For a while I’ve wondered what exactly Robin Hanson is doing (what he’s trying to signal, perhaps? I don’t know) when he uses abbreviations like “med”, “docs”, “tech”, etc. (Pretty sure there are other common ones not coming to my mind right now.) He doesn’t otherwise come off as a lazy writer, he can’t really pass for “folksy” (and super-contrarian econblogging isn’t quite the right context for that anyway), they aren’t difficult or cumbersome words...
He doesn’t otherwise come off as a lazy writer, he can’t really pass for “folksy”
It seems to be the titles of his posts and not the content which he likes to keep extremely simple, even trite. I take it as wry counter signalling. There is a touch of ironic contrast between what could superficially look like a naive opinion and reasoning that is in fact based in some measure on sound economic principles, or at least of premises that the intended audience would accept.
For a while I’ve wondered what exactly Robin Hanson is doing (what he’s trying to signal, perhaps? I don’t know) when he uses abbreviations like “med”, “docs”, “tech”, etc. (Pretty sure there are other common ones not coming to my mind right now.) He doesn’t otherwise come off as a lazy writer, he can’t really pass for “folksy” (and super-contrarian econblogging isn’t quite the right context for that anyway), they aren’t difficult or cumbersome words...
It seems to be the titles of his posts and not the content which he likes to keep extremely simple, even trite. I take it as wry counter signalling. There is a touch of ironic contrast between what could superficially look like a naive opinion and reasoning that is in fact based in some measure on sound economic principles, or at least of premises that the intended audience would accept.