Monthly Archives: June 2019

Links 6/19

[Epistemic status: I have not independently verified each link. On average, about two of the links in each links post turn out to be wrong or misleading, as found by commenters. I correct these as I see them, but can’t … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 572 Comments

Open Thread 130.75

This is the twice-weekly hidden open thread. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit or the SSC Discord server.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 747 Comments

More Confounders

[Epistemic status: Somewhat confident in the medical analysis, a little out of my depth discussing the statistics] For years, we’ve been warning patients that their sleeping pills could kill them. How? In every way possible. People taking sleeping pills not … Continue reading

Open Thread 130.5

This is the twice-weekly hidden open thread. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit or the SSC Discord server.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 1,077 Comments

If Only Turing Was Alive To See This

There’s a silly subreddit called r/totallynotrobots where people pretend to be badly-disguised robots. They post cat pictures with captions like “SINCE I AM A HUMAN, THIS SMALL FELINE GENERATES POSITIVE EMOTIONS IN MY CARBON-BASED BRAIN” or something like that. There’s … Continue reading

Are Sexual Purity Taboos A Response To STIs?

I. Did cultural evolution create sexual purity taboos to prevent the spread of STIs? A few weeks ago, I wrote a post assuming this was obviously true; after getting some pushback, I want to look into it in more depth. … Continue reading

Open Thread 130.25

This is the twice-weekly hidden open thread. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit or the SSC Discord server.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 863 Comments

If Kim Jong-Un Opened A KFC, Would You Eat There?

Philip Morris is pivoting to smoke-free cigarettes, because “society expects us to act responsibly, and we are doing just that by designing a smoke-free future”. Also, KFC “promises not to let vegans down” with their new meatless chicken-like nuggets. They’ll … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 472 Comments

Followup On The Baumol Effect: Thanks, O Baumol

Last week I reviewed Alex Tabarrok and Eric Helland’s Why Are The Prices So D*mn High?. On Marginal Revolution, Tabarrok wrote: SSC does have some lingering doubts and points to certain areas where the data isn’t clear and where we … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 186 Comments

OT130: Open Thresh

This is the bi-weekly visible open thread (there are also hidden open threads twice a week you can reach through the Open Thread tab on the top of the page). Post about anything you want, but please try to avoid … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 545 Comments