PODCAST: Hexapodia LXII: Noah Needs Nuance!

Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour…

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Key Insights:

  1. Brad DeLong says: You say economics and economists in decline—I see bad economists in decline.

  2. Brad DeLong says: You see missile defense as remarkably effective—I see it as marginally effective, at best.

  3. Brad DeLong says: You say China Shock II—I say China Shock I required the GWB administration as witting and unwitting co-conspirator.

  4. Noah Smith says: These are self-refuting prophecies: my defense of missile defense was to say that it can be remarkably effective in a few possible instances, but those plausible ones for the next two decades; my title “the decade of the second China shock” and my subhead “brace yourselves” were intended to spur action to keep there from being a second China shock.

  5. Noah Smith says: Economists advising badly had a lot of influence in 2008 and after, and still have a substantial amount today—so the total influence of economists has decreased since 2008, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.

  6. The only real way to get nuance is to write a whole book and then have people deeply engage with it, which requires that they be on a trans-oceanic flight with dodgy Wi-Fi, and be otherwise bored.

  7. The internet makes us less nuanced than we should be.

  8. &, as always, HEXAPODIA!

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