Will King

So something that might be going on is that people are still anchored on the period from '09-'16 where inflation was rather low.

I know that I am still mildly surprised when subway doesn't have a $5 footlong, when the last time I saw one was 8 years ago.

Makes sense. In your mind, how does that compare or differ from sitewide moderation?

Do you mind explaining why that is? I don't think I've heard someone say that before and am a little curious?

The way to superpower individual blocking is to add the people to a list you block. This allows others to follow and the block can propagate quickly. The use of multiple lists can be used to distribute them based on their applicability, e.g. I have one for econsky posters who spam the feed.

I regularly quote "If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky."

St. Peter police chief intervenes, prevents federal agents from arresting resident The police chief of St. Peter intervened to prevent federal agents from taking a local resident who was observing ICE enforcement actions into custody. It is believed to the first time local police in...

"It's believed to be the first time a local police department in Minnesota intervened in a federal law enforcement action since the surge in immigration enforcement began two months ago." www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

I was thinking that we need a way to avoid the spam posters would help a lot. I have a list of low signal-to-noise econsky posters that has helped a lot. I've also been thinking about making an econsci feed that focuses on economics as a science: papers, questions, what people are working on, etc.

So is counter-COIN just respect, kindness, and community? If so, is the reason that COIN worked to the degree it did because the taliban were not nice to people?

Doesn't help that many modern renditions change it to "as He died to make men holy, let us live to make them free."

We are near a tipping point, one way or another. But I am reminded of a quote I first encountered as a teen.

Thomas Paine wrote "I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace."

And so, as long as a world of love is reasonably possible from choosing a disruptive but non-violent path, then I should choose that path. If violence is inevitable, then we must not lose love or it will all have been in vain. So I will practice now.

We Should Talk About The Morality of Political Violence What Are The Best Moral Arguments Against It?

3. @kenwhite posed the question: what are the best moral arguments against political violence in America?

My response: We choose based on the world we want after all is said and done. I want a world full of love. Mutual violence will make it hard to love.

The anger and sadness and fear we feel may motivate us, but love should direct us. My 5yo said of my sadness
"Maybe the feeling will be gone in 3 weeks. If not, then maybe 4."

Love can persist longer and and stronger than anger. This will be a long fight.

Love that acts, love that defends others, love that clenses our souls of hatred. We can see that active love in what people are doing in the twin cities and elsewhere.

Thank you to everyone who has been sharing how they see their neighbors doing good.

2. We must seek love. My 5yo saw me crying as I thought about the news. I explained that there were people being very mean (She does not need to know more). An inspired thought came as we talked: We counter "meanness" with love.

1. If the Trump Administration fails to investigate or feigns a sham investigation, then we no longer live in a constitutional, democratic republic. We will know with certanty that we live under an authoritarian tyranny. Failure to hold oneself accountable is a hallmark of an authoritarian.

The following are just a few thoughts came as I spent some time reflecting on all of this.

Non-political authoritarians do the same.

I saw it while living in San Pedro Sula Honduras, when my neighbors' adult daughter was gunned down in the street. Her crime? Arguing with another woman too loudly: she was killed because she was an annoyance.

Authoritarians of all types value dominance.

Scene from StarWars: a New Hope where C3PO and Ben Kenobi place Jawas on a funeral pyre after their slaughter by Imperial Stormtroopers.

5 minutes before I learned of the ostensible murder of Alex Pretti, I had to explain this scene to my 5yo. Explain that the Stormtroopers "were so mean that they just killed them all".

Authoritarians kill the innocent when they are inconvenient. They kill the innocent to enforce their power.

May we all make 2026 a year of kindness.

Absolutely correct. It's just that people point to BI results as evidence that UBI works, and that isn't true. It can tell us how it might work and what benefits to look for.

Thanks for the link, I've been wondering about general equilibrium results & the saturation studies look interesting.

City of Boulder Releases Evaluation Report for Guaranteed Income Pilot Project | City of Boulder

Not to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but that isn't a _universal_ basic income, but just a standard basic income program limited to 200 participants.

Whether such an benefit would still work if actually universal has not been shown yet as far as i'm aware.

bouldercolorado.gov/news/city-bo...

Just want to point out that this is a case of the base rate fallacy. Per wikipedia there were 2.7m american soldiers who fought in Vietnam. There are 330m+ Americans today.

Gun violence is a large problem in America. We don't need to mislead though.

Sea change?

That is a really good point that I think us economists forget occasionally. Economic system != political system.

Just skimmed the paper and it looks fantastic. Just as a question, did you have any data on the relative prices of the insurance plans? I'm wondering if Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black patients are paying less for the lower payment rates or not.

It seems seasonally appropriate to recall and perhaps amplify the words of Cicero:

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others." — Marcus Tullius Cicero

If you ever get frustrated enough, LibreOffice is a decent alternative.

If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.

Now that is a reference.