Freddie Deboer is a writer on substack and a contributor to many publications. He offers a unique perspective, coming from the economic left while seeing through a range of strategic and policy failures. We discuss progressive organizations, doomerism, the politics of recognition, state capacity, patronage systems, civil rights law, housing, monarchy, mental illness, distrust of institutions, and the relationship between the Bernie left and the media.
Jul 30, 2022·edited Jul 30, 2022Liked by Brian Chau
genuinely shocked to see the civil service exam come up. I agree with you. I had no idea there were other people that cared about that an it's impact on American government. Look at the strongest states like Korea.
but I'm not sure that it is demographic representation that has undermined it. Typically, imo it has been successful people with a low "g" who push back against those tests and created a 1960s subculture around how you can't ever measure anything. It's the white parents of mediocre kids who have a 4.0 gpa but lower general IQ that lobby so hard to
1) change the tests to measure intelligence less and less (succeeded in 1990s with the loss of the analogy section and addition of writing section for ex)
2) now get rid of them entirely.
l have some thoughts on healthcare but I'm too tired to type them
there's a simultaneous decay of the administrative state and an increase in the expectations put on the administrative state
genuinely shocked to see the civil service exam come up. I agree with you. I had no idea there were other people that cared about that an it's impact on American government. Look at the strongest states like Korea.
but I'm not sure that it is demographic representation that has undermined it. Typically, imo it has been successful people with a low "g" who push back against those tests and created a 1960s subculture around how you can't ever measure anything. It's the white parents of mediocre kids who have a 4.0 gpa but lower general IQ that lobby so hard to
1) change the tests to measure intelligence less and less (succeeded in 1990s with the loss of the analogy section and addition of writing section for ex)
2) now get rid of them entirely.
l have some thoughts on healthcare but I'm too tired to type them
there's a simultaneous decay of the administrative state and an increase in the expectations put on the administrative state
On human’s hunter-gatherer origins, see
https://aeon.co/essays/not-all-early-human-societies-were-small-scale-egalitarian-bands
https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-primitive-communism-is-as-seductive-as-it-is-wrong