Given Scott’s invitation to LessOnline and general embrace of this community, I thought many here would appreciate this curated list of my favourite Scott Sumner blog posts.
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Scott Sumner is best known as an economist who was praised for positively influencing economic policy during the Great Recession through blogging, as well as the leading voice for market monetarism. But to me, as someone uninterested in monetary policy, Scott stands out as one of the world’s best, warmest, and wisest generalist bloggers. He writes on a wide range of topics, often touching on issues adjacent to politics, economics, and art, but irrespective of the topic, his wisdom always shines through. I might be biased because our values are quite similar—we both lean towards neoliberalism, embrace a utilitarian approach, and are completely captivated by art—but of all the writers I read, Scott is the one who is least often wrong. While his blogging isn’t particularly ambitious, there are always little nuggets of wisdom sprouting up, and it’s consistently insightful, introspective, and kind. Like many of my other favourite writers, Scott uses incredibly simple yet robust concepts, and by applying them rigorously and broadly, he helps you see things you should have been able to see yourself but didn’t.
PPS: As someone who has now compiled “best of” posts for Tyler Cowen, Joseph Heath, Holden Karnofsky, and now Scott, it saddens me how many brilliant writers continuously produce content without considering how to make their best ideas more accessible to others. Beyond the pro-social benefit, it is clearly in each author’s self-interest to do so. I don’t have a solid theory as to why so few bloggers make it easier to engage with their ideas, but it is maddening that they don’t. While making these lists, two things really stand out: a lot of the articles get rehashed in different words many, many times over, and many of their best posts were created merely due to the writer churning out volume and were not intended to be perceived as masterpieces, but rather as sharing their quick thoughts on a particular perspective, which happened to unearth brilliance.
PPPS: I likely missed many great articles because Scott’s writing is so voluminous and hard to search through. Additionally, he doesn’t have a large fan base discussing his work outside the blog, making it much harder to find the best posts. This compilation was especially challenging because much of Scott’s best writing is often a throwaway paragraph or two in a longer, unrelated article. Please, please, please share your favourite non-econ Scott Sumner articles in the comments here, so others can find them.
my favourite Scott Sumner blog posts
Link post
Given Scott’s invitation to LessOnline and general embrace of this community, I thought many here would appreciate this curated list of my favourite Scott Sumner blog posts.
-
Scott Sumner is best known as an economist who was praised for positively influencing economic policy during the Great Recession through blogging, as well as the leading voice for market monetarism. But to me, as someone uninterested in monetary policy, Scott stands out as one of the world’s best, warmest, and wisest generalist bloggers. He writes on a wide range of topics, often touching on issues adjacent to politics, economics, and art, but irrespective of the topic, his wisdom always shines through. I might be biased because our values are quite similar—we both lean towards neoliberalism, embrace a utilitarian approach, and are completely captivated by art—but of all the writers I read, Scott is the one who is least often wrong. While his blogging isn’t particularly ambitious, there are always little nuggets of wisdom sprouting up, and it’s consistently insightful, introspective, and kind. Like many of my other favourite writers, Scott uses incredibly simple yet robust concepts, and by applying them rigorously and broadly, he helps you see things you should have been able to see yourself but didn’t.
My favourite Scott Sumner blogs:
Understanding middlebrow
on the 90-99th percentile mocking the 0-90th percentile for their taste, while being oblivious to the true cultural elite
What do we mean by meaning
On what provides meaning in life
Wallowing in nostalgia (an autobiography)
On how the sharpness of life evolves over time
Give thanks for progress and Who’s afraid of the great outdoors
On agnosticism towards progress and how norms evolve over time
Double vision: when then was now
On the ability to interpret life through our prior experiences
It’s a wonderful, awful, and perplexing life
On death
Which issues are important (to me)? and The most important issues
On what policy issues matter most to Scott (2015 and 2022 editions)
Where are we making progress
On progress in art and the importance of “discovery” for creating great art
The eternal modern
On how modernism became frozen in time
Scott also reviews movies every quarter, and generally, has amazing film reviews:
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/films-of-2023q3/
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/naughty-and-nice-films-of-the-noughties/
I highly recommend you search films you like or scroll through his list of film reviews available here: https://www.themoneyillusion.com/index.php?s=film
What information should we consume?
On how Scott chooses to consume information
Land of bridges and tunnels
Scott’s travelogue of China
Dreams of a European vacation
Scott’s meta-reflections on vacationing in Europe
Taiwan, the ROC, and Super Bowl XXXII
On the counter-intuitive game theory guiding the Chinese-Taiwan conflict
The authoritarian nationalist playbook
On the rise of Nationalism in the 21st century
YIMBY!
On why YIMBY-ism matters
The zero sum death spiral
On the necessity of good economic policies to avoid the zero sum death spiral
Economics is really hard
On the counter-intuitive ideas one must understand in order to understand simple economic policy questions
Praise and blame
On the asymmetry between praise and blame
PS: I can’t stop chuckling at this anecdote: https://x.com/freezing_cloud/status/1199471383232704512
https://twitter.com/freezing_cloud/status/1199471383232704512
PPS: As someone who has now compiled “best of” posts for Tyler Cowen, Joseph Heath, Holden Karnofsky, and now Scott, it saddens me how many brilliant writers continuously produce content without considering how to make their best ideas more accessible to others. Beyond the pro-social benefit, it is clearly in each author’s self-interest to do so. I don’t have a solid theory as to why so few bloggers make it easier to engage with their ideas, but it is maddening that they don’t. While making these lists, two things really stand out: a lot of the articles get rehashed in different words many, many times over, and many of their best posts were created merely due to the writer churning out volume and were not intended to be perceived as masterpieces, but rather as sharing their quick thoughts on a particular perspective, which happened to unearth brilliance.
PPPS: I likely missed many great articles because Scott’s writing is so voluminous and hard to search through. Additionally, he doesn’t have a large fan base discussing his work outside the blog, making it much harder to find the best posts. This compilation was especially challenging because much of Scott’s best writing is often a throwaway paragraph or two in a longer, unrelated article. Please, please, please share your favourite non-econ Scott Sumner articles in the comments here, so others can find them.