39 Comments

Just received my copy today. I was reading it at a bar and every woman that walked by stopped and asked me for my phone number. They said, "Anyone reading a book like that must be a terrific lover".

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author

Yes, that happens with all my books.

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I just ordered a copy. When I first read the table of contents I thought "this sounds interesting but I already know why these things are misleading". However, the money back guarantee of the book getting me laid is what pushed me over the edge.

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Will there be a Kindle?

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author

Eventually.

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So excited for this! Guess what we are going to talk about on the show next?!? 😂🍻

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To be followed by MAGA Myths?

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Sep 15·edited Sep 15Liked by Michael Huemer

He addresses this in the preview which you can read on Amazon. Basically he thinks most conservative myths aren't terribly believable and so aren't influential in the same way. Also right wingers don't control institutions the same way progressives do. Plus, books can only be so long.

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Christa gave me the hardcover yesterday and I sat down and read it. Thanks, that was really interesting. I'm a geolibertarian Bryan Caplan fan, and I was misinformed on several of those subjects, lotta surprises like reverse gender pay gap.

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What is the gist of the “The Global Warming Consensus” section, if you don’t mind?

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author

Consensus is not as strong as you think, and it may not say what you think.

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Was hoping you could sell me on it a bit more. If consensus means “consensus on anthropogenic increase in global mean surface temperature due to increase in CO2, VOC, and other GHG emissions” those are both pretty darn bold claims.

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I just finished the book. It was brilliant. The book has a level of logic and intellectual honesty which is rare to find even from established writers. I also really enjoyed reading it - I'm not especially political and have voted only for democrats so this says something about Huemer's ability to communicate his positions.

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Bought the hard copy. Wondering if there'll be an ebook.

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Trump 2024 🇺🇸 🦅 🇺🇸 🦅 🇺🇸 !!!

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Idk, that non-endorsement from Satan sounds pretty reasonable...

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I was ready to buy it, but...no e-book?

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Will there be ebook or audiobook versions?

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author

Later.

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Goodness! I had hoped we might see this as an ebook in the UK. Any chance? Congratulations on the book, whatever the case.

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Excuse me. The figure for the male/female wage gap is 19 percent. Empirically documented and not fake news being a woman is still highly disadvantageous.

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author

Many versions of the statistic have been given, including "30%". As explained in the book, none of them indicate female disadvantage.

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Check the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Sep 15·edited Sep 15Liked by Michael Huemer

I can give you a quick summary of the myth - yes, woman earn less than men but critically, not for the same work. When you look at men & women and you control for a handful of variables like experience, education, and job type, you find that women and men either earn the same, or maybe men earn 1% - 2% more (labor economists are still figuring this out).

Mostly the gap is attributable to different preferences - women tend to prefer jobs that aren't as dirty, physically demanding, or dangerous. They also work fewer hours, and take more time away from their careers (among many other reasons).

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Women can’t get jobs that are dirty and physically demanding. And lord knows I’ve tried. During wwii they did those jobs and preferred to keep them but couldn’t

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If we're looking at roughly 1970 or earlier, then I agree entirely - the labor force was not fair to women.

More recently however that's not true. There may still be isolated examples of jobs that women cannot get, but that's also true for men. On the whole, jobs are equally open to women or men, but our preferences shape which jobs we take, and it seems that being a woman or a man has a big impact on those preferences (at least in the average case).

One interesting aspect of this is that the more rich/western the nation, the more you see a divergence in the types of jobs worked by women and men. The more western our values, the greater the inequality of outcome.

I'll add that I'm not an expert on this transition point of job opportunities for women and men, so it is possible I'm missing something there.

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I keep trying to reply but my posts just disappear. And I haven’t used any swears ;-)

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Discrimination in employment is ongoing. Here is a metastudy of empirical researcy by Bertrand and Duflo, MIT economists here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214658X1630006X As for women’s preferences, the natural experiment of WWII shows that women were perfectly happy to do dirty, physically strenuous jobs when they could get them. A study by the Women’s Bureau in which women were surveyed indicated that the overwhelming majority of women would have preferred to keep their Rosie Riveter jobs if they could. But they couldn’t, because they were forced out to make room for returning GIs.

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Here is a metastudy on empirical research on discrimination against women and minorities conducted by Bertrand and Duflo, MIT economists: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214658X1630006X Discrimination is alive and well. And here is a program that enables women to get dirty, physically strenuous jobs that many women want: https://www.winterwomen.org/

I won’t add anecdotal evidence from my own experience. I’m citing empirical stuff.

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Satan forewarned you. Huemer is probably too deceitful to consult the BLS—or any economic articles that used the BLS. That might also apply to economist Claudia Goldin, who traded her soul to Satan for a Nobel award.

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Can you post the title of that paper?

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There are tons of write-ups on the myth of the wage gap, you can find the general sketch of the argument through Google. I found a bunch and was going to link a few, but I don't want to (indirectly) endorse any of them without first reading them.

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Sep 15Liked by Michael Huemer

Buy the book and you get the citation and how it’s used for his argument :)

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