Greg Veramendi

Are you in Boston next week and want to hear two serious physicists have a conversation about aliens?

I will discuss whether aliens speak physics with @mattstrassler.bsky.social on Nov 17 at the Harvard Bookstore. @harvardbookstore.bsky.social

The Political Economy of the US Media System: Excavating the Roots of the Present Crisis - Roosevelt Institute Bilal Baydoun, Shahrzad Shams, and Victor Pickard trace the roots of the US media crisis to decades of deregulation and commercial capture, outlining how consolidation, news deserts, and platform domi...

Thrilled to announce the publication of our @rooseveltinstitute.org report that uncovers the policy roots of the current crises facing our news, information & communication systems. We argue that media reform must become central to a US pro-democracy movement. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

I had to look up #2

Does marriage still causally change the division of labour after having a first child? We revisit this question and find evidence of two types of households - some specialize BUT for more modern couples marriage increases coordination - men earn less, take more paternity leave and women keep working

IWAEE 2026 (16th) Meetings - Call for Papers now open!

Submit your papers on education economics via
iwaee.org/new/

Deadline for submissions 27th February

14th to 16th June 2026, Catanzaro, Italy

Keynotes: Esteban Aucejo, Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch and @marirege.bsky.social

#EconSky

Our new book is out today! @andycomics.bsky.social

Going to be in Boston 11/17? Come see me and @mattstrassler.bsky.social talk aliens and physics!

I read @itsafronomics.bsky.social new book “The Double Tax” this afternoon. It’s engaging and one of the best popular ways to bring social science to the public and policy that I’ve read in a long while. Black women are uniquely disadvantaged in our economy. 😍 she gave Janelle James her flowers!

Saying the quiet part out loud, again.

Please join me in signing and sharing:

For Day 2 of our celebration of work using the Census Tree we highlight @lukestein.com & co's work on the gendered impacts of perceived skin tone. They find that among African Amer. sisters, women perceived to be darker-skinned were disadvantaged.

*They also cite a great QJE pub by Lisa Cook et al*

SI 2022 Methods Lectures - Empirical Bayes Methods, Theory and Application

Another good place to start: www.nber.org/conferences/...

Worth a read if you don't already follow Phil. TLDR:

Conservative Man Proudly Frightened Of Everything FLOWER MOUND, TX—Condemning the “woke left” for what he called the “modern evisceration of masculinity,” local conservative man Hank Daniels confirmed Monday that he was never going to stop being prou...

theonion.com/conservative...

what gif pops up when you type your name?

Hey Luna, what do you mean when you say "i got too excited"?

Stable genius!

"Young political vigilantes" have historically been very useful to dictatorships--from Berlin to Beijing--because they gleefully engage in mass violent destruction of social institutions whose value and purpose they do not understand.

Ex: Mao's Red Guard:
www.theguardian.com/world/2023/j...

i understand the american people on average not reading history books what with the failing education system etc but what the fuck is the university leadership's excuse

📝New @cepeo-ucl.bsky.social working paper

Why are students from elite high schools much more likely to go to high ranked university courses than equally qualified students from the state sector? 🤔

w @opmc1.bsky.social @lindseymacmillan.bsky.social & Jo Blanden

econpapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucl:ce...

When an English person shares how they feel about good news: "I feel, um, unnecessarily emotional about it."

from Thames Water documentary. Worth a watch.

This 👇

Recognising the growing difference between predicted grades and achieved grades over time, UCAS are piloting personalised reports to schools

These will show schools how their UCAS predicted grades compare to achieved results

www.ucas.com/corporate/ne...

Author of "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps"
👇

I Randomly Decided To Pay Off A School’s Lunch Debt. Then Something Incredible Happened. “I immediately wondered if this was real.”

Great article on school lunch debt relief

www.huffpost.com/entry/utah-s...

YouTube video by UNSW eLearning Modern Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines? Seminar with Prof. Carl Bergstrom, University of Washington

Yesterday, @carlbergstrom.com presented his course "Modern-day Oracles or BS Machines? How to thrive in a ChatGPT world". Neat way to make students aware of the capacities and limitations of LLMs👇🎰

Recording: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZC0...

Course: thebullshitmachines.com

@unswbabs.bsky.social

Is it better to have standardised exams or teacher assessments?

Myself and my colleague @opmc1.bsky.social have read the literature so you don't have to. Our @iza.org world of labour summarises below #econsky

This study by MIT authors shows students using LLMs exhibit decreased cognitive activity. I admit that it is a small sample and confirms my priors. Lots of crazy shit happening atm, but this still worries me a lot as an educator and when thinking about the future. www.brainonllm.com

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.

This is the third story I've read in a month about how AI chatbots are leading people into psychological crises.

Gift link