2020’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," “2018's Most Popular Posts” and “2019'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 in the 2020 below into six groups: popular new posts in 2020 on diet and health, popular new posts in 2020 on political philosophy, popular new posts in 2020 on other topics, and popular older posts in those three categories. I provide the pageviews in the first half of 2020 for each post as counted when someone went specifically to that post.

I am pleased to be able to report 613,658 Google Analytics pageviews in 2020—over 50,000 pageviews per month. Of these, 31,480 were pageviews for my blog homepage. One other thing that stands out from the data is how well my back catalog does because of Google search.

Note: This post is still under construction. I am starting from posts that have the most pageviews. When more than 600 pageviews are shown for a post, that is accurate, but at this point, everything that has less than 600 pageviews for the whole year shows beside it the pageviews only for the first half of the year.

New Posts in 2020 on Diet and Health

1. The New England Journal of Medicine Review of the Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging and Disease 5,269

2. Can Fasting Help Fight the Coronavirus? 5,236

3. James Nestor on How Bad Mouth Breathing Is 3,287

4. The Case Against Monosodium Glutamate—Why MSG is Dangerous (as are Other Sources of Free Glutamate) and How the Dangers Have Been Covered Up 786

5. Getting More Vitamin D May Help You Fight Off the New Coronavirus 467

6. Eating During the Coronavirus Lockdown 193

7. Fasting Before Feasting 155

8. Fasting Helps Avoid Collateral Damage in Fighting Bacterial Infections; Glucose Helps Avoid Collateral Damage in Fighting Viral Infections 138

9. Too Much of Any Amino Acid is Probably Bad for You, But Monosodium Glutamate Isn't Any Worse Than That 129

10. Interactions between COVID-19 and Chronic Diseases 117

11. Sugar Is Not Very Satiating 102

New Posts in 2020 on Political Philosophy

New Posts in 2020 on Other Topics

1. How Does This Pandemic End? 2,877

2. How Economists Can Enhance Their Scientific Creativity, Engagement and Impact 1,671

3. Why Housing is So Expensive 1,554

4. Avoiding Economic Carnage from the Coronavirus: There are Better Policies than Sending Everyone $1000 1,335

5. Glennon Doyle on Wild Humanity 1,255

6. Logarithms and Cost-Benefit Analysis Applied to the Coronavirus Pandemic 995

7. The Right Amount of Wokeness 992

8. 100 Economics Blogs and 100 Economists Who Are Influential Online 795

9. How Even Liberal Whites Make Themselves Out as Victims in Discussions of Racism 709

10. It Isn't OK to Be Anti-Immigrant 604

11. On the Herd Immunity Strategy 341

12. Two Dimensions of Pandemic-Control Externalities 320

13. Responding to Negative Coverage of Negative Rates in the Financial Times 285

14. Seconding Paul Romer's Proposal of Universal, Frequent Testing as a Way Out 278

15. The Supreme Court Confronts the Principles of Multivariable Calculus in Extending Employment Protections to Gay and Transgender Employees 273

16. Why We are Likely to Need Strong Aggregate Demand Stimulus after Tight Social Distancing Restrictions are Over 266

17. Enablers of White Supremacy 256

18. Narayana Kocherlakota Advocates Negative Interest Rates Now 240

19. Vicky Biggs Pradhan: How Crises Make Us Rethink Our Lives 218

20. 'The Four Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz (with Janet Mills) and `The Fifth Agreement' by Don Miguel Ruiz and Don Jose Ruiz (with Janet Mills) 217

21. Michael Ostrovsky and Michael Schwarz: Self-Driving Cars, Tolls, and Carpooling are Much More Powerful as a Combination than Separately 216

22. Miles Kimball's Discussion of "When to Release the Lockdown: A Wellbeing Framework for Analysing Benefits and Costs," by Layard, Clark, De Neve, Krekel, Fancourt, Hey and O'Donnell 213

23. Bex's Rules for Life 204

24. How to Fight Global Warming 198

25. 4 Types of Heterogeneity that Offer a Bit of Extra Hope for Keeping the Pandemic Under Control without Blanket Lockdowns 195

26. Vicky Biggs Pradhan: The Lost Art of Curiosity 192

27. The Wisdom of Jerome Powell 147

28. The Mormon Church's Counterpart to a Sovereign Wealth Fund 146

29. Frank Wilczek: Are We Living in a Simulated World? 144

30. Marc Lipsitch: The New Coronavirus May Be Worse Than You Think (link post) 136

31. Michael Lind: College-Educated vs. Not is the New Class War 136

32. My Experiences with Clay Christensen 131

33. The ECB’s Monetary Policy at 20—Massimo Rostagno, Carlo Altavilla, Giacomo Carboni, Wolfgang Lemke, Roberto Motto, Arthur Saint Guilhem and Jonathan Yiangou Defend Negative Rate Policy 130

34. How Dating Apps Are Making Marriages Stronger 129

35. COVID-19 Math: Why Just 2 Months of Extreme Isolation Alone Probably Won't End the Epidemic—Katrina Ligett and Aviv Zohar 128

36. Adam McCloskey and Pascal Michaillat: Calculating Incentive Compatible Critical Values Points to a t-Statistic of 3 as the 5% Critical Value after Accounting for p-Hacking 125

37. On Human Potential 123

38. Recognizing Opportunity: The Case of the Golden Raspberries—Taryn Laakso 101

Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Diet and Health

1. Reexamining Steve Gundry's `The Plant Paradox’ 58,073

2. Which Nonsugar Sweeteners are OK? An Insulin-Index Perspective 44,997

3. Forget Calorie Counting; It's the Insulin Index, Stupid 38,366

4. How Fasting Can Starve Cancer Cells, While Leaving Normal Cells Unharmed 18,025

5. Why a Low-Insulin-Index Diet Isn't Exactly a 'Lowcarb' Diet 16,636

6. Whole Milk Is Healthy; Skim Milk Less So 10,969

7. Obesity Is Always and Everywhere an Insulin Phenomenon 4,347

8. Evidence that High Insulin Levels Lead to Weight Gain 3,565

9. Using the Glycemic Index as a Supplement to the Insulin Index 3,314

10. Stop Counting Calories; It's the Clock that Counts 3,164

11. What Steven Gundry's Book 'The Plant Paradox' Adds to the Principles of a Low-Insulin-Index Diet 2,803

12. Miles Kimball on Diet and Health: A Reader's Guide 2,074

13. 3 Achievable Resolutions for Weight Loss 1,781

14. Intense Dark Chocolate: A Review 1,707

15. My Annual Anti-Cancer Fast 1,665

16. Exorcising the Devil in the Milk 1,650

17. Jason Fung's Single Best Weight Loss Tip: Don't Eat All the Time 1,375

18. In Praise of Flavored Sparkling Water 1,350

19. Jason Fung: Dietary Fat is Innocent of the Charges Leveled Against It 1,217

20. Meat Is Amazingly Nutritious—But Is It Amazingly Nutritious for Cancer Cells, Too? 1,201

21. The Keto Food Pyramid 1,069

22. The Case Against Sugar: Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes 1,004

23. Why You Should Worry about Cancer Promotion by Diet as Much as You Worry about Cancer Initiation by Carcinogens 976

24. Our Delusions about 'Healthy' Snacks—Nuts to That! 967

25. Layne Norton Discusses the Stephan Guyenet vs. Gary Taubes Debate (a Debate on Joe Rogan’s Podcast) 940

26. Lisa Drayer: Is Fasting the Fountain of Youth? 912

27. David Ludwig: It Takes Time to Adapt to a Lowcarb, Highfat Diet 870

28. Carola Binder—Why You Should Get More Vitamin D: The Recommended Daily Allowance for Vitamin D Was Underestimated Due to Statistical Illiteracy 797

29. Don't Tar Fasting by those of Normal or High Weight with the Brush of Anorexia 751

30. 4 Propositions on Weight Loss 725

31. My Giant Salad 717

32. 'Is Milk Ok?' Revisited 716

33. Letting Go of Sugar 703

34. The Problem with Processed Food 692

35. Best Health Guide: 10 Surprising Changes When You Quit Sugar 665

36. On Exercise and Weight Loss 662

37. The Four Food Groups Revisited 652

38. How Sugar, Too Much Protein, Inflammation and Injury Could Drive Epigenetic Cellular Evolution Toward Cancer 359

39. Good News! Cancer Cells are Metabolically Handicapped 355

40. On 'Flipping the Metabolic Switch: Understanding and Applying Health Benefits of Fasting' by Stephen D. Anton et al. 354

41. Kevin D. Hall and Juen Guo: Why it is So Hard to Lose Weight and So Hard to Keep it Off 302

42. Anthony Komaroff: The Microbiome and Risk for Obesity and Diabetes 294

43. Sugar as a Slow Poison 292

44. A Low-Glycemic-Index Vegan Diet as a Moderately-Low-Insulin-Index Diet 277

45. Vindicating Gary Taubes: A Smackdown of Seth Yoder 271

46. Yes, Sugar is Really Bad for You 253

47. How Important is A1 Milk Protein as a Public Health Issue? 252

48. Which Is Worse for You: Sugar or Fat? 241

49. Live Your Life So You Don't Need Much Self-Control 233

50. After Gastric Bypass Surgery, Insulin Goes Down Before Weight Loss has Time to Happen 230

51. Mass In/Mass Out: A Satire of Calories In/Calories Out 213

52. Andreas Michalsen on Fasting 212

53. Increasing Returns to Duration in Fasting 207

54. Salt Is Not the Nutritional Evil It Is Made Out to Be 200

55. Nutritionally, Not All Apple Varieties Are Alike 196

56. The Trouble with Most Psychological Approaches to Weight Loss: They Assume the Biology is Obvious, When It Isn't 185

57. Eggs May Be a Type of Food You Should Eat Sparingly, But Don't Blame Cholesterol Yet 181

58. Diseases of Civilization 179

59. How Low Insulin Opens a Way to Escape Dieting Hell 173

60. A Barycentric Autobiography 151

61. Black Bean Brownies 139

62. The Case Against the Case Against Sugar: Seth Yoder vs. Gary Taubes 137

63. In Praise of Avocados 130

64. Is Milk OK? 126

65. Nina Teicholz on the Bankruptcy of Counting Calories 120

66. How Sugar Makes People Hangry 110

67. Data on Asian Genes that Discourage Alcohol Consumption Explode the Myth that a Little Alcohol is Good for your Health 109

68. Freakonomics: The Story of Bananas 100

Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Political Philosophy

1. The Social Contract According to John Locke 66,079

2. John Locke: Freedom is Life; Slavery Can Be Justified Only as a Reprieve from Deserved Death 3,901

3. John Locke on Why the Executive and Legislative Power Should Be Separated, but the Executive and Foreign Policy Power Should Be Combined 3,634

4. John Locke: The Purpose of Law Is Freedom 3,139

5. On John Locke's Labor Theory of Property 2,978

6. John Locke on Punishment 2,877

7. John Locke's Argument for Majority Rule 2,705

8. John Locke: The Only Legitimate Power of Governments is to Articulate the Law of Nature 2,154

9. John Locke's Argument for Limited Government 1,728

10. Governments Long Established Should Not—and to a Good Approximation Will Not—Be Changed for Light and Transient Causes 1,664

11. Liberty and the Golden Rule 1,654

12. John Stuart Mill's Brief for Freedom of Speech 1,507

13. John Locke's State of Nature and State of War 1,419

14. John Locke: Legitimate Taxation and other Appropriation of Property by the Government is Limited as to Quantity, Procedure and Purpose 1,370

15. John Locke: When the Police and Courts Can't or Won't Take Care of Things, People Have the Right to Take the Law Into Their Own Hands 1,362

16. John Stuart Mill’s Vigorous Advocacy of Education Vouchers 1,297

17. John Stuart Mill on Freedom from Religion 1,109

18. Freedom Under Law Means All Are Subject to the Same Laws 1,107

19. John Locke: The Public Good 1,000

20. John Locke: Defense against the Black Hats is the Origin of the State 961

21. Cass Sunstein on the Rule of Law 927

22. John Locke: People Must Not Be Judges in Their Own Cases 913

23. John Locke: Government by the Consent of the Governed Often Began Out of Respect for Someone Trusted to Govern 874

24. On the Achilles Heel of John Locke's Second Treatise: Slavery and Land Ownership 764

25. John Locke: Democracy, Oligarchy, Hereditary Monarchy, Elective Monarchy and Mixed Forms of Government 697

26. John Locke's Smackdown of Robert Filmer: Being a Father Doesn't Make Any Man a King 691

27. John Locke on the Equality of Humans 686

28. John Locke: How to Resist Tyrants without Causing Anarchy 671

29. John Locke on Legitimate Political Power 631

30. John Locke: We Are All Born Free 614

31. John Stuart Mill on Freedom of Thought 352

32. John Stuart Mill on Balancing Christian Morality with the Wisdom of the Greeks and Romans 298

33. John Stuart Mill: In the Parent-Child Relationship, It is the Children Who Have Rights, Not the Parents 281

34. John Stuart Mill’s Roadmap for Freedom 279

35. The Metaphor of a Nation as a Family 267

36. John Stuart Mill on Sins of Omission 261

37. John Locke Against Natural Hierarchy 241

38. John Locke Treats the Bible as an Authority on Slavery 233

39. Democracy is Not Freedom 230

40. John Stuart Mill: In Praise of Eccentricity 230

41. John Stuart Mill on the Protection of "Noble Lies" from Criticism 224

42. John Locke Against Tyranny 221

43. John Stuart Mill: Two Maxims for Liberty 218

44. John Locke: How to Recognize a Tyrant 218

45. John Stuart Mill on Freedom of Contract 216

46. An Experiment with Equality of Outcome: The Case of Jamestown 209

47. Brian Flaxman—Bern Notice: Why Bernie Sanders is the Best Candidate to Take on Donald Trump in 2020 208

48. John Locke: The Right to Enforce the Law of Nature Does Not Depend on Any Social Contract 196

49. Getting Away with Doing Good 193

50. John Stuart Mill's Brief for Individuality 191

51. Democratic Injustice 189

52. John Stuart Mill’s Defense of Freedom 182

53. John Locke: No One is Above the Law, which Must Be Established and Promulgated and Designed for the Good of the People; Taxes and Governmental Succession Require Approval of Elected Representatives 181

54. Social Liberty 180

55. John Locke Off Base with His Assumption That There Was Plenty of Land at the Time of Acquisition 176

56. John Stuart Mill on the Sources of Prejudice About What Other People Should Do 169

57. John Locke: The Obligation to Obey the Law Does Not Apply to Laws Promulgated by Invaders and Usurpers Who Do Not Have the Consent of the Governed 157

58. On Despotism 156

59. John Stuart Mill on the Gravity of Divorce 155

60. John Locke on the Supremacy of the People, the Supremacy of the Legislature over the Executive, and the Power of the Executive to Deal with Rotten Boroughs 139

61. John Locke Explains 'Lord of the Flies' 137

62. John Stuart Mill on Puritanism 133

63. John Locke: Theft as the Little Murder 132

64. John Stuart Mill on the Historical Origins of Liberty 131

65. John Stuart Mill’s Brief for the Limits of the Authority of Society over the Individual 129

66. John Stuart Mill on Public and Private Actions 128

67. John Stuart Mill on the Rich and the Elite 126

68. John Locke: The Law Must Apply to Rulers, Too 122

69. John Locke: By Natural Law, Husbands Have No Power Over Their Wives 121

70. John Locke: Lions and Wolves and Enemies, Oh My 117

71. John Locke and the Share of Land

72. John Stuart Mill on Rising Above Mediocrity 115

73. Michael Huemer's Immigration Parable 114

74. John Locke: The People are the Judge of the Rulers 112

75. John Locke: The Law of Nature Requires Maturity to Discern 110

76. John Stuart Mill: How Laws Against Self-Harm Backfire 109

77. John Stuart Mill on Being Offended at Other People's Opinions or Private Conduct 109

78. Vigilantes in the State of Nature 109

79. The Federalist Papers #2 A: John Jay on the Idea of America 108

80. John Stuart Mill on the Chief Interest of the History of Mankind: The Love of Liberty and Improvement vs. Custom 103

81. John Stuart Mill: The Central Government Should Be Slow to Overrule, but Quick to Denounce Bad Actions of Local Governments 101

82. John Locke: If Rebellion is a Sin, It is a Sin Committed Most Often by Those in Power 101

83. The Rise and Fall of Venice 101

Older Posts with Continuing Popularity on Other Topics

1. The 7 Principles of Unitarian Universalism 9,217

2. William Strauss and Neil Howe's American Prophecy in 'The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny' 7,277

3. What to Call the Very Rich: Millionaires, Vranaires, Okuaires, Billionaires and Lakhlakhaires 3,153

4. The Medium-Run Natural Interest Rate and the Short-Run Natural Interest Rate 2,687

5. Adding a Variable Measured with Error to a Regression Only Partially Controls for that Variable 2,662

6. William Graham Sumner, Social Darwinist 2,568

7. Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy: Expansionary Monetary Policy Does Not Raise the Budget Deficit 2,550

8. How and Why to Eliminate the Zero Lower Bound: A Reader’s Guide 1,717

9. Joshua Foer on Deliberate Practice 1,572

10. Five Books That Have Changed My Life 1,545

11. The Logarithmic Harmony of Percent Changes and Growth Rates 1,543

12. Why I Write 1,321

13. An Optical Illusion: Nativity Scene or Two T-Rex's Fighting over a Table Saw? 1,297

14. The Descent—and the Divine Calling—of the Modernists 1,186

15. There Is No Such Thing as Decreasing Returns to Scale 1,163

16. Government Purchases vs. Government Spending 1,096

17. Noah Smith: Buddha Was Wrong About Desire 1,065

18. Peter Conti-Brown's Takedown of Danielle DiMartino Booth's Book "Fed Up: An Insider's Take on Why the Federal Reserve is Bad for America" 1,006

19. Why Taxes are Bad 993

20. Greg Shill: Does the Fed Have the Legal Authority to Buy Equities? 967

21. Expansionist India 946

22. The Costs of Inflation 908

23. Supply and Demand for the Monetary Base: How the Fed Currently Determines Interest Rates 889

24. The Complete Guide to Getting into an Economics PhD Program 887

25. A Liberal Turn in the Mormon Church 848

26. Q&A: Is Electronic Money the Mark of the Beast? 831

27. The Message of Mormonism for Atheists Who Want to Stay Atheists 825

28. There's One Key Difference Between Kids Who Excel at Math and Those Who Don't 772

29. David Byrne: De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum 771

30. Why GDP Can Grow Forever 768

31. Daniel Coyle on Deliberate Practice 755

32. An Agnostic Prayer for Strength 748

33. On Teaching and Learning Macroeconomics 732

34. 2019 First Half's Most Popular Posts 696

35. Robert Shiller: Against the Efficient Markets Theory 668

36. 2019's Most Popular Posts 664

37. Shane Parrish on Deliberate Practice 646

38. The Deep Magic of Money and the Deeper Magic of the Supply Side 637

39. David Pagnucco: The Eurozone and the Impossible Trinity 620

40. Returns to Scale and Imperfect Competition in Market Equilibrium 602

41. Netflix as an Example of Clay Christensen's 'Disruptive Innovation' 377

42. The Mormon View of Jesus 350

43. Reza Moghadam Flags 'Enabling Deep Negative Rates to Fight Recessions' in the Financial Times 455

44. Fight the Backlash Against Retirement Saving Nudges: Everyone Benefits When People Save More for Old Age 345

45. Human Beings as Social—and Trading—Animals 342

46. Critical Reading: Apprentice Level 333

47. Noah Smith: You Are Already in the Afterlife 332

48. What is a Supply-Side Liberal? 298

49. Q&A on the Idea of a US Sovereign Wealth Fund 263

50. Even Central Bankers Need Lessons on the Transmission Mechanism for Negative Interest Rates 246

51. Student Guest Posts on supplysideliberal.com 233

52. The Most Effective Memory Methods are Difficult—and That's Why They Work 230

53. Co-Active Coaching as a Tool for Maximizing Utility—Getting Where You Want in Life 228

54. Cognitive Economics 226

55. On Having a Thesis 223

56. The Volcker Shock 220

57. Will Women Ever Get the Mormon Priesthood? 217

58. Negative Interest Rate Policy as Conventional Monetary Policy: Full Text 212

59. Marriage 101 206

60. How to Turn Every Child into a 'Math Person' 205

61. Franklin Roosevelt on the Second Industrial Revolution 199

62. On Master's Programs in Economics 189

63. Economics Needs to Tackle All of the Big Questions in the Social Sciences 180

64. Michael Weisbach: Posters on Finance Job Rumors Need to Clean Up Their Act, Too 178

65. Who Leaves Mormonism? 175

66. Rodney Stark on the Status of Women in Early Christianity 175

67. Two Types of Knowledge: Human Capital and Information 174

68. Why We Want More Jobs 170

69. What is the Effective Lower Bound on Interest Rates Made Of? 169

70. Christian Kimball on Middle-Way Mormonism 166

71. Will Your Uploaded Mind Still Be You? —Michael Graziano 163

72. Going Negative: The Virtual Fed Funds Rate Target 163

73. 18 Misconceptions about Eliminating the Zero Lower Bound 160

74. Deeper Learning in Macroeconomics 154

75. What Monetary Policy Can and Can't Do 153

76. The Shape of Production: Charles Cobb's and Paul Douglas's Boon to Economics 152

77. Hannah Katz: The Pros and Cons of Tipping Culture 150

78. Brio in Blog Posts 150

79. Markus Brunnermeier and Yann Koby's "Reversal Interest Rate" 148

80. Teleotheism and the Purpose of Life 147

81. The Unavoidability of Faith 144

82. The Mormon Church Decides to Treat Gay Marriage as Rebellion on a Par with Polygamy 143

83. Why I Am Not a Neoliberal 141

84. Clay Christensen, Jerome Grossman and Jason Hwang on the Three Basic Types of Business Models 141

85. The Egocentric Illusion 131

86. How Subordinating Paper Currency to Electronic Money Can End Recessions and End Inflation 126

87. Silvio Gesell's Plan for Negative Nominal Interest Rates 122

88. Roger Farmer and Miles Kimball on the Value of Sovereign Wealth Funds for Economic Stabilization 120

89. Robert L. Woodson Sr. on Helping the Poor 117

90. Let's Set Half a Percent as the Standard for Statistical Significance 116

91. The Message of “Sal Tlay Ka Siti” 116

92. Charles Murray on Taking Religion Seriously 113

93. A Book of Mormon Story Every Mormon Boy and Girl Knows 113

94. Eric Weinstein: Genius Is Not the Same Thing as Excellence

95. Nicholas Kristof: "Where Sweatshops are a Dream" 111

96. When the Output Gap is Zero, But Inflation is Below Target 108

97. How the Original Sin of Borrowing in a Foreign Currency Can Reduce the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy for Both the Borrowing and Lending Country 107

98. In Honor of Alan Krueger 105

99. Ezra W. Zuckerman—On Genre: A Few More Tips to Academic Journal Article-Writers (link post to a pdf) 103

100. New Evidence on the Genetics of Homosexuality 102

101. Heroes of Science Action Figures 102

102. How and Why to Expand the Nonprofit Sector as a Partial Alternative to Government: A Reader’s Guide 100