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Noah Smith seems to be perpetually wrong about pretty much everything. Some ideas are bad. You have to update your priors at some point. The politicians in cha
by 2devnull 4y ago
Noah Smith seems to be perpetually wrong about pretty much everything.
Some ideas are bad. You have to update your priors at some point. The politicians in charge can also be bad. He isn’t wrong about that. But swapping out Newsom for some new guy isn’t going to fix hsr. The state will vote in someone who is basically the same.
There’s a lot of “foolish consistency” when it comes to hsr. Update your priors, admit you were wrong and move on. There are better ways to spend those billions.
- crisdux 4y agoI consider Noah Smith to be an inverse indicator. He’s usually one of the last people to cling to a dying idea. His advocacy of an issue usually signals to me that the trend is reversing. There are a lot better examples of America being unable to build, California HSR is a weak example.
- orzig 4y agoYou seem to be making a more general point about Noah Smith. I’ve never been a follower per se but generally nodded my head when coming across his takes. I’m game to update my priors on that, can you share some evidence?
- mjirv 4y agoWhat? Noah’s point about America’s inability to build things has nothing to do with swapping out Gavin Newsom.
- bedhead 4y agoNoah Smith and Scott Galloway are national treasures for their ability to be wrong about seemingly everything they open their mouths about...lots of value as nearly perfect contras.
- pnf 4y agoIt doesn't help his case that Noah Smith has no original ideas, is ungenerous with people who do have them or who disagree with his strictly conventional, mainstream takes, and is smug and obnoxious in general. He's even, physically, a gross slob hiding behind a 'heroic' avatar, which makes it doubly offensive to have things 'explained' by him.
- Apocryphon 4y agoThe ol’ Matt Yglesias midwit pundit.