Effectiveness and Limitations of Missile Defense Systems

Noah Smith & Brad DeLong Record the Podcast We, at Least, Would Like to Listen to!; Aspirationally Bi-Weekly (Meaning Every Other Week); Aspirationally an hour...

Key Insights:

* Brad DeLong says: You say economics and economists in decline—I see bad economists in decline.

* Brad DeLong says: You see missile defense as remarkably effective—I see it as marginally effective, at best.

* Brad DeLong says: You say China Shock II—I say China Shock I required the GWB administration as witting and unwitting co-conspirator.

* Noah Smith says: These are self-refuting prophecies: my defense of missile defense was to say that it can be remarkably effective in a few possible instances, but those plausible ones for the next two decades; my title “the decade of the second China shock” and my subhead “brace yourselves” were intended to spur action to keep there from being a second China shock.

* Noah Smith says: Economists advising badly had a lot of influence in 2008 and after, and still have a substantial amount today—so the total influence of economists has decreased since 2008, and this is not necessarily a bad thing.

* The only real way to get nuance is to write a whole book and then have people deeply engage with it, which requires that they be on a trans-oceanic flight with dodgy Wi-Fi, and be otherwise bored.

* The internet makes us less nuanced than we should be.

* &, as always, HEXAPODIA!

References:

* Smith, Noah. 2024. “Why so many of us were wrong about missile defense”. Noahpinion. April 15. <https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-so-many-of-us-were-wrong-about>.

* Smith, Noah. 2024. “Twilight of the economists?” Noahpinion. April 12. <https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/twilight-of-the-economists>.

* Smith, Noah. 2024. “The decade of the Second China Shock”. March 23. <https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-decade-of-the-second-china-shock>.

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* Vinge, Vernor. 1999. A Deepness in the Sky. New York: Tor Books. <https://www.amazon.com/Deepness-Sky-Zones-Thought/dp/0812536355>.