New (sort of) Substack post: Taking Shopping Seriously: Taking Shopping Seriously
Why do people buy things they "don't need"? And why should we care?
open.substack.com/pub/vpostrel/p
#shopping #consumption #consumer_behavior
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Virginia Postrel
@vpostrel
L.A. writer, Smith Inst . THE FABRIC OF CIVILIZATION . POWER OF GLAMOUR, SUBSTANCE OF STYLE, FUTURE & ITS ENEMIES. vpostrel.substack.com
Virginia Postrel’s Tweets
I remember my grandmother darning socks while watching TV, using an egg-shaped gourd to hold the shape.
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We are excited to welcome interdisciplinary artist Camila Salcedo for four workshops in February and March to show you how to mend and repurpose socks!
Space is limited so buy your tickets now! batashoemuseum.ca/event/sock-men
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I'm broadly interested in "conscious extinction" – identifying species of animals, microbes and plants that we can eradicate to make the world better. We've done it with rinderpest & smallpox, and should probably do it to HIV & the mosquito species that bite humans. What else?
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I'd like to run a Works in Progress article about how Alberta eradicated its rats and explore how this could be done in more places. If that sounds like something you'd be good at and interested in writing for payment, please DM me.
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It is a very useful teaching tool
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In my experience black students challenge Between the World and Me more than white students are willing to
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I 100 percent agree. And whenever I’ve taught Between the World and Me, the students’ responses are extraordinarily complex and oftentimes completely surprising.
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To exclude Ta-Nehisi Coates from any high school course on African American studies is to deny American teenagers a rich part of their own heritage.
King
Baldwin
Coates
Do these men build on, or challenge each other's ideas?
Jesus Christ, America. Save yourself.
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Fun, if too apt, thread
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Now accepting suggestions for my list of Types of Anti-YIMBs. Sound off in the comments 
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My main ChatGPT change us that students have to follow the brief to a T. Making vague coherent noises in the direction of the assignment now gets you an F
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Also makes you wonder about the reviewer's qualifications for refereeing econ proposals in general
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The sound you just heard is twenty different econs immediately thinking about the same identification strategy
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Would very much appreciate it if nice 🇦🇺 colleagues outside Economics could help RT the original tweet ☝️
Makes me sad to see how top colleagues with X, Y, Z names get their proposals rejected based on false claims about norms re: author name ordering in papers.
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Service tweet for all reviewers in 🇦🇺 outside Economics:
No, it is NOT the norm in Economics that the 1st author is the lead author.
Stop rejecting grant proposals by Econ colleagues with last names starting with Z arguing that they are rarely first authors 🙏
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People claim inflation "gives cover" for businesses to raise prices. Somehow this is evidence of nefarious market power.
That's actually evidence of competition! Supply and demand FTW 💪
Today's newsletter explains why.
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Good news. If you don’t know Westwood Village you have no idea what an achievement this is.
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North Westwood NC voted to approve a conditional use permit at former Napa Valley Grill site in Westwood, for STK w/ liquor use, outdoor seats, & live entertainment(live music).
It'll be their flagship location in Los Angeles,(if approved by Planning Commission + Council Office)
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The world is full of cool stuff to be discovered: A lungful of air is like a multifunction toolkit for humpback whales.
hakaimagazine.com/videos-visuals via
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Watching 1957’s Desk Set. Hepburn-Tracy and Google’s ancestor threatening jobs with automation. Good time.
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“In 2016, Auckland liberalized house building rules by allowing more dense housing, allowing more housing overall and removing parking restrictions among other changes.”
You won't believe what happened next
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“Do-it-yourself crafts only exist when you no longer have to do everything yourself.”
Great essay from
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I am once again asking people to stop putting two spaces after periods
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If you are into fabric arts & textiles or just a history & technology need in general check out ’s The Fabric of Civilization. Literally wrapped up the audiobook today. Highly recommend it.
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This, from McCloskey: "I thank Arthur M. Diamond, Jr. of the University of Nebraska Omaha for his detailed and illuminating comments on a draft, and not Jeffrey Friedman." ?????
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@ccoyne1 @Springernomics The Review of Austrian Economics | Volume 35, issue 4 … McCloskey on Schumpeter; Holcombe on Creative Destruction link.springer.com/journal/11138/
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Very interesting.
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I spent 6 hours using ChatGPT, MidJourney, and a couple of other AI tools to make a fan-made Batman animated movie!
Here’s how 
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Quite a story: An obituary for the man who saved North Carolina from nuclear disaster, by
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Very interesting thread.
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This article represents failing of drug industry to make its case to public & failing of journalists to grasp what they are really writing about.
Hospitals are laundering their expenses through drugs prices at the expense of innovation. @IAmBiotech @WSJ wsj.com/articles/340b-
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Important thread
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People on the right have this weird idea that, because the left dominates the media/academia and will therefore treat them badly no matter what, they don't have to be rigorous or police their own ranks by calling out crackpots, when in fact the opposite is true. 1/n
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Median processing time for I-90 green card renewal/replacement went from 1 month to 11 months in just 3 months. That's... nutty.
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"Mitt Romney as Batman" is one of my test images for various style prompts and I love how frequently they put a suit collar on Mitt's Batman suit.
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My thought exactly.
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Maybe it would be better to ask who DOESN'T have secret documents in their home office?
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Forgetting my own post, I at first thought this was an extension of the cultivated meat reaction discussion and wondered who he was quoting.
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"I think that politically-convenient narratives compromise a person’s credibility with fair-minded people. Sharp people recognize the shell game; they notice the effort to sweep idiocy from one’s own side under the rug."
This post is really good. twitter.com/vpostrel/statu…
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It takes a comedy writer like @jeffmaurer1980 to notice the self-parody in the whole M&Ms story, beginning w/ the bizarre Mars press releases that politicized the candies in the first place.
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this isn't said enough, esp around here: "if you want to live in a world where ideas are debated on their own merits and in a good-faith manner, you have to behave that way yourself, despite the powerful cultural and economic incentives not to."
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So Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit quoted my post on the reaction to my cultivated meat story. instapundit.com/565338/
Once solidly dynamist, Glenn is now 80% culture warrior. So his reaction is:
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Very excited to share some big news! I'm curating #FashionCity Docklands, with external advisor . The exhibition tells the stories of London's Jewish fashion makers, designers & retailers through the 20thC.
RT to help us find some key missing objects👇
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We're on the lookout for iconic pieces of #fashion history for our upcoming exhibition #FashionCity: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style.
Can you help us find David Bowie's dress from the cover of The Man Who Sold the World?
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