BEN BERNANKE AND… SABERMETRICS?
“So Ben — do you mind if I call you Ben? — you like sabermetrics and economic policy. I like sabermetrics and economic policy. I know who you are, and it seems like you might just know who I am. And also, we should be BFFs. Just imagine it.”
-Matt Swartz, “Are You There, Ben Bernanke? It’s Me, Matt.” Very confusing in all the ways I like. Read the whole thing.
————————————————————-
Via Geeks Are Sexy.
——————————————————-
JUST F***ING EAT WHAT TASTES GOOD. YOU AREN’T HELPING MATTERS.
“But there is an unpalatable truth to face for those of us with a bag of quinoa in the larder. The appetite of countries such as ours for this grainhas pushed up prices to such an extent that poorer people in Peru and Bolivia, for whom it was once a nourishing staple food, can no longer afford to eat it. Imported junk food is cheaper. In Lima, quinoa now costs more than chicken. Outside the cities, and fuelled by overseas demand, the pressure is on to turn land that once produced a portfolio of diverse crops into quinoa monoculture.”
-Joanna Blythman, “Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa?“
——————————————————–
PRECISELY ON MY DISSERTATION TOPIC, ONLY ATTENDED BY PEOPLE SMARTER THAN ME.
“This Mont Pelerin Society Special Meeting has the objective to link the concept of evolution to freedom, reinforce the debate that opposes classical liberal society and statism using biology and anthropology as theoretical foundations, and to understand cultural evolution of open societies as a mean to escape from the tribal order.”
-Mont Pelerin Special Society Meeting, via Jason Collins, “Evolution, the Human Sciences, and Liberty meeting.”
Like this:
Like Loading...
What?
So we shouldn’t eat local, but rather embrace the efficiency gains of globalization. Except when global demand becomes harmful to poorer indigenous peoples. But then that’s our own fault for not eating enough delicious stuff. But quinoa is delicious. But vegetarians apparently find it too delicious…?
I give up.
“Globalizing food might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to eat all foods. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to eat anything.” – G.K. Chesterton (a man who liked food)
No – my underlying point is that it is very simplistic to think you can judge from your armchair which consumption choices will have positive moral outcomes, except in a very limited sense. If you are vegan because you believe meat is murder, economics can’t say much to you. But if you believe that eating vegan causes the world to be a better place in the global social welfare sense, I say you aren’t in the position to know that.