Bryan Caplan
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We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsThus, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that despite much rhetoric to the contrary, the president is more than halfway to being a four-year dictator.
↗The Neo-Median Voter Modelbetonit.ai 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsIn the Neo-Median Voter Model, platforms diverge widely, especially on issues where the base is passionate and the median voter in the general election is apathetic.
↗The Neo-Median Voter Modelbetonit.ai 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsIt means that the famed checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution are now mostly impotent.
↗The Neo-Median Voter Modelbetonit.ai 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
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Our reading
Since 1990, the United States has carefully planned its wars but poorly planned for their aftermath.
Their wordsYou could consider "Since 1990, the U.S. has carefully planned its wars, yet poorly planned for the aftermath" a mixed compliment.
↗The Negligence of War and Peacebetonit.ai 1st of 2 in this piece
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Our reading
War cannot be morally justified unless there is high confidence its long-run effects are very good.
Their wordsActual war means killing a lot of innocent people - and that cannot be justified unless you have high confidence that the long-run effects are very good.
↗The Negligence of War and Peacebetonit.ai 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 11 months earlier
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Their wordsIf human beings can dismiss academic arguments merely because they lead to politically unwelcome conclusions, what’s the point of having academic arguments about politically-charged subjects?
↗The Anti-Intellectual Northern Michigan Universitybetonit.ai
- 6 months earlier
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Their wordsStandardized testing is glorious, but many standardized tests royally suck.
↗What's Really Wrong With Standardized Testsbetonit.ai 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsFirst and foremost: Perfect scores should be vanishingly rare. Instead of clumping the best candidates together, you should be able to clearly distinguish the 99th percentile from the 99.9th, 99.99th, and so on.
↗What's Really Wrong With Standardized Testsbetonit.ai 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsWokeness is the obvious answer. There are many lines of defense in the War Against Merit.
↗What's Really Wrong With Standardized Testsbetonit.ai 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsSo a lot of the problem is mere herding: If every other top engineering program is using the GRE, it’s too weird to require a different test even if the alternative test is a far superior selection mechanism.
↗What's Really Wrong With Standardized Testsbetonit.ai 4th of 4 in this piece
- 5 weeks earlier
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Their wordsLavishly funding education doesn’t cause countries to become rich; being rich causes countries to lavishly fund education.
↗Educational Austerity and Progress Studiesbetonit.ai 1st of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
At the national level there is no clear evidence that more education raises living standards at all.
Their wordsAt the national level, it’s not clear that education increases living standards at all, much less that education makes countries’ living standards increase at a faster rate.
↗Educational Austerity and Progress Studiesbetonit.ai 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsYet common sense insists the best way to discover useful ideas is to search for useful ideas — not to search for whatever fascinates you and pray it turns out to be useful.
↗Educational Austerity and Progress Studiesbetonit.ai 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 weeks earlier
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Their wordsSince signaling, not building human capital, is the main function of education, the main effect of government subsidies is credential inflation.
↗Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College?betonit.ai 1st of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsDespite misleading statements by mainstream education economists, college attendance in particular is not a good career investment for most of the population.
↗Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College?betonit.ai 2nd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsDon’t base your life choices on whether parents and teachers constantly tell you that you’re “smart.” They’re not trustworthy assessors of your intelligence.
↗Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College?betonit.ai 3rd of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsWhat should you do instead? First and foremost: Get objective evidence on your own intelligence.
↗Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College?betonit.ai 4th of 5 in this piece
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Their wordsSince about 70% of the college payoff comes from completion, non-completion implies a terrible return on investment.
↗Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College?betonit.ai 5th of 5 in this piece
- 23 months earlier
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Their wordsTo my surprise and no small dismay, GPT-4 got an A. It earned 73/100, which would have been the fourth-highest score on the test.
- 21 years earlier
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Their wordsDifferences between the general public's positive economic views and economists' resemble other judgemental anomalies: Laypeople and experts systematically disagree.
↗Systematically Biased Beliefs about Economics: Robust Evidence of Judgemental Anomalies from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economydoi.org All 3 from this paper
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Their wordsThe paper first tests and decisively rejects the hypothesis that the differences solely reflect economists' self‐serving bias.
↗Systematically Biased Beliefs about Economics: Robust Evidence of Judgemental Anomalies from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economydoi.org All 3 from this paper
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Our reading
The robustness of apparent biases about economics suggests that the judgemental anomaly is real.
Their wordsApparent biases' robustness suggests that the anomaly is real.
↗Systematically Biased Beliefs about Economics: Robust Evidence of Judgemental Anomalies from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economydoi.org All 3 from this paper