He is indeed. Every time I read something by Eco I'm both surprised by how pleasant he is as a writer, and by how handwavy and poorly supported are his arguments and conclusions.
He's brilliant, and he explains complex concepts really well.
I can't fault him for being a bit "over-neutral", for lack of a better way to put it. It's how economists are trained to express themselves and, more importantly, I don't think he'd ever get a fawning piece written about him by the fNYT if he took the approach of, say, a certain other gifted writer whose name cannot be spoken here.
He’s incredibly smart and on the whole on the right track.
He gets too excited sometimes, like when I saw him give a lecture and seriously say we’d have 9-10% inflation YoY last year and just as much this year IIRC.
I recommend his book to anyone who is interested, he’s not a pundit or anything and has lots to chew on!
+1 from me because he's one of the few cases where his work is not only smart/educating in RL, but, as a bonus, he almost sounds like a fictional character, too good to be true.
When I first encountered him I thought to myself, "He sounds like somebody improvised up by Douglas Adams in HHGG. 'An apple fell from a tree. This was widely regarded as a bad move. In fact the most popular selling series of books on economics, by one Thorstein Veblen, in his The Theory of the Leisure Class, has pretty much confirmed this, though it has taken nearly a millenia for his proof to fully saturate and be accepted to date within the furthest reaches of the Galactic Empire, despite many incentives for readers such as scratch-and-sniff insta-win prizes.'"
I would have to second this. I can see how one would get that impression if the only exposure to him is an article or two that gets linked from somewhere else, but if you read him regularly he posts a lot of very even handed articles and gives credit where it's due.
Because he's a very gifted writer and an insightful social critic whose modes of reasoning and analysis happen to align closely with those most familiar and natural to the average HN reader.
(i.e. he does humanities, but for people who use phrases like 'Nash Equilibrium' and 'prior distribution' in the pub)
He's good, although if you're new I caution you to continue thinking critically as you read. He's one of those people like TLP who has figured out the secret to writing in a way that's persuasive to smart people, and you can sometimes emerge from a post being completely convinced it's true, and only later going, "Wait, there was no actual evidence presented for any of that."
Again, I'm not saying he isn't good, but keep your critical faculties about you.
Really, I think he's somewhat wonderful. The way he marshals words in the service of outrage, anger and disenchantment with authority is extremely appealing to me, even when I disagree with him.
That guy's whole website is incredibly interesting. I may not agree with all of his viewpoints, but it's hard to deny that he argues them in a more unbiased and rational way than almost all writings I've encountered.
He has a nice line in rhetoric. I especially liked global warming ‘sceptics’ and pointing that a true scientist is always a skeptic (his spelling is legit BTW)
He's sometimes a bit too (economically) left-wing for me, but I generally sticks to well-researched facts, so it has never been an issue that would impair my enjoyment.
I look forward to reading his book. His writing style is good but not great.
I'm surprised about a lot of accusation of arrogance,etc...
From what I have read his arrogance, might be misconceived as he is willingness to call out anybody on what he perceived as their BS. We need more people to call others out on their BS. (US elections, MSM, cnbc, Mosanto, wall street...)
Anybody that open comes out and says Saudi Arabia is a barbaric / terrorist state, (which the US Gov, seems to over look for years) questions the Federal Reserve, teaches at community college. Constantly, open sources his books and math. Probably isn't part of the establishment and hence might be driving peoples dislike.
Of course most people on Wall St. don't like him because they don't understand his theories or his thoughts.
He has great twitter feed. (He retweeted me once!)
I really like his ideas, if not his writing (or speaking?) style.
I especially liked the bit about how society today is more rational (better?) because of guaranteed dissent that was part of the scientific revolution, and we're taking that away with safe spaces and the like.
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