Scott Alexander critiques the claim that 'America has two X-wing parties' as meaningless or misleading, urging for more precise political comparisons. Longer summary

Scott Alexander criticizes the common political trope that 'America has two left-wing parties' or 'America has two right-wing parties'. He argues that this claim is meaningless when taken as an absolute statement, as there's no objective center in politics. When considered as a relative claim, it's either false (relative to US voters) or inconsistent (relative to other countries). He suggests that people making such claims are often comparing to specific reference points like US history or OECD countries, and should explicitly state their comparisons instead of making broad, ambiguous statements. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander reviews a book comparing international healthcare systems, finding it informative but lacking in explaining why some systems succeed while others fail. Longer summary

Scott Alexander reviews 'Which Country Has The World's Best Health Care?' by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a book comparing healthcare systems across 11 countries. The book categorizes systems into five types, from fully socialized to mostly privatized. Emanuel reluctantly concludes that Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Taiwan have the best systems. Scott finds the book informative but criticizes its organization and limited scope. He expresses confusion about why some systems work better than others, particularly regarding drug pricing and budget setting. The review highlights the complexity of healthcare economics and the difficulty in understanding why the US system performs poorly compared to seemingly similar systems in other countries. Shorter summary

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

This post covers various aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including lockdown effectiveness, heterogeneity in infection rates across countries, transmission risks, prediction markets, and ethical considerations. Scott discusses cell phone data showing limited impact of official lockdowns, explores reasons for varying infection/mortality rates between countries, and highlights the role of speaking/singing in virus transmission. He also examines coronavirus prediction markets, questions the long-term sustainability of lockdowns, and ponders how to quantify the severity of COVID-19 deaths compared to other causes. The post concludes with numerous short updates and links on coronavirus-related topics. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander provides updates on coronavirus trends, discusses various pandemic-related topics, and analyzes different countries' responses and policy proposals. Longer summary

This blog post provides updates on various aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. It discusses the slowing growth rate of cases in many countries, the challenges of mail-in voting in the US, charity efforts, how different countries are responding to the crisis, economic analyses of lockdowns, some positive developments in the US response, and various other coronavirus-related topics. The post maintains a speculative and analytical tone, examining different perspectives on issues like immunity certificates, expert predictions, and controversies around ventilator donations. Shorter summary