Ethan Bueno de Mesquita

Very exciting news today @harrispolicy.bsky.social! news.uchicago.edu/story/20-mil...

Just want to say that @amiethomasson.bsky.social's "Ontology Made Easy" is really wonderful. Exceptionally clear and clarifying. I can't recall feeling this positively about a book of academic philosophy since Hacking's Representing & Intervening. (Note: It doesn't compete w/ Hacking for humor)

Just here to say: Pr(Engage in Violence | Very Online) \ne Pr(Very Online | Engage in Violence) This is a bi-partisan error. You may now return to yelling at one another.

I mean, a promise is a promise, but I'm starting to feel as thought we'd be justified if we were to forget the way they thrilled the nation, with their T-formation.

Dear Intro Game Theory Instructors, Martin Osborne conjured a world for all of us in which there is no need to impose the confusion of Dixit and Skeath on the poor, unsuspecting undergrads. Sincerely, Ethan

We live in an age of technological wonders. And yet, it is a bi-partisan consensus in the American government that the only way to protect the traveling public from the national security threats posed by a small tub of cream cheese is through TSA confiscation. That's just the price of freedom.

The Straussian reading of this whole thread is interesting. There is a plausible interpretation that @soashworth.bsky.social doesn't mean any of it. Because if he was writing a thread he believed in, there is no way he would lead with the single-peaked MVT rather than the single-crossing MVT.

I see a lot of folks posting about that NYTimes article. So I'm just going to say something I know you all already know, but is important. You cannot infer the effect on unemployment of majoring in one topic vs another by comparing the unemployment rates of folks who chose those majors.

It is that time of year again. This is the world's most perfect gazpacho recipe. It has a few more steps than other gazpacho recipes. But it is 1000 times more delicious. You are welcome. www.seriouseats.com/andalusian-g...

This was a fun episode of Not Another Politics Podcast with Adam Mastriani. Plus the last 8 minutes or so include a short rant (mostly from me) on philosophy of science, so the professionals should feel free to laugh at me. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...

Breaking news from the NYTimes opinion page: Did you people know that this Bruce Springsteen seems to be quite a gifted lyricist?

I asked AI whether this was safe and it reassured me by pointing out that an important paper by Fearon and Powell (1979) proves that AI-driven nuclear command and control with a human on the loop guarantees lower risk of nuclear war in equilibrium.

My son is home from college for the summer. He truly has been indoctrinated by high ed ideology. Anyway, after one too many disagreements, I had to lay down the law. I told him that as long as he is living under our roof he will respect our values and be a linguistic prescriptivist.

We did a Not Another Politics Podcast on the Trump administration’s approach to universities and how it builds on the Obama administration’s. With Jacob Gersen on his and @JeannieSGersen's great papers, "The Sex Bureaucracy" & "The Six Bureaucracy". podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

I've been using ChatGPT (both o3 and 4.0 depending on task) to help copy edit a new paper. While improving writing, it routinely introduces mistakes into previously correct proofs. But it also finds errors and logical holes I missed. It contains multitudes.

Really looking forward to spending a couple of days at LSE, including this evening's talk.

If it weren't for the fundamental problem of causal inference, what would people write op-eds about?

Two papers I'm thinking a lot about. heinonline.org/HOL/LandingP... www.nber.org/system/files...

Confused about why jet lag exists. There was no email in the evolutionary environment, so how did nature know I needed to wake up at 3:30 AM to get a jump start on my email inbox after vacation?

Leave aside how endowments work, I'd like people to just understand that if the overhead rate is 60%, that means the university is collecting 35% of the research $ for admin costs, not 60%. Overhead on $1 million grant is $0.6m. So total award is $1.6m and admin percent is .6/1.6 = 35%.

Federal judge simply isn't buying Florida's claims about kids and social media www.techdirt.com/2025/03/11/j...

My answer is here: voices.uchicago.edu/ethanbdm/fil...

New episode of the Not Another Politics Podcast for your listening pleasure! effectivegov.uchicago.edu/podcast/is-t...

Hi new followers! If you happen to be interested in the separation of powers, Congress, government shutdowns, contempt of Congress, the filibuster, and more, have I got the book for you! www.amazon.com/dp/0300248334/

My first episode as co-host of Not Another Politics Podcast discussing work by @danmoskowitz.bsky.social. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

The fires are revealing how good elected officials are at their jobs. Unbiased information systematically affects electoral fortunes. This is why natural disasters being bad for incumbents on average isn't evidence of voter irrationality. voices.uchicago.edu/ethanbdm/fil...

This is the sort of course for the sort of audience we dreamed of when we wrote Thinking Clearly with Data.

Current stats education for medical/other clinical students is bad and misaligned to what they really need to know to function. It teaches them to produce research in 1993, when we should be teaching most of them to be informed consumers today. We *should* teach something like this:

Even though we are still 18 months from the super intelligence that can do everything, my sister's family let ChatGPT choose my Hanukkah gift and this is the result.

I'm just hear to acknowledge how much I appreciate the detailed notes on recipes and oven timing various Ethans-of-Thanksgiving-Past have taken.

On Twitter they are discussing the proposition that Leonard Cohen is the greatest singer/songwriter of the past 100 years. So that's it for me over there; I'm out.

Just leaving this here apropos of nothing in particular. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Terrorism is not an ideology. Terrorism is a tactic. It is the use of violence to affect an audience larger than those who are its immediate victims. It has been used by people with all manner of ideologies: communists, nationalists, separatists, religious supremacists, anti-colonialists, etc.

Do you know what it's called when I, a descendent of one of the oldest sephardic families on this continent (the oldest Jewish gravestone in N. America is Benjamin Bueno de Mesquita's, in the Portuguese synagogue graveyard in New York City), spend my day making brisket and chicken soup for Passover?

Friends, I'm going to delete some posts. I had a good faith discussion with some people I know IRL. But I am not interested in having a broad public discussion on this topic on social media. (I know, why did I post?) I'll leave the one post that says the heart of what I think.

Today I am "the arthritis in my fingers from years of martial arts hurts more when it rains" years old.

Looking forward to seeing if Rodgers still owns Chicago...

I can't think why we would concede that "begs the question" means "raises the question" *before* we concede that correlation does in fact imply causation. In terms of common usage mistakes, the latter is far more ubiquitous. Can't we just go along to get along? Why must we be such purist snobs?

I have a new paper on governance of online platforms. The topic is a bit of a departure for me. Comments more than welcome. voices.uchicago.edu/ethanbdm/fil...

Given the level of mastery of the Chief's offense that my until-this-year–totally-uninterested-in-football 15 year old daughter exhibited last night, I'm really hoping that next year Taylor Swift gets super into calculus.

It was incomprehensible to the 17 year old why a future college roommate might care what music he likes because, it turns out, it has never occurred to him that he might listen to music on speakers instead of earbuds.

Anthony and I wrote Nikki Haley a perfectly intellectually respectable way out of that question. Will her failure to read Thinking Clearly with Data cause her to lose the presidency?

I've always liked this by @pstaniland.bsky.social. It's about lessons from S. Asia for US in Afghanistan. But it is helpful for thinking about the Gaza war and the deep political contradictions of a democracy engaging in state/nation building in the 21st century. foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/24/c...

Some thoughts on the congressional hearings, free speech, and campus leadership @bostonreview.bsky.social. Appreciation to @soashworth.bsky.social, @itaisher.bsky.social, @mlord.bsky.social, and Josh Cohen who offered much needed feedback, pushback, and advice. www.bostonreview.net/articles/the...

Contrary to popular perception, the Guide for the Perplexed is not a Q&A, but rather a dense work of philosophical theology, suffused with esoteric meaning, seeking to reconcile the rabbinic and Aristotelian world view.

Got a new macbook and the TextMate/LaTex integration doesn't work. Something about python 3 I gather from the internet. I've tried the internet's suggestions and still nothing compiles. Anyone have any experience? "Switch text editors" isn't helpful, I'll consider as an absolute last resort.

www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-...