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Neoliberalism and social justice. My talk and Q&A at the LSE: youtube.com/watch?v=0HJGso…
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Nick Cowen
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Nick Cowen
@nc0we
He/him. Classical criminologist. Author: https://t.co/dMm4E2QTLO. Read how good policing stops crime here: https://t.co/Ll45m96lYZ
Lincoln, England เข้าร่วม Nisan 2014
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
Swiss direct democracy is one of the most white-pilling institutions out there.
Giving voters frequent direct votes makes spending more efficient, aligns parliaments with voters, and empowers the median (often most reasonable) voter.
Niclas Berggren@Nonicoc
Empowering the principal: how direct democracy shapes trust in institutions link.springer.com/article/10.100…
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@DavidGHFrost On the contrary, @nescio13 and I argue that high quality independent data collection is foundational for classical liberal governance here in Public Choice: link.springer.com/article/10.100…
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Good. I prefer it when the government doesn't have good data about us all:
- it's better for our freedoms;
- it stops the government devising grand plans that inevitably fail;
- it makes people realistic about what a government *can* do.
Robert Colvile@rcolvile
The most important and least appreciated limitation on government policy decisions is the state of its databases (via @lara_spirit)
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
The Hackney Mosaic Project is a volunteer community group supported by the borough council. Since 2011 it has created a string of beautiful public mosaics, using the style of Roman opus tessellatum to dignify and celebrate scenes of life in contemporary Hackney.
Atalanta@thinkaboutglue
One of the best public art projects I've seen. Grim park shelter turned into glorious roman-style mosaic menagerie, by the Hackney Mosaic Project.
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
I know it's boring and repetitive to talk about how grossly evil Trump is, but the fact remains: Trump is grossly evil, in a way that's pretty much unprecedented in this country.
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
The draft GMC Order 2026 consultation just dropped. Buried in it is a fundamental change to who can be awarded a Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT).
This matters enormously. Let me explain why.
Ramey Assaf@ramey999
The new GMC Order is undergoing consultation. The GMC is seeking to remove the speciality register and decide by themselves who should be issued a CCT. This right is currently protected in law. This is the last hurdle before the GMC will be able to issue CCTs to PAs.
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This Land Is Our Land - by Maia Mindel someunpleasant.substack.com/p/this-land-is…
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I was inspired by Adam Smith to develop what I call 'the invigilator within the breast'. Listen to our discussion here and also on all good platforms! thecurioustask.podbean.com/e/is-an-examin…
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I always enjoy speaking to @AlexAragona on the Curious Task podcast. This time we spoke about my new working paper defending the role of some exams not for externally validating education but as a tool for developing what people in the ed biz call 'metacognition'.
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This is the sort of logic and sense that would be great to see on the Supreme Court
CourtNewsUK@CourtNewsUK
Defendant claims he is suffering from anxiety and depression. Judge: 'Of course you do. You have been living the life of a fraudster for years. That is an anxiety making and depressing way to live your life.'
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
@Antunes1 you can't separate organ donation and euthanasia decisions jme.bmj.com/content/47/10/…
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
We asked young men who are unsure about marriage why they hesitate. The top reason, again, is: "it is hard to find the right person to marry."
This theme shows up across young adults, men and women.
And it's the same story with family formation: the #1 reason Americans are not having the number of children they desire is "Still looking for the right spouse/partner to have children with."
Why is it so hard to find the right person to marry and have children with?
I covered this in more detail in this essay and offered ideas for change @FamStudies: ifstudies.org/blog/why-ameri…
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
Disability pay gap reporting is another great example of this government pursuing policy in two contradictory directions, in that it directly rubs up against their stated policy aim of getting more disabled people into work.
A company that hires disabled people at the bottom of the pay pyramid, which is what you'd expect they'd be doing if they hired someone long term unemployed, will end up looking worse on their pay gap reporting!
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
I think this is very foolish. We should not be creating loads of ad hoc implicit taxes in the system.
- We are forcing people to constantly 'have their wits about them' when they earn, spend, and save. The system can't be trusted to treat people fairly, so they are obliged to learn its Byzantine rules.
- We're giving people huge incentives to hide income, something that we simply do not have the state capacity to track or stop.
- We are giving people a disincentive to earning and saving money closer to a 60-80% tax rate at many margins, but pretending we are a low-tax country.
It has to stop. We need to create a new norm, probably backed up by a reformed OBR, strongly stigmatising off-balance-sheet taxes and spending like this.
Steven Swinford@Steven_Swinford
Exclusive from @MaxKendix Rachel Reeves is expected to limit an energy bill bailout to people on benefits after warning that giving support to every household because of the Iran war would be irresponsible and unaffordable The Times has been told that the planned support will be directed instead at about six million people who claim benefits such as universal credit and pension credit While Reeves has asked about a potential “income threshold” to support lower-earning households, officials have said they are unlikely to be able to develop the system in time. Treasury sources emphasised that several options were being looked at but that no decisions had been taken Officials have identified several barriers, including the fact that HM Revenue & Customs records the income of individuals, while an energy bailout would have to focus on households. A project to link up the information started in January and was due to take more than a year Reeves will therefore have little choice but to give support to people claiming benefits, using the warm home discount, which reduces electricity bills for poorer households by £150, as the model for the scheme “The methods of targeting are imperfect,” one government source said. But another said there was “a lot of defeatism” about what systems could realistically be introduced in time. thetimes.com/uk/politics/ar…
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
Why did Scotland punch so far above its weight in the age of industrialisation and enlightenment?
The usual answer is education.
But I argue that this puts the cart before the horse, and that it was almost entirely down to capital:
ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-inven…
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
NEW
Cambridge-headquartered tech giant Arm Holdings announces it will manufacture its own AI chips - a significant change after 3 decades of success getting its chip designs in 350 billion devices worldwide - IPhones, cars, data centres etc… partnerships announced with most of the worlds tech giants including OpenAI and Meta. The chips will be specialised for AI use, especially the deployment of “agents”.
CEO Rene Haas tells BBC: "This marks the next phase of Arm’s journey - building on our roots in Cambridge, and the strength of our teams across the UK and around the world…” which puts Arm and the UK at the centre of global AI transformation.
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
Just a reminder that DOGE failed at every possible level:
* At the micro level, they misread, misled and straight up lied about many of the 'savings'. They'd announce '500m saved!' and it would be some contract where the money was 98% already spent and already wasn't being renewed.
* At the macro level, they didn't impact spending at all. The government spent more in 2025 than 2024.
* At the institutional level, they didn't even convince the GOP that deficits are a problem worth caring about. The GOP only signature bill in 2025 exploded the deficit by trillions of dollars.
* At a personal level, Elon got run out of town with his tail between his legs. The most notable public facts about the Cracked Coders are that one of them was a mini-Hitler, one was called 'big balls', and none of them bothered to learn how the government actually works before they set it on fire.
They gutted a bunch of important institutions, fired whole departments at random, decimated medical research funding, killed millions of people dependent on USAID, and still failed at every possible level.
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Nick Cowen รีทวีตแล้ว
One in four people raised Muslim have left Islam, which means that all polls of Muslim opinion substantially understate the degree of Muslim immigrant assimilation since leaving Islam is a type of assimilation. In my post today I document how big this bias...
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It would be good to see this independently validated but it’s certainly promising
Louis Mosley@louismosley
Usually 5 or 6 domestic murders a year. Last 12 months? Zero. By using Palantir, Bedfordshire Police identified 1,000+ women whose partners had a history of domestic abuse - and warned them they could be in danger. “This feels like prevention in action at scale,” said the Chief Constable. How we balance the benefits of very powerful technology, like Palantir, against the risks is one of the most important debates of our time. This piece by @RSylvester1 in @ObserverUK captures much of this debate’s complexity.
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My book (and many others!) are available at a stunning 50% discount from now until March 27th! A truly 'just' price.
Use code ISAC26 at the checkout.
e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/neoli…
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