iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Not mutually exclusive, of course. The byzantine financing that is playing such a large role in AI investment suggests that conventional lenders are not driving the bubble but selectively dipping into it. Maybe the limited profit prospects elsewhere make more money available for AI, though.

020

Finally, this is strictly about Israel. AIPAC et al. do not condition support on other issues relevant to Jews, like separation of church and state or the promulgation of crude antisemitism -- still a problem. No, it's Israel, Israel, Israel. Maybe we need a real Jewish lobby.

000

Third, while the elite agenda might have overlapped the views of ordinary Jews in the past, this is no longer true. There is a massive disconnect between what Jewish voters tell pollsters and the Israel-can-do-no-wrong conviction of the rich and influential.

100

Second, this is strictly an empirical phenomenon. There really is a thin layer at the top that has an agenda specifically about Israel which it promotes sometimes openly, sometimes secretively. (See the partially hidden role of AIPAC.) No conspiracy theory necessary; just follow the news.

100

First and obviously, money and influence isn't a special characteristic of Jews, most of whom have relatively little wealth and no cultural clout. We really are talking about a thin elite at the top, not chosen, incidentally, by the broader Jewish community. They didn't get there by being Jewish.

100

statmodeling.substack.com

This is an important observation, but it points to something broader and more challenging: there really is a sort of Jewish money and media cabal pushing an agenda on America. It resembles the antisemitic stereotype, but it's not quite the same. statmodeling.substack.com/p/again-its-...

Again, it’s not about the Jewish vote

The following headline appeared on today’s front page:

100

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

New piece up in Jacobin on social ownership for AI. In case you're keeping track, this is the same approach I used in the article in the Int. Rev. of Applied Econ. on social ownership of social media. jacobin.com/2026/08/tech...

jacobin.com

Put AI Under Social Ownership for Social Purposes

Public ownership may seem like the most obvious solution to the problems posed by AI. But purpose trusts could offer a more pluralistic form of social ownership — one that subordinates profit to a var...

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

You can tell who's a data analyst at the farmers market. It's the one who asks if they can sample the strawberries, then tastes 80 or so, being careful not to take more than one from the same carton.

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Jubilee is a great idea, but it has to be a surprise, otherwise no one will lend in the period leading up to it. The solution? A stochastic jubilee. If you put 50 envelopes in a drum with one marked J, draw once a year, interests rates go up 2% and that's it. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/22/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | An Ancient Sumerian Solution to Our $40 Trillion Deficit (Gift Article)

In the ancient world, debt forgiveness was a regular tool to control the economy. Why have we forgotten it?

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I like to think of the soft budget constraint as one outcome of a conflict of interest that arises when the state both sets the rules that firms should follow and owns the firms themselves. These roles should be strictly separate. Imagine a bankruptcy court owning a debt collection business.

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

So we were having a discussion the other night about whether Moses was anything special, and I mentioned he had strong outdoor leadership skills....

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Well, that's the issue. If the claims made against him -- plagiarized thesis, dishonest (and limited) publication record, fabulist -- are true, then it's hard to justify his giant leap from obscure temp jobs to star billing at Cambridge. It would be interesting, though, to get his students' views.

100

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

My feelings exactly. I especially like the part about the students, who have a right to have a professor qualified to be in front of the classroom. statmodeling.substack.com/p/university...

statmodeling.substack.com

University professor is a job. Not an award.

Don Rubin said once that a problem with university hiring committees is that they think that they’re giving an award rather than finding someone to do a job.

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Just to give an example of prominent academic misconduct: Francesca Gino at Harvard. Research subject: dishonest behavior! Fabricated data. Groucho said it best: "The secret to life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

One further thing: the exploitation of sincere anti-racism to advance your own personal scam is truly unconscionable. Arday did a big disservice to every hard-working academic of color facing bigotry. Maybe at some level he knew this.

120

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Josh, if it were just this one guy I'd agree. But there is a shocking level of fraud in higher ed, mostly by whites, of course. *Every* case should be exposed, and the tendency of spineless bureaucrats to defend them should be attacked too.

100

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

1. Academic malpractice is a very big story. There's a ton of it. 2. Sane people who looked the other way or even defended him opened the door for racists to do the job. The Cambridge enablers objectively empowered reactionaries.

310

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

And I was on a jury that came to a dubious verdict because of defense attorney (public defender) incompetence. None of us guessed how we were being misled and found out about it only later. But juries can do only so much.

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

OTOH, bolstering the regime in Tehran is terrible. OTOH, it would probably be *good* if Iran had a few nukes to forestall future Israeli aggression. Sadly, asymmetry of nuclear arms increases warfare. Best would be a regional nuclear disarmament. A tough political sell though.

141

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

From a standard macro point of view, a hike should be forthcoming. But all this is in the context of an AI credit bubble, and higher i increases the likelihood of a pop. Surely some heavy hitters are quietly making their concerns known to the Fed.

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

As it happens, I discussed this in my book on climate change. I made similar points to Enns, but said something else: the biggest superpower of the rich is to limit the agenda. A proposal without some capitalist support is off the radar. No polls about it. open.substack.com/pub/gelliott...

Deep Dive episode: What if our leaders are actually more responsive to public opinion than we think?

Watch now (59 mins) | I sit down with Peter Enns, a political scientist at Cornell University, whose new research offers an optimistic view of democracy and representation

The Price of Oil: Why We Should Be Paying it to Ourselves

"Let's pay it to ourselves, not to the billionaires" sounds to me like pure class politics, as well as good economics. It wasn't tested in the polls cited in Jacobin, so we don't have numbers for it. It's been sitting there, unused, for decades. peterdorman.substack.com/p/the-price-...

peterdorman.substack.com

Back in 2008, when the price of oil shot up to almost $150 a barrel — and that was in 2008 prices — I wrote an unrequested speech for candidate Barak Obama to give about the problem.

000

(2) The key idea is to *give the money back* transparently, an equal per capita rebate. All the money. Then you can say, instead of paying oil companies or petrostates when you buy gas etc., you're paying yourself. You come out ahead, esp. if you're below average in energy use.

100

Starting with what sells right now politically is a terrible way to confront climate change, whose determining factors do not adjust to politics. Fossil fuel use has to be cut steadily, significantly, year after year. How to convey that?

100

The Class Divide Haunting Climate Politics

Misguided advance, and basically the same bad advice we've been given for years. Why? (1) To hold warming to a likely 2º C (an outer limit target), the US has to cut CO2 emissions by at least 7% per year *indefinitely*. Building renewables etc. helps only indirectly. jacobin.com/2026/08/clim...

jacobin.com

New research confirms that policy messages on climate favored by college-educated liberals often fall flat with working-class Americans. The good news? Workers are favorable to pro-climate policies th...

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

And don't forget Svante Arrhenius, whose 1903 Nobel Prize was partly for his analysis of climate change due to burning fossil fuels. He wasn't too far off in his forecast, mostly because the things he didn't consider back then partially cancelled out.

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

People worry that relying on AI to do your thinking for you will make you less intelligent. Reading stuff like this uncritically could have the same effect.

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Wow, is this a weird op-ed. Like, learn how to walk and chew gum at the same time. Yes, the environmental cost of data centers is a big issue. Yes, what we should and shouldn't do with AI is a big issue. One doesn't invalidate the other. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/25/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Flawed Environmental Case Against Data Centers

Our animosity toward data centers is really more about our anxieties about A.I.

100

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

A Trump cancellation of the November midterms is more complicated than you might think, since it has to take into account the effects on the numbers of congressmen and senators who would likely continue in office. open.substack.com/pub/peterdor...

Gaming a November Declaration of a State of Emergency

It would be catastrophic for Trump and his circle if the Democrats took both houses of congress in the November midterms.

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

It's like ticketing drivers for speeding. If you fine speeders and non-speeders alike, the roads won't be safer. So this is more than just a lie; it's an attack on the flimsy measures we currently have to promote workers rights around the world.

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

I have an extra reason to be disgusted by this ploy. I was the academic who first pushed to tie trade to labor standards back in the late 80s, before it got traction. The incentive effect depends on the difference between tariffs on violators and adherers. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

theguardian.com

‘Forced labour’ rationale for Trump tariffs met with bewilderment

Measures effectively replace blanket 10% tariffs Trump imposed in February that were struck down by US supreme court

210

This is something I've written on over the years: Markets and Mortality (Cambridge U Press), Risk without Reward: The Myth of Wage Compensation for Dangerous Work (EPI, 2020). Better is to value the strictly economic (fungible) costs separately and then add the others on their own terms.

020

Increased mortality is serious, of course, and climate change is causing this on many fronts. But turning it into a financial loss is both a category error and reliance on methods that don't withstand scrutiny.

Opinion | Nothing Can Prevent the New Wildfires. We Have to Adapt. (Gift Article)

Wildfire smoke *is* important, but the economic calculation of its impact should be taken with a grain of salt. It's based on valuing each life lost at $11M, using the misguided methodology of the EPA. It would be cheaper if the same people were dying in Mexico, BTW. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/o...

nytimes.com

Suppression is not enough.

121

A new Substack drawing the weird parallels between left- and right-wing calls to cultural warfare. open.substack.com/pub/peterdor...

The Two Armies of the Culture War

There have always been culture wars.

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This is pretty fundamental stuff: not whether we should follow this or that policy, but against what standard should we measure *any* policy? It turns out there is a fairly direct answer to that question. A few climate people have adopted it, but overall it's still under the radar.

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Newly available. This paper explains why current approaches to measuring the adequacy of climate policies come up short, and how to do it better. Somewhat more technical than my "Sidetracked by Scenarios" Substacks but also more detailed.

papers.ssrn.com

Benchmarking Carbon Emissions: Integrated Assessment Model Scenarios versus Stock-Flow Consistency

To hold governments accountable to their ostensible commitments, civil society groups need to be able to identify and quantify discrepancies between current mit

100

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

WTP treats us as consumers. Which we often are, but shouldn't be about clean air. For one thing, the air affects all of us; it's a "we" decision. For another, just talking about it and explaining how we feel can change our response. Philosophy ain't all BS.

000

Peter Dorman @pdorman.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Even in the context of Trump's blustering incompetence in this war and the negotiations to end it, the revelations in this piece are astonishing. (And if Vance is your official grownup, you have a really big problem.) open.substack.com/pub/dropsite...

Iran Sent Message to JD Vance Warning that Kushner and Witkoff Were “Abusing” Their Inside Access to Negotiations

A senior Iranian official said Tehran privately told Vance the pair were exploiting the negotiations for financial gain. The Trump administration says it never happened.