Max Ghenis

• Max Ghenis 12 Mar 2022 7:07 UTC

  2 points

  on: Ukraine Post #2: Options

  Even trickier is the canonical obviously correct but deeply unpopular policy, the Carbon Tax, or its more accepted incomplete alternative the Gasoline Tax. Insanely, there are calls for a gas tax holiday or other cut, at exactly the time when we need to reduce consumption. That’s why the price is going up. A price is a signal wrapped up in an incentive.

  Carbon taxes actually poll strongly: an average of +36 net favorability across the 8 polls I’ve seen since 2020.

  This might not be the time to push a carbon tax, but as you say, avoiding gas tax holidays would be similarly good. I created a campaign to do this, starting in California. We’re currently called Save the Gas Tax, but will probably rename to Stop Oil Subsidies soon.

  Following in the UK’s footsteps with household transfers would be a much better use of funds if we want to spend to reduce pressure at the pump.

• Max Ghenis 6 Mar 2022 4:39 UTC

  2 points

  on: [Let­ter] Rus­si­ans are Wel­come in America

  I generally agree with this, but I’d like to check my optimism against some forecasting questions on US immigration policy with respect to the war. I don’t see anything on Metaculus here.

• Max Ghenis 12 Feb 2022 5:53 UTC

  2 points

  on: Th­e­ses on Sleep

  Thanks for this post. To clarify, it sounds like your thesis is about duration of sleep, not quality of sleep? How’s the evidence for sleep quality and life outcomes? (And what interventions improve it?)