Ellen Evers

@WeirdMedieval There are cathedrals everywhere for those with the eyes to see

new podcast episode!!!! rss.com/podcasts/weird…

@kbryanw @bOysterous69 @Aella_Girl What could you shorten this to?

@bOysterous69 @Aella_Girl Capitalism is what happens without the presence of a state. You could shorten that to "capitalism is what happens."

i genuinely do not understand this reasoning. What do people think we did before capitalism? like the labor people did for their own basic necessities was... just not slavery somehow? like the default state of nature is lounging peacefully on the ground eating berries?

@GaryMarcus How can that be? Plato just published the republic claiming the opposite?

🚨Just published! Earth revolves around sun! Follow my account for more breaking news and analysis!

one awesome thing about America in 2026 is that if I were to tell you the Rutgers University School of Engineering removed its graduation ceremony keynote speaker, I could stop the story right there & you could fill in every detail with precise accuracy (link below)

you know who isn't apologizing for the commencement speech? Derek Peterson 👏🏾

@sage_liv @horridpeasant @pourfairelevide cumulative inflation since 2021 is roughly 20%, would you have been ok with 55k?

@horridpeasant @pourfairelevide 2021 Would be more difficult now

every time we do media job salary discourse on here, I am reminded that many of you have no idea how normal people live or what they live on

To figure out why Cole Allen did what he did, I obtained a copy of his resume and talked to his former friends. The portrait that emerges is unlike what the White House is saying: kenklippenstein.com/p/assassin-was…

Learn 👇

@stringlandscape @S_Surprenant Like preferences are completely transitive (in specific edge cases), but overall it seems a pretty good assumption to use.

@stringlandscape @S_Surprenant predictions anymore. Predicting what people will do requires something that is predictable. A second argument ("Dutch book") is that lack of transitivity means people can get exploited for all they have (which doesn't seem to happen) Pragmatically, sometimes it doesn't seem...2/3

First, that is not what rationality means. The concept of rationality in economics shows up in two places and, in both cases, it means coherent. Having rational preferences means that you order your options with possible ties. What this rules out are cycles (A > B > C > A). You will notice that when I represent preferences for two goods, x and y, as U(x,y), the theory *does not* say that the agent making the choice consumes those things. I may want them for someone else. The theory is also quite flexible regarding what can be treated as a good or service. You may value your nighbor's joy. You may care about the security of your children. You may care about spiritual things such as your soul and salvation -- or that of others. And we routinely apply this approach to groups of people. A clear example are representative households in macroeconomics, but there are more mundane ones. Plants, firms, and businesses usually involve multiple people, as do governments. Sometimes, we bundle people based on some characteristics such as education or how long they have been unemployment. All of this glances over possible disagreements and tension between people in ways that can matter, but we do it for obviously practical reasons. Next, I am going to take a major issue with the entire framing of that comment. Economic models constrain data and that allows you to pick between them based on facts rather than political convenience. The data will not always allow you to restrict the set of admissible theories to a singleton, but it will generally allow you to reject some explanations. As far as I am concerned, this is the ONLY valid reason to object to a scientific theory: it fits the facts too poorly. That you framed your entire discussion from a normative perspective is rather telling. You have this sense that your collectivist political inclinations cannot be accomodated by standard tools and that's your objection. Please be more activist in my favorite direction is a little soft for a professor. The problem here, of course, is that the world is what it is regardless of what you wish it were. Ignoring theories based on political considerations is like closing your eyes and imagining yourself on vacation while your car is stuck astride the rails with an incoming train. PS For those who stuck around, the second use is rational expectations and that means model-consistent. As promised, here too it means coherent.

I'm in the Chronicle of Higher Education today arguing that teaching and learning centers (basically, professional development centers for higher ed teachers) are not genuine sources of teaching expertise and shouldn't be treated like they are. (link in first comment) (1)

@andre_quentin that's one possibility......

@squig As the French say, "la vieillesse est un naufrage"...

Just finished Lessig's discussion of the final Gino allegation. This may be the least curious thing I've ever encountered, just absolutely zero motivation to figure anything out.

@andre_quentin Just a long list of "this could be due to [reason]" where [reason] is extremely checkable and they just don't? I legit don't don't get it, in other contexts he seems very smart but here he seems motivated to be as dumb as possible.

@squig Every part is so stupid. "Oh the Harvard responses were gift card scammer!". It does not matter where these responses came from Francesca: The issue is that you systematically edited them to match your preferred hypothesis! Gullible old men deluding themselves.

This report about the surveillance in Madison Square Garden is insane

"The Boys are Back in Town" is meant to sound celebratory. But to those of us like myself who considered the boys our friends, it can hurt hearing it second-hand, like I'm the last one to find out

Guy who cheered on the suppression of the protests: “Where are the protests??”

The 2025 documentary Pistachio Wars by Yasha Levine (Watermelon Pictures) shows that billionaire California pistachio magnates Stewart and Lynda Resnick, owners of The Wonderful Company, use their influence to drive a hardline U.S. foreign policy against Iran to protect their market monopoly. The film links the couple to funding hawkish think tanks like the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) that advocate for policies that “kill” all diplomatic efforts. @pistachiowars | @watermelon_pics

Absurd and inhuman violence is spreading ferociously through the sacred places of the Christian East, profaned by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business, with no regard for people’s lives, which are considered at most collateral damage of self-interest. But no gain can be worth the life of the weakest, children, or families. No cause can justify the shedding of innocent blood.