I fund an Israeli Facebook Blogger who improves the level of conversation about economics and politics. [Hebrew link]
What problem does this address?
As a toy example: Some rich person passes a law forcing every citizen to send the rich person $1 every year. No citizen alone has enough of an incentive to change this law (it’s only $1), but they would totally be happy to coordinate somehow.
As a realistic example: There are minimum-price regulations, coupled with high import taxes that prevent competition from other countries, resulting in high (government regulated) prices for everyone (including poor people), which create profits for very specific factory owners.
But wait, it’s worse: It’s not only that people don’t fight this problem, they don’t understand it. They think these regulations are a good thing, giving “job security” for the factories. [Which is also true, but a small part of the picture]
This is a bigger pattern: Politicians offer things and [almost] nobody talks about “how much does it cost” or “what are the second order effects”. This blogger writes about those costs and second order effects, and I think this is changing how many people look at politicians (at least around economic policy, trying to affect other things as well), and politicians respond to public opinion.
Lately, a crowd funded lobby group [Hebrew link] has sprung up to coordinate the opposition to these laws. I donate there too.
As a bonus, I think this person promotes high quality discussions online. He says when he believes he’s wrong. He comments to people arguing with him often looking for a crux, and at least not just yelling. This is not trivial today, especially in politics (!) and even if some of his object level opinions turn out to be wrong, his meta level somewhat reminds me of Scott Alexander (who I donate to as well).
How expensive is this? Well, he’s a student, so not so expensive
I stopped seeing content from him for various reasons a few years ago, so I may not be up to date, and I’m somewhat biased on this*. But I don’t remember discussions that he participated in very fondly, and I never felt he promoted anything good.
*Which may bring one to ask why I’m writing this. I think my opinion is at least partly based in reality, and I’m trying to err on the side of saying things rather than not, even if they’re weak and somewhat political, because I worry such disagreements aren’t sounded enough.
[This opinion is mine and doesn’t represent EA]
I fund an Israeli Facebook Blogger who improves the level of conversation about economics and politics. [Hebrew link]
What problem does this address?
As a toy example: Some rich person passes a law forcing every citizen to send the rich person $1 every year. No citizen alone has enough of an incentive to change this law (it’s only $1), but they would totally be happy to coordinate somehow.
As a realistic example: There are minimum-price regulations, coupled with high import taxes that prevent competition from other countries, resulting in high (government regulated) prices for everyone (including poor people), which create profits for very specific factory owners.
But wait, it’s worse: It’s not only that people don’t fight this problem, they don’t understand it. They think these regulations are a good thing, giving “job security” for the factories. [Which is also true, but a small part of the picture]
This is a bigger pattern: Politicians offer things and [almost] nobody talks about “how much does it cost” or “what are the second order effects”. This blogger writes about those costs and second order effects, and I think this is changing how many people look at politicians (at least around economic policy, trying to affect other things as well), and politicians respond to public opinion.
Lately, a crowd funded lobby group [Hebrew link] has sprung up to coordinate the opposition to these laws. I donate there too.
As a bonus, I think this person promotes high quality discussions online. He says when he believes he’s wrong. He comments to people arguing with him often looking for a crux, and at least not just yelling. This is not trivial today, especially in politics (!) and even if some of his object level opinions turn out to be wrong, his meta level somewhat reminds me of Scott Alexander (who I donate to as well).
How expensive is this? Well, he’s a student, so not so expensive
[Sorry for only coming here 2 months later]
I stopped seeing content from him for various reasons a few years ago, so I may not be up to date, and I’m somewhat biased on this*. But I don’t remember discussions that he participated in very fondly, and I never felt he promoted anything good.
*Which may bring one to ask why I’m writing this. I think my opinion is at least partly based in reality, and I’m trying to err on the side of saying things rather than not, even if they’re weak and somewhat political, because I worry such disagreements aren’t sounded enough.