Here it is: the distilled wisdom of 66 years on planet Earth. The list is numbered so you can mock them in comments more easily. Enjoy.
- Crime didn't skyrocket in the '70s and '80s because of drugs or poverty or family breakdown. It skyrocketed because of an increase in lead poisoning that had begun decades earlier.
- Over the past half century, Democrats have been remarkably successful at building a durable safety net for the poor. We spend more than a trillion dollars per year on social welfare, and it raises the average income of the poor from about $25,000 to $50,000.
- Tax cuts don't boost economic growth in any meaningful way.
- Among the non-affluent, college tuition hasn't risen over the past 30 years.
- Generally speaking, the public can tolerate immigrant flows equal to about a quarter percent of the population. Above that, a backlash becomes more and more likely.
- On average, Black students graduate from high school at a 9th grade level in both reading and math.
- The annual federal deficit is starting to look genuinely dangerous. Like it or not we're going to have to raise taxes sometime soon, and not just on the rich.
- Social Security can be made fully solvent forever fairly easily.
- Millennials are doing fine.
- There's been no particular increase in airplane mechanical malfunctions lately.
- The real dietary villain of the modern era is refined sugar.
- It may turn out that social media is bad for teens, but so far the evidence is fairly thin.
- One out of seven people have no interior monologue.
- Always adjust for inflation. There are rare exceptions, but you're not likely to ever run into them.
- Always disaggregate student test data by race. If you don't you'll frequently get badly misleading data due to demographic shifts. Always disaggregate poverty data by age. If you don't you'll be largely just capturing the reduction in elderly poverty thanks to Social Security and Medicare.
- There is no retirement crisis.
- The 2021-22 inflation surge was caused by the COVID pandemic and the bipartisan $2.2 trillion CARES Act. That's it. Nothing else had more than a minor effect.
- Despite lots of publicity saying so, maternal mortality has probably not increased. It turns out this was just a statistical artifact.
- During a pandemic, social distancing is good but three feet is probably enough. N95 masks are beneficial, but other masks aren't.
- Domestic discretionary spending hasn't increased in more than 60 years. It is currently below its long-term average of 3.8% of GDP.
- Half of all people have two-digit IQs.
- According to the Washington Post, a total of nine unarmed Black people were killed by police shootings nationwide in 2024 (through the end of October).
- In 2023, median family income in the US was $101,000. In 1980, adjusted for inflation, it was $70,000. In 1953 it was $40,000.
- Most people seem to have no idea what the racial makeup of America is. For the record, it's 58% white, 20% Latino, 14% Black, and 6% Asian.
- 93% of all abortions are done in the first trimester. 99% happen in the first 20 weeks.
- Of the top 50 software companies, 47 are American (22 in California). Roughly 21 of the top 25 AI companies are American.
- The internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. AI will make smart people even smarter but will probably make dumb people a little smarter too.
- The life expectancy of the affluent (top 10%) is about 89. The life expectancy of the poor (bottom 10%) is 77.
- On a huge range of measures—economic, social, cultural, technological, and recreational—life in America is stupendously good. We should all feel a lot better about things than we do. One of the reasons we don't is that both liberals and conservatives have a vested interest in claiming that the country is on the precipice of imminent collapse due to moral decay.
- Vaccines do not cause autism.
- To the extent that environment affects children's development, it's mostly environment outside the home: playmates, teachers, shop clerks and so forth. Parents have a good deal less influence than they think. Needless to say, most people resist this conclusion strenuously, but consider: do immigrant kids grow up speaking with the accent of their parents or the accent of their friends? It's always the accent of their friends.
- A lot of famous studies have turned out to be wrong, but most people never hear about it. The Stanford prison experiment showing that even fake guards became abusive toward fake prisoners? Probably exaggerated. The marshmallow test showing that kids who delayed gratification had better life outcomes? Nah. Saturated fats are bad for you? Mostly a misinterpretation of the Framingham Heart Study. Orchestras that audition players behind curtains are more likely to hire women? Not really.
- Here's approximately how the federal budget breaks down (as of 2024): Social Security = 22%, Means-tested welfare = 17%, Medicare = 13%, Defense = 13%, Domestic = 13%, Interest = 13%, Veterans = 5%.
- Strange but true: COVID vaccines reduce death rates from non-COVID causes. Possibly this is because the vaccines prevent Long COVID.
- Roughly speaking, intelligence is 70% genes and 30% environment.
- It's true that correlation doesn't automatically imply causation, but it's a helluva strong clue. The proper response to a well done correlation study isn't knee-jerk skepticism, it's "That's interesting! We should to more studies to confirm it."
- Probably every sentence being served for every crime in the US should be cut in half. Our sentencing policies are ludicrously punitive and accomplish little.
- Half a century ago corporate profits were about 10% of the economy. Today they're 14%.
- Medical inflation is largely under control. Since 2000 it's been only about one point higher than overall inflation, and over the past three years it's been considerably lower.
- Fear of losing status is a far greater motivator than the prospect of gaining status.
- Human beings are fundamentally kind of shitty. But that's what civilization is for: it's a compact among ourselves to keep the worst of our excesses under control as long as everyone else has to as well. It's a bit of a miracle that this mutual surveillance agreement works, but it does, after a fashion.
- Fox News is a cancer. It should be burned to the ground and the earth salted behind it.
- The United States is the greatest economic powerhouse in history and looks set to continue this for a while. It's genuinely mysterious why this is so.
- It's unlikely we will be willing to make the carbon cuts necessary to rein in climate change. Geoengineering is probably in our future.
- AI is going to take your job away, no matter what your job is. Not today and probably not tomorrow, but it's not too many decades away.
#7: It's strange how we create deficits by cutting taxes on corporations and the rich, but can only reduce deficits by raising taxes on the middle class.
#11: s/refined sugar/high fructose corn syrup/
"...both liberals and conservatives have a vested interest in claiming that the country is on the precipice of imminent collapse due to moral decay."
It seems that with each new generation that comes of age they get criticism like that. The back in my day arguments. The older people always forget they suffered the same critiques too when they were younger.
Lots of things that are right, but some are wrong. For today, let's take "life in America is stupendously good"
Overall and on average - or even at the median - life may be the best ever for a country this large, but it is not "stupendously good" for everyone. People are right to say that it could be a lot better for those not near the top, and that increasing inequality is a bad thing. After WW II and up to about 1972 (when real wages crashed) the prospects for the non-elite were looking much better.
What Kevin may mean to say (if he doesn't think that this is the best of all possible worlds) is that many of the things that the media run stories about - this or that is looking terrible - are highly misleading. And this is often true. On the other hand the media don't always cover the way that some things really are looking bad.
Of course Trump's claims about how things are worse now than in his administration, let alone the worst ever, are just false. Many media stories, especially about the economy, tend to reinforce this falsity. But this doesn't mean that everyone has to be satisfied because everything is "stupendously good".
MAGAs' complaint is not really about economic status or progress, it is about how white, Christian, male, straight people are losing their dominance. Trump is their leader for the simple reason that he reinforces them in this. Nothing else explains his popularity.
Kevin can make acute comments about the economy, but he does not seem to understand what it is. If you don't have customers buying stuff, there is no economy. If robots take over all the jobs and nobody gets paid and can't buy stuff, what is the point of having robots making it? If robots do all the work and people get all the stuff for free with all day to consume it, is that bad? Or does Kevin think that robots will take over entirely as in R.U.R. and humans will go extinct? Or is Kevin just trolling everybody?
You don't read enough science fiction. That problem has been considered and addressed by many authors.
Re: 45, AI taking jobs. I can think of nine jobs we should give to AI right now. Biden didn't pack the Supreme Court. How about we make an AI Justice and replace the ones we have now? The job is supposed to be basically reading through lots of law and figuring out what it means. Perfect for AI. And AI could hardly be more capricious and hallucinatory than the current bunch.
Meh, there's not much to mock here. Pretty much it's just statements of fact and some reasonable suppositions.
Well, okay, number 7 is balls. There's zero evidence that the deficit is getting dangerously large, and tons of evidence that's completely benign.
OTOH, we really should tax the incomes of the rich at much higher marginal rates. But not to reduce the deficit. We should do it because money is, to a certain extent, power, and a lot of rich people are assholes who have way too much power as it is.
#32. I had not heard that the Orchestra Curtain Blinding had no measurable effect on the gender mix of orchestras, and rather the opposite. I'd be curious to know what study you're drawing up on there.
#41 I lean towards the opposite - most human beings are pretty decent folks who try to do right by others, and are maybe a little bit wary of strangers but still quite willing to help them out. People help out complete strangers without expectation of return all the time, and our first response to a natural disaster is to come together and try to help out.
But there is a minority of human beings who are opportunistically unethical - they'll cheat and steal and commit crimes if it's convenient for them to do so, and they can do it without any serious, immediate fear of getting caught and punished. This isn't a black-or-white scheme, and there's a range of folks in this area from "guy who maybe cuts a line" to "dangerous criminal". But they're there, and that's why we have to have a bunch of rules and institutions to manage the inevitable results of it.
#43. We got to a big head start in the late 19th century/early 20th century, avoided the worst devastation of the two world wars plus other political instability, and have a gigantic domestic market that gives us a huge leg-up in building internationally competitive companies. That last one can't be understated - it means US companies can grow to truly large size just in the US domestic market alone, and by the time they compete internationally they can do so on an even keel with already existing companies there.
#44 We'll keep total warming down below 3 degrees Celsius, but otherwise I agree with this. It's looking like the rest of the 2020s are a wash as far as climate policy goes in the US, but we've got some good seeds down with EVs, solar power, etc.
#32 FWIW, this:
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-orchestra-auditions-really-benefit-women/
Suggests that the impact of blind auditions on the gender mix of ocrhestras is
not that big, certainly not as big as some maintain.
I highly recommend a book called "Humankind" by Rutger Bregman.
He argues, very convincingly, that humans are generally kind and helpful, even in extreme, life or death situations. And that institutions have a tendency to get humans to act worse than they are inclined to do. He gets into the Stanford Prison Experiment and utterly debunks it and some other similar experiments.
"11. The real dietary villain of the modern era is refined sugar."
True only if people eat more sugar than they burn off. If you eat a big desert every day after dinner, but otherwise get enough nutrition during each day, you manage your exercise/calorie balance to stay at your optimum healthy weight – eating a moderate amount of sugar each day is not a problem. I live by this, and my health stats are all perfect.
Also, research has yet to find that sugar directly causes any health problems. On Google, sugar sounds horrible, but if you dig, all ailments lead back to weight gain.
If you stay at your optimum weight, I even wonder if a moderate amount of sugar each day is good for you. After all it's just pure energy. Eating less of other foods that contain pesticides, preservatives, hormones, plastics, etc. seems like a health benefit. This is just wild speculation – I doubt if any researchers are asking if sugar could be beneficial.
Yikes....scary bad logic going on here.
Based on nothing, perhaps we should assume sugar might be good!?
What if we pretend that many public and private entities are not looking for the health benefits of sugars!?
Lets assume that all ailments stem from weight gain, and then, heres the kicker, assume that sugar doesn't impact weight gain because we will just tell people to not gain weight if they eat sugar!
Did I mention that I am the perfect physical specimin?!
Lol, goodness.
Okay, since you have it all figured out, please provide a link to a single reputable academic study that shows moderate consumption of sugar each day directly harms a person independent of weight gain. Should be easy for you.
(4) Colleges probably have gotten more expensive. However, a bigger issue is that student loans have inexplicably become much more expensive, relative to prime interest rates.
(11) and ultra-processed foods.
(45) AI cannot close the loop, so it won't take the jobs where it's essential. AI can take and should take over executive management, marketing, and other bullshit jobs.
This has been an omnibus edition of "That thing you're worried about? It's not a big deal to Kevin Drum, the smartest guy on the internet".
1. Probably true, although the fact that Mr. Drum remains the primary cheerleader of this theory indicates that it doesn't actually have widespread acceptance (it's probably an oversimplification).
2. Sure.
3. Mostly proven.
4. If you say so.
5. A very loose assertion which you will notice is not accompanied by any data.
6. Unfortunately probably correct.
7. Don't tell us, tell Republicans (who don't care).
8. Fiscal problems are easy, political problems are hard.
9. Opinion.
10. Probably accurate, although not really based on any data.
11. Sure, as long we're defining the "modern era" as history since the Industrial Revolution. Dental issues alone are enough to make this accurate.
12. Assertion without much evidence.
13. Just some number pulled out of his ass?
14. Obviously.
15. Obviously.
16. If you say so, although will conflict with 45.
17. Mostly true with some oversimplification (Mr. Drum is not an economist).
18. Sure.
19. Mr. Drum is not an epidemiologist.
20. Correct.
21. By definition, but also IQ is increasingly viewed as invalid and irrelevant.
22. Probably true, but also lacking context.
23. Also lacks context without figures for cost of living (rent, transportation etc).
24. Sure.
25. Both true and lacking context.
26. For now.
27. Total assertion that sounds wiser than it actually is (except the second part, which is pure imagination and therefore irrelevant).
28. Okay.
29. The first part is true, the second part is dumb centrist "both sides are making me feel bad" nonsense.
30. Correct.
31. Sure, but the second part is stretching it a bit.
32. Probably correct, but framed in such a way as to imply something like "All those studies you hear about? Most of them are wrong" in keeping with Mr. Drum's general attitude of not wanting to be bothered.
33. Sure.
34. Let's put that in TBD.
35. Total assertion pulled out of thin air.
36. Sure, whatever.
37. Pure assertion/opinion/unprovable notion. Don't tell us, tell conservatives.
38. Okay, so what?
39. Great, but leaves out that medical spending in the US is still significantly higher than it is in the rest of the world.
40. Probably correct, but also armchair psychology (Mr. Drum is not a psychologist).
41. More or less.
42. Agreed, but also pure opinion.
43. First part is true, second part is possibly, possibly not, third part is overstated (there are well-studied reasons for this, Mr. Drum is not an economist).
44. Total theoretical assertion, almost certainly will not happen until everyone reading this blog is dead, so therefore not disprovable.
45. Smug hobbyhorse posturing that he will not let go of, also see #44.
You will also notice all the topics not mentioned in this, things like our media infrastructure and courts being captured by right-wing ideologues, anything to do with Russia or China, anything to do with the actual effects of climate change, refugees, crop failures, etc. In other words, lots of blind spots.
#32. There are plenty of epidemiological studies of saturated fats that suggest they aren't good for you. I've read some of them, often based on European (Cretan, Mediterranean) and Asian (Japanese) diets. These are NOT based on the Framingham study, so can't be "misinterpretations."
Nutrition studies are notoriously difficult, if for no other reason than they usually rely on self-reporting of what is or is not eaten.
If there's evidence for Kevin's conclusion about saturated fat, I'd love to see it.
#19. During a pandemic … N95 masks are beneficial, but other masks aren't.
This is only true if your interest is strictly in protecting yourself. Say, if you’re immuno-compromised. Get a well-fitting N95.
From a public health standpoint, almost any mask serves to reduce the velocity of your outgoing breath, thus making yourself effectively further away from others. (And vice versa, of course). Such masks reduce the spread of infection overall, thus indirectly making it less likely that you’ll encounter a sick person.
For some reason Kevin has a really hard time understanding this simple point.
Please elaborate on 13 — one in seven have no interior monologue.
This one baffles and fascinates me.
Thank you
Adjusting #27: The internet, and probably AI, will make it easier to organize the dumb into action and mass movements. Talk radio and Fox News has learned how to enrage them, but the internet can get them to show up with guns.
Of course, organizing the dumb was the realm of communists prior to the internet, when they conned ordinary (actually suffering) people into dying and killing for a utopian future. The right is conning people into fighting for a utopian past.
Kevin,
I'm sorry, but being 66 years old, you owe us another 21 pearls.
Matt
#2 The Safety Net is the Democrat's main vulnerability and a disgraceful budget buster . . . so long as YOU have a job.
The Dems try to take care of everyone. Welfare, AHC, school lunches, covid checks. Sigh- Silly Tax & Spenders.
GOP otoh doesn't worry about the economic bottom 15-20 % of Americans. NoSiree- those slackers already have ERs and soup kitchens. Just like a family of 5 can manage their budget so much better, if they only care for 4.
The chutzpa of chutzpah is that instead of worrying how the have nots will vote, GOP just concentrates on making it harder for them to vote. Problem solved!
What surprised me when I recently learned it was that the Stanford prison experiment was not just in error, it was outright fraud. See https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication