4 ms·

it is a very blog entry, from the creator of Freakonomics. There is no real study, no real data, and wikipedia is quoted. Not worth the read, insubstantial and

• jcl 18y ago
  Of course, he's trolling in response to similar behavior from the authors of the Lancet article. The authors propose solving a health problem with economics, giving climate change as a motivation. Levitt is pointing out climate change is a poor motivation for what they are trying to accomplish, and, if you follow their reasoning to its logical conclusion, it will actually encourage worse health problems.
• mtts 18y ago
  Though it's somewhat longer than this, "A Modest Proposal", I assume, would meet with a similar response from you, no? For what it's worth, I thought it was reasonably funny.
• TrevorJ 18y ago
  I would argue that in the context of his blog it's not trollish. I think satire is a lost art, certainly the works of Swift could be seen as trollish in some context as well. Now, does it belong on the front page of hacker news? No, probably not, but that's a different issue.