1. Ross Douthat has a good piece in the NYT, pointing to the scandal of Joe Biden continuing to serve as president despite his physical and mental decline. But this specific sentence had me scratching my head:

And since things keep happening in the world — for instance, this week, the nation that we’ve been arming for a defensive war decided to invade Russia — it seems like America could stand to learn a bit more about how the White House has been working recently . . .

Decided to invade Russia? What the heck is that supposed to mean? Is he implying that the war is no longer “defensive”?

2. If China is so bad, why do we wish to copy their model? Here’s Foreign Affairs:

By offering large incentives to companies that invest in critical sectors in the United States, Washington could replicate some of the same problems that are plaguing China’s economy: a reliance on debt-fueled investment, unproductive resource allocation, and, potentially, a speculative bubble in tech-company stocks that could destabilize the market if it suddenly burst. If the goal is to outcompete Beijing, Washington should concentrate on what the American system is already better at: innovation, market disruption, and the intensive use of private capital, with investors choosing the most promising areas to support and taking the risks along with the rewards. By fixating on strategies to limit China’s economic advantages, the United States risks neglecting its own strengths.

3. Federal drug policy? The emphasis should be on deregulation:

4. Steve Waldman tried to Google my name, and noticed the following:

I’m flattered.

5. Trump says he’ll cut energy and electricity prices by at least 50%, within 12 months. Harris says she’ll ban “price gouging”. Eh, what could go wrong?

6. Trump seems to be trying to lose. Why?

6. Donald Trump discusses . . . something:

Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, okay, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, okay, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right — who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

7. Interesting:

8. Luttig has come around to my view on Trump:

Retired federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative legal scholar put on the bench by President George H.W. Bush, is endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Donald Trump, whose candidacy he describes as an existential threat to American democracy.

It will be the first time Luttig, a veteran of two Republican administrations, has voted for a Democrat.

“In the presidential election of 2024 there is only one political party and one candidate for the presidency that can claim the mantle of defender and protector of America’s Democracy, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law,” Luttig wrote in a statement obtained exclusively by CNN. “As a result, I will unhesitatingly vote for the Democratic Party’s candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.”

Better late than never. Unfortunately, for every distinguished conservative intellectual moving away from Trump, there are 100 low information voters drawn to him by empty promises of no taxes on tips or Social Security.

9. Asian-Americans would seem to be a group that would be receptive to the GOP message. But Republicans just can’t stop being bigoted:

Wen Raiti, a Chinese American community leader in Jacksonville, Florida, has been a Republican for more than a decade. As a small business owner, she said, the party’s fiscal conservatism and small government ethos resonated with her.

But last May, when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation banning Chinese citizens from buying property in Florida, Raiti changed her party affiliation and began campaigning for local and national Democratic candidates.  

10. And JD Vance feels he needs to reassure his nutty right wing friend Charles Johnson that he only knows one Chinese-American:

In the messages, Vance pushed back on Johnson’s accusations that he was beholden to donors and other allies, including his law school mentor, Yale professor Amy Chua. When Johnson suggested that Vance was channeling Chinese and Israeli interests, Vance replied, “Chua doesn’t tell me anything.” He added: “I am pretty sure I don’t even know another Chinese american.” Chua declined to comment.

Imagine living in a world where knowing Chinese-Americans makes you suspect. Thank God my commenters would never behave that way.

11. A poverty stricken woman was recently arrested for shoplifting food to feed her children, or something like that:

A 35-year-old San Marcos woman accused of shoplifting $600 from Sephora at the Irvine Spectrum was found hiding inside the trunk of her Tesla after she attempted to flee from loss prevention, police said.

Her Tesla? Unfortunately, it’s very unlikely that California will “lock her up”.

12. I am currently reading Melville’s White-Jacket, and came across the following:

If there are any three things opposed to the genius of the American Constitution, they are these: irresponsibility in a judge, unlimited discretionary authority in an executive, and the union of an irresponsible judge and unlimited executive in one person.

I wonder what Melville would have thought of the recent Supreme Court ruling that the president is above the law. Or that presidents can set tariff rates wherever they chose.

PS. This will probably be my final post comprised of miscellaneous links. Within a few weeks I hope to wrap up TheMoneyIllusion and put you all out of your misery. Rising from the ashes will be a new and somewhat different blog, hopefully an improvement.

Substack!!!!

Who was the coolest actor in the history of cinema? I’d vote for Alain Delon. And I suspect that many of the runners up got their style by copying Delon. (Compare Tony Leung and Delon.) If you are not familiar with Delon, check out his work in Jean-Pierre Melville’s noirs, especially The Samurai. Also films like Purple Noon, The Eclipse and The Leopard.

Update: Add Monica Vitti, and you have the coolest couple ever.

I was sad to hear that Delon died today. Wikipedia has a long section discussing the influence of his performance in The Samurai. Has there ever been a more influential performance? (Everything below is from Wikipedia)

Cinematic influence

Also, Alain Delon’s interpretations have influenced many colleagues, both in France and internationally, especially thanks to his role in The Samurai, often cited as one of the most influential films in history.^[203] Director Melville wrote the film for Alain Delon and describes the genesis of this film:

« Suddenly, [Delon] looked at his watch and stopped me: “You’ve been reading the script for seven-and-a-half minutes and there hasn’t been a word of dialogue … that’s good enough for me. I’ll do the film. What’s the title?” Le samouraï I told him … and he then led me to his bedroom: all it contained was a leather couch and a samurai lance, his sword and dagger ».^[204]

Director Bertrand Blier speculates that the meeting between Alain Delon and the filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville, “historic, charged with a mutual fascination“, was at the origin of the success of this classic: “The Samurai’ was a completely bizarre film. There has only been one film made like this in France. And it’s so much like Delon, this film: a mute, completely narcissistic role, where practically nothing happens. Delon sits in front of a mirror for an hour correcting the position of his hat! It had a lot of charm, it was a fascinating film. It was an extraordinary analysis of these two men, a formidable joint portrait of Melville / Delon”.^[205]

Delon and Melville crystallize a film cited as one of the most influential in history, which will become an essential reference for many filmmakers. Without saying a word, he signaled for me to follow him. He led me to his room: it contained only a leather bed, a spear, a sword, and a samurai dagger. Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, Michael Mann, John Woo, Johnnie To, David Fincher, Bernardo Bertolucci, Aki Kaurismäki, Takeshi Kitano, Georges Lautner, Nicolas Winding Refn, Luc Besson, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen have all taken the motifs from this feature film, while adapting it to their respective directing styles.^{[206][207][208][209][210][211][212][213][214][215]}

Thus, many New Hollywood films and critical successes such as William Friedkin’s The French Connection (1971) and Francis Ford Coppola‘s The Conversation (1974) contain explicit references to The Samurai and the character of Jeff Costello played by Delon.^{[216][217][218]}

The Samouraï

• The German film Liebe ist kälter als der Tod pays homage to French cinema masters like Claude Chabrol and Éric Rohmer. Furthermore, the directorial style of Ulli Lommel, as well as the artwork of the poster, draws inspiration from Alain Delon’s magnetic presence in Le Samouraï.^[219]
• The influence of French cinema vis-à-vis Italian cinema is notable, particularly in the neo-thriller or poliziottesco genre. This film genre, which mixes elements of French thrillers and American film noir, has found in Delon a representative figure of the cold and methodical hitman, especially thanks to his role in Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samouraï. The character of Jeff Costello, played by Delon, largely inspired Fernando Di Leo and his Middle Trilogy. In Milan Calibre 9, the first part of Di Leo’s Middle Trilogy, the main character, Ugo Piazza, played by Gastone Moschin, is a silent and relentless gangster, hunted by both the mafia and the police.^[220] His impassive character and restrained intensity evoke Delon’s Jeff Costello. This influence is also evident in Il Boss, the final installment of the Middle Trilogy, where Henry Silva plays a lone killer reminiscent once again of Delon’s character in The Samurai.^[221] Di Leo, a great admirer of Melville’s cinema, was clearly inspired by Melville’s aesthetics and themes.^[222]
• The influence of the film Le Samouraï is also visible in Luc Besson‘s Léon: The Professional. Heir to Jeff Costello (the main character of The Samurai played by Delon), Jean Reno plays Léon, a lone hitman with a strict personal code (“no women, no children”).^[223] Although Leon is less refined and warmer than Costello, similarities between the two characters are notable. Like Costello, Leon is a methodical professional, entirely dedicated to his work, but he is also able to show a certain humanity. Leon also lives a minimalist existence similar to Costello’s.^[224]
• Martin Scorsese was permanently influenced by Meville’s Samurai. Paul Schrader, screenwriter of Taxi Driver, was himself inspired by the French film to draw from it the atmosphere and the dimension of modern alienation. Scorsese, steeped in the tradition of cinema noir, drew on this aesthetic to create Jeff Costello (Delon) Travis Bickle, the disenchanted taxi driver in Taxi Driver played by Robert De Niro.^{[225][226][227]} In Kill! Delon’s influence is present in the film’s multifaceted approach to storytelling and character dynamics.
• Borsalino, a film released in 1969, tells the adventures of Roch Siffredi and François Cappella, two gangsters in Marseille in the 1930s. Played by Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo, Borsalino marks their only collaboration. This tandem, made up of two of the most popular French actors, inspired Robert Redford and Paul Newman to stage The Sting in 1973.^[228][229]
• Alain Delon, through his interpretation of Jeff Costello, develops an archetype of the “silent and stoic antihero”. In The Driver, this model is taken up and adapted to the American context, with Ryan O’Neal playing the role of the anonymous and detached driver, an expert in car escapes. The Driver is also considered an unofficial adaptation of Melville’s Samurai.^[230][231] Like Delon, O’Neal plays a character who speaks little, but whose actions and choices reveal an internal depth and complexity.^{[232][233][234][235]}
• In Rocco and His Brothers, Delon plays the character of Rocco Parondi, a tormented young man, a street wrestler who has become famous and has a tumultuous career in an Italian family in the 40s. The film influenced a number of filmmakers, including Scorsese, who closely studied Visconti’s directing, especially the way the fight scenes are filmed, a technique he later integrated into his Raging Bull. In addition, Scorsese was inspired for this same film by the character of Rocco (Delon) to help shape Robert De Niro’s interpretation of Jake LaMotta.^{[236][237][238]}
• Chow Yun-Fat, in John Woo’s film The Killer, not only takes on the role of Alain Delon in Le Samouraï but also portrays a character who dreams he is Alain Delon.^[239]
• Tony Leung, in his role as the undercover inspector in Hard Boiled, uses similar traits to those of Delon in The Samurai.^[240] The character mentioned is named after Alain Delon : his name is Alan. Alan is a cold and contemplative police officer, caught between his conflicting loyalties and condemned to a life of solitude. Like Costello (Alain Delon in The Samurai), he finds refuge in an isolated existence, living on his boat, far from the tumult of the criminal life to which he is inextricably linked.^[241][242]
• The idea for the costumes for Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction came from a discussion between Tarantino and costume designer Betsy Heimann about French film noir with Alain Delon. She says, “We went to a Denny’s and talked about the film visually, and then we went to his house and he showed me a lot of French film noir, a lot of Alain Delon. I said, ‘Well, all these guys are in suits.’ And we’re talking about guys who just got out of jail and want to remain anonymous. What can they do? They could go to a thrift store, buy a black suit, a white shirt, and a tie, and they could afford it. Quentin really liked the idea.”^[243]
• In the film Heat, directed by Michael Mann, the character of Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro, embodies a quiet and reserved anti-hero, inspired by the minimalist and detached style associated with Delon. McCauley’s character, with his rigorous discipline and unflappable attitude, is reminiscent of Jef Costello in The Samurai. Like Delon, De Niro navigates between different emotional states, while maintaining a feline and mineral presence on screen. In his production, Mann was inspired by Jean Pierre Melville (The Samurai, The Red Circle) and deals with the theme of loneliness and isolation in male characters.^{[244][245][246][247]}
• John Frankenheimer‘s film Ronin, released in 1998, evokes an atmosphere that is strongly reminiscent of the classics and thrillers of French cinema, notably through the influence of Alain Delon and his role in Jean-Pierre Melville‘s Le Samouraï.^[248] In this film, Delon plays a lonely hitman, wrapped in a grey coat and evolving in a dark and rainy Paris. This aesthetic and character resonates strongly in Ronin, where Robert De Niro, dressed in a similar trench coat, inevitably recalls Delon.^[249] In addition, Sam is portrayed as a cold and methodical professional, just like the role played by Delon in 1967. Also, the wet streets, the grey skies and the scenes in Parisian cafés are reminiscent of the works of Melville and the performances of his favourite actor Alain Delon in The Red Circle and A Cop.^[250]
• Forest Whitaker was inspired by the role of Jef Costello (played by Alain Delon in The Samurai) for Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai by Jim Jarmusch. “As a preparation, I watched this masterpiece with Alain Delon. Thanks to him, I understood the virtue of silence. Sometimes you make your voice heard better by not saying anything at all! I don’t know if I’m a samurai, if I’d be able to die too rather than betray my convictions, but this role helped me to focus, to calm down”.^{[251][252][253]} Like Alain Delon’s killer in The Samurai (the film’s most obvious influence), the man named Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker) works alone, adhering to a strict personal code.^[254] The ending also openly gives a nod to the samurai, in which Alain Delon, like Ghost Dog, carries an unloaded gun in a circumstance that he knows will prove fatal.^[255]
• Johnnie To, in his film Fulltime Killer, borrows heavily from the styles of John Woo, Takashi Miike, Tsui Hark. In her works, there are also recurring tributes to the minimalist aesthetic of Melville and other French films: “The film refers to Alain Delon’s films, and there is a video saleswoman who talks about what she likes to praise as a genre of films. I put them in the film to show that it’s something we seem to know or have seen but it’s not real. ».^[256][257] To seeks to immerse viewers in a recognizable universe, a world where cultural references serve as bridges to an intuitive but deliberately unrealistic understanding.
• To prepare for the role of Vincent in Collateral, Tom Cruise “first watched a few movies about professional killers, including Jean-Pierre Melville’s The Samurai’starring Alain Delon. I was very fascinated by his solitary and melancholic charisma in carrying out his cruel affairs.”. Cruise’s appearance and character in the American film are also reminiscent of Jef Costello’s character in The Samurai.^{[258][259][260]}
• In The Samurai, Delon plays Jef Costello, a methodical and solitary hitman, whose life is governed by a strict code and a relentless routine.^[261] In The Limits of Control, Jim Jarmusch pays homage to this iconography by creating the character of the Lone Man, played by Isaach De Bankolé.^[262] In many ways, the Lone Man is a modern reincarnation of Jef Costello. He is also a man of few words, carrying out his missions with clinical precision, while maintaining an emotional detachment. The Lone Man, like Costello, is often shown in impeccable costume, traversing urban and rural landscapes with an eerie serenity.^[263] Jarmusch, creating an atmosphere of suspense and contemplation, is more generally inspired by the work of Melville.^[264][265]
• In the comedy You Shoot, I Shoot by Pang Ho-Cheung, Eric Kot portrays a hitman who idolizes Jef Costello, dressing like the character and speaking to Costello through a poster of the French film in his apartment.^[266]
• Kim Jee-Woon, director of A Bittersweet Life, asked lead actor Lee Byung Hun to take inspiration from Delon’s performances in Jean-Pierre Melville’s films: “I told him to play like Alain Delon. There was a lot of talk about Alain Delon during filming, because the character he plays in Jean-Pierre Melville’s films is of course very intelligent and impressively composed, but there is also something delicate about him, an unsettling vulnerability. I’ve always been convinced that Alain Delon played these roles wonderfully, so I talked a lot about him to my lead actor.“.^[267] The hero of A Bittersweet Life, named after Costello “Jeff” is indeed a direct descendant of Jef Costello who has the same characteristics of the betrayed lone killer.^[268][269]
• Hong Kong director Johnnie To is a great admirer of Melville and his films The Red Circle and The Samurai. To has also often mentioned his desire to work with Alain Delon and had initially considered giving him the lead role in Vengeance.^[270] Vengeance is therefore an obvious tribute to Melville’s universe and features a father who has come to Hong Kong to avenge his daughter who is the victim of hitmen.^[271] The character of Francis Costello (a name directly borrowed from Jeff Costello’s in Le Samouraï played by Alain Delon in 1967) was finally played by Johnny Hallyday.^[272][273]
• In Anton Corbijn‘s The American, George Clooney portrays a solitary, calm, and meticulous hitman, devoid of emotion and reminiscent of the role played by Delon in 1967.^{[274][275][276]}
• In addition, Delon’s influence can also be seen in films such as Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Drive and Edgar Wright‘s Baby Driver. Both inspired by The Samurai of Melville, they feature the protagonists – played by Ryan Gosling and Ansel Elgort respectively – as taciturn and charismatic flight drivers, reminiscent of the character of Jef Costello.^[277][278] Ryan Gosling says that he was inspired for his acting by Delon’s performances in The Samurai and Purple Noon.^[279]
• In the development of The Equalizer film franchise, director Antoine Fuqua claims that Delon influenced the development of the main character of Robert McCall, a lonely man with strong moral motivations, acting as a vigilante for those who cannot stand up for themselves, played by Denzel Washington: “My biggest inspirations were the foreign films of the ’70s, really […] And of course, all of Alain Delon’s films, French films in particular, like The Samurai (1967), with that kind of slow pace and character development as it unfolds. These are the kinds of films that inspire me.”^[280][281]
• South Korean actor Jung Woo Sung also drew inspiration from Alain Delon’s performance in Le Samouraï for his first role as a criminal in Cold Eyes.^[282]
• The Kazakh film Yellow Cat, directed by Adilkhan Erjanov, reflects a multitude of cinematic influences, including the classicism of Melville’s films.^[283] Yellow Cat also features a solitary character, wandering through the Kazakh plains and sporting Alain Delon’s trench coat and fedora from Le Samouraï.^[284] The character considers himself a talent: that of imitating Alain Delon, imagining himself to be the French actor.
• Michael Fassbender drew inspiration from Alain Delon’s character in Le Samouraï for his role in David Fincher’s film The Killer.^[285]
• Keanu Reeves, in John Wick: Chapter 4, portrays a formidable hitman but with a certain emotional depth, imitating Alain Delon, whom Reeves idolizes. Chad Stahelski, the director of the franchise, drew inspiration from Delon’s interpretations in Melville’s films: “The ‘John Wick’ films are all love letters from Keanu, myself, our stunt team, and our creative team to everyone, from Wong Kar-wai to Sammo Hung, to Sergio Leone, Kurosawa, Alain Delon and ‘Le Samouraï’, Spielberg, Tarantino… To all those people we loved growing up.”^[286][287]

The old TV sitcom Cheers began with a nostalgic song about a time and place “where everyone knows your name”.

Welcome to Dubai:

Mr Williams contrasts “the dreaded 90-minute queue at a US airport to deal with an immigration officer who rarely seems pleased you’ve come to visit” with the UAE’s high-tech system. Arriving in Dubai, “My passport stays in my pocket, the camera recognises me, the screen says, ‘Hello Simon J. Williams’ and the gate opens.” He feels both more welcome and more secure.

Heartwarming? 1984? Or both?

The preceding quote is from an excellent article in The Economist, which looks at where people would move if the world had completely open borders for college grads. The three winners are:

1. In gross terms, the USA.

2. In net terms, Canada.

3. In percentage of population terms, New Zealand.

If you look at the nine countries where the graduate population would at least double, seven are near the top of the Heritage Foundation’s Economic Freedom rankings (in the top 16 out of 184 countries), and the other two have a pleasant lifestyle and a good location (Spain and Portugal.)

Here is the top of the Heritage economic freedom ranking:

No USA? 🙁

In gross terms, the US remains the most desired destination, but Canada leads the world in net terms (black dots), by an impressive margin (with Australia #2):

The morons in Washington DC don’t understand this yet, but in the 21st century the battle for global supremacy will depend far more on a country’s ability to attract global talent than on its “industrial policies”:

The smartest people are highly mobile. Only 3.6% of the world’s population are migrants. But of the 1,000 people with the highest scores in the entrance exam for India’s elite institutes of technology, 36% migrate after graduation. Among the top 100, 62% do. Among the top 20% of ai researchers in the world, 42% work abroad, according to MacroPolo, a think-tank in Chicago.

The US remains a very attractive destination, but also puts up much more formidable barriers than many other destinations:

Yet when he wanted permanent residence, he faced a snag. America mandates that no country may receive more than 7% of green cards in a given year. This is tricky for applicants from populous countries, such as the Indian-born Mr Das. A typical Indian applicant can expect to wait 134 years for approval, estimates the Cato Institute, a think-tank.

The US and China are both their own worst enemy. The winner will be country that puts the fewest bullets into its own foot.

The OC register has an article discussing the views of an English professor on conspiracy theories:

Cal State Fullerton professor Elise Wang is one of 28 scholars across the country selected for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program, one of the nation’s most prestigious grants for social science and humanities researchers examining pressing societal issues.

So, what can someone studying Chaucer tell us about America in 2024?

It turns out quite a bit, Wang would say.

Her book project, which she will work on during the two-year fellowship, is titled “That’s What They Want You to Think: Identifying Dangerous Conspiracy Theories.”

Wang says that medieval texts, often revolving around miracles and sainthood, lay out narrative arcs that reveal a lot about the types of not-exactly-true stories people believe and why, structurally, they’re appealing.

Here’s an example of why I don’t view conspiracy theories as being about conspiracies. In a recent post, I argued that Nixon had been involved in a criminal conspiracy during the 1972 election campaign. A commenter suggested that Nixon was in fact innocent. So who is the conspiracy theorist?

In my view, the commenter was engaging in conspiracy theorizing, whereas I was representing the establishment view. I understand that this is not the literal meaning of the term “conspiracy theory”. But here I’m not talking about literal meanings, I am talking about actual real world usage of a term. He is the one with the interesting contrarian take.

Here’s another example. The CCP has clearly been trying to prevent investigation into evidence that Covid began in Wuhan, China. In a literal sense, that claim is a “conspiracy theory”. But the term conspiracy theory is not applied to the zoonosis hypothesis of the origin of Covid, only to the lab leak hypothesis, even though the CCP denies both. That’s because the lab leak hypothesis goes against the views of most Western virologists. If the establishment claimed it was a lab leak, the conspiracy theorists would be suggesting zoonosis.

You might argue that in order to be a conspiracy theory it is not enough for it to be a contrarian view, there must also be evidence that the establishment is covering up the truth. That’s What They Want You to Think.

The establishment certainly wants you to believe that Nixon was guilty. But suppose they really do believe that Nixon was guilty? Is it still a conspiracy theory? Now we are entering a grey area. Perhaps there is publicly available evidence exonerating Nixon, but the establishment is too lazy to examine the evidence.

My claim that the Fed caused the 2008-09 recession might be labeled a “conspiracy theory”, as it goes against the conventional wisdom among macroeconomists. On the other hand, most macroeconomists sincerely believe that I’m wrong, even that I’m slightly nuts. On the other, other hand, most economists do not want it to be true that the Fed caused the Great Recession, as the Fed’s policy is generally the consensus policy of America’s macroeconomists. Similarly, while most virologists sincerely believe that zoonosis caused Covid, they also do not want it to be true that a lab leak caused Covid.

In the end, I think “conspiracy theory” is a matter of degree. It’s not always about actual conspiracies, often it’s about cases where the members of establishment do not want you to accept a certain hypothesis, but are not actively conspiring with each other. An even weaker form of conspiracy theory is when the establishment doesn’t even know it’s covering up the truth, but its self-interested bias leads it to reject true explanations.

Trumpism is the mother of all conspiracy theories. His entire political career is based on the notion that he’s exposing a vast conspiracy of the elite, which is engaged in all sorts of nefarious evils such as wokism, Marxism, One Worldism, open borders, neoconservatism, and dozens of other crimes. One gigantic conspiracy theory. You say Trump lies all the time? That’s what the media wants you to believe.

You might argue that the Never-Trumpers are doing the same thing, with their overheated claims that Trump aims to abolish democracy and turn America into a fascist state. Those claims may be equally hyperbolic, but they don’t count as a conspiracy theory. Almost by definition, the elite cannot engage in conspiracy theories, because conspiracy theories are claims that the elite is covering up the truth. And the elite actually believes that Trump is an anti-democratic threat.

[Update (8/17): Commenter HL sent me to a Robert Wright podcast, which is the single clearest explanation of the evidence that I’ve come across. Peter Miller is an impressive advocate for zoonosis.]

I’m on record suggesting that Covid probably entered the human population from an animal market in Wuhan. I’ve given 10-1 odds in favor of that hypothesis. Two other researchers looked at essentially the same data as I did, and reached radically different conclusions.

In a presentation at the Hoover Institute, Andrew Levin presented a paper entitled:

A Bayesian Assessment of the Origins of COVID-19 using Spatiotemporal and Zoonotic Data

Levin gave odds of 100,000,000 to 1 in favor of the lab leak hypothesis over the zoonosis hypothesis.

In a recent interview, NPR asked Michael Worobey to place odds on zoonosis vs. lab leak:

NPR: So what is the likelihood of that coincidence happening — that the first cluster of cases occurs at a market that sells animals known to be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, but the virus didn’t actually come from the market?

I would put the odds at 1 in 10,000. But it’s interesting. We do have one analysis where we show essentially that the chance of having this pattern of cases [clustered around the market] is 1 in 10 million [if the market isn’t a source of the virus]. We consider that strong evidence in science.

Think about it. You have two people who both rational, highly respected researchers. Both look at the same data set. Both use Bayesian reasoning. One says 100,000,000-1 lab leak and one says somewhere between 10,000-1 and 10,000,000-1 zoonosis.

I’m not a highly respected researcher, but I’m looking at the same data and also using Bayesian reasoning, and I previously ended up guesstimating odds of 10-1 zoonosis.

I feel like this case is telling us something about Bayesian reasoning, but I’m not quite sure what it is. To take one example, Worobey emphasizes that most of the early cases occurred on the west side of the market, which is where the suspicious “raccoon dog” cage was located:

Levin emphasizes that none of the first 5 cases occurred immediately next to the suspicious “raccoon dog” cage, they were one aisle over:

Most of the early lab leak theories focused on the famous Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is not located anywhere the animal market. Levin suggests that a lab leak could have occurred at a different lab, a CDC office near the animal market.

I have a hard time evaluating this claim. He might be correct, but the original focus on Wuhan was based on the idea that the WIV is special, not just another lab. The argument was essentially “What are the odds that the pandemic would happen in the city with this very special virology lab.” If the claim is now that the outbreak was from a different lab, doesn’t that change our priors? On the other hand, perhaps all Wuhan research labs had a special interest in these bat viruses.

One thing I like about both researchers is that they avoid a lot of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, and focus on the spatiotemporal pattern of the outbreak. And yet even with this sort of methodological agreement, they end up about as far apart as the Earth to the Andromeda galaxy. (And I’m somewhere off in the Magellanic Clouds.)

Weird!