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Matthew Yglesias

@mattyglesias.bsky.social
86K followers 173 following 2.6K posts
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 18h
Something that really came through when people were doing their My 9 Albums post is that it's trivially easy to come up with lists of hundreds of albums that are worth checking out and recommending. Television just isn't really like that. www.slowboring.com/p/there-aren...
slowboring.com
There aren’t 100 good TV shows
The original slop medium doesn’t need a canon.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
This is a cool ad concept next.frame.io/share/0a64b0...
next.frame.io
talarico-grid-regular-9x16.mp4 - talarico-grid-regular-9x16 - Frame.io
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Opposition to a technology neutral permitting deal is grounded in an underpants gnome theory of how to build a low carbon economy. www.slowboring.com/p/the-permit...
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Red state Dem candidates doing well on most issues
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
If you want to electrify everything, you need a lot more electricity
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
First term Trump tried to let shitty for-profit colleges totally off the hook, but his second administration has chosen on this one issue to actually be better than the first one. www.slowboring.com/p/trumps-new...
slowboring.com
Trump’s new student loan rule is fine
Normal programs at normal schools are safe. Don’t be a useful idiot for cosmetology scams.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Duverger’s Law taking some big Ls here
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I’m not owned by any of these interests, I just think it’s a good (not perfect but what is?) bill that should be passed.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
To make the satire work you need to construct a version of the BAAJA coalition that doesn’t include clean energy companies, labor unions, or Sheldon Whitehouse. But in the real world they’re important.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Notable that the de-urbanization trend hit as the birth rate keeps collapsing.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
He says this like Austro-Hungarian politics is a bad thing. Vienna Circle was great. You need to always be Habsburg-maxxing.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Problematic depictions of plant sex
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The war in Afghanistan wasn’t doomed and wasn’t an overreaction — Bush lost a just and winnable war by invading Iraq instead of securing the country. www.slowboring.com/p/who-lost-a...
slowboring.com
Who lost Afghanistan?
George W. Bush blundered away a winnable war.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
People have heard about the phonics vs triple-queuing fiasco but there is a similar issue in math where ed school ideologues have stigmatized the normal and necessary work of drilling novice students in the fundamentals. www.slowboring.com/p/math-needs...
slowboring.com
Math needs a phonics-style reckoning
Teachers should teach students how to do stuff correctly.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Some personal news … … I was not selected for a MacArthur fellowship this year
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
There are three million American households with net worth above $5 million derived primarily from ownership of privately held companies, and they collectively account for much more wealth than the Forbes 400. www.slowboring.com/p/the-truth-...
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I would simply feed the chameleon. www.slowboring.com/p/feed-the-l...
slowboring.com
Feed the lizard
It’s a good idea to work hard and be helpful when you’re young and don’t have responsibilities.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
We must embrace the Terrible Man Theory of history.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Odd call here www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/w...
nytimes.com
Cambridge Abandons Plans to Fully Investigate Its Hiring of Jason Arday (Gift Article)
The professor had catalyzed debates over diversity efforts in higher education.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Trying to hold myself to the standard I set for others ... *I* think the spread of legalized gambling is bad and I personally worry about it a lot but I haven't seen convincing evidence that voters really agree or think this is important. www.slowboring.com/p/getting-to...
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My favorite Rogue AI stories are the ones where the superintelligence breaks the rules but then just turns out not to care about humanity and our dumb concerns. www.slowboring.com/p/the-ai-apo...
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Reposted by Matthew Yglesias
Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 24/09/2026
Yes. I think the consensus among US elite pundits and senior politicians that the way to protect liberal democracy is *not* to punish elite figures who violate its rules is wrong. A norm starting at least with the Watergate pardon. The opposite is true. You need to enforce the law and Constitution.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Guy who'll do whatever it takes to fight fascism, except feed his boss' chameleon.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
GOP lead on crime getting down to only four points means the bottom really could fall out for them.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Of course if politicians behave as if it's not possible to win power durably then they won't manage to pull it off, but I think a person in Trump's position as of January 2025 *could have* behaved more prudently and been more successful. He chose not to.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Trump steering into AI acceleration when he was already underwater on approval was really reckless and also kind of out of character for a guy who's normally very opportunistic.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The putative Trump Realignment has flopped and the future of the country remains up for grabs. www.slowboring.com/p/the-republ...
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Reposted by Matthew Yglesias
Dennis "dejay" Koch @dennisjkoch.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Republican urge to start wars in the Middle East And other ways Trump has failed in his second term @mattyglesias.bsky.social #USA #Trump #uspoli open.substack.com/pub/matthewy...
open.substack.com
The Republican urge to start wars in the Middle East
And other ways Trump has failed in his second term
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If you could pay for Medicare For All with DoorDash settlements or deferring pension contributions then I guess this would be true.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The postwar economy was really something else. My grandfather left the Navy, went to college but didn't graduate, and was able to get a job as a pharmaceutical executive on the strength of his prior work experience as a Communist Party film critic.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It's clear now that the Trump administration has been a substantive and political failure, mostly by falling into extremely predictable failure modes. www.slowboring.com/p/the-republ...
slowboring.com
The Republican urge to start wars in the Middle East
And other ways Trump has failed in his second term
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Phil Scott is able to secure reelection in Vermont despite the terrible national political environment for Republicans thanks to his off the charts charisma and savvy with vertical video.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I am also a parent who has opted not to peergroup-max by son’s education and for a whole bunch of reasons I feel like it’s been a pretty different outcome than what NHJ describes. www.slowboring.com/p/why-i-send...
slowboring.com
Why I send my kid to low-income urban public schools
Not every school with unfavorable demographics is a dysfunctional mess — policy matters!
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I see a lot of effort to relentlessly mobilize uncertainty, measurement difficulty, ambiguity, etc in a one-sided way as if it all points in the direction of left-wing position taking being costless when all these considerations could equally point in the opposite direction.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
They've started teaching math teachers that it's inappropriate to teach kids how to do math correctly
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Polls say Democrats are headed for a huge win in November. I dived into what we know about prediction markets to try to reassure myself that this isn’t just a huge illusion. What I learned was at least a little reassuring! www.slowboring.com/p/is-the-blu...
slowboring.com
Is the blue wave forecast by polling real?
Prediction markets say it is, but they don’t seem to add much to polling.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Prediction markets are handy indexes of conventional wisdom, but do they actually tell us anything? Across the 2026 primary cycle they well-calibrated at least. www.slowboring.com/p/is-the-blu...
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Just to be clear, of course people can care about more than just climate. But it’s important to be clear that what’s happening here is folks are trying to scuttle a permitting deal that is good for economic growth, for affordability, and for emissions reduction. I think that’s bad.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I do wonder how they’re going to handle this on the S-1
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Airbnb is trying to get more involved in lobbying and advocacy for housing supply www.slowboring.com/p/what-stake...
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Trying to actually persuade the public of something rather than just yell at politicians to try to make them take unpopular positions is very underrated www.slowboring.com/p/trying-to-...
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
People on BlueSky are absolutely convinced that I’ve been refuted about this but immigration is still Trump’s best issue and raising its salience is still counterproductive to the goal of beating Trump so we can change immigration policy.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
When I was at a nonprofit and EA didn’t exist, we had this exact issue with a lot of potential funders. It’s just tough to ask people for money when you can’t promise them measurable deliverables. I went to a big conference Hewlett sponsored one time where people tried and failed to solve this.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” is packed with important insights in every chapter but the actual literal account of how Hitler came to power is weirdly wrong and the whole thing was way more contingent than he wants to admit. www.slowboring.com/p/how-to-sto...
slowboring.com
How to stop Hitler
Read Hayek, but don’t listen to him about the specifics of the rise of fascism.
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
😂
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Trump’s Green New Deal is real
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
🤔
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
As some Democrats are rediscovering common sense on sex-segregated athletic competitions, conservatives are remembering that they don't actually care about or support women's sports. www.slowboring.com/p/destroying...
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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Vibe Shift 2: Thermostatic Opinion Strikes Back
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