Let's learn about some medical research that just left Earth on Artemis II, bound for the silver sphere in the sky. It's AVATAR, but it doesn't involve blue aliens. It stands for "A Virtual Astronaut Tissue Analog Response" & it looks like this USB drive-sized device.

I think this is a really good diagnostic! So what the algebraic proofs really show is the *conditional* "if 0.999... is some real number, then it must be 1" It's so slippery because we take it for granted that infinite decimals do refer to real numbers

A thought about social media pile ons (piles on?). I think they might be a kind of rational-like response to an unreasonable belief about how beliefs are distributed in our society. Not that I think they are entirely rational, but just that treating them as entirely irrational might miss the mark

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

Shesh. Now everyone is going to think that the preferences of the consumer should affect corporate decision making.

If all goes according to plan, in a few hours, a crew of astronauts will begin a journey that will take them on a loop around the moon. Here's a video that NASA put together to help people visualize the journey through space, first orbiting the earth before looping around the moon and flying home 🔭

For one, people just don't understand the difference between inflation and prices. They think that to solve inflation, prices have to go back to what they were before. If inflation was 0% today, people would still be complaining about it because they remember that 6 years ago prices were lower.

Hitler literally used the “Jews are only loyal to other Jews and therefore cannot be trusted citizens” myth to argue we were untrustworthy and justify violence against us so maybe think about that next time you assume all Jews are loyal to Israel. America will expel us for this lie if they can too.

Sauer legit argued for a living constitution by claiming an undocumented person is a plane ride away so it's different now than to 1868. Lolol

I would like to see gas be more expensive long term but a short term spike creates a lot of real, immediate pain. I'd love to see a 2 year in advance telegraphed increase in prices, though, to give people time to adapt in advance.

1.) details matter 2.) we need not be wedded to our own catastrophe 3.) despair is the work of fascism

The Supreme Court did not strike down conversion therapy bans today. Not nationwide. Not in Colorado. Not anywhere. Here's what actually happened in Chiles v. Salazar—and why the coverage you're seeing serves the conservative legal movement more than it serves you.

An economist friend passes along this graph of energy costs. He says, "Given this history, it is more than a little ironic that renewable energy is derided by fossil-fuel proponents as 'unreliable.'”

::Janeway voice:: There’s weed in that nebula.

Not a ton of April Fools' submissions this year, but I'll do a quick thread anyhow. Here's a charming little paper on 'declarative bespoke modeling' "in which the modeller explicitly declares the relationship between model inputs and outputs."

I'm actually genuinely interested: how do people use the word "immigrant?" Would it apply to someone brought to a new country against their will? (Dictionary definitions seem ambiguous on this.)

Thrilled to announce my new book, coming Fall 2026.

New in the American Economic Review: migration doesn't hollow out the home economy — it builds it up. More than 75% of the long-run income gains from migration are domestic. The home economy itself grows. Here's what we found: 🧵

Aside from the obvious concerns about academic freedom, this post presents an incredibly optimistic view of what would happen in other fields when someone commits academic misconduct.

I was earnestly asked yesterday what I thought of the lunatic de jure who claims to use "game theory" by someone. When I answered, they said "why doesn't someone say what they're doing wrong?" I was a bit stumped.

One of the problems with social media is that it lacks the immediate check of "did you really mean to say..." or "oh sorry, I didn't mean it that way" that we have in irl conversation. Sadly, social media incentivizes the opposite. You don't go viral for double checking

I have experienced similar pile-ons when my summary of a court's holding was mistaken for my personal view on the matter. This insistence on stripping a post of context then imputing bad faith is making BlueSky unusable for legal reporting. Today's incident shows that the problem is getting worse.

I share articles about vaccines saving lives because I actually think they're cool. Not because of any Big Pharma money, just a genuine appreciation for an impressive technology. I also think spaceships are cool, and no one accuses me of being bought by Big Space when I share astronomy articles!

Proud to have "Nonbinary Gender Economics" out in JPE Micro. We document the economic experiences and preferences of nonbinary individuals—a population of 1M+ in the US that is often overlooked.

This is a point I make all the time. Although some people see empirically oriented philosophy as heterodox, it is far more in line with the history of philosophy which didn't have a clear distinction between philosophy and science.

Philosophy was mostly "armchair" in the mid-20th century—but it's not anymore! Philosophers have increasingly cited empirical sources and discussed empirical data and evidence. In fact, as of the 2020s, non-empirical philosophy has become the minority.

The *majority* of philosophy papers now cite at least some empirical data. Papers that do purely a priori philosophy are in a minority

When dealing with online trolls, remember they’re often projecting their grievances onto a digital avatar: one that just happens to be you in that moment. It’s not fun, and they may say awful things, but they’ll likely move on and forget soon after. That’s why I constantly advocate ignoring them!

objectively the funniest critique an american could level at another country

Today is the 5th anniversary of my first Covid vaccination. Such a memorable, game-changing experience. Thanks Moderna (and BioNTech/Pfizer) for your monumental use of scientific knowledge to protect people's health.

I showed this graph in class yesterday on how measles cases in the United States plummeted dramatically after the vaccine was licensed in 1963. It’s not subtle and I could not resist observing: “This stunning design in measles cases was not thanks to vitamin A. It was not due to beef tallow.”

That's a little on-the-nose, AI.

Guys, it's time for no game theory

They’d rather the country be poorer and whiter than rich and diverse. Of course when the pie shrinks, the rich will demand the same amount and will tell you the crumbs you’re left with are because of immigrants or trans people or DEI. bsky.app/profile/apne...

Philosophers are…

A key to being an academic is to have very niche methodological takes on already niche graphs that you are willing and able to argue about on a moment's notice

As a Star Trek podcaster with many contacts in the academic, political and entertainment worlds, I have access to Trek hot takes that would blow some internet troll's socks off.

Hegseth imagines himself defending "Western civilization." But the West has also made important contributions to the idea that there are moral limits on what we can do in war, from Cicero through Augustine, Grotius, Kant and more. He discards this inheritance. 6/ newrepublic.com/article/2083...

"All art is political" Sure, agreed! But Jon McNaughton's "Legacy of Hope" is political in a different way than Degas's "A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers" that is worth differentiating.

Meanwhile in philos... I mean... uhh..

We're philosophers, we don't agree about anything

Demonstrators in San Francisco came together at Ocean Beach to form a human sign in protest of the Trump administration on March 28.

Truly the hero we deserve

A little known fact is that every time you spell "America" with a "k" you make it 0.0001% more likely that there is a full communist decolonisation of Turtle Island (in a way that is, somehow, also good for Black people with a capital B) and if you do it with three "k"s you decolonise Australia too.

What really worries me is the opposing movement for making everything open. Sure, a postdoc is totally going to provide an honest reviewer report on a manuscript from a tenured professor who may evaluate their next proposal or job application. Also, you may be interested in this bridge I am selling.

Tomorrow's the last day to apply for our open AOS open AOC lecturer position at Clemson! philjobs.org/job/show/31125

i love m-dashes. i use 'not only but also' type of constructions in certain kinds of writing. i am not ai. i find the implication that i might be depressing. just as i dislike defensive academic writing targeting reviewers, i'd regret having to adopt defensive writing habits to prove i'm not a bot.

This is good advice for most of life

Let's talk Kant

The only real photo is the wave function of the universe.