Scott Alexander responds to Tyler Cowen about USAID funding, correcting his own previous claims about overhead costs while maintaining that Cowen's criticism of USAID was misleading and potentially harmful.

Scott Alexander criticizes Tyler Cowen and others for misrepresenting USAID's funding model, explaining how regranting through other charities is both necessary and effective despite seeming inefficient to outsiders.

Scott Alexander and 1DaySooner outline potential positive health policy initiatives that could emerge under three key Trump administration health appointees: Jim O'Neill, Marty Makary, and Jay Bhattacharya.

Scott Alexander explores various COVID-19 topics including lockdown effectiveness, infection rate variations, transmission risks, prediction markets, and ethical considerations of pandemic response.

Scott Alexander follows up on his critique of a book about the Baumol effect, presenting data that challenges the book's claims about rising wages driving cost increases in education and healthcare.

Scott Alexander reviews a book attributing rising service costs to the Baumol effect, finding it convincing but raising some concerns about conflicting data and affordability issues.

Scott Alexander explores how straight-line trends on graphs might mask the true impact of interventions, using examples like the Clean Air Act and Moore's Law to illustrate the complexity of interpreting such data.

Scott Alexander examines evidence for technological unemployment, finding little current impact but signs of 'technological underemployment' pushing workers to lower-skill jobs.

Scott Alexander summarizes various responses to his post on 'cost disease', presenting diverse explanations for dramatic cost increases in healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

A collection of interesting links and brief commentary spanning topics from scientific research to cultural phenomena, including updates on various studies challenging previous beliefs.