Mid-October mailbag by Matthew Yglesias

www.slowboring.com

Mid-October mailbag

Matthew Yglesias

19 - 24 minutes

Years ago, when we were all new in town, my roommates and I wanted to throw a big fun Halloween party that all our friends and acquaintances would show up to. But we realized the Halloween party market was extremely crowded and that without many deep social ties or actual money to spend on anything beyond a keg of beer and some plastic cups, it would be hard to get to the top of the Halloween party list. So we just moved the date up two weeks, called it a Mid-October Party, put in virtually no effort, and tons of people showed up and it was a lot of fun.

The Mid-October Party tradition lived on for many years until kids and aging made such things infeasible.

But the spirit of the Mid-October lives on in my heart, and I always try to remember the lesson that differentiation is your friend.

Leora: What are your thoughts on single-sex education? Boys are falling off a cliff academically, and on average they develop later and seem to thrive in a more competitive, test-based educational environment. There also seems to be evidence that girls perform better in STEM in a single-sex environment.

When I grew up in the 80s-90s, there was a belief that all-girl education was empowering. My feminist mother sent my sisters and I to such a school for several years, forestalling the experience of hearing sexual taunts from boys when we switched to coed. Today, the left seems aligned in opposition to single-sex schooling because it’s premised on some general sex-based differences that we can’t wish away.

I got interested in single-sex schooling when I was reading Richard Reeves’ book because it seems like something you might want to try. Unfortunately, the quality of the available research is not great. Kirabo Jackson has a well-identified study that shows benefits (higher test scores, fewer arrests for boys, fewer pregnancies for girls) to converting low-performing schools into a single-sex model. But it’s a study in Trinidad, and it’s not obvious that would generalize to the United States. There’s also a study from Korea that shows benefits (for boys but not for girls) to single-sex schools but harms to single-sex classes inside integrated schools.

If anyone knows of other studies, I’d like to see them.

M.W. Abbott: Was there ever a "sweet spot" in time for large public sector building projects? Like, when building technology/capability outpaced onerous regulations, environmental and quality of life considerations, and government had more latitude to do things? (I'm thinking of the building of the NYC subway system.) Or is it all kind of relative based on other factors (materials, workers, unions, etc.) and depends on the project, too?

It seems like the heyday of American civil engineering was probably way back in the 19th century when we dug these huge canals and built the transcontinental railroad.

But in a global sense, the best of times for civil engineering is right now. A new project like the Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden is just incredibly impressive. And the greatest wave of metro construction in human history happened about 10 years ago — it just happened in China. In the United States, we’ve been suffering since the 1970s from an unfortunate convergence of the Reagan Right and the New Left on the idea that it’s good for the state to be weak and incompetent because this is supposedly good for business (the right) or marginalized communities (the left) when I think neither is true.

SarahWinsALot: Should we all install far ultra-violet lights in our houses? (To stop the flu, cold and other illnesses?)

I think what we need to do is develop HVAC systems that integrate the virus-killing lights into the system, not bathe whole homes in far ultraviolet light.

Charles Z: I know you don't necessarily think social media use (esp. Twitter) is a bad thing, but a lot of journalists do. Crooked Media has an entire podcast devoted to this problem, and a few months ago, Ezra Klein devoted his NYT column to discussing it. What are the non-personal (e.g., economic and professional) incentives for journalists to use and be active on social media? I ask this question because the answer to it will affect how we diagnose the “problem,” i.e., whether we conceive of it as a self-control issue, or as an economic phenomenon brought about by the professional incentive structure of the journalism/politics/politics-adjacent professions.

I love Ezra and I respect his views on Twitter, but I also fear that it becomes a “the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity” situation.

Whether it is good or bad that a lot of discourse currently takes place on social media, the fact is that a lot of discourse currently takes place on social media. If intelligent, well-meaning, intellectually rigorous people don’t try to intervene constructively in the Twitterverse, then people who are stupid, people who are sloppy, and people who have bad values will do it instead. I think the objective incentives are to use Twitter as a ladder that you eventually kick aside once you’re prominent and successful. But I think the world would be a better place if Ezra ignored his objective incentives and participated more. His takes are good!

Rebecca SM: A few weeks ago you retweeted Timothy B. Lee’s post about leaning out as a parent - in essence working less than full-time while pulling more of the parenting weight. It seems like 80% of the moms I know want to work 20-30 hours a week. How do you go about creating such work, especially for those who are not writers, nurses, other professions that lend itself to “leaning out”?

I really recommend Claudia Goldin’s book on this. A lot of the change that would have to happen is essentially cultural in terms of the norms of the business community. On a policy level, though, I’d say one key barrier is America’s tendency to provide certain social benefits through tax subsidies to employers. That kind of linkage between jobs and health insurance or pension eligibility creates a lot of lumpiness around the idea of a “full-time job” relative to a system where those benefits are provided directly through taxes.

woodhouse: If a smart 17 year old asked you for some real life advise, what would you give them?

Meaning, what major would you recommend them and what would you suggest in terms of work-life balance and income goals. Would you tell them to move to NYC after graduation, move back home, or become a digital nomad?

It’s hard to give advice without knowing the person. But what I’d say in general about college is that I’m interested in French history and I took two great classes on French history in school. But I’ve continued to read good books about French history and learn things about it in the 20 years since I graduated. In another class, I worked through formal proofs of theorems from Gödel and Tarski and other logicians.

That class was not as fun. But by the same token, I can’t work through difficult technical material on my own at all. During the pandemic, I repeatedly took up “teach myself R” as a hobby but kept getting distracted and dropping it. If I’d taken a college class on R, though, I feel really confident I could have learned it.

It would be dumb to totally ignore your interests when picking courses. But relative to the baseline of “I’ll take classes I’m interested in,” I would suggest trying to lean toward things where the structured learning environment of a classroom with grades is most helpful. For me, learning about history informally through books and podcasts and online lectures works very well. But learning to code or to follow mathematical proofs does not. I need more structure and more accountability.

Troy a Garrett: Peter Zeihan has said many talking points about anti fracking come from Russian Propaganda. And much of the environmental movement comes from Russian propaganda.

Is that true or is Zeihan a crack pot?

I think that’s exaggerated in much the same way as how some liberals see Putin’s hand behind everything that anti-immigration right-wingers say or do. In both cases, what I think happens is the Russians simply seek to amplify authentic western narratives that happen to advance their causes. That includes anti-fracking politics, anti-EU politics, anti-immigrant politics, and various other things.

Red: I wonder if the Oregon governor's race is on Slow Boring's radar?

There's something weird going on here: In deep blue Oregon, the race appears to be a toss-up with the R having a puncher's chance of winning. Any thoughts as to why or what this may signify?

Someone better informed than me would have to explain the details. But broadly speaking, the weird thing about Oregon isn’t that a Republican might win, it’s that there hasn’t been a GOP governor since the 80s! There’s a pretty clear pattern across most blue states of Republican governors popping up now and then to check perceived excesses of the state legislature. Keeping up a streak of no backlash for over 30 years is kind of wild, and their luck was bound to run out at some point.

Tracy Erin: What did you think about the Timothy Shenk piece in the Sunday NYT about Barack Obama's youthful views of how to achieve political change?

I loved it. This is a piece about a book that Obama outlined before getting into politics but wound up never writing. And my views on these issues are very much in the Bayard Rustin tradition that Obama invokes. A friend sent me this paragraph and noted it could have been a Slow Boring post (see “Racism is a Big Deal”) :

    Mr. Obama and Mr. Fisher didn’t pretend that racism had been expunged from American life. “Precisely because America is a racist society,” they wrote, “we cannot realistically expect white America to make special concessions towards blacks over the long haul.” Demanding that white Americans grapple with four centuries of racial oppression might be a morally respectable position, but it was terrible politics. “Those blacks who most fervently insist on the pervasiveness of white racism have adopted a strategy that depends on white guilt for its effectiveness,” they wrote, ridiculing the idea that whites would “one day wake up, realize the error of their ways, and provide blacks with wholesale reparations in order to expiate white demons.”

I think if you read “A Promised Land” and “The Audacity of Hope” knowing that Obama was deeply influenced by Rustin, you can see these themes animating his work. But he’s never been as forceful and direct as he was in this manuscript. In part because that would have been bad pragmatic politics. But now that he’s in his post-presidential life, I wish he would make these points more directly and more clearly because he’s one of the few people on the planet with the stature to actually change the course of things.

In the meantime, I note that the Obamas’ production company is making a Rustin biopic for Netflix and I’ll be interested to see what that looks like.

Glen: Having listened to Matt vent about Covid hawks on the recent Bad Takes episode, as well as his ongoing frustration with a certain type of progressive who seems drawn to unpopular ideas like moths to the flame, I wonder to what extent Matt agrees with the proposition that these folks are mostly engaged in a continuous in-out group definition exercise Vs a substantive policy debate.

The love of masks, the phase “Defund the Police,” insistence on racial identity politics etc make little sense if you're interested in a policy debate about making the world better. But if your actual game is simply to adopt positions that sharpen the distinctions between your group and the rest.... then these positions are super smart?

I don’t think questioning people’s sincerity is productive. But I do think that a lot of people like to engage in political argumentation without really thinking seriously about means and ends. They’re engaged in what Eitan Hersh calls “political hobbyism” rather than attempting to wield the levers of power in specific ways. And I think that’s pretty bad.

Kc77: To what extent do do think conflicts between progressives and center-left “neoliberal shills” is a conflict between consequentialist and non consequentialist ethics?

Specifically, it feels like modern progressive moral reasoning seems very centered on virtue ethics. I can see this playing out in conflicts about if Democrats should use race blind language to describe policy because because that will maximize vote share for democrats and provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number, or if we should use race specific language because to do otherwise would be cowardly and not compassionate to those suffering from racism. I also see this in environmentalism, where rejection of an all of the above energy transition policy and permitting reform seems driven by disgust with human gluttony and belief in respecting the sanctity of nature than in preventing harm Caused by climate change. Is the solution to intra left conflict to spread to the youth the good news about John Stuart Mill?

I don’t think we should underrate sincere disagreement. The United States is a very large, very conservative country with only two political parties. So one of the parties spans everyone from principled opponents of capitalism and industrial modernity to people who just think it’s sad that you can be bankrupted by illness or who think school kids should all get a decent lunch for free. This is bound to create some tension.

But in terms of consequentialism, I do see a real issue here.

And it’s not so much that the non-consequentialists are adhering to a pure virtue ethic — I think they are genuinely not thinking seriously about consequences. Virtually every Democrat in Congress understands that Saudi Arabia limiting oil production is bad for their reelection prospects and therefore bad for progressive causes. So why didn’t they spend 2021 applying that exact insight to domestic oil production? I think it’s a genuine cognitive error. They did not engage in enough critical thinking about the issue last year. When the exact same question is posed in a different context, they see the right answer and they want to do the consequentialist thing. But people can be very blind.

Nikhil Gupta: Why is the intellectual atmosphere, on twitter especially but not only, so much more pro Russian than public and elected opinion. Liberal cities are full of Ukraine flags. The votes to provide Ukraine aid are almost unanimous, and public opinion polls show 70+ support. Yet on twitter you have voices that are not complete cranks talk about cutting off aid to Ukraine as a way to promote peace. Do you have a theory for this disconnect?

There’s a weird “independent thinker” groupthink that just abhors the idea that there’s a consensus that’s basically correct. People in this school are constantly observing that it would be bad to have a nuclear war as if they’re the only ones who’ve noticed that, when they themselves don’t seem to have any appreciation of West/Russian relations as an iterated game.

Eric H: Given your overall preference for less land use regulation, where do you draw the line on what should be legal to do on a residential lot?

Like, I get the sense you'd be for a small-scale childcare facility, but what would your feeling be about someone setting up a small-scale tannery or paper mill (both of which are famously smelly)? Or how about a concert venue?

I want to distinguish here between my personal views and my policy opinions.

In terms of housing abundance, I’m really a policy hardliner — I think there are very large objective benefits to society by allowing (not requiring, allowing) much more density on residential parcels, and if people disagree with that they need to be defeated politically.

Personally, I live half a block away from a major dining and nightlife strip in D.C. Previously, I lived in a mixed-use building right on top of various restaurants — and that’s what the building I grew up in was like, too. In fact, in the area where I grew up (12th Street between 5th and University), there is retail on the side streets and not just the main avenues. My personal preference is for living in dense, lively urban neighborhoods. My current neighborhood is quieter than the one I grew up in, but it’s basically the most activity-rich place in the city. And when we had a dispute about whether a beer garden should open on the corner, I said the NIMBYs were being dumb and now it’s here and it’s great.

But unlike in the housing case, I do think this is basically just a question of preferences. If some neighborhoods want to keep themselves quiet and retail-free, I don’t have a problem with that; it’s just not my preference. The classic deal with tanneries is that they were considered so unpleasant that nobody wanted to allow them in residential areas, but also cities acknowledged the need for these businesses — so you set aside a place for them. That’s “classic zoning” and it seems fine.

Cwnnor: Do you earnestly believe your alternative history scenarios? Or are they just political fanfic for the memes?

They are always written categorically (this happened, then that happened) rather than as an elaborate series of carefully hedged probabilistic forecasts. So in that sense they are not a rigorous effort to track beliefs. But I do mean them seriously, as real explorations of the possibility space.

More broadly, one reason I like to do these things is that I like to prod people into considering that there is considerable contingency in the world — and that elite actors have more agency than they often like to believe. I did one the other day where we imagined a world where John Kerry beats George W. Bush in 2004. My claim was that it led John McCain to win in 2008, and then for fun I said that in 2012, Donald Trump beats Hillary Clinton by running against NAFTA, open borders, the Iraq War, and the Clintons’ legacy on the Defense of Marriage Act while sealing the deal with the Democratic Party base by being the one guy who’s willing to be really savagely critical of McCain, including going after his war record. That’s obviously partially a troll. But the point is to get people to think about why that might be wrong. Because it’s true that Clinton’s record on Iraq and NAFTA would be a huge weakness for her regardless of whether her opponent was Bernie Sanders or Barack Obama or Donald Trump. And it’s also true that liberals would’ve loved the idea of being transgressively mean about McCain under those circumstances. And it’s also also true that as recently as 2012, the parties were not nearly so cleanly sorted on immigration as they became during Obama’s second term and Trump’s four years in office.

So my scenario of the McCain-Trump election of 2012 clearly might be wrong, but it would be wrong for boring reasons like “Trump’s persona and scandals would be off-putting to educated women, even if he stuck to his older liberal policy views on abortion, taxes, and gun rights” rather than for reasons related to the deep ideological structure of American politics. The current alignment feels very profound and deep and right. But it’s a highly contingent consequence of the 2013 immigration deal failing, of Obama deciding that DAPA was a crucial legacy item, of GOP coordination failures during the 2016 primary, of flukey email stuff putting Trump over the top, and of thermostatic dynamics causing Democrats to move left on immigration because they found Trump repulsive.

Mark W: What's your policy on giving to panhandlers?

(I almost never give to panhandlers, and I have policy reasons I could cite, but I always wonder if I'm just rationalizing selfish underlying preferences to keep my money and not interact with homeless and needy people.)

Almost everyone living in the developed world should probably be giving more money away, and if panhandlers induce you to give, that then I think that’s great. But if you’re talking about a rational allocation of a charitable portfolio, then giving money to panhandlers doesn’t look like a great option relative to other forms of do-goodery.

Slow Boring supports the GiveWell Top Charities Fund with 10 percent of our revenue, and I very much endorse that option. If you’re interested in doing something locally focused, then cash donations to a reputable food bank will almost certainly do more good than giving to panhandlers. But don’t tell yourself “I don’t give money to panhandlers because it doesn’t seem like a great use of money” and then actually use the money to buy some shoes.