Bryan Caplan

@bryan_caplan86k followers

GMU econ prof, NYT bestseller, father of 4, author of Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Case Against Education, Open Borders, & BBB

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8.3k

Across 97 organic posts

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Oct 17

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Posts 97 posts

#	Date	Post	↓ Outlier	Views	Likes	Reposts	Bookmarks
1	Aug 20, '24	A modest proposal: To be eligible for the presidency, you should have 5s on all of the following: AP Microeconomics AP Macroeconomics AP Statistics AP US History AP European Histor	130×	1.6M	2k	98	199
2	Mar 29, '25	View post on X	84.3×	1M	24k	1.1k	1.4k
3	Aug 6, '23	I meant what I said five years ago. In his early 20s, @RichardHanania anonymously said some bad things about me. I won him over, met him in real life, and he is now my good friend.	56.9×	686k	618	33	48
4	May 11, '25	Arguably the biggest change in higher ed in my lifetime: IQs of humanities profs have crashed. Back in the 80s, even English professors, for all their flaws, were brilliant. I saw	55.4×	668k	12k	514	1k
5	Mar 21, '23	AI enthusiasts have cried wolf for decades. GPT-4 is the wolf. I've seen it with my own eyes.	33.3×	402k	640	78	144
6	Mar 27, '25	It's scandalous that we talk about immigration in Europe 60x as much as we talk about immigration in the Gulf monarchies. All pearl-clutching aside, United Arab Emirates (88% forei	33×	398k	744	27	154
7	Jun 30, '25	"In a country like Japan where 80% of adults have the intelligence and discipline to do skilled work, the competition to get skilled work is ferocious. Plenty of high-skilled Japan	26.9×	324k	469	20	120
8	May 14, '23	Communism is the ideology that was a complete disaster from start to finish, but still has millions of devoted fans. Neoliberalism is the ideology that consistently works wonders,	25.7×	310k	893	111	46
9	Sep 19, '23	Cool, Thomas Sowell quoted me.	21×	253k	2.4k	143	183
10	Sep 9, '24	Suppose everyone in Haiti would die unless the U.S. allowed their immigration. In this scenario, what fraction of Haitians should be allowed to come to the U.S.?	17.1×	207k	551	137	57
11	Jan 27, '25	Timeless.	16.3×	196k	1k	105	145
12	Nov 3, '25	Dear Intellectuals: If you ever decide you've been deeply wrong for years, don't instantly re-brand yourself as a wise spokesman for your new view. Instead, publicly admit that you	14.9×	180k	1.1k	69	77
13	Apr 13, '25	I just want politics to end forever. Is that so much to ask?	14.3×	173k	709	49	28
14	Feb 26, '25	Why DON'T dockworkers just agree to full automation in exchange for a massive buyout package?	13.6×	164k	2.8k	55	104
15	Jan 27, '24	Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repeating. Worth repe	13×	157k	522	77	81
16	Apr 2, '24	Common sense says that anti-meritocratic hiring should REDUCE productivity, so why doesn't greater commitment to DEI demonstrably hurt firm performance? Simplest story: The most su	12.5×	151k	437	32	50
17	Aug 22, '24	I had a lot of parenting opinions when I was a kid. My parents scoffed, telling me, "You'll understand when you're a parent." Now I've been a parent for 21 years, and think my pare	10.8×	131k	1.1k	34	89
18	May 20, '25	Instant favorite.	10.5×	127k	1.8k	182	222
19	Mar 18, '24	I'm especially baffled by suicides of highly successful people. I'm well-aware that success often fails to make people happy. But successful people have ample financial resources t	9.8×	119k	428	17	144
20	Apr 9, '25	View post on X	9.5×	115k	2.8k	339	152
21	Jan 14, '25	Exactly. In most orgs, wokeness is an omnipresent thinly-veiled threat. I ignore the threat because I have tenure, but if my life's work were on the line I'd probably shut up, too.	9.3×	112k	480	31	32
22	May 19, '25	View post on X	9.2×	111k	754	55	98
23	Mar 12, '25	I think I could "invent" wheels on suitcases, at least.	9.0×	109k	830	18	57
24	May 11, '25	View post on X	8.5×	103k	639	72	71
25	May 20, '25	“If 18% of biologists believed in creationism, that would be a big deal. Why? Because creationism is nonsense. Similarly, if 18% of social scientists believe in Marxism, that too i	8.3×	101k	1.5k	186	200
26	Sep 30, '25	My new baby. Submitted to @UChicago press today.	8.1×	98k	1.4k	72	229
27	Nov 26, '24	The big difference between McCarthyism and DEI is that employers didn't create full-time McCarthy officers to staff McCarthy departments to hunt down and eliminate acts of microcom	7.7×	93k	1.3k	190	110
28	Dec 21, '24	Insight from my friend Ross.	7.5×	91k	2.8k	131	100
29	Feb 20, '24	My university plans to add new required "Just Society" courses. My public comment: "George Mason University is a public university, funded by Virginians with a wide range of politi	7.0×	84k	595	105	49
30	Aug 6, '24	My doctor talked to me like a child when I refused a tetanus booster. This disease kills about 2 Americans per YEAR!	⚡ 7.0×	2.9M	1.1k	43	154
31	Apr 28, '25	First full draft! Expect release in Fall, 2026.	6.4×	77k	1.7k	83	208
32	Jan 9, '25	I know almost all parents disagree, but I have found raising four kids to be easy, even though I personally homeschooled all of them for years. Adults complaining about kids deeply	5.6×	68k	428	15	78
33	Feb 20	Buy my new You Have No Right to Your Culture, now on sale! Order here:	5.5×	67k	128	9	62
34	Apr 17, '25	In the long-run, even cuts to STEM funding are very good. Top STEM researchers belong in industry, not academia.	⚡ 5.4×	3.6M	648	51	139
35	Jul 15, '23	Always amazed that smart people don’t abhor the French Revolution. Europe was laid waste for a QUARTER CENTURY, and for what?!	⚡ 5.2×	2.2M	810	56	91
36	Aug 17, '22	Took me under 5 minutes to turn a normal, smart 13-year-old against the minimum wage. Contrary to almost everyone, the textbook argument IS intuitive. It's just emotionally unappea	5.0×	0	1k	47	67
37	Mar 6, '25	Is anyone more painfully aware of IQ differences than teachers?	5.0×	60k	990	20	83
38	Jul 8, '25	Shoe Bomber Richard Reid was arguably the most successful terrorist in history. For the cost of one life sentence, he destroyed BILLIONS of minutes of time in TSA lines. Abandoning	4.8×	58k	701	59	33
39	Aug 7, '24	I do not apologize for politely saying true things, but I am happy to clarify the point of my tetanus tweet. 1. I was not trolling. I never troll. 2. The target of my criticism was	4.7×	56k	428	11	22
40	Nov 4, '18	Dear Intellectuals: If you ever decide you've been deeply wrong for years, don't instantly re-brand yourself as a wise spokesman for your new view. Instead, publicly admit that you	4.7×	0	1.9k	285	19
41	Dec 4, '24	"Race is a social construct" is classic motte-and-bailey. Motte: Phenotype imperfectly predicts genotype; categories are not mathematically precise. Bailey: Phenotype is uncorrelat	4.6×	56k	1.1k	64	211
42	Apr 12, '25	“The reason why kids from rich families do well isn’t that mom and dad buy their way through life. The reason, rather, is that rich families have genes that cause financial success	4.5×	55k	562	63	197
43	Jan 6, '24	View post on X	4.5×	55k	1.1k	110	120
44	Mar 1, '19	The classic mistake of the old: Thinking there are no new ideas. The classic mistake of the young: Thinking your ideas are new.	4.4×	0	1.6k	421	21
45	Apr 20, '23	Q: How come no one is saying, "GPT will let us get 10x as many academic papers as we already have, with no reduction in quality!" A: Academic publishing is 98% about rationing drea	4.3×	52k	607	52	37
46	Oct 9, '23	I understand people who reluctantly accept democracy as the least-bad possibility. But I am baffled by anyone who actually feels good about a system that gives you the choice betwe	4.3×	52k	509	41	9
47	Jan 26, '19	"That's not real socialism" is a perfectly reasonable claim. For example, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway aren't real socialism. That's why they're not disasters.	4.2×	0	1.6k	341	22
48	Jun 30, '24	When I was in high school, I dreamed of a world where people wanted to spend all day arguing about philosophy, politics, and economics. Now we're here, and I was wrong. Wrong!	4.1×	50k	1.1k	102	45
49	Jun 30, '21	When I was in high school, I dreamed of a world where people wanted to spend all day arguing about philosophy, politics, and economics. Now we're here, and I was wrong. Wrong!	4.1×	0	1.8k	171	32
50	Aug 2, '24	Pretty good.	4.0×	49k	676	67	21
51	Jan 27, '25	Pretty good.	3.8×	45k	805	45	160
52	Nov 11, '18	I don't want to crush, humiliate, frighten, silence, irritate, defeat, discredit, demoralize, delegitimize, depress, frustrate, or ostracize my intellectual opponents. I want to co	3.6×	0	1.3k	213	39
53	Jan 20, '22	If you want to combat error, critique your in-group. You speak their language and they trust you, so you might persuade someone. If you want to raise your status, critique your out	3.5×	0	1.1k	240	119
54	May 1, '25	"A $5000 baby bonus won't work because a child costs $500,000 to raise" is a severe non sequitur. If people will have kids when the baby bonus =$0 - and they plainly do - they will	3.4×	42k	521	16	26
55	May 22, '25	“If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?” is a less formidable challenge than “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy?”	3.4×	41k	603	53	62
56	Aug 15, '25	The human desire to find fault with markets and make excuses for government beggars belief.	3.4×	40k	479	43	21
57	Nov 23, '18	I scrupulously avoid taking offense. As a result, people speak to me with candor and humor.	3.2×	0	1.2k	206	40
58	Apr 29, '20	Just tried telemedicine for the first time. About 75% of the benefit - for 5% of the time cost. This should always be legal!	3.1×	0	1.4k	162	17
59	Oct 29, '25	Pretty good.	3.1×	38k	1k	134	70
60	Jul 31, '18	For any scandalous story that upsets you, ask: How many such stories should we expect in a well-functioning country with 325M people? A well-functioning planet with 7.6B people?	3.0×	0	1.1k	268	11
61	Mar 22, '25	On the first day of college, music majors already know how to play their instruments. On the last day of college, foreign language majors still don’t know how to speak their langua	2.9×	35k	651	26	46
62	Jul 8, '25	Teachers who don't believe children differ in intelligence are like blacksmiths who don't believe metals have different melting points.	2.8×	34k	592	27	26
63	May 23, '25	View post on X	2.8×	33k	689	25	118
64	Mar 23, '23	View post on X	2.7×	33k	418	52	4
65	Aug 20, '24	Don't make affordable housing. Make housing affordable.	2.7×	32k	641	64	17
66	Aug 30, '24	This map is supposed to show that cars are bad, but what it really shows is that minimum parking regulations are bad.	2.6×	31k	618	42	22
67	Nov 6, '24	I am only a messenger. I bring bad news, but abandoning false hope will eventually make you feel better.	2.4×	29k	468	68	83
68	Dec 15, '18	Arguing is overrated. Asking questions is underrated.	2.3×	0	849	199	16
69	Apr 5, '25	Protectionism is the socialism of grifters.	2.3×	28k	970	107	15
70	Mar 2, '25	The classic mistake of the old: Thinking there are no new ideas. The classic mistake of the young: Thinking your ideas are new.	2.2×	27k	512	72	44
71	Nov 3, '25	21 years ago at my house. @tylercowen @robinhanson	2.2×	26k	552	9	36
72	Jul 27, '25	19 years ago, @tylercowen, @ATabarrok, @robinhanson, and me. (Plus Ilia Rainer).	2.2×	26k	448	12	35
73	Jul 27, '25	The bigger dumping ground is the pseudo-vocational majors like psych, communications, and business.	2.1×	25k	529	11	34
74	Sep 2, '22	Capitalism is the high school nerd of economic systems: tremendously successful, terribly unpopular, and tolerated only if you can cheat off of him and take his lunch money.	2.1×	0	765	133	42
75	Apr 4, '25	Being agnostic about tariffs really is like being agnostic about blackouts. Doing without trade really is like doing without electricity.	2.0×	24k	526	58	14
76	Oct 3, '24	What should @Penn do about Amy Wax? Surrender. Surrender. Surrender. Abjectly apologize, admit she was totally right and @Penn was totally wrong, and give her a big compensatory ra	2.0×	24k	464	32	8
77	Apr 8, '25	View post on X	2.0×	24k	538	89	27
78	Jan 10, '25	"Why didn't you stand up to wokeness?" Everyone with a normal job has a decent two-part excuse: 1. Ideas aren't their specialty. 2. They didn't want to lose their jobs. We tenured	1.9×	23k	682	33	19
79	Mar 10, '25	The one serious problem with standardized test is that they are way too easy, and therefore provide little information for the top of distribution, which is, alas, the most importa	1.9×	23k	548	21	36
80	Jan 10, '25	Most CEOs never sincerely wanted to go woke. They were just scared. They weren't villains. Nor were they heroes. Just normal morally weak human beings who deliver abundance.	1.9×	23k	665	22	22
81	Dec 18, '18	Economics and philosophy are almost the only academic disciplines where people can politely defend socially unacceptable answers to unconventional questions and remain respected	1.9×	0	699	128	16
82	Mar 2, '22	The classic mistake of the old: Thinking there are no new ideas. The classic mistake of the young: Thinking your ideas are new.	1.9×	0	813	97	26
83	Dec 19, '18	Step 1: Look at how emotional each side is. Step 2: Assume the less emotional side is right and the more emotional side is wrong. I first proposed this "Mellow Heuristic" three yea	1.9×	0	508	104	48
84	Apr 25, '22	My university takes more time to approve a job ad than @elonmusk takes to buy @Twitter.	1.8×	0	888	56	5
85	Aug 31, '21	Can we replace "Out of an abundance of caution" with "In yet another fit of innumeracy"?	1.6×	0	718	80	24
86	Oct 17, '21	99% of what excites people today will be forgotten in two years, but you'll never get the time you spent angry back.	1.6×	0	669	90	28
87	Jun 24, '22	Italian TSA seized my barbells. 20 minutes later, @Amazon was sending me another set. And yet I’ve seen 100x as much public resentment for @JeffBezos as airport security. What’s wr	1.4×	0	643	46	10
88	May 15, '22	Supporting “liberal democracy” is like supporting “benevolent dictatorship.” Maybe you’ll get lucky, but the logic of the system works against it.	1.4×	0	395	52	23
89	Dec 6, '19	I strongly oppose lying to children. If I don't want to tell them the truth, I simply say "I'll tell you when you're older." As a result, all four of my children treat my word like	1.3×	0	522	60	19
90	Mar 26, '21	Why does anyone pay full price to attend low-ranked private colleges?	1.3×	0	538	14	20
91	Nov 13, '24	As an atheist homeschooler, I am eternally grateful to all of the Christian activists who successfully lobbied to legalize homeschooling in all 50 U.S. states.	1.3×	15k	556	27	12
92	Jun 6, '25	Despite near-zero property crime in Japan, most stores have pull-down metal doors like they’re facing constant looting.	⚡ 1.2×	920k	444	7	49
93	Nov 14, '18	Econ Student: What do you think about the signaling model of education? Econ Prof: There's not a shred of evidence in its favor. Econ Student: What should I do to get into a top gr	1.2×	0	512	71	13
94	Nov 7, '18	How much doublethink does it take to tell people their vote is really important, then announce election results before all the votes have been counted?	1.2×	0	479	90	3
95	Oct 27, '21	Now is the perfect time for a big career switch, especially if you lack the right credentials but have a can-do attitude. Employers are temporarily ultra-open-minded. Don't miss yo	1.2×	0	469	64	25
96	Oct 7, '21	Anytime you see me in public, please introduce yourself. Making friends has worked out swimmingly for me so far!	1.1×	0	520	21	14
97	Jul 14, '25	Only a fool would give the state of California a penny to build high-speed rail. This was obvious in 2000. If it’s still not obvious to you now, words fail me.	1.1×	13k	449	26	9
98	Feb 25, '22	"Offer a green card to any Russian with a technical degree who wishes to emigrate to the United States."	1.1×	0	454	55	13
99	Jan 13, '22	If a country is bad enough for sanctions, it's bad enough to give all its citizens asylum.	1.0×	0	437	54	3
100	Sep 19, '21	Schools finally realized that teaching critical thinking was too damn hard, so they switched to teaching uncritical feeling.	1.0×	0	430	56	16
101	Sep 13, '21	“Paper straws are so biodegradable they turn to trash in your mouth!” -my younger son	1.0×	0	453	44	5

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