99% of what excites people today will be forgotten in two years, but you'll never get the time you spent angry back.

News is poison. History is antidote.

“Tone deaf” is one of the best unintentional compliments a writer can receive. It’s another way of saying, “You’re telling us what’s true, instead of what sounds good.”

"The only decent argument for playing Venezuelan roulette is something like: 'If our country doesn’t become a socialist hellhole, it will become heaven on Earth.' And once again, the obvious rebuttal is: 'Sounds fake. Has that ever even happened before?'" betonit.ai/p/venezuelan-r…

“The big confusion many people have about our theory (it’s our fault for not being clearer and more up front with our central claim) is that when we say ‘ideology is 100% social’ we are only talking about IDEOLOGIES and not IDEOLOGUES.” betonit.ai/p/cues-versus-…

Which would you prefer? (a) Technology stops improving, but everyone currently living becomes immortal at their current age. (b) Current rates of technological progress and mortality continue.

"The Jim Crow laws were awful.  Still, if you had to suffer under Jim Crow or modern immigration laws, Jim Crow seems like the lesser evil." betonit.ai/p/tell_me_the_…

"Imagine that instead of abolishing Jim Crow laws, the American public had resolved its cognitive dissonance by simultaneously (a) stripping blacks of their citizenship, and (b) declaring that 'All citizens are entitled to equal treatment.'" betonit.ai/p/tell_me_the_…

“We’re paranoid about the microscopic risk of accidentally snatching a poor family’s wanted baby – and barely cognizant of the fantastic opportunity regulation snatches from the hands of orphans around the world.” betonit.ai/p/internationa…

Whenever I'm tempted to say, "I can't believe how much free publicity horrible person X is getting," I remember that would make me part of the problem.

"If I were woke, my reaction to Teixeira would be, “Yes, staying true to our principles is somewhat electorally risky. But if we totally abandon those principles, what’s the point of winning?” betonit.ai/p/immigration-…

"Overall, it would be great if Democrats threw wokeness to the wolves. But contra Teixeira, there is one far-left position where, on its merits, the Democrats aren’t nearly extreme enough: immigration." betonit.ai/p/immigration-…

"Dear American leftists: Even if you’re right about everything, the way that the U.S. treats immigrants is vastly worse than the way the U.S. treats 'marginalized' citizens. So you have every reason to make immigrant rights your absolute top priority." betonit.ai/p/immigration-…

"Beaulier-Caplan takes the agency and autonomy of low-income people seriously. Rather than attributing their imprudent decisions to structural injustice, we treat them like humans who can revise personal decisions without transforming society first." betonit.ai/p/the-anti-int…

"If human beings can dismiss academic arguments merely because they lead to politically unwelcome conclusions, what’s the point of having academic arguments about politically-charged subjects?" betonit.ai/p/the-anti-int…

"This really is akin to responding to arguments for atheism with, 'They insult the eternal glory of God.'" betonit.ai/p/the-anti-int…

The anti-intellectualism of Northern Michigan University, and consequent mistreatment of my friend Scott Beaulier. betonit.ai/p/the-anti-int…

"I’ll start with an update on three new books: *Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets*, *You Have No Right to Your Culture: Essays on the Human Condition*, and an all-new graphic novel with Don Boudreaux and Zach Weinersmith." betonit.ai/p/ama-today-at…