Plato and Diogenes warn us about hubris

Summary: Here is a fun short story, historical fiction about one of the clashes between two of the larger-than-life people of the ancient world. It provides an important warning in our era of giant social engineering experiments. Unlike classical Athens, today we have people who want to impose their philosophical theories on the rest of us. We need a Diogenes to pop their bubbles.

Moral grandstanding ... | Vox

the philosophers Brandon Warmke and Justin Tosi. They basically laid out the case that moral grandstanding is the use of moral talk to seek status or to promote oneself. It’s the use of important conversation — moral topics, or politics — with more of an end of boosting your own brand than it is advancing a dialogue.

Cited: Moral grandstanding: there’s a lot of it about, all of it bad

Moral grandstanding in public discourse: Status-seeking motives ...

The anatomy of illiberal states | Brookings

This Brookings report examines the emergence and diffusion of the illiberal toolkit from Turkey to Central Europe.

Also The Democracy Playbook: Preventing and Reversing Democratic Backsliding 

Political Economy, Blind Spots, and a Challenge to Academics | Anat Admati

There is absolutely no way to understand events before, during, and since the financial crisis of 2007-2009 while ignoring the powerful political forces that have shaped them. Yet, ...

Also, The Parade of the Bankers’ New Clothes Continues: 34 Flawed Claims Debunked 

How Unequal Is Europe? Evidence from Distributional National Accounts, 1980-2017

This paper estimates the evolution of income inequality in 38 European countries from 1980 to 2017 by combining surveys, tax data and national accounts. We develop a harmonized methodology, using machine learning, nonlinear survey calibration and extreme value theory, in order to produce homogeneous p

What, if anything, is neoliberalism? John Quiggin

the much-argued question of whether the term “neoliberalism” has any useful content, or whether it is simply an all-purpose pejorative to be applied to anything rightwing

Calling Bullshit | a course run by Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West

Our aim in this course is to teach you how to think critically about the data and models that constitute evidence in the social and natural sciences.

I intend to do some reading over the winter. Any fellow travellers?
There are three posts already on BS in this blog.