Harry Jones: I can’t help but notice that all the great and admirable accomplishments of big government were a long time ago. If government is just another word for the things we do together, then the things we do together aren’t what they used to be. It seems there has been a loss of cultural vision. The visionaries now are visible only in the private sector because they are few, and it’s harder to outvote them in the private sector.
bomag: not because the authorities have become radically less trustworthy… Or maybe they have. Gov’t looks more accomplished in the past: interstate highways; moon program. Now they are purveyors of regulations and paperwork that make our lives worse.
CVLR: If Bryan Caplan’s thoughts were dangerous to the profits of Global Kapital, would he have attained his position? If he began thinking dangerous thoughts, could he keep it? Bryan Caplan, GMU econ prof, NYT bestseller, father of 4, shill. Q.E.D. I will unpack this. 1. I denigrated the promotion mechanism of academia. 2. I implicated the promotion mechanism as such. 3. I suggested that the man’s continued social and financial well-being is contingent on his perpetual slavish conformity to the will of...
CVLR: “People have lost trust in the authorities not because the authorities have become radically less trustworthy in increasingly flagrant ways but because of literally anything else.” Okay, CIA. Institutional control has been “upset”, if you ignore the fact that a five-part Silicon Valley oligopoly now controls, in theory if not yet in practice, all of the world’s information. This theory will become practice within five to ten years, as the machine learning technique to empower the reliable automatic...
Wang Wei Lin: Information is important, but only in the way it is used since ones and zeroes no inherent value. Western civilization has lost its moral core to the point that civil society is ‘returning to the mean’ of history. Or as Thomas Hobbes concluded the loss of the social contract results in solitary lives that are nasty, brutish and short. None of which has nothing to do with information.
Gavin Longmuir: Harry J. “accurate simulation” Can there ever be such a thing as an “accurate simulation”, i.e. one that reliably predicts the future? The more realistic approach is contained in George Box’s famous aphorism: “All models are wrong. Some models are useful”. I once read an account of mountaineers preparing for an assault on a difficult Himalayan peak. They built a model of the climb — rate of climb on different stages, Sherpas carrying oxygen...
Harry Jones: What’s the point of a mental model if you don’t at least hope to arrive at an accurate simulation at some point? If you’re not trying to get a grip on the real world, then all thought is mental masturbation.
bomag: The positive externalities of population — especially idea externalities — far outweigh the negative. Using the phrase “far outweigh” indicates a shill at work. But at least he acknowledges that there are negatives.
Bruce: Establishment flack supports establishment consensus for lower wages through higher immigration.
Harry Jones: Felix, the only freedom that means anything is freedom to do what you want. Nobody has any use for the freedom to do something he has no desire to do. A great many people want to swing their fists past where others’ noses begin. Will you grant them that freedom? If not, then you are limiting someone’s freedom in a way that he cares about. Don’t expect him to be okay with that. Property rights are the freedom to own. Nothing is more zero sum than ownership – except if...
Felix: @Harry Jones “Beyond a certain point, freedom is zero sum”. ??? That sounds like hokum. But, maybe your “freedom” is different from mine. I would, for instance, include in my “freedom” the ability to visit Mauritious. Or Iceland. Or Paraguay. Or to be able to eat grapes from Chile when there are none from … where ever grapes come from. I dunno. Nome? :) Yeah, if the Universe is finite, and it is, then freedom is zero sum. But for the same reason the...
Harry Jones: Gavin, there are genuflections people must make, to appease established tribal hypocrisies and to signal belonging. He may not even mean it.
Gavin Longmuir: “Immigration restrictions… make the average American poorer in the process. Prof. Capian makes some good points — and then says something so totally dumb as this! What is going on in his mind? Or am I wrong in thinking that some of his other points make good sense? My guess is that in Capian’s mind, the sentence he wrote means: “makes the average American who graduated from an Ivy League college poorer”. He simply forgets there are Americans who are not...
Harry Jones: Immigration can be very good for the immigrants. Equating free immigration with free trade implies that human beings are mere goods to be imported. But some people don’t mind that. Beyond a certain point, freedom is zero sum. This is the point libertarians miss. Every ruling class knows this, and will defend its own freedom by oppressing the competition. So it must be. But let’s at least be honest about it.
CVLR: If Bryan Caplan’s thoughts were dangerous to the profits of Global Kapital, would he have attained his position? If he began thinking dangerous thoughts, could he keep it? Bryan Caplan, GMU econ prof, NYT bestseller, father of 4, shill. Q.E.D.
Bob Sykes: Open borders and free trade (the same thing) force First World wages and prices to the world averages. That is Econ 101, which Caplan obviously failed. The average American wage is at least six times the world average. Free trade and open borders have destroyed American industry and immiserated the American working class. The Ruling Class, for whom Caplan shills, has seized all the economic growth of the last 40 years. They have even clawed income away from the working class, whose real...
David Foster: I agree with much of this, but….”immigr ation restrictions make the average American poorer”…you can drown in a river whose *average* depth is six inches. Wide-open immigration helps those whose skills are globally traded, like actors, rock musicians, F500 executives, and some academics; it is harmful to those people (lawn workers, for example) whose trade must be exercised locally and who must compete with an influx of low-priced labor. And when the harm to those...
Albion: Hmmm… Quickly off the top: Tenet 2: It all depends who you let in. There are immigrants who make no contribution to society (and appear to have little intention of doing so), and in the case of violence, make it poorer in many ways. Tenet 5: It all depends what you are teaching. Teaching someone to appreciate street art counts for far less than teaching someone to fix an engine. Tenet 7: It all depends how narrow one’s view of history is. Many men for centuries have done awful jobs in...
Required: Read real writers https://consciousnessofs heep.co.uk/ Bryan is the typical IYI.
Harry Jones: A few bad apples spoil each barrel. For every set S, get rid of every X in S that is a bad apple. That includes those who protect and defend the bad apples. Fire them. I don’t know if there are any good politicians, but if we deal with all the bad ones we can see who’s left.
That is fantastic!