Pun Salad

Sabine Hossenfelder highlights recent speculation: Consciousness Comes From Quantum Processes, Physicist Claims.

It's a point I've made before, but will nevertheless repeat: this doesn't say anything about "free will". Some misguided souls (for example, me, back when I was a college student) think that quantum behavior can give rise to "free will"; it doesn't. It just adds some (unproven) speculation about quantum-level unpredictable coin-flipping in your brain. But this doesn't put "you" in charge of your actions, determinists (correctly) point out.

And, for the record, Sabine classifies this particular speculation as "bullshit" in any case. Still, it's fun to hear her explain it with a German accent.

Also of note:

• Just around $3 million per job. Joe Lancaster notes a very expensive stretch of the Road to Serfdom: Michigan spent $1.8 billion and only created 602 jobs.

  One of the great economic myths that never seems to die is the idea that giving taxpayer money to a private company will yield a windfall, incentivizing the company to create jobs and generate wealth that otherwise would not exist.

  And yet time and time again, the benefits fall far short of what was promised, if they materialize at all. A new report suggests the state of Michigan is the latest to learn that lesson the hard way.

  "Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer offered billions of taxpayer dollars to select companies in an effort to create jobs during her eight-year term," writes James M. Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. "Overall, she has authorized $6.9 billion for business subsidies since gaining office in 2019."

  In a new report, Hohman examined eight major projects—"those that offered $100 million in payments and received significant media attention"—totaling $2.7 billion in promised incentives. Hohman then assessed how the investments paid off.

  Governments have a terrible track record of picking winners and losers, and it turns out that Michigan, under Whitmer, did not break the trend.

  When it comes to government spending, overpromising and underdelivering is the way to bet.

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