I just wanted to follow people who posted about Canadian politics, I don't know why all these other people are apparently here

I greatly resent Matty's sort of liberal because, unlike many critics of liberalism, both left wing and right wing, I don't think it's true they're an inevitable pathological product of liberalism—

But they're so perpetually in the spotlight, I feel constantly on the defensive about this!

I generally like to use the phrase "vulgar end-of-history-ism" or something similar. Vaguely Fukuyama-shaped ideas used to impose silly dogmas rather than to enhance one's understanding of the world

If you try to construct the model to be brain-like you inevitably face ~100 choices that are severely under-constrained by data, and you just have to muddle through.

I can build a model to do anything I want! Is it doing it like the brain? No way to know!

I gotta say, I wonder how much the terrible lectures had to do with what seems to be Summers' own wildly unprofessional attitudes towards his own students

I felt this professor was trying to teach us about himself more than about the material when I just could NOT give a shit

The only public finance class I could take at a time that fit my schedule was with a professor who was a big fan of Summers.

By far the worst class I had as an undergraduate. Terrible lecturer. I powered through because I felt obliged to know the material.