Zach Freitas-Groff @zdgroff Twitter profile

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

📈Job market paper time📉 I’m excited to finally share my job market paper! My JMP studies whether and why policy choices are stubbornly persistent. For example, Oregon has an income tax, but Washington doesn’t—seemingly because of nearly century-old choices. Is this typical?

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

Alright, here we go: my cousin @CindySueSci challenged me to the #RenewDemocracy challenge (kicked off by @AVindman ). Here's what democracy means to me:

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

Neat. Evidence that legal same-sex marriage decreased enrollment in priestly studies (because fewer gay men avoid coming out): @RohitTicku @SerorAvner

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

10 months

Excited to share that I won a second prize in Open Philanthropy's 2023 AI Worldviews contest!

Open Philanthropy

@open_phil

10 months

We just announced the winning entries in our 2023 AI Worldviews contest:

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

One of the better spam messages I've gotten recently.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

If you're not watching Schmigadoon, you either have poor taste or are really depriving yourself.

Schmigadoon! — Bells and Whistles (Full Song) | Apple TV+

The best lawyers always put on a show. Schmigadoon! Season 2 is streaming now on Apple TV+ https://apple.co/_SchmigadoonJosh (Keegan-Michael Key) and Melissa...

www.youtube.com

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

Very kind note on Marginal Revolution this morning. "EA-adjacent" 🤔

Persistence in policy: evidence from close votes - Marginal REVOLUTION

That is the job market paper by economist Zach Freitas-Groff of Stanford University. Here is the abstract: Policy choices sometimes appear stubbornly persistent, even when they become politically...

marginalrevolution.com

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

I collect detailed histories of more than 800 policy changes proposed in U.S. state-level referendums. A regression discontinuity design shows that passing a policy increases the chance it is operative 20, 40, or even 100 years later by >40 percentage points.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

I strongly recommend this summer program + £5,000 fellowship at @GPIOxford and the Forethought Foundation. (Esp. for econ PhD students interested in effective altruism, risks to humanity, or welfare econ.) Feel free to PM me w/any Qs. #EconTwitter

Early Career Conference Programme and Global Priorities Fellowship - Global Priorities Institute

The programme is intended for both PhD students and early career postdocs and faculty in economics and philosophy. We are looking for researchers to develop and present fundamental research on how to...

globalprioritiesinstitute.org

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

In other words, I set out to find out how much more likely a policy is to be operative in a given year if it was passed than if it failed decades earlier (all else equal). Here's what I do (lots of data!) and what I find. 👇 Full paper:

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

8 months

Presented my job-market talk to my nephews. The ten-year-old asked questions of a caliber I'd expect from a top academic department! (Praise to him, not offense to academics 😉)

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

At a high level, though, it means lots of policies are not necessarily what voters would choose today—and this can remain the case for a long time.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Feb. 17. It's time for a #NationalStrike17 #GeneralStrikes #NationalStrike #GeneralStrike

General Strike Feb. 17: What will happen if activists stage a nationwide strike against Trump?

In a column for the Guardian on Monday, American writer Francine Prose called for a "nonviolent national general strike" to demonstrate "how many of us there are, how strong and committed we are, how...

www.mic.com

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

I seem to regularly walk away from EA Global with a feeling of "damn, I didn't get to talk to everyone I'd wanted to" even after talking to dozens of people.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

@CNN Oh please, really CNN? I hope she then spoke with a child killed by a random citizen. Citizens kill a lot of people! #immigrationban

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

Portland's @WhiteOwlSocial replaces all burgers w/ Impossible Burger. h/t @MatthewPrescott :

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

Submit your papers on the economics of animal welfare to the first-ever such session at Stanford Econ's annual SITE conferences ( @SIEPR ). See here for details: #EconTwitter #AnimalWelfare

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

BOOM! Psyched for this session at the annual Stanford summer conferences on the economics of animal welfare: ( #EconTwitter )

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

Excited to see @NonhumanRights referred to as a civil rights group in this article. That's exactly the anti-speciesist terminology to insist on: #CivilRights #AnimalRights

Civil rights group hails historic progress for nonhuman animal rights

New York’s Court of Appeals admits for the first time there is no legal basis for denying personhood rights to chimpanzees – although it continues to deny them

www.independent.co.uk

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

5 years

The controversy over red "meat" illustrates why vegans should focus on ethics and not diet. Nutrition science changes; the ethical argument will not (and if for some reason it did, then we should concede the point).

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

Highly recommend pre-ordering @willmacaskill 's upcoming book "What We Owe the Future" for a thorough, well-rounded, provocative look at how we can make the world better for all the generations to come:

What We Owe the Future

www.amazon.com

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

Very proud of and impressed with the ACE team's work this year. They've made significant improvements to the evaluation process that give me confidence in this year's evals. I'm excited to rely on them for my husband's and my end-of-year giving.

Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE)

@AnimalCharityEv

2 years

ANNOUNCING OUR 2022 CHARITY RECOMMENDATIONS! 🎉 We've spent several months evaluating #animaladvocacy organizations to identify those that work effectively. This year, we're excited to announce that we have four Top Charities and 11 Standout Charities. 👏

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

5 years

@HolocaustMuseum So why does your website have a section on genocide that mentions South Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe, none of which are 1940 Germany as far as I know?

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

Excited about this paper: "Unusually bad weather on April 22, 1970 is associated with weaker support for the environment 10 to 20 years later, particularly among those who were school aged in 1970." Would love to see a meta-analysis of this sort of study.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

@NathanpmYoung @peterwildeford This would really stress me out.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

8 years

Profiling @DxEverywhere 's revival of #OpenRescue today in the @HuffingtonPost @HuffPostGreen : … #WednesdayWidsom

There's An Open Rebellion Against Animal Agriculture, And 2016 Was An Opening Foray

Animal liberation means a simple thing: Enter farms and liberate animals.

www.huffpost.com

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

Love in the time of coronavirus: Me to my husband: "Cutie!" *Kisses him on his head* My husband to me: "I'm in a meeting."

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

It's a very difficult year out there for so many. Thought a happy event might bring some cheer—celebrating one year since this man and I took each other as husbands. Here's to a marriage that reliably nourishes, comforts, and invigorates.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

Effective Altruism Global is a stellar conference! I’m honest when I have a criticism, and I am very impressed. To a better world! #EAGlobal @Effect_Altruism #altruism #evidence

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

The @80000Hours podcast interviewed the always-informative @Lewis_Bollard about factory farming. Give it a listen!

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

Putting this together was the equivalent of six months of research. Massive effort by Doug Bernheim @seb_otero , and the indefatigable night owl @NinaBuchmann6 . Beyond the "30,000" stat, it's a careful look at COVID spread from large, unmasked events.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

Achievement unlocked. (Achievement = updating my donations for a year, not the actual donating which is easier.)

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

That is, there is a real chance Oregon and Washington set themselves on lastingly different paths with their decisions in the 1930s.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

5 years

On politics and policy, @CoryBooker is the best candidate in 2020. Here’s why he deserves your support: #2020election #CoryBooker #politics

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

Miss Aligned

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

Spot-on, must-read by @ezraklein today: Look forward to more where this comes from, and hoping @JoeBiden , @SecVilsack , @repdavidscott , and @SenStabenow take this up.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

@McDonalds @KirbyJenner - How can you so publicly support a company that supports the worst-imaginable torture? #ImNotLovinIt #NationalSelfieDay #MHQ #McDEmployee #Frylus

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

Infuriating move by the Biden admin.

Lewis Bollard

@Lewis_Bollard

2 years

Really bad news: DOJ just filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to overturn CA’s ban on the sale of pork from crated pigs. The Biden Administration is siding with the pork industry in defending one of the most extreme forms of farm animal cruelty.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

I've long thought economics was overdue for a #MeToo cascade. It was hard for me not to think there was a serious amount of oppressive behavior unexposed. I'm disturbed at the revelations but glad this is finally coming to light.

Jennifer Doleac

@jenniferdoleac

2 years

There is a ton of stuff happening behind the scenes right now - I'm so grateful to everyone involved! Ladies in econ, we have momentum. If you have info, please share it. I have a list of journalists who'd love to hear from you. Email/DM me for their contact info.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

@tyler_m_john Okay but when is he hosting SNL

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Most importantly, they're born with the ability to feel. #AnimalRights #Vegan

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

@TEN_GOP It's a stolen seat. Not his to fill. #FilibusterGorsuch #SCOTUS

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

My morning meditation: "How is it possible that matter gives rise to consciousness? You may never have thought about this, and if you have, you may go years without thinking about it again." Uh, no, I think about this AT LEAST weekly! Do people really not think about this?

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

So maybe the OpenAI safety strategy was to scare the shit out of everyone so we take AI safety seriously? Nicely done if so. ✔️

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

Sadly true:

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

5 years

Great letter by @FarmForward : do NOT switch from beef to chicken or fish—bad for animals, bad for the planet.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

8 years

Great piece - cage free is not what you think. via @FortuneMagazine @bethkowitt #Vegan #AnimalRights #AnimalWelfare

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

@honesteph @LadyLiberty0715 @nytimes What if he was leaking leeks? 🍵🥒

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Pls RT: As a former #CT resident, I support recognition of the @NonhumanRights of elephants Beulah, Karen, & Minnie. #RumbleForRights

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

Very nice to see LGBTQ issues discussed in this edition of the Journal of Economic Perspectives! Some interesting things: -The number of people identifying as gay, bisexual, or trans on surveys is much lower than I think many of my friends would guess. #EconTwitter

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Photo By Chris Child | Unsplash #cuteanimals #pets &animals

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

Why is this happening? Returning to the income tax, there are two sorts of explanations we can think of. First, people might get used to the policy (e.g., businesses adapt to the income tax).

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

5 years

@Noahpinion Perhaps that VC dude exploits the last remaining opportunities for arbitrage so that, with him, the market is efficient.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

Think twice about those turkey photos for Thanksgiving, via @jeffrsebo : #Thanksgiving

Turkey social media photos promote harmful obsession with meat

Even seemingly small actions, like posting on social media, can play a role in upholding or resisting unnecessarily harmful systems — notably the horrible factory farm system.

www.nbcnews.com

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

It's absurd to think that businesses that kill for a living are "traumatized" by killing a bit early this year.

Lewis Bollard

@Lewis_Bollard

4 years

Farmers to @nytimes : we're traumatized by killing our pigs. Factory farmers in reality: kill all small piglets & all sows when they cease to be productive. Also: maintain awful conditions where, even pre-COVID, 8-28% of pigs don't survive to slaughter (Mehling et al, 2019).

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

Preach, Joaquin Phoenix, preach!!! #Honesty #Oscars2020 #AcademyAwards #Oscars #AnimalRights

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

I hope this effort to change utilitarianism's reputation thrives:

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

Not that many policies get repealed, but a lot of policies are inevitable in the sense that if they fail at first, they pass later on—especially in the first decade/decades. Oregon and Washington actually both had repeated votes over the income tax in the 1920s and 30s.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

In keeping with this explanation, news rises leading up to a referendum and then starts declining. It looks like people just stop thinking about the policy as much. Other data support this: policies that I manually code as being more observable display less persistence.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Zoos are prisons for animals – no one needs to see a depressed penguin in the flesh #animals #animalsmood

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

Highly recommend the film "EO", about the life of a donkey. When we watched it, Lucas kept pointing out beautiful shots. I did not because every single shot in the film was so damn stunning. There's nothing like this one (though there's a great 1966 French film about a donkey).

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

The pattern is remarkably similar for different topics, levels of importance, institutional contexts, time periods, and more. It is also robust to different ways of defining a policy and tweaks to how I define a policy.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

Hey #EconTwitter , @MercyForAnimals , an evidence-minded animal advocacy group that's produced many noteworthy undercover investigations and corporate policies around the globe, is looking to hire an economist. Please share with any interested:

Mercy For Animals

boards.greenhouse.io

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

The best purpose of Twitter seems to be verifying that an earthquake was not in my head. #earthquake #BayArea

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

Second, people might just stop thinking about a policy—it becomes less salient. The income tax is an interesting case. Many states adopted the income tax in the 20s and 30s following the first federal income tax. States that did not adopt it then generally don’t have it now.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

Please support @JayShooster 's campaign. With his unimpeachable moral compass, Jay is the type of person we need more of in politics.

Jay Shooster

@JayShooster

1 year

Florida has become the center of right wing extremism in America. I can’t let that happen – that’s why I’m announcing my campaign for State House District 91. RT to help me restore reproductive freedom, prevent gun violence, and defend democracy in our state.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

All This 5-Year-Old Wants To Do Is Help Save Street Cats

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 months

I find it puzzling how standard it is that companies offer you a lower subscription price if you click a few buttons threatening to cancel a subscription. Seems like a form of price discrimination that shouldn't work because of how easy it is to game, but I guess it does.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Sad to lose Dick Gregory, one of the historical figures who genuinely supported animal rights: #Vegan #AnimalRights

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

Really glad to see this discussion happening and @jeffrsebo 's thoughts on it. Also terrified that we may have to think about this with how uncertain we are.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

🧵 Over the past six months, I’ve intermittently gathered reference classes/analogies to help us think the likelihood of catastrophe from superhuman Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Here’s a quick summary of what I took away.👇 (1/12)

AGI Catastrophe and Takeover: Some Reference Class-Based Priors — EA Forum

This is a linkpost for https://docs.google.com/document/d/11YKTKRumtlheK_9Dv9ECKwwoTeSG3RNcs6qUSajzqDw/edit?usp=sharing …

forum.effectivealtruism.org

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

Given Will (MacAskill)'s recent appearance on The Daily Show, I think it's time to give some thought to other media opportunities. Personally, I think he should consider the next season of RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race. What should her drag name be? 👇

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

Health, criminal record, or lack of education make 3/4 of Americans ineligible for military:

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

@PeterSinger There's no humane slaughter here or there. There's no humane slaughter anywhere. Not in a box, not with a fox. Not in a house, not with a mouse.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

Very disturbing, and a reminder of the FBI’s sordid racial history:

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

Papers accepted thru April 1st for The Economics of Animal Welfare at the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Economics (SITE), organized by Caroline Hoxby, @MFleurbaey , @LisaKramer , @Treich13 , & @JaysonLusk : #EconTwitter

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

@iamcardib $9,996 to @AnimalCharityEv to research the best ways to help nonhuman animals. They've helped steer money to highly-effective places that have improved the lives of hundreds of billions of animals!

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Happy Pride! Happy to have found my voice this #Pride2017 with @DxEverywhere #Animals #Pride

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

6 years

This is important news. Not only is it good for those crabs and lobsters, but it starts a vital conversation about the sentience of suffering of aquatic animals, and the boundaries of who we consider a feeling being.

Lewis Bollard

@Lewis_Bollard

6 years

Great to see 🇬🇧 may follow 🇨🇭 lead and ban boiling crabs + lobsters alive. A positive step toward ending this barbaric practice 🦀

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

I love quotes like this. What else was the farmer planning to do with his pigs?

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

The data don’t display the patterns I’d expect if this were what is happening. We don’t see voters becoming more supportive of policies after they have been in place for longer. We also don't see heterogeneity where I'd expect to see it.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

The sample is smaller, but the effect of passing a policy is similar in these other contexts. That is, in quite different settings, we see that policy is strongly dependent on choices made decades ago—and the level of persistence is even quantitatively similar.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

Very impressive organization:

Rethink Priorities

@RethinkPriors

3 years

#econtwitter #econjobs cool job to use econ skills to make a difference! Review academic literature to recommend grants to improve global health and economic development!

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

#AnimalRights is not be a cover for #Islamophobia . If you don't oppose all animal ag, I see your hipocrisy. #Vegan

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

1 year

Oppenheimer was excellent, but I'm of the sure-to-be-popular opinion that it should have been about an hour longer: -Slow down Act I for more contemplation/scientific personalities -Show the suffering at Hiroshima/Nagasaki -More show, less tell, about his postwar activities

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Funny timing–I'd been wondering myself the other day if smartphones are the new cigarette.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

9 months

What does this imply? It has a number of practical and methodological implications I discuss in the paper (e.g., support for event-study designs).

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Shame on you, Costco! Saving animals from torture is not a crime @sjcda_media @SJGov @Costco #CannibalismAtCostco #SupportDiane

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

3 years

Let's have more pieces like this. Don't treat insects like automata—we don't have much reason to think they are.

Jeff Sebo

@jeffrsebo

3 years

I have a new @aeonmag essay on insect welfare (with Jason Schukraft from @RethinkPriors ) out today! In short: Insects might be sentient, and we should treat them with compassion in case they are. Please read, comment, and share if you like!

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

7 years

Wow! The International vegan flag has launched #vegan #AnimalRights

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

2 years

@RYChappell I wish people would recognize more that if "potential life" requires banning abortion, it presumably also means mandating frequent, unprotected, heterosexual sex.

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Zach Freitas-Groff

@zdgroff

4 years

Glad to see people noticing this study. I never expected to see 30,000 new cases. So we double, triple-checked it to make sure it held up, and sadly it did.