Nov 20th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I Am Terrifying
I may not be as hot as Ezra Klein, but I’m really smart:
Whatever their provenance, the public intellectuals of 2009 will want to be fluent in the obvious issues of the moment: environment and energy, market turmoil, China, Russia, Islam. On that basis it looks like another good year for established stars such as Thomas Friedman, Martin Wolf, Bjorn Lomborg and Minxin Pei. But a rising generation of bloggers is terrifyingly young and bright: expect to hear more from Ezra Klein, Megan McArdle, Will Wilkinson and Matthew Yglesias.
I think it would be strange if the main qualification for becoming a high-profile public intellectual in the future is that you had to start a personal blog in 2002 or 2003.
71 Responses to “I Am Terrifying”
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November 20th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
A world where Megan McArdle is considered a public intellectual is not a world I want to live in.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I guess I never really considered you terrifyingly young until today.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
The hipster glasses are terrifying me.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I may not be as hot as Ezra Klein, but I’m really smart
Um, huh? Am I missing a reference here? Or is it just a gloomy, introspective day in DC?
I think it would be strange if the main qualification for becoming a high-profile public intellectual in the future is that you had to start a personal blog in 2002 or 2003.
Yeah, I kind of regret not starting up my kickass, take-no-prisoners political rantsheet back in ‘04, when I used to bleed vitriol and public-policy stats. The upshot, though, is that I get to walk away. I realized this election when I contemplated doing some canvassing that I had actually slid back to the realm of low-information voter, and I couldn’t really say anything convincing about Obama and that didn’t involve blandishments centered around the word “change.” Surprisingly, I found it kind of refreshing.
I’m gonna go roll some trees. Please don’t fuck up my country while I’m not paying attention.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
A world where Friedman and Lomborg are established “stars” is far more terrifying.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Of course, the more you wrote “fuck” on your blog, the less likely you are to be taken as a “public intellectual.” Which is unfortunate.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Re the Economist’s comment “And yet, top bloggers include academics and commentators whose work would qualify them as public intellectuals by any traditional measure—for example, Tyler Cowen, Daniel Drezner:
—————–
DANIEL DREZNER???? The University of Chicago professor –no ,wait…
Ha ha ha ha.
They really had us going there for a minute, didn’t they?
November 20th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
You’ve just been compared to Thomas Friedman, Bjorn Lomborg and Megan McArdle. I suggest you retain an attorney and start looking into the prospects for a defamation suit immediately.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Matthew,
Don’t sell yourself short
or long
In fact, stay out of the stock market for now
Sorry, I digress…
What I meant was: congratulations! Keep up the good work
Michael
PS: A bit of kind criticism – sometimes your references are a bit obtuse (read: I can’t keep up) it would be great for those of us who cannot keep up with everything you do, if you could find the time to put in some background information on any given issue or links to other explanatory articles.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Is the beard back, or is that an old photo? You’re definitely hotter with the beard, Matt!
November 20th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
This is like in Malcom Gladwell’s new book: you got a head start, got to do your growing pains early, and now are among the leaders! Having a blog in 2003 is like Bill Gates having mainframe computer access in 1968!
November 20th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Thomas Friedman. How much longer do you think he can be so wrong until people stop listening? Is that your new condo? Put some pictures or degrees, or something.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
A world where Friedman and Lomborg are established “stars” is far more terrifying.
The Economist has long been the main and only vehicule for Bjorn Lomborg’s bizarre theories about global warming, even after a group of European scientists denounced his views. But what he lacked in knowledge he compensated with Big Business funding and his platform at The Economist.
As for Friedman, he’s the Kristol of the Left.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Judging my Yglesias’s own trajectory, having started a blog in 2003 is an additional qualification alongside the more traditional ones like having attended an elite university, etc.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
As for Friedman, he’s the Kristol of the Left.
Wrong and wrong, Sir Wrongalot. Friedman is a laughingstock of Teh Left.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Wrong and wrong, Sir Wrongalot. Friedman is a laughingstock of Teh Left.
But Kristol is still taken seriously by the Right? (except by other conservative pundits)
November 20th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
How stringent of a requirement is “starting a personal blog in 2003/2004,” though? I’d think that just about anyone who had any desire to become a think tanker/pundit/journalist was starting a blog around that time. The ones that were most successful at it were then the ones who got grabbed for the actual paying gigs in the area, while the other 900,000 people writing similar blogs but doing it less well or less popularly faded away.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
But Kristol is still taken seriously by the Right? (except by other conservative pundits)
Of course he is. He is very embodiment of Teh Right!
When was Friedman championed by anyone remotely part of Teh Left? (Hint: “Neverfuckingever” is the full-credit answer.)
November 20th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Tom Friedman’s latest declaration of war
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/14/friedman/
November 20th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
(except by other conservative pundits)
…and what defines Teh Right if not conservative pundits?
November 20th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Meghan is about as terrifying as “Hello Kitty!”
November 20th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
You, on the other hand, have a huge banner at the top of the page, with your name on it, that is quite intimidating.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Judging my Yglesias’s own trajectory, having started a blog in 2003 is an additional qualification alongside the more traditional ones like having attended an elite university, etc.
Will went to the University of Iowa and Ezra went to UC Santa Cruz, so “start a blog in 2003″ is a much stronger predictor here than “go to an Ivy League college.” Plus Megan went to Penn which is really barely Ivy at all.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Don’t sweat the Ezra Klein comparisons dude, being the hottest blogger is like being elected the hottest World of Warcraft Guild Leader.
Or perhaps more aptly; the smartest retard at the Special Olympics.
Either way, hoTTness ain’t your sport so no worries, eh?
November 20th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
– Ezra Klein, Megan McArdle, Will Wilkinson and Matthew Yglesias
has the look and feel of friends and former colleagues of a blogger who used to blog at the Economist. “Terrifyingly young and bright” is nice flattery for the middle of the list.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
matt-
it looks like you could grow a pretty respectable moustache, and certainly rival andrew sullivan among moustachio’d bloggers. you could join plouffe, holder, waxman… it may be the dawn of a new era for democrats!
November 20th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Ahem. Wilkinson went to the University of Northern Iowa. Which both makes me feel better and worse about what I’ve accomplished since I left there.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Congrats Matt!
But don’t get too big a head, Friedman and McArdle are on the same list, so it’s not clear what the criteria really was.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Don’t forget that the brightest have already been skimmed off by academia. So you are only being compared to the “rest”. This is patently obvious in the cited paragraph, which suggests Friedman is an intellectual.
November 20th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
As far as that list goes, I would guess that McArdle has the best shot of really becoming an “established star”, mainly because she fully meets the requirement of always being wrong. I’d say it’s about time she has a twice-weekly op-ed column in the NYTimes…I hear there could be a spot open.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
I think the definition of a public intellectual is “an expert in one academic field who comments on other fields”. So, if Noam Chomsky had just written lots of great books about linguistics, he wouldn’t be a PI. But as soon as he started opining influentially in public on the Vietnam War, he became a PI. Similarly, Stephen Hawking is really famous and intelligent, but because he only ever talks about physics, he’s not a PI. Niall Ferguson is a PI because he’s an economic historian, but he talks about modern US foreign policy.
So, maybe, a PI isn’t that great a thing to be, given that the definition is pretty much “talks a lot in public on subjects about which he knows nothing”.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
The Economist has official jumped the shark. Its been known far and wide for a while now that Megan McArdle is a moron.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
cd, it’s not a joke (read to the end). God save us.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
it’s not a joke
Oh my God. How is this possible?
November 20th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Re Matthew’s comment in No. 23: “Plus Megan went to Penn which is really barely Ivy at all.”
—————–
Oh come on. Anyone who LOSES to Harvard at Football HAS to be Ivy –by definition. Penn State could use their third string players and still not pull it off.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=525379
November 20th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Well, Ezra’s not that hot. In the world of wonky DC nerds, he’s a cutey, but that’s certainly not the real world of hotties. Maybe having formerly worked at the Prospect is an indicator.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
On that basis it looks like another good year for established stars such as Thomas Friedman….
Except for the part about losing 99% of [his wife's] net worth.
Friedman’s money was in shopping malls. That explains everything.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Lomborg certainly makes a good case that “public intellectual” is a term for someone who’d be laughed out of academia. Or at least, as I saw at a talk of his to Earth scientists at Columbia once, met with a discrete silence unusual in academia, followed by muttering after everyone left. Friedman, I gather, doesn’t leave silences unfilled, no doubt a wise strategy.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
That’s a blogging heads photo isn’t it? Hardly representative. Even a classy fellow like Krugman just looks sort of tired and crazy in his videos there.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
The mindset that considers Ezra Klein hotter than Matt Yglesias is not one I understand.
Altho Matt Y.’s brother is hotter than either of them.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Except for the part about losing 99% of [his wife’s] net worth.
Who keeps 99% of a multi-billion dollar fortune in one investment? Who does that, and how are they considered experts on anything after that?
November 20th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
You’re one goofy looking fucker, Yglesias.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
And the descent of mankind back to the chimpanzees continues with this ignorant, ego-inflated kid being considered “bright”.
It would be a hilarious fucking joke if it weren’t so tragic that this clown may actually end up advising somebody some day.
I’ve learned more about foreign policy since April 2003 than Matt will ever know if he lives to be my age – which is unlikely since he’s so dumb he’ll probably fall off his bicycle, break his big toe, get gangrene and drop dead at his computer.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Of actual journalists, Rosenthal said he admired the work of the Atlantic’s Megan McArdle and the National Review’s Byron York.
Oh man, Byron York as NYT op-ed columnist? You know what NYT, I take back all my criticisms of Kristol, you can keep him, just keep York away.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I guess him and Krugman don’t talk much.
The fact that McArdle is included on the list doesn’t make it worth that much IMO.
November 20th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I guess him and Krugman don’t talk much.
I’ve always wondered what Friedman’s area of expertise on the op-ed page is supposed to be. Is it economy? Do they really need him with Krugman there? Is it foreign policy? Politics? Just a guy making up stuff to fit his theories about the world so he can sell books?
November 20th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
There are lots of Friedman parodies out there, but this one is still my favorite.
November 20th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
No offense to Matthew, well actually it is offensive, but you really aren’t that bright. You bring a philosophers approach to the problems facing the nation today, when we really need an engineers. You throw out ideas on subject you know nothing about and fail to account for the undesired consequences, or even to account for how the programs might be implemented. Basically you are a liberal Bill O’Reilly in blog format.
November 20th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
JimboSlice wins the thread.
Especially the part about how things might be implemented. Matt just loves Obama for saying he would “negotiate” with Iran but he doesn’t spend a second thinking about what that actually means:
a) there’s nothing to “negotiate” ABOUT – Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapons program;
b) Obama is not “negotiating” – he’s making the same threats Bush made about blockades and military action and not allowing Iran to have ANY centrifuges – which is exactly what Bush said.
c) Obama will not go to the UN to sanction US military action against Iran – HOW is that ANY different from Bush’s actions vis-a-vis Iraq?
d) Obama is loading his team with anti-Iran, pro-Israel “liberal hawks”. He’s even considering Hillary Clinton – the one person I could conceive of being worse than Condi Rice on this issue (and many others) – for Secretary of State despite her threats to “obliterate Iran” during the campaign
Yet Matt blithely assumes that since Obama campaigned on “talking to Iran” that it means said “talks” can realistically get anywhere with this sort of attitude which is indistinguishable from Bush.
November 20th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
“cd, it’s not a joke (read to the end). God save us.”
FUCK
November 20th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Seeems the main qualification is to either be a libertarian or to be a blogger for a print magazine, or both. As a print journo who reads blogs, it always amazes me how reluctant other print journos are to read blogs beyond their apparent comfort zone of other print publications. Their loss.
November 20th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
To paraphrase Barack:
You’re hot enough, Matt.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Turtle to Ezra’s Vince.
November 21st, 2008 at 12:00 am
I like you guys (not Wilkinson or McArdle) but if you are our new intellectual overlords then I quit.
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November 21st, 2008 at 3:55 am
Don’t forget that the brightest have already been skimmed off by academia.
Indeed, have a look at David Chalmers‘ CV for instance:
B.Sc in pure mathematics and computer science at age 20
Rhodes Scholar
PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at 27 working under Hofstadter
Assistant Professor at 29
Associate Professor at 31
Full Professor of Philosophy at age 33
Director of the Center Consciousness Studies at age 36
A ton of papers and (apart from a year at Oxford) none of that “elite university” bullshit – and he looks like a Big Lebowski type dude.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:23 am
It appears supporting the biggest foreign policy disaster in the last 50 years has worked out for you.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:13 am
phD is philosophy = phd in BS. I what is wrong with America is we have too many people getting educations and degrees in stuff like philosophy, sociology, history, poli sci, I mean really .. is that going to solve any of the problems facing our country today!??!!!? No, we need more engineers, scientists, and teachers, not future baristas!
November 21st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Megan McArdle is hardly young or bright. Terrifying? Maybe just a little.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Megan McArdle smart? bright? They really gotta be kidding us. A tad smarter than Sarah Freaking Palin but not more.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
“A world where Megan McArdle is considered a public intellectual is not a world I want to live in.”
I’ll second that.
McArdle is a wannabe and wannabes are boring.
November 21st, 2008 at 2:57 pm
“Its been known far and wide for a while now that Megan McArdle is a moron.”
Let’s not be harsh on the lady. I’d say, hopelessly clueless, is a better description.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Whatever. McArdle rules!
November 21st, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Pundit equals not Public Intellectual.
QED.
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