All very salutary, but I remain curious to know what you think of Huemer's (relatively simple!) arguments about corporations and government. Do you disagree with any one of his numbered headings in particular? For what it's worth, he hates Trump. I observe that The Trump Organization is a corporation, one I can avoid with ease, aside from seeing the name on large buildings now and then. Trump the politician, however, has gathered power using democracy (as it is practiced, which matters more than how one might wish it worked) and this power is harder to avoid. DEC 21, 2018 Trump is your fault FEB 29, 2020 A Right-Wing, Populist Critique of President Trump JAN 16, 2021 What's So Bad About Storming the Capitol? DEC 30, 2023 Saving Democracy from the Voters JUN 24, 2023 Who Can Best Destroy America? I wonder how much left-wing intellectuals have contributed to the rise of Trump and the alt-right.
Trump does not encourage respect for our country.... President Trump does not make America strong. He weakens America, in several ways.... Trump’s trade war is estimated to cost average Americans about $1300 a year... When he dies, Mr. Trump will go to his grave laughing at all the people he scammed in his life, not least of all the American voters.
What matters is, if they had somehow succeeded in getting Congress to install Trump as President (which I think had about zero chance of happening), the result would have been a collapse of social order in America. There is no way in hell that the other half of the country would have accepted it. There would have been a civil war.
His remarks on January 6 were intended to intimidate Congress and Mike Pence into going along with his plan. Attempting to overturn an election using threats of violence sounds like “engaging in insurrection” to me.
If you’re a Woke ideologue, antifa member, or member of ISIS, you should vote for Donald Trump in the next election, because he will do the most to accelerate America’s destruction.
I don't see the word "trust" in either of those articles, so I am curious to hear your thoughts.
Scale should be permitted to offer jobs to whoever they wish, but I don't think it's a a mistake to believe that merit (i.e. ability to contribute value to Scale) and diversity are somewhat in tension. No age group has a monopoly on excellence, but would not be surprising if almost all of the Scale workforce is drawn from the 20-39 year old age bracket, which makes up 30% of the population. If Scale hires solely on merit, staff will show some variety in various demographic dimensions, but it won't be a strictly population-balanced representation.There is a mistaken belief that meritocracy somehow conflicts with diversity. I strongly disagree. No group has a monopoly on excellence. A hiring process based on merit will naturally yield a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and ideas. Achieving this requires casting a wide net for talent and then objectively selecting the best, without bias in any direction. We will not pick winners and losers based on someone being the “right” or “wrong” race, gender, and so on. It should be needless to say, and yet it needs saying: doing so would be racist and sexist, not to mention illegal.
Philosophy Bro, as Hubski dubbed Michael Huemer, has moved to Substack. I Love Corporations is archived. This was a great discussion. Further reading: The Basic Social Problem Humans are selfish. Some actions harm others but benefit the agent. Prediction from 1+2: There is going to be a lot of extremely net-harmful behavior. 2 Solutions Individual Retaliation The Fantasy Solution: Let’s just teach people to be nice. Government Anarcho-Capitalism Now, what sucks about the first three solutions? The Basic Problem of Government Government officials are selfish. Some government actions harm other people but benefit government officials. Prediction: There is going to be a lot of net-harmful government behavior. Here are four solutions, from the same post: Meta-Government Separation of Powers Constitutions Democracy Let’s think about why each of these are weak solutions. If you would like to have a conversation about these, post one up here.1 The Fundamental Social Problem
The basic problem of government, from my previous post:
The same could be said of its opponents; capitalism makes civilized life possible. Prices, including wages, are not "set" by market players. Prices come about as a result of buyers and sellers interacting. Sellers can choose any price at which they are willing to sell, and buyers can choose any price at which they are willing to buy, but a sale only occurs (and a market price decided) when the two sides meet and agree on the same price. Customers are the primary driver of technical change. You can still buy a typewriter, but most customers demand keyboards and touchscreens. Public choice theory is a discipline of economics that considers how political actors are influenced by incentives like anyone else. I don't see ethics and welfare being neglected, but there are many new avenues to explore. In recent decades the abundance of data and software has enabled a boom in econometrics while Adam Smith had to rely more on intuition and almanacs. What other discipline tries to carefully measure what matters to people? How else could you do it, if not by paying close attention to how they spend resources like money, time and attention? The base of Maslow's pyramid is formed of goods consumed in exchange for money. The opposite of efficiency is waste, from which no one benefits. A concrete example of upward redistribution (not the result of government action) would be helpful. Social justice and liberty? These are political considerations, not economic. Indeed, this is simply a misquote of the original essay:economists, who have prospered mightily over the past half century, might fairly be accused of having a vested interest in capitalism as it currently operates
Our emphasis on the virtues of free, competitive markets and exogenous technical change can distract us from the importance of power in setting prices and wages, in choosing the direction of technical change, and in influencing politics to change the rules of the game.
In contrast to economists from Adam Smith and Karl Marx through John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, and even Milton Friedman, we have largely stopped thinking about ethics and about what constitutes human well-being.
We often equate well-being with money or consumption, missing much of what matters to people.
Many subscribe to Lionel Robbins’ definition of economics as the allocation of scarce resources among competing ends or to the stronger version that says that economists should focus on efficiency and leave equity to others, to politicians or administrators. But the others regularly fail to materialize, so that when efficiency comes with upward redistribution—frequently though not inevitably—our recommendations become little more than a license for plunder.
Keynes wrote that the problem of economics is to reconcile economic efficiency, social justice, and individual liberty.
The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice, and Individual Liberty.
Very possible, and hard to conclude anything based on unreliable self-reported data, apparently not even asking if the person is using a time restricted diet, but just guessing based on two days of reported eating habits.
Larger sample size would merely increase confidence in the misleading association. • Wearing body armor linked to ER visits for gunshot wounds! • Nicotine replacement therapy users 70% more likely to get lung cancer! • Parachute owners die of massive impact trauma 10× as often!
O, Veni! A study says intermittent fasting is making people drop dead. Oh, come on
The bird business is very memorable, but the work is somewhat spoiled by the very precise but implausible image of a tiny spider (and even the spider webs) casting distinct shadows from a street light, "Gigantically projected against the street". From The Scholar's Library, a worthy collection of "required reading for the human race." Davy Crockett, Not Yours to Give Thomas Sowell, Abstract People Thomas Sowell, Government-Sanctioned Pyramid Schemes Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience Tom Wolfe, Commencement Address at Boston University Charlton Heston, Winning The Cultural War "The Short Fiction Reading Room" section looks very promising, full of all-time classic short stores.The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be trusted to man.
Why the United States of America needs to vindicate itself in the eyes of the despotic and failing governments that make up much of the rest of the world is a mystery.
When the baby boomers retire, that will be the moment of truth—or of more artful lies. Just like Enron.
That government is best which governs not at all.
there’s a very fashionable idea right now that each people, each culture, has its own integrity, has its own validity, which must be respected and must have its day in the sun. I don’t think anybody will bother to argue with that. But what I think you’re going to find fairly soon, as you head out into the world, are two things: first, that it’s irrelevant...
Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America’s campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who’re supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?
Depends on whose expectations you look at. One source says the "skeptic" forecasters "have generally done rather poorly, universally predicting less warming than has been observed" whereas "global warming predictions made by mainstream climate scientists have all fared reasonably well, with the exception of Kellogg's in 1979, whose linear nature we found puzzling." Depends on who "we" are. CO2 emissions in the United States peaked in 2007. Global emissions were not much higher in 2022 than 2019, and the increase was smaller than global GDP growth. China is by far the biggest contributor now, and per capita emissions remain much lower than in the U.S. and Canada. For a while I expect growth there will offset reductions elsewhere, but they face the same incentives as anyone to get away from coal. China is aggressively adding nuclear capacity.Global temp is cruising up ahead of expectations
I don't see any reason to think that we will lower CO2 emissions
Preliminary numbers are in for 2023.
Counting Guns in Early America First hit for query “ how many oeople.owned guns in 1787”Gun ownership is particularly high compared to other common items. For example, in 813 itemized male inventories from the 1774 Jones national database, guns are listed in 54% of estates, compared to only 30% of estates listing any cash, 14% listing swords or edged weapons, 25% listing Bibles, 62% listing any book, and 79% listing any clothes.
I agree the fishsplaining is not very persuasive. Shooting an Elephant is similarly disturbing but at least the narrator feels bad about it.If the fish is hooked in the bony part of the mouth I am sure the hook hurts him no more than the harness hurts the angler.
A Kindle doesn't look much like a book, it looks more like a tablet computer. The only similarity is a rectangular area of text, which is the bare essence of a tool used for reading, also present in the Kindle web app and street signs. The floppy disk is not the predecessor of the save button; they existed together for many years and the button image persists because it is a familiar way to represent an abstract concept. I don't know anything about architecture, and when I read this article I searched my phone for pictures of buildings and found one that showed the row of small blocks along a top edge. These are called dentils because they resemble teeth. I think they look nice, and it's interesting that they are now decorative elements with an atavistic function, like the non-closing shutters on the front of my house.The Roman architect Vitruvius (iv. 2) states that the dentil represents the end of a rafter (asser). It occurs in its most pronounced form in the Ionic temples of Asia Minor, the Lycian tombs and the porticoes and tombs of Persia, where it clearly represents the reproduction in stone of timber construction.
I read The Old Man and the Sea in April and always hear Hemingway's prose in the voice of Wolfram Kandinsky. "On the Blue Water" contains just a paragraph about the old man and the sea.Hemingway wrote more than 30 stories for Esquire. These included detailed analyses of marlin behavior that were dry even for angling aficionados. But one told the true story of a man out fishing alone who caught an immense marlin that was destroyed by sharks. Decades later, it evolved into The Old Man and the Sea. The story—simple, direct, no dreaming of lions—may be better than the book.
I wonder how many people can explain how a toilet works. You're sitting there every day, you have the ultimate information machine in your hand. It seems like you can almost reason it out from first principles. Start with a hole in the ground. Problem: poop is smelly, the hole fills up and you have to dig a new hole. Improvement: Throw the poop in the river. Problem: The river is far away, you have to walk in the rain. Improvement: Build a structure to live in, throw the poop out the window, let the rain wash it away. This technique was state of the art for a long time. People kept a container under the bed and in the morning someone, a servant if you were better off, would fling the "night soil" out the window. In the English-speaking world, it was a courtesy to shout a cute warning before spraying passers-by with human waste. I had to look it up. In Edinburgh residents of tenement buildings would shout "gardyloo," short for “Prenez garde a l’eau!” before dumping their chamber pots out the window, possibly the source of the word loo. Imagine getting up early to fetch the day's water from the village pump before a line forms, and you have to dodge a cascade of falling filth, and you appreciate that your neighbor was kind enough to let you know to get out of the way. Eventually John Snow worked out that the village pump was killing people with cholera, so drainage was improved with sewers, open channels at first and buried pipes later. Water treatment is more advanced today, but sewers still rely mainly on dependable gravity. I'm not sure what happens when the toilet is too far from the water treatment plant to allow a continuous downhill grade; there must be some kind of poop elevator somewhere. Even here in the affluent D.C. area, I believe raw sewage is flushed into the river during heavy rains, because toilet waste and storm drains go through the same tunnels. To save the trouble of handling waste, the sewer pipe can be extended into the home. A further convenience is a supply of drinkable water which can be used to flush the sticky mess down the pipe. I don't understand how the water supply works, I think I know where in the Potomac River my house water comes from, but I don't know where it goes after that. They add "chlorine" and "fluorine" but not the pure chemical elements, they pump it through undergroud pipes which sometimes rupture, water towers located at high places also provide pressure and reliable gravity flow. What steps are taken to prevent poisoning the treated water? How risky is polluted water? There was that building in New York City that had a murder victim floating in the rooftop tank for months and nobody (else) died. We are almost at the modern toilet. For comfort, it is shaped like a chair, though some cultures still practice squatting. It's made out of porcelain, which makes it very heavy and subject to breaking. Why not lightweight plastic or fiberglass? Porcelain can be thoroughly cleaned and holds up to scrubbing. A removable seat is made of plastic or wood which absorbs heat more slowly so it does not feel as cold even when it is the same temperature as the porcelain. There is still the problem of getting the waste to go down the pipe, and the problem of stinky sewer gas coming up the pipe. The clever solution is the P-trap, which is actually shaped more like a U, and also appears under sinks. Water fills the U and blocks sewer gas from coming up. And when poop drops into the water, it might be less likely to adhere to the toilet and the water can reduce odor. Now we just need a supply of water we can quickly dump on top of the mess to shove it down the pipe. A bucket would work, but rather than taking time to fill a bucket we attach a tank behind or above the toilet and use a float switch to let it fill up, then turn off the water supply. When you yank the chain or push the lever, a flapper flips up from covering a hole in the tank and the water gushes down to hopefully send the waste away. The flapper has a clever design which holds enough air -- I realize I don't quite understand how it works but when the tank is full the water pressure holds the flapper down, then a chain attached to the handle pulls it up and out of the way until the tank water completely drains, and some water inside the flapper pulls it back down in place. Our more modern toilets have pushbuttons on the top for small and big jobs, there is a float attached to a column under the buttons, and I don't know how the water flow is controlled. Like many newer technologies, the function is more opaque and when there are problems I am more likely to replace the whole thing rather than a part. In Japan the poop is teleported. I remember what seemed like a ridiculous social quarrel when a new law restricted the amount of water a toiled could use per flush. People complained that they would have to flush twice, and they bought up the supply of toilets made before the limit, or imported Canadian toilets. Now that I'm older and grumpier, I am more inclined to complain. The only justification for the water limit is to save water. I find myself often flushing twice, or more. The smaller landing zone makes it more likely that waste will stick to the sides, requiring annoying brush work and yet another flush. I think it's reasonable to doubt whether any water has been saved, and to ask if it's possible that more water is used now than before, in addition to annoying people. I've taken many flow restrictors out of shower heads, and out of public faucets when I can. Those faucet restrictors may save water, because using them is so annoying more people will skip washing their hands. Switch the handles for a semi-reliable motion sensor and replace paper towels with a noisy electric blower and we're back in the John Snow era.Okay look I thought I knew how a computer works but I really don’t. That’s the illusion of explanatory depth. I have it for everything: toilets (the water goes whoosh and the poop goes away; I have no idea how this happens), cars (gasoline makes the pistons go up and down and something something the car moves), and capitalism (people sell stuff and people buy stuff and this is bad, I guess?).
There's a statement from an insurance industry representative in the article. It sounds to me that insurance companies have learned that some customers tend to receive more benefits in claims payouts than others. In order to make money on a policy, the companies try to limit the number of the more expensive insured parties they are willing to cover. Is it plausible that buildings with more subsidized housing will have more costly claims? I imagine these buildings are more likely to be located in neighborhoods with relatively higher crime, and perhaps slower emergency response. Tenants receiving subsidies might be less likely to change batteries in smoke detectors or purchase more reliable appliances. Managers of buildings with more subsidized housing might be less responsible about safety maintenance. On the other hand, wealthier tenants might have higher claims as well, because they own more valuable property. If the insurance company could "discriminate" to identify buildings that have more tenants with expensive stereos, or valuable artwork, they could charge higher premiums or decline to offer insurance to them as well. I expect they use location as a proxy for these factors. Student housing is included in the 25% limit. The article suggests this is because it is "transient" like a bed and breakfast. That doesn't make much sense, a student is likely to stay six months to a year like many other rental tenants. I suspect that student housing is likely to lead to more claims. Gary Becker argued that discrimination is costly to firms. If a firm seeks solely to maximize profits, it can't afford to indulge in discrimination against factors that do not affect the bottom line. A firm that passes on profitable opportunities in order to indulge a prejudice will be less competitive.deafening silence
What do you think is going on? Do you suggest that insurance companies are refusing to issue policies on subsidized housing which they believe would be just as profitable as policies issued to non-subsidized housing?
Leah Yingling finished the Bull Run Run 50 miler just minutes behind the perennial winner James Blandford, in about as much time as it took me to quit after about 50K.
Scott Alexander also covered the story in the April links roundup. Matt Yglesias (subscription only, sorry) is against Hanania’s implicit conclusion - he argues it’s not as simple as “leaders should have the bright idea of being tough on crime” because previous Latin American leaders (including a previous El Salvador leader) tried crackdowns and they didn’t work, maybe because the security force was bribeable and not up to the task. He thinks crackdowns mostly fail, but through some combination of skill and luck Bukele has managed to make this one go much better than expected. Cremieux responds, saying that the reason Bukele’s crackdown worked when previous crackdowns didn’t is that Bukele cracked down harder. Also he didn’t give up partway through.Richard Hanania presents evidence that it’s not just a “deal with the gangs”, it’s a real crackdown that should be embarrassing to other countries that choose not to do this.
In the followup post, he discussed the objection that the decline in homicides had already begun before Bukele arrived in 2019, and the following years just continued the trend. He argues that data farther back show that the rate declined from 100+ in the years following the end of the civil war in 1992, then fluctuated between 50-75 (i.e. Baltimore to New Orleans level) between 1995 and 2011, or perhaps as low as 40 (Milwaukee) in the early 2000s. So the peak in 2015 was unusually high and getting back down to 50-75 could be seen as a regression to the mean. But getting down to 7.8 requires a better explanation than a simple continuing trend. The crackdown is brutal and I find it plausible that it has reduced violence outside the prisons.
Richard Hanania covered some of the tradeoffs between due process for young men with tattoos and a murder rate of 51 per 100,000. The Invisible Graveyard of Crime Followup: The Midwit Meme and the Denial of Tradeoffs Mentioned at Marginal Revolution.
In a first world country where crime is manageable, maybe you can tolerate such blatant mockery of the larger society. Are you really going to arrest a guy for a tattoo? What about freedom of expression? If you have evidence that he’s committed a crime, carefully gather the evidence and then go to a judge and get a warrant. Vox complains that there aren’t enough public defenders in El Salvador to advocate on behalf of all the accused criminals. Should a country therefore let gangs roam free until it sets up a few more law schools and finds enough money in the budget to hire the new graduates? How many young people with energy and ambition are going to try to become lawyers in a crime-infested El Salvador rather than simply do whatever it takes to get to the United States? Does being a public defender for MS-13 seem like a more fulfilling and less stressful life? More attorneys also means you need a more professional police force since lawyers will catch more mistakes the cops made, so add that to the list of things you need to do before you’re allowed to have a functional society. The point here is that much of what sounds like reasonable advice in a first world nation is simply unrealistic in a country in the position of El Salvador.