This Econ Nerds video was the hardest to write and I think there are some good lessons.
Lesson 1: When writing is hard, that’s a sign of deeper problems
The best scripts I’ve written, either for Econ Nerds or from my comedy career, all happened fast. Everything clicked.
This script was the opposite. It took forever. I finally turned in a draft, and my colleague pointed to a fatal flaw.
The original version centered on the Shirky Principle, the idea that institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
That was the whole pitch, let’s make a video about the Shirky Principle. In that I’d focus on non-profit dysfunction.
My colleague Aaron had a simple note: “Do we actually think the Shirky Principle exists?”
He put a name to what I was struggling with. Most of the examples I was trying to use weren’t really the Shirky Principle, they were more like St. Peter’s Syndrome (profiled in the video) or Goodhart’s Law (i.e., when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure). Nonprofits and government agencies aren’t doing the Shirky Principle; they aren’t actually trying to preserve the problem. They aren’t malicious actors.
If you ask AI about the Shirky Principle, it will cite examples from private industry. But those didn’t strike me as right either. The one often given is TurboTax blocking the free government version of tax filing, but that’s just plain old regulatory capture.
I’d assumed the Shirky Principle would make a good video. I had never even thought it wasn’t real. But Aaron’s note clarified it: I was trying to make a video without good examples because the Shirky Principle sounds good in a dorm room, but it’s not real.
Maybe that’s another video: debunking the Shirky Principle.
Lesson 2: You’re never done
I chucked the Shirky Principle in the trash and instead wrote a video about threat inflation and St. Peter’s Syndrome. Basically all about how nonprofits work: inflate a threat to drive donations; if the crisis ends, find a new one and hype that. Then I went into the examples: climate change, police shootings, and immigrant crime.
I finished the draft and thought, awesome, it’s done. Then I got another note: why not start the video with the examples, as a crisis audit? That’s way more engaging.
The note was right, but I’d have to totally rewrite the script AGAIN. Usually I do one draft and then minor revisions for Econ Nerds videos. This would be the THIRD major rewrite, but it had to be done.
Lesson 3: Making videos is a great excuse to meet your heroes
Arnold Kling is a legend to me. I’ve been reading him for over ten years, his Substack is a go-to. And because of this channel, I can just cold email him and ask to talk, and he said yes.
One of the best parts of Econ Nerds is having an excuse to email heroes of mine and tell them how great they are. But even if you don’t have a podcast or YouTube channel, you can still reach out. I’ve found most people to be incredibly responsive.
Sources (in order of appearance)
Deaths due to natural disasters: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters
GDP by world region: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-world-regions-stacked-area
Global extreme poverty rate: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/was-the-global-decline-of-extreme-poverty-only-due-to-china
Co2 emissions per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?country=USA~GBR~OWID_EU27~CAN
Solar adoption by state: https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2026/0203-patel-solar
Changes in forest area: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/deforestation-is-no-longer-inevitable
Oil spills: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/oil-spills-from-tankers-have-fallen-by-more-than-90-since-the-1970s
Wildlife increase: https://ourworldindata.org/europe-mammal-comeback
Effect of climate change on GDP estimates:
Barrage, Lint, and William Nordhaus. “Policies, projections, and the social cost of carbon: Results from the DICE-2023 model.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121.13 (2024): e2312030121.
Shirley, Chad, and William Swanson. The Effects of Climate Change on GDP in the 21st Century: Working Paper 2025-02. No. 61186. 20
Unarmed men killed by polcie is from the Washington Post database: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/
Data on perceptions of police violence is from here: https://www.policemag.com/news/half-of-surveys-very-liberal-respondents-believe-1000-or-more-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-in-2019
Incarceration rates: https://www.statista.com/chart/18376/us-incarceration-rates-by-sex-and-race-ethnic-origin/
Illegal immigration numbers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/29/us/illegal-border-crossings-data.html
Murder rates:
Arrest rates by immigration status:
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/content/immigrants-and-crime
Crime rates, immigrant vs. non:
Crime rates by country of origin:
Abramitzky, Ran, et al. “Law-abiding immigrants: The incarceration gap between immigrants and the US-born, 1870–2020.” American Economic Review: Insights 6.4 (2024): 453-471.
Crime index by share of non-citizens:
https://progressless.org/2024/04/05/do-more-immigrants-equate-to-more-crime/
Source for the maternal mortality section:
https://ourworldindata.org/rise-us-maternal-mortality-rates-measurement
Can Americans solve big problems polling research:
