Mastodawn

Bear Braumoeller Apr 15, 2023

It occurred to me that algorithmic bias might have some upsides for social scientists, in that it gives us an unintentional window into how humans on the internet perceive certain fundamental things. So I tried giving Midjourney some one-word prompts to see what it would do with them. Results and comments follow (thread)....

Bear Braumoeller Apr 13, 2023

The WaPo article on the origins of the leak is incredibly good. Read it here with no paywall: https://wapo.st/3UBgT5c

Discord member details how documents leaked from closed chat group

In interviews with a member of the Discord group where intelligence documents were shared, The Washington Post learned details of the alleged leaker, “OG.”

The Washington Post

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Bear Braumoeller Apr 12, 2023

“Once students have become “beta theorists” (in that all their theories take the form y=Xß), they don’t just fail to see the need for more theory—they develop instincts that are antithetical to theorizing, like adding more variables when fewer are needed, or ‘explaining’ by accounting for as much detail as possible rather than by abstracting away from reality.” https://tinyurl.com/HDTBFB

Braumoeller_H-Diplo_Teaching_Formal_Theory.pdf

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Bear Braumoeller Apr 11, 2023

“The foundational models in statistics—regression, logit, and the like—are designed to be models of distributions, not models of processes or mechanisms. They might be reasonable representations of processes or mechanisms; logit and probit, for example, work well as random utility models. 15 But if they are, it is generally by accident, and the representation is typically approximate.” https://tinyurl.com/HDTBFB

Braumoeller_H-Diplo_Teaching_Formal_Theory.pdf

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Bear Braumoeller Mar 28, 2023

Thank you, Charles from the New York Times recipe comments section. I feel seen.

Bear Braumoeller Mar 9, 2023

I taught Mearsheimer this semester, then followed it with 3 formal theory articles (1 each rational choice, ABM, system dynamics) that begin with broadly similar assumptions and arrive at starkly different conclusions. It’s a great exercise.

See also https://osf.io/kep5b on the implications of lack of rigor in verbal models.

From: @scottwolford
https://mastodon.social/@scottwolford/109994479359507785

Bear Braumoeller Mar 7, 2023

Late to the game, I suspect, but I hadn’t spotted this until now. With Tufte-style footnotes, no less. What a neat idea!

“arXiv Vanity renders academic papers from arXiv as responsive web pages so you don’t have to squint at a PDF.”

https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/ #politicalscience #socialscience

arXiv Vanity

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Bear Braumoeller Mar 4, 2023

It gets worse.

Bear Braumoeller Feb 28, 2023

Fantastic answer to the question, “What do politics have to do with me?”

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1HTDpKht9s0

Nato Green -- "What Do Politics Have to Do with Me?"

YouTube

Bear Braumoeller Feb 22, 2023

Eyepopping Bret Stephens column, summarizing a new study, argues (as the headline flatly states) that “Mask Mandates Did Nothing.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/do-mask-mandates-work.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Click over to the study itself and read that existing observational studies are flawed in ways that make it difficult to know whether masks did anything to slow spread of disease. (One example: Many people ignored mandates.)

Those are… really, really not the same thing.

Opinion | The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?

“Do something” is not science, and it shouldn’t have been public policy.

The New York Times

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