Today, in #WealthOfTweets, more rude produce, #AdamSmith's opinions about Scottish Cheese, and, to be perfectly honest, an irresponsible amount of poop. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

The second kind of rude produce is the kind humans can produce more of in response to demand. This includes stuff like sheep, 🐄🐄, and fruits & veg that farm well.(I.xi.l.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
We don’t bother to cultivate this stuff until we reach a certain level of wealth because it reproduces well on its own. But as we get wealthier, we want more stuff and can pay for it, so it’s profitable to herd and farm these things. (I.xi.l.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
But unlike the wild and rare stuff, there’s a limit on the price of this kind of produce, because when the price goes higher, we make more of it, which brings the price back down.(I.xi.l.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
(We also find more profitable uses for, say, the wild grazing land, crowd the sheep out, and then *need* to cultivate them.) (I.xi.l.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweet
🐄🐄 seem to be the first kind of produce for which we can see this take effect. (Just letting you know. Smith loves 🐄🐄 almost as much as he hates monopolies. So many #CowTweets!) (I.xi.l.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
And where there’s 🐄🐄 there’s 💩, which is really important because it’s fertilizer. (I.xi.l.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
💩 is so important that you’d keep 🐄🐄 in part to get the fertilizer! And notice those poor folks who live too far from busy towns to get 💩 from there, and have to rely on whatever their own 🐄🐄 can provide! (I.xi.l.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Amount of 🐄🐄: amount of 💩: amount of cultivated land. And you need the cultivated land to feed the 🐄🐄. It’s all connected. (I.xi.l.3)
https://t.co/kSQXs0C7cC
#CircleOfPoop #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
That’s why 🐄🐄 are such a sign of wealth! They are useful as food, but also as producers of 💩 fertilizer for crops, and the more & better crops you can produce, the more 🐄🐄 you can sustain. (I.xi.l.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
This, says Smith, explains Scotland. (I.xi.l.3) #SomethingMustExplainScotland #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
In new colonies, space is so abundant that it’s not worthwhile to cultivate 🐄🐄. They can just roam free. This is why there will one day be 🐄🐄 on Mars. (I.xi.l.4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
If 🐄🐄 are the first thing that we cultivate like this, venison seems to be among the last. Deer parks are a thing, but they’re a luxury thing. (I.xi.l.6–7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
You can feed poultry more or less for free, but only up to a certain number. And the land you raise them on might be more profitably used for 🐄🐄. So the price of poultry starts to rise. (I.xi.l.8) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
The price of ANY food animal is highest at the moment right before we start to cultivate land to raise it. That’s WHY we start to cultivate land to raise it. (I.xi.l.8) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Pigs are basically chickens. 🐖🐓🐄💩(I.xi.l.9) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Keeping a dairy starts as a way to use the excess milk from those all-important 🐄🐄. Butter and cheese are ways to store the value of extra milk before it spoils. They are also delicious.(I.xi.l.11) #MmmCheese #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
As world gets wealthier, price of butter and cheese increases and it becomes worthwhile to dedicate serious time, effort, and care to producing them. Also, they are delicious. (I.xi.l.11) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
In Smith’s time, this tipping point had been reached in England, but not yet in Scotland. But look! (I.xi.l.11)
https://t.co/5jUXMxWM0J
#WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
(We, the Smithtweeters, are going to see if we can get some Scottish chefs to tell us about amazing Scottish cheese that #AdamSmith is sorry to have missed.) @chefneilforbes @fredecosse @TomKitchin @AndrewFairlie1 @GordonRamsay @ContiniBites @McTSingh @markgreenaway @nicknairn
You can consider a nation’s land completely cultivated and improved when the price of each of these 2nd sort of produce is so high that it’s worth it to us to cultivate them. (I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
This, by the way, is why (we nearly forgot!) we're still talking about land and rent! The cultivation and improvement of the land is really important, says Smith, to the economic development of a country. (I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
“Gain is the end of all improvement.”(I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
But you have to be smart. When the price for a type of produce isn’t high enough, it’s a waste of resources to improve land to cultivate it. Thus our failed TweetFarm. (I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
And just in case you think he’s forgotten, this all connects back to silver. These changes in prices aren’t a change in the value of silver or gold. They’re a change in the supply and demand and real price of the produce. (I.xi.l.13) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Tune in tomorrow, when we, the Smithtweeters, try to get you to send us a silver tea set, and reveal the third--yes third!--sort of rude produce. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

More from @AdamSmithWorks

OK. Chapter 7 of Book 4 of #WealthOfNations is tough going. It's long. It's serious. It's all about colonies.

We can take comfort, though, in knowing that the chapter #AdamSmith says is about colonies is, in fact, about colonies. (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


Colonies were a vexed subject when #AdamSmith was writing, and they’re even more complicated now. So, before we even get to the tweeting, here’s a link to that thread on Smith and “savage nations.” (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets


The reason for the ancient Greeks and Romans to settle colonies was straightforward: they didn’t have enough space for their growing populations. Their colonies were treated as “emancipated children”—connected but independent. (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

(Both these things are in contrast to the European colonies, as we'll see.) (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Ancient Greeks and Romans needed more space because the land was owned by an increasingly small number of citizens and farming and nearly all trades and arts were performed by slaves. It was hard for a poor freeman to improve his life. (IV.vii.a.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

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Wow, Morgan McSweeney again, Rachel Riley, SFFN, Center for Countering Digital Hate, Imran Ahmed, JLM, BoD, Angela Eagle, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Lisa Nandy, Steve Reed, Jon Cruddas, Trevor Chinn, Martin Taylor, Lord Ian Austin and Mark Lewis. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut 24 tweet🧵

Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, launched the organisation that now runs SFFN.
The CEO Imran Ahmed worked closely with a number of Labour figures involved in the campaign to remove Jeremy as leader.

Rachel Riley is listed as patron.
https://t.co/nGY5QrwBD0


SFFN claims that it has been “a project of the Center For Countering Digital Hate” since 4 May 2020. The relationship between the two organisations, however, appears to date back far longer. And crucially, CCDH is linked to a number of figures on the Labour right. #LabourLeaks

Center for Countering Digital Hate registered at Companies House on 19 Oct 2018, the organisation’s only director was Morgan McSweeney – Labour leader Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. McSweeney was also the campaign manager for Liz Kendall’s leadership bid. #LabourLeaks #StarmerOut

Sir Keir - along with his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney - held his first meeting with the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). Deliberately used the “anti-Semitism” crisis as a pretext to vilify and then expel a leading pro-Corbyn activist in Brighton and Hove
This response to my tweet is a common objection to targeted advertising.

@KevinCoates correct me if I'm wrong, but basic point seems to be that banning targeted ads will lower platform profits, but will mostly be beneficial for consumers.

Some counterpoints 👇


1) This assumes that consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones.

This does not seem self-evident to me


Research also finds that firms choose between ad. targeting vs. obtrusiveness 👇

If true, the right question is not whether consumers prefer contextual ads to targeted ones. But whether they prefer *more* contextual ads vs *fewer* targeted

2) True, many inframarginal platforms might simply shift to contextual ads.

But some might already be almost indifferent between direct & indirect monetization.

Hard to imagine that *none* of them will respond to reduced ad revenue with actual fees.

3) Policy debate seems to be moving from:

"Consumers are insufficiently informed to decide how they share their data."

To

"No one in their right mind would agree to highly targeted ads (e.g., those that mix data from multiple sources)."

IMO the latter statement is incorrect.

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1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.

Please add your own.

2/ The Magic Question: "What would need to be true for you


3/ On evaluating where someone’s head is at regarding a topic they are being wishy-washy about or delaying.

“Gun to the head—what would you decide now?”

“Fast forward 6 months after your sabbatical--how would you decide: what criteria is most important to you?”

4/ Other Q’s re: decisions:

“Putting aside a list of pros/cons, what’s the *one* reason you’re doing this?” “Why is that the most important reason?”

“What’s end-game here?”

“What does success look like in a world where you pick that path?”

5/ When listening, after empathizing, and wanting to help them make their own decisions without imposing your world view:

“What would the best version of yourself do”?