What are some of the ways in which COVID has changed the world? Would love to hear your thoughts. Here are the ones I compiled: 1. Less flu Ppl are going to be more careful with flu symptoms. They'll stay home when sick & wear masks

In education, it’s extremely hard to figure out what’s good or bad. Parents make the decision on providers but don’t experience the service, decades pass btw the service and the payoff, educators can use propaganda on kids w/o parents knowing... massive info asymmetry [13/

What is socialism then? It’s when the community as a whole is the producer in a market. Where else, besides violence, is it useful? Let’s look at 3 typical socialist markets: education, healthcare and pensions [12/

3. Monopolies & collusion Some industries can become monopolies, either naturally (Eg, electrical grid) or through consolidation. A monopoly will always extract too much value for the producer. Collusion will increase prices. They must be regulated away. [10/

Externalities must be regulated away, either through straight regulation or through taxes [9/

2. Externalities When the buyer and the seller make a transaction that benefits them at the expense of others, that’s bad. Eg: selling highly polluting cars, using slaves for production, using antibiotics on all animals (creates antibiotic-resistant pathogens)... [7/

It creates a huge incentive to increase your benefits in ways that worsen society. This happens in many ways. Eg: 1. Information asymmetry You want cheap & delicious food. But what if it has ingredients that cause cancer? The producer knows it, but doesn’t tell you. [3/

Capitalism is great. It uses natural selfishness to push ppl to be as productive as possible, promising them wealth. The + you produce for others, the + you get. That is achieved by incurring both the cost and benefit of your initiatives. Here’s the pbm [2/

Capitalism vs socialism, markets vs gov... Most ppl think 1 is great and the other trash. That’s simplistic. They’re tools adapted to different situations. We must understand them to know when to use them. Thread. [1/

Here are the Top 25 mistakes from COVID management, from least to most important: Thread 🧵 25. Infection parties Before vaccines, we should have left people who wanted to be free to get infected in a safe environment.

That population growth has dried out. It's now the turn of India, China, and Africa pic.twitter.com/SXUD7XWbvb

What the US did have much better than other Western countries between 1850 and 1950, however, is massive *population* growth. pic.twitter.com/qAxQpdTYuX

The history of the US' rise is the history between 1850 and 1950. GDP = population * GDP per capita. For all the rhetoric about how the US is such a special country, it's not that much more productive than other Western democracies. pic.twitter.com/DOQJ6T8oRN

The main reason why the US is the power it is today is because of immigration. The main reason why the US is dwindling is because of lack of immigration. The only thing that can reverse the US' decline is allowing massive immigration. Thread. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/29t6QSamuY

This is inspired by sources like the amazing Stratfor Monographic worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopol… Or Prisoners of Geography amazon.com/dp/B00V3L8ZHK/

Why do all these rivers and intarcoastal waterways matter so much? Because it makes it dirt cheap to trade pic.twitter.com/R6DjEBfZbi

And ON TOP OF THAT the East Coast, from Mexico to Boston, has intracoastal waterways, which make trade easier to protect, hence is cheaper pic.twitter.com/jU2Zx6SNRl

🏗️ Nearly flat, which is also great for agriculture, but also for building anything for cheap, really ⛴️ The Mississippi and its tributaries have more navigable length than all other navigable rivers in the world COMBINED 🕴️ They're all connected to each other, so easy trade

2. It has the Mississippi Basin, the single best land area in the world. Why? 🏔️ Mountain ranges on both sides concentrate water inwards. 🌽 >1M square miles (2.5M km) of extremely well-irrigated land ➡️ lots of cheap food pic.twitter.com/dFSldz2Uai

1. It's an impregnable fortress. Nobody can ever invade it. Oceans & mountains on both sides. Just 2 neighbors. Mexico is smaller, too hilly, and has just 1 natural harbor so it can't be a threat (too poor). Canada is too cold and exposed, not enough food for a big competitor. pic.twitter.com/tsDRNXkolJ

Why is the US exceptional? We constantly talk about spirit and culture and institutions and... But the main reason is much more mundane: Geography. Consider this map. What's makes the US so lucky? Mainly 2 things: pic.twitter.com/pMuKkTixNm

Counting excess deaths in, you get 735,000 COVID deaths in the US. That’s more than all combat deaths the US has ever had (~660k) in all wars. pic.twitter.com/zINxFo9Uc3

The efficacy of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines is probably ~92% , very close to 2 doses (~95%). Huge ramifications: we should ramp up single dose for these vaccines as quickly as possible. Postpone the 2nd dose. This doubles the # of ppl protected & ~halves the time to herd immun.

300 years of slave trade in 2 minutes (Follow link for the full visualization) slavevoyages.org/voyage/databas… pic.twitter.com/L95DpZd0RA

The new strain of #COVID is more transmissible. Will it be deadlier? Many ppl think not: "If a virus kills more quickly, it has fewer opportunities to spread. It's the transmission-virulence tradeoff." Unfortunately, that's too simplistic. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/wzRLXHImRt

How many times have you heard excuses of why the West couldn't control COVID? Only islands, only authoritarian regimes... Alternative interpretation: pic.twitter.com/ePbK5GQku5

I introduce the "Scary Virus Paradox": "After clearing a threshold, the less deadly a virus is, the more it will kill." pic.twitter.com/hTsttDORWc

I was looking at some maps for a future article and saw something interesting about Italy. The Po River Valley is the richest and highest-density area because it's the most fertile. But then there's this line of cities. That's so weird. Why? pic.twitter.com/h21bkHJEwb

2: Mexico is awfully close to New Orleans. What if they decide to attack? The US would lose the ability to trade the goods outside of the Mississippi basin! What do you do? Easy: get a buffer. Send settlers there, then foster a revolution, then annex that area. Texas pic.twitter.com/THpCs93AOF

But as one superpower wanes, another appears: the US The US has a huge asset: the Mississippi Basin. Super fertile, great cheap transport... The best piece of land on the Earth pic.twitter.com/hrjEHH442p