible.

030

Ethan Bueno de Mesquita @ethanbdm.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

I feel like maybe some other important things are changing at the same time. So trade economists won't be able to use this source of variation credibly. Instead, it will be used by economic historians working 100 years from now when no one remembers anything that was going on.

2323

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.

091

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?

060

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

020