Even in Denmark where the marginal tax rate is above 50%, there's not much evidence that we have passed the center of the laffer curve. That said there is good evidence that it's at most bringing in very little revenue, so at least at around 50% it's beginning to look counter-productive

When we complained twitter was full of left-wing dogma, we really should have specified that what we wanted was to get rid of the dogma, not flip the sign of it!

Find the starting points where you agree and move on from there. If the person comes away thinking that "I guess not all vegans are bad" you've succeeded.

I've sometimes found myself talking about animal rights to MPs who have a very negative perception of vegans.

If you're otherwise someone they'll listen to and you say: "You know, I think vegans have a point, animals we eat should live a good life" it has always been well-received.

Whenever I see someone make this argument I think "Are you five years old?"

It's trivially true that our choice of research to pursue affects what we get to know about. Medium affects the message, so what?

The purpose of our scientific methods is to eliminate the medium and focus on the message!

when you try to convert your text into smaller pieces but all it gives you is Elvish, that’s a tolkienizer

I just learned how Emilia Earhart's last name was pronounced. Another win for nominative determinism

@sambowman.co on the subject of taxes, I've been meaning to make the case for a ridiculously high tax on luxury consumption for a while.

A Rolex watch is in part valuable because people know you paid a lot of money for it! How big an issue would it be, if it suddenly were to be twice as expensive?

For the reasons you stated, I'm not convinced that it's a very effective tax, but I don't mind the tax in principle.

I prefer to live in a world where everyone is born with equal opportunity. If the tax wasn't so distortionary I would prefer it to, say, income tax.

Are there any good papers estimating the impact nicotine pouches has had on cigarette consumption?

The Danish government is looking to tax nicotine pouches to discourage teens from starting, but I'm concerned it will cause teens to pick up smoking instead.

The UK government requiring me to do a $300 three hour English test as part of my visa application, is a great example of governments consistently failing to value people's time. Losing out on half a day of work is expensive yo!

Recycling is another good example.

I felt a bit similar about the paper which showed democracies don't cause growth once you adjust for sanctions. Non-democracies aren't getting sanctioned over nothing!

This is so freaking cool! $60 bucks though :/

Also, I'm really not convinced online voting is all that insecure if done thoughtfully.

For countries such as Denmark, where government services are accessed through a secure verification service, why would online voting not work?

I'm not really convinced by arguments around coercion or malware