2019's Most Popular Posts
The "Key Posts" link in navigation at the top of my blog lists all important posts through the end of 2016. Along with "2017's Most Popular Posts" and “2018's Most Popular Posts,” this is intended as a complement to that list. (Also, my most popular storified Twitter discussions are here, and you can see other recent posts by clicking on the Archive link at the top of my blog.) Continuing this tradition, I give links to the most popular posts from 2019 below into six groups: popular new posts in 2019 on diet and health, popular new posts in 2019 on political philosophy, popular new posts in 2019 on other topics, and popular older posts in those three categories. I will put in the 2019 pageviews for each post when someone went specifically to that post.
I am pleased to be able to report 529,822 Google Analytics pageviews in the first half of 2019—over 10,000 pageviews per week. Of these, 38,858 were pageviews for my blog homepage.
New Posts in 2019 on Diet and Health
Kevin D. Hall and Juen Guo: Why it is so Hard to Lose Weight and so Hard to Keep it Off 1,930
David Ludwig: It Takes Time to Adapt to a Lowcarb, Highfat Diet 1,410
Layne Norton Discusses the Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes Debate (a Debate on Joe Rogan’s Podcast) 1,087
Don't Tar Fasting by those of Normal or High Weight with the Brush of Anorexia 700
After Gastric Bypass Surgery, Insulin Goes Down Before Weight Loss has Time to Happen 426
Eggs May Be a Type of Food You Should Eat Sparingly, But Don't Blame Cholesterol Yet 335
Jonathan Shaw: Could Inflammation Be the Cause of Myriad Chronic Diseases? 291
A Low-Glycemic-Index Vegan Diet as a Moderately-Low-Insulin-Index Diet 281
Mental Retirement: Use It or Lose It—Susann Rohwedder and Robert Willis 270
The Benefits of Fasting are Looking So Clear People Try to Mimic Fasting without Fasting 225
Framingham State Food Study: Lowcarb Diets Make Us Burn More Calories 221
On the Epistemology of Diet and Health: Miles Refuses to `Stay in His Lane’ 196
Crafting Simple, Accurate Messages about Complex Problems 173
Less Than 6 or More than 9 Hours of Sleep Signals a Higher Risk of Heart Attacks 153
Is 10,000 Steps a Day More Than is Necessary for Health? 121
Should Those Whose Main Symptom is Chest Pains Get Stent or Bypass Surgery? 116
Does Reducing Saturated Fat Reduce Cardiovascular Disease? 115
Cancer Cells Love Sugar; That’s How PET Scans for Cancer Work 108
New Posts in 2019 on Political Philosophy
John Locke: How to Resist Tyrants without Causing Anarchy 584
On Despotism 328
The Federalist Papers #1: Alexander Hamilton's Plea for Reasoned Debate 200
John Locke on Monarchs (Or Presidents) Who Destroy a Constitution 159
The Federalist Papers #2 A: John Jay on the Idea of America 111
John Locke: If Rebellion is a Sin, It is a Sin Committed Most Often by Those in Power 97
New Posts in 2019 on Other Topics
In Honor of Alan Krueger 8,801
Adding a Variable Measured with Error to a Regression Only Partially Controls for that Variable 3,559
The Costs of Inflation 2,476
Who Leaves Mormonism? 1,160
Supply and Demand for the Monetary Base: How the Fed Currently Determines Interest Rates 1,016
Ruchir Agarwal and Miles Kimball—Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions: A Guide 813
An Optical Illusion: Nativity Scene or Two T-Rex's Fighting over a Table Saw? 383
Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life 312
Measuring Learning Outcomes from Getting an Economics Degree 256
Reza Moghadam Flags 'Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions' in the Financial Times 225
Joshua Goldstein and Staffan Qvist: The Argument for Expanding Nuclear Power 215
Marriage 103 212
Andy Matuschak: Why Books Don't Work (linkpost) 197
Give Central Banks Independence and New Political Pressures to Balance the Old Ones 189
Teens are Too Suspicious for Anything But the Truth about Drugs to Work 167
Andrew Biggs and Miles Kimball Debate Retirement Savings Policy 142
Larry Summers Says the Fed Should Move Fast to Cut Rates 140
Dan Ariely: The Power of Morning, Time Together and Positive Feedback 133
FocusEconomics: Predictions for the Global Economy in 2019 from 13 Experts 117
Ken Rogoff Defends a Robust Negative Rate Policy at Hoover 112
Brian Flaxman—A Tale of Bipartisanship and Financial Interests: The Taxpayer First Act of 2019 109
Silvio Gesell's Plan for Negative Nominal Interest Rates Meets the Mormons 103
FocusEconomics: How and When will the Next Financial Crisis Happen?—26 Experts Weigh In 96
One Nation 96
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Diet and Health
Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid 51,454
How Fasting Can Starve Cancer Cells, While Leaving Normal Cells Unharmed 32,302
Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An Insulin-Index Perspective 15,533
Why a Low-Insulin-Index Diet Isn't Exactly a 'Lowcarb' Diet 12,731
Using the Glycemic Index as a Supplement to the Insulin Index 7,507
Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon 5,356
The Case Against Sugar: Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes 5,306
What Steven Gundry's Book 'The Plant Paradox' Adds to the Principles of a Low-Insulin-Index Diet 4015
Jason Fung's Single Best Weight Loss Tip: Don't Eat All the Time 2,318
The Keto Food Pyramid 1,951
Meat Is Amazingly Nutritious—But Is It Amazingly Nutritious for Cancer Cells, Too? 1,663
Jason Fung: Dietary Fat is Innocent of the Charges Leveled Against It 1,311
Letting Go of Sugar 1,139
My Giant Salad 1,088
Best Health Guide: 10 Surprising Changes When You Quit Sugar 960
The Case Against the Case Against Sugar: Seth Yoder vs. Gary Taubes 508
Is Milk OK? 385
Anthony Komaroff: The Microbiome and Risk for Obesity and Diabetes 316
Heidi Turner, Michael Schwartz and Kristen Domonell on How Bad Sugar Is 134
Carola Binder: The Obesity Code and Economists as General Practitioners 124
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Political Philosophy
John Locke: Freedom is Life; Slavery Can Be Justified Only as a Reprieve from Deserved Death 4,398
John Locke on Punishment 2,793
On the Achilles Heel of John Locke's Second Treatise: Slavery and Land Ownership 1,451
John Stuart Mill’s Vigorous Advocacy of Education Vouchers 1,168
Freedom Under Law Means All Are Subject to the Same Laws 1,122
John Locke: The Only Legitimate Power of Governments is to Articulate the Law of Nature 1,121
John Locke's Smackdown of Robert Filmer: Being a Father Doesn't Make Any Man a King 623
John Locke: People Must Not Be Judges in Their Own Cases 584
John Stuart Mill on Balancing Christian Morality with the Wisdom of the Greeks and Romans 500
An Experiment with Equality of Outcome: The Case of Jamestown 431
John Locke: The Right to Enforce the Law of Nature Does Not Depend on Any Social Contract 403
John Stuart Mill on the Protection of "Noble Lies" from Criticism 332
Social Liberty 317
John Stuart Mill’s Brief for the Limits of the Authority of Society over the Individual 282
John Locke: The Law of Nature Requires Maturity to Discern 274
John Locke: Defense against the Black Hats is the Origin of the State 247
John Locke: By Natural Law, Husbands Have No Power Over Their Wives 235
John Stuart Mill on the Sources of Prejudice About What Other People Should Do 192
John Stuart Mill on Being Offended at Other People's Opinions or Private Conduct 169
John Locke Off Base with His Assumption That There Was Plenty of Land at the Time of Acquisition 167
John Stuart Mill on China's Technological Lost Centuries 161
John Stuart Mill's Argument Against Political Correctness 148
John Locke: Law Is Only Legitimate When It Is Founded on the Law of Nature 142
John Locke: Rivalry in Consumption Makes Private Property Unavoidable 132
John Locke Looks for a Better Way than Believing in the Divine Right of Kings or Power to the Strong 131
If the Justice System Does Not Try to Deliver Justice, We Are in a State of War 113
John Stuart Mill on the Need to Make the Argument for Freedom of Speech 107
Genius Can Only Breathe Freely in an Atmosphere of Freedom 107
John Stuart Mill: Making the Government More Powerful than Necessary is Inimical to Freedom 99
John Locke: Thinking of Mothers and Fathers On a Par Undercuts a Misleading Autocratic Metaphor 96
Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Other Topics
Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy: Expansionary Monetary Policy Does Not Raise the Budget Deficit 2,067
How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide 1,945
The Medium-Run Natural Interest Rate and the Short-Run Natural Interest Rate 1,806
There's One Key Difference Between Kids Who Excel at Math and Those Who Don't (with Noah Smith) 1,610
The Message of Mormonism for Atheists Who Want to Stay Atheists 1,565
The Logarithmic Harmony of Percent Changes and Growth Rates 1,655
The Shards of My Heart 1,287
Why I Write 1,181
Economics Needs to Tackle All of the Big Questions in the Social Sciences 1,052
The Complete Guide to Getting into an Economics PhD Program 1043
Why Taxes are Bad 1,016
Returns to Scale and Imperfect Competition in Market Equilibrium 862
What is the Effective Lower Bound on Interest Rates Made Of? 845
Netflix as an Example of Clay Christensen's 'Disruptive Innovation' 682
The Most Effective Memory Methods are Difficult—and That's Why They Work 596
Even Central Bankers Need Lessons on the Transmission Mechanism for Negative Interest Rates 565
Godless Religion 539
Michael Weisbach: Posters on Finance Job Rumors Need to Clean Up Their Act, Too 460
Greg Shill: Does the Fed Have the Legal Authority to Buy Equities? 400
Sticky Prices vs. Sticky Wages: A Debate Between Miles Kimball and Matthew Rognlie 341
How Subordinating Paper Currency to Electronic Money Can End Recessions and End Inflation 324
18 Misconceptions about Eliminating the Zero Lower Bound 323
Negative Interest Rate Policy as Conventional Monetary Policy: Full Text 316
The Shape of Production: Charles Cobb's and Paul Douglas's Boon to Economics 304
Rodney Stark on the Status of Women in Early Christianity 299
The Deep Magic of Money and the Deeper Magic of the Supply Side 286
Why I am a Macroeconomist: Increasing Returns and Unemployment 283
The Mormon Church Decides to Treat Gay Marriage as Rebellion on a Par with Polygamy 244
Noah Smith: Why Do Americans Like Jews and Dislike Mormons? 211
Matthew Shapiro, Martha Bailey and Tilman Borgers on the Economics Job Market Rumors Website 208
Silvio Gesell's Plan for Negative Nominal Interest Rates 208
Markus Brunnermeier and Yann Koby's "Reversal Interest Rate" 198
John L. Davidson on Resolving the House Mystery: The Institutional Realities of House Construction 192
Barack Obama: Football as the Best Sports Analogy for Politics 188
One of the Biggest Threats to America's Future Has the Easiest Fix 186
Gather ’round, Children, Here’s How to Heal a Wounded Economy 174
How and Why to Expand the Nonprofit Sector as a Partial Alternative to Government: A Reader’s Guide 169
Marriage 101 165
Marriage 102 162
Optimal Monetary Policy: Could the Next Big Idea Come from the Blogosphere? 159
Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on the Three Basic Types of Business Models 159
Let's Set Half a Percent as the Standard for Statistical Significance 156
Miles's April 9, 2006 Unitarian Universalist Sermon: ‘UU Visions’ 156
My Dad 150
Owen Nie: Monetary Policy in Colonial New York, New Jersey and Delaware 148
The Coming Transformation of Education: Degrees Won’t Matter Anymore, Skills Will 146
Leveling Up: Making the Transition from Poor Country to Rich Country 145
How Conservative Mormon America Avoided the Fate of Conservative White America 143
So What If We Don't Change at All…and Something Magical Just Happens? 121
Responding to Joseph Stiglitz on Negative Interest Rates 116
When the Output Gap is Zero, But Inflation is Below Target 112
A Conversation with Clint Folsom, Mayor of Superior, Colorado 112
Eric Weinstein: Genius Is Not the Same Thing as Excellence 110
Roger Farmer and Miles Kimball on the Value of Sovereign Wealth Funds for Economic Stabilization 110
How Increasing Retirement Saving Could Give America More Balanced Trade 108
David Holland on the Mormon Church During the February 3, 2008–January 2, 2018 Monson Administration 108
‘The Hunger Games’ Is Hardly Our Future--It's Already Here 105
Robert Eisler—Stable Money: The Remedy for the Economic World Crisis 104
Why Scott Fullwiler Misses the Point in ‘Why Negative Nominal Interest Rates Miss the Point’ 100
Fields Medal Winner Maryam Mirzakhani's Slow-Cooked Math 100
Christian Kimball on the Fallibility of Mormon Leaders and on Gay Marriage 97
Annie Atherton: I Tried 7 Different Morning Routines — Here’s What Made Me Happiest (direct link) 94
Christian Kimball: Anger [1], Marriage [2], and the Mormon Church [3] 93