When no one’s word is authoritative, any crank is as credible as the next person. It is the irony at the heart of conspiracy thinking: You can’t trus… - Pete Buttigieg

The question of suffering brings me to one last concern around the use of data-driven techniques to bring about better government: the importance of exceptions, otherwise known as mercy. Efficiency, almost by definition, has to do with following rules and patterns; if there is an inefficiency within a rule, it can be ironed out by making a sub-rule. But sometimes our moral intuition just tells us that making an exception is the right thing to do, even if we can't explain or defend the precedent.

there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

"Nothing is more human than to resist loss, which is why cynical politicians can get pretty far by offering up the fantasy that a loss can be reversed rather than overcome the hard way. This is the deepest lie of our recent national politics, the core falsehood encoded in "Make America Great Again." Beneath the impossible promises — that coal alone will fuel our future, that a big wall can be built around our status quo, that climate change isn't even real — is the deeper fantasy that time itself can be reversed, all losses restored, and thus no new ways of life required."