The 100x Research Institution For the past few months, I’ve been running an experiment that felt both thrilling and vaguely unsettling: could I automate myself?

"For the past few months, I’ve been running an experiment that felt both thrilling and vaguely unsettling: could I automate myself? And what would that mean for the future of academic research like mine?" freesystems.substack.com/p/the-100x-r...

The New York Times’ “Moderation Advantage” Is a Statistical Illusion After accounting for money and incumbency the supposed electoral bonus for moderate candidates vanishes entirely.

Look. It would be great if there was one simple trick for winning elections. But 'just be more moderate' isn't it.

In fact, you can use the NYT's exact method to 'prove' a 'Progressive Advantage' of +1.4 pts.

This piece shows what's really going on: funded candidates do better than unfunded ones.

Striking parallel between Trump and Liz Truss in terms of the power of economics/markets to turn even one’s own partisans against you.

Trump isn’t losing any support over his performative cruelty towards immigrants, but is rapidly losing Republicans over economic policy, stock market, inflation etc

6) Just 25% of US adults say they expect their finances to look better in five years than today.

That’s lower even than at the nadir of the Great Recession.

they are not just ending careers with these layoffs, the functional result is going cauterize entire career *paths.* you cannot possibly overstate the damage these layoffs are doing to the ability for anyone to have a career of "being a scientist" in this country.

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Gallup poll screenshot: “President Donald Trump's Job Approval Ratings Across Eight Issues Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling ... This chart presents survey data from March 3-16, 2025. It displays approval and disapproval ratings for Trump's handling of eight policy areas: energy policy, relations with the news media, the federal budget, the environment, foreign affairs, the situation in Ukraine, the economy, and relations with Russia. Approval ratings range from 39% (relations with Russia) to 45% (energy policy), while disapproval ratings range from 47% (energy policy) to 59% (the economy). ApproveDisapproveNo opinion Energy policy 45% 47% 8% Relations with the news media 44% 51% 5% The federal budget 43% 52% 5% Foreign affairs 41% 55% The environment 41% 54% 5% The situation in Ukraine 41% 55% 5% The economy 41% 59% Relations with Russia 39% 58% March 3-16, 2025 Due to rounding, percentages may sum to 100% ±1 percentage point.”

Gallup poll screenshot: Strength of Approval and Disapproval of Trump, by Political Party Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president? Do you [approve/disapprove] strongly or only moderately? This chart presents survey results from March 3-16, 2025. The chart shows approval and disapproval ratings for how Donald Trump is handling his presidency, broken down by U.S. adults, Republicans, independents and Democrats. The approval and disapproval responses are categorized into strong approval, moderate approval, moderate disapproval, strong disapproval. Among U.S. adults, 32% strongly approve, 11% moderately approve, 7% moderately disapprove and 46% strongly disapprove. Republicans show high approval, with 78% strongly approving and 13% moderately approving, while only 3% strongly disapprove. Among independents, 20% strongly approve, 15% moderately approve, 11% moderately disapprove and 46% strongly disapprove. Democrats overwhelmingly disapprove, with 91% strongly disapproving. Approve stronglyApprove moderatelyDisapprove moderatelyDisapprove strongly No opinion U.S. adults 32% 11% 7% 46% Republicans 78% 13% Independents 20% 15% 11% 46% 8% Democrats 91% March 3-16, 2025 Due to rounding, percentages may sum to 100% ±1 percentage point.

👀 NEW ugly number for Trump (Gallup):

Approval on key issues sinking across board:

* -19 pts on being Putin’s puppet
* -18 pts on dealing w econ.
* -14 pts on dealing w Ukraine
* -13 pts on dealing w enviro issues

Trump’s disapproval rating (53%) is getting intense w 46% strongly disapproving.

NY Times headline: President Says He's `Not Joking' About a Possible Third Term.

Maybe take him at his word this time?

Mocking people you arrest, using them as props for your social media content, celebrating with emojis when you kill civilians - it's all monstrous and fascist

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there should be a pulitzer prize category for transcendently clever meme usage in response to a news event. and this should win

100%

making national security decisions in full sentences is not efficient, gotta doge the group chat

To review what we from @washingtonpost.com are reporting out of the IRS today:

- Projected tax revenue this year is down 10% ($500 billion) as Trump's downsizing is emboldening tax cheats

- IRS is nearing an agreement with ICE to assist on mass deportations

Interesting example of different intuitions about effect sizes.

@davidshor.bsky.social, who has run a lot of randomized experiments:
"You say the 70 words to him and then ... there's a 2.5% change he changed his mind. I think that's incredible!"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0J...

i feel like this is evidence for my view that people experience trump through a strong form of ironic detachment. they literally do not perceive him as real.

Another way of saying this is that Trump’s claims are so extreme that even judges appointed by Republicans agree

As we show in a forthcoming JOP paper, this is an important signal to higher courts about the undelying merits of the claims

50 stations! 131 miles! No bathroom breaks?!

For the next 6-8 hours I’ll be attempting a BART Speedrun with @thebiscuitdan.bsky.social — riding @bart.gov nonstop until we cover every mile of track.

The official record is 5 hours 43 minutes.

Follow along!

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www.sfchronicle.com/totalsf/arti...

Chart of male life expectancy at birth, former Soviet union and France. Soviet block countries saw steady declines starting in the 60, with a rebound in the mideightiesr followed by a MASSIVE drop when the Soviet union ended. France rose steadily the entire time.

Been thinking about this graph a lot lately.

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3/ I recommend not inferring any causal link between AI adoption and employment from this approach - none is implied, and I don't think the data warrant such an interpretation.

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What Census Calls Us Explore the different race, ethnicity and origin categories used in the U.S. decennial census, from the first one in 1790 to the latest count in 2020.

Good time to reflect on all the ways the census race and ethnicity questions have changed over the years www.pewresearch.org/interactives...

How a glitch in an online survey replaced the word ‘yes’ with ‘forks’ Dating back to at least early 2023, a bizarre and alarming technical glitch started popping up in some organizations’ online surveys and forms.

Last year we encountered a strange glitch in one of our surveys…the word “yes” was being replaced with the word “forks” in response options. Read on to learn how we unraveled what was causing it, how we ensured it didn’t impact the data quality, and what to do if it happens to you!

I spent a lot of time in my book breaking down WHY this is happening — it’s *content meets community*

- A lot of people don’t want “politics” or “news”, they want to be entertained…comedy, culture

- They want to feel like they’re listening to someone relatable, who talks like them, is like them.

Looks like we're about to get new data about what happens to a modern economy when you dismantle the liberal democracy that enabled it.

But the cost seems too high, and we have examples already; Italy 1922, Germany 1933, France 1940, Chile 1973, or Hungary and Turkey in the 2010s.

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After a long wait, the working paper for the Many-Economists Project: The Sources of Researcher Variation in Economics. We had 146 teams perform the same research three times, each time with less freedom. What source of freedom leads to different choices and results? papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....