Tuesday Tweets

I've probably said this before, but I wonder how much of the postwar futurism that seems wildly optimistic today would have been viable if nuclear thermal rockets and fusion reactors had progressed as expected.

Weather Control was a big, seriously discussed topic for decades that seemed to drop off the radar at the close of the 20th Century. Any thoughts as to the decline? https://t.co/jntlg9cdo2

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) June 22, 2019

Here's one for the social scientists in the audience.

We could survey economists on whether they agree if only we had those tools

— Chris Blattman (@cblatts) June 21, 2019

I took survey design at UChicago with an expert at NORC, he said out of all the disciplines he works with economists were the hardest explain survey design effects to (sometimes he'd force them to watch people take the survey so they'd see people's confusion)

— Jeff Mosenkis (@mosenkis) June 23, 2019

Keep this in mind when we come back to the voter suppression thread.

Its definitely awkward to say that "we don't want college students to vote because they will probably vote against us", but holding yourself out as the champion of parking rights over voting rights is a weird position. pic.twitter.com/O1nrovs4qA

— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) June 21, 2019

When studies favor the predictions of social psych crowd over the economists, people are always surprised, even though that seems to be how things generally break.

It's as if people care about anonymous strangers, or have principles (or something). But, this varies dramatically across societies. https://t.co/zOXugxLMl3

— Joe Henrich (@JoHenrich) June 20, 2019

Presented without comment.

"The Tesla manual says the driver should hold the wheel at all times"... so where are people getting the idea that it is safe to use Autopilot with their hands off the wheel?

What a mystery. I guess we may never know. pic.twitter.com/anUi8thkXW

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) June 20, 2019

The smarter commentators (Pierce, Marshall) are starting to point out that, while you can never entirely dismiss the election chances of a sitting president and a lot can happen in a year and a half, the odds against Trump pulling off a legitimate (or even semi-legitimate) win in 2020 are looking pretty high. More on this soon.

I don't make predictions, but it sure seems like Trump could get trounced in 2020: https://t.co/unFOMHKt3U

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) June 21, 2019