Politics is the Mind-Killer: Beware of Simple Stories Backed By Graphs

About eighteen years ago, Eliezer Yudkowsky explained how "Politics is the Mind-Killer." This was before social media really took off. Since he first wrote, social media sites have been firehose of evidence supporting Yudkowsky's claim. One of my favorite recurring themes on X (formerly Twitter) are graphs that tell a shocking story but that, on further inspection, are comparing an inflation-adjusted series to a non-inflation-adjusted series. Another favorite responds, "but what about inflation?!" to a tweet making comparisons across time and very clearly pointing out that the numbers are adjusted for inflation. Corey DeAngelis gets this a lot.

Fortunately, there is a cure: just follow Jeremy "Adjusted for Inflation" Horpedahl to innoculate yourself. And read his posts on Economist Writing Every Day.