Ben Bushong
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benbushong.com
Ben Bushong
@benbushong.com
Visiting Harvard University and HBS, 25-26

Associate Professor at Michigan State. Formerly: Harvard, Caltech, Oregon.

Using psychology ✕ economics to explore people's beliefs and choices. All opinions my own.

🐶 + 🧠 + 📚 + 🏃🏽+ 🌈 + 🩵

web: benbushong.com
What in the actual f*#% it's been Amy the whole time?!
November 24, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Planes Not Uggos™️. Thank you for your attention to this matter -Very Serious Thinker and Road Rules Alumn Sean Duffy

(Okay hot take: I agree with some of these general principles and would appreciate if people didn't treat close-quarters planes like their private spaces. But this guy is a clown.)
Sean Duffy: "Dressing with respect -- whether it's a pair of jeans and a decent shirt, I would encourage people to maybe dress a little better which encourages us to maybe behave a little better. Let's try not to wear slippers and pajamas as we come to the airport."
November 24, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Hi Bitcoin fans just wondering how that digital store of value is doing? Like, it’s a replacement for gold right and totally not about the crime or scamming right? Hello? Guys?
November 21, 2025 at 12:59 PM
I'm not a lawyer, but I *am* a person who studies people's beliefs and the only thing that strikes me as clear from the transcript is that the foreperson was confused as heck.
Halligan's team is now docketing hourly motions explaining that she absolutely, positively DID NOT F— UP the Comey indictment

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
November 20, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Gang, I don't think Grandpa's doing so hot...
November 20, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Was.... was anybody actually asking this?

C'mon WSJ. This is a joke, right? (If so, it's both well executed and funny!)
Is $200 Million the New $100 Million in Luxury Real Estate?
A surge of ultrarich buyers has pushed asking prices to new extremes, yet many headline-grabbing megamansions languish on the market or trade for a fraction of their debut numbers.
www.wsj.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:36 PM
First impressions, Gemini 3 Pro: the AI (Stock) Apocalypse is still on as scheduled.
November 18, 2025 at 6:34 PM
I’ve gotten “Yo” four times. This is an epidemic.

I suspect this is so much worse for female instructors, who likely get the “Ms” or “Mrs” treatment on the regular; though I have no direct evidence of this.
A memory imprinted on me from 25 years ago is Claudia Goldin (well on her way to a Nobel Prize) saying her salutation in cold emails to faculty is "Dear Prof. X". Maybe that's overkill, but I truly don't get the mindset of undergrads I've never met emailing "Dear Seema." Weakly dominated strategy.
November 18, 2025 at 11:43 AM
Boy if I had a nickel for every time I heard a guy use that as a pickup line...
“Baby, don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not a worm.”

www.vanityfair.com/news/story/o...
November 17, 2025 at 8:20 PM
This isn’t the amazing takedown that the President thinks it is. Go ahead! Charge all criminals with crimes! I love it.
* TRUMP: ASKING DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, FBI TO INVESTIGATE JEFFREY EPSTEIN'S ALLEGED TIES WITH BILL CLINTON, LARRY SUMMERS, REID HOFFMAN, J.P. MORGAN CHASE AND OTHERS

@reuters.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:52 PM
GPT 5.1 is based.
November 12, 2025 at 10:56 PM
This is some horrific sludge from Alphabet / YoutubeTV.

In order to "claim a credit" you have to click a single button. That's it. Nothing else.

Why not, you know, automatically apply the credit?
November 11, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Reason #654 why we need to move past Tom Barrett, my Congressman in the Michigan 7th: although I never signed up for email from him, it still comes. On trying to unsubscribe, I found he has a CAPTCHA.

On the unsubscribe. A CAPTCHA.

I can't think of a better metaphor for Republicans at the moment.
November 8, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Sandwich Guy can go back to prowling the street and seasoning the doers of injustice with mustard.
November 6, 2025 at 7:50 PM
"They were careless people. [T]hey smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
OpenAI walks back comments about government support for its AI spending
OpenAI’s CFO mentioned a potential government “backstop” for AI financing on Wednesday, but later said her choice of words “muddied the point.”
www.marketwatch.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Justice Alito lamenting the speed of a case going through the Court is RICH.
November 5, 2025 at 4:44 PM
"We have to figure out what regulate importations means."
-Justice Kavanaugh, while sipping on beer*

*Probably.
November 5, 2025 at 4:30 PM
"If a tariff is imposed on automobiles, who pays them?"
- Chief Justice John Roberts

GOOD QUESTION. GOOD QUESTION.
November 5, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Lol someone is freaking out
November 5, 2025 at 3:32 PM
What's up with all these folks gargling rocks? D. John Sauer is... a difficult listen.

www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen...
Live Oral Argument Audio Live Oral Argument Audio
www.supremecourt.gov
November 5, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Something something martingale
November 5, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Despite the constant negative press covfefe, indeed.

(Sadly this newest one was deleted, but the internet remembers)

trumpstruth.org/statuses/33487
October 29, 2025 at 1:58 PM
In a livestreamed Q&A, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman put up this aspirational slide (verbally targeting the year 2028 or so).

This is embarrassing. It's laughable. We should be increasingly skeptical and wary that ~$1.4T in near-term investments are directed by a man with such a tenuous grasp on reality.
October 28, 2025 at 8:18 PM
WSJ finally noting some skepticism towards the AI buildout, including this gem:

"Nvidia ended up signing an agreement to lease up to 5 million of its chips to OpenAI, costing $350 billion by today’s standards. It also has the right to invest up to $100 billion to help the startup pay for the deal."
How Sam Altman Tied Tech’s Biggest Players to OpenAI
The CEO’s dealmaking blitz has convinced Silicon Valley’s giants to tether their fates to his company, essentially making it too big to fail
www.wsj.com
October 21, 2025 at 10:39 AM
“Please don’t print this but also you suck and your job is a joke.”

Good luck with that type of approach in court, counselor.
Lindsey Halligan says I’m not a journalist.

But if you think I am, and you value our our non-profit legal news and analysis, you can support our work here: givebutter.com/journalism/a...

You can also follow me on Substack: annabower.substack.com/about
October 20, 2025 at 10:56 PM