Matt Yglesias on affirmative action; Bryan Caplan and Richard Hanania; Ed West on prisons and crime; Emily Oster on pre-K research; Zvi on trust heuristics; Jon Hersey on Galef; Douthat on democracy
"I view of democracy as good for nothing more and nothing less than facilitating peaceful transitions of power."
Transfers of power are routine and peaceful in any state with sufficiently capable internal security, which, especially due to modern technological multipliers, is most states these days. Obviously those transfers are much less frequent in non-democracies, but every man is mortal.
Arnold, you write: "I think that the solution to the trust problem is to examine the manner of discourse. You can tell whether someone is operating in Scout Mindset rather than in Soldier Mindset"
The first defense of not being fooled is common sense - does what I am hearing make sense? Is the argument being made dogmatic or is it considerate of life's complexities?
An example, one doesn't need to be a medical expert to be alarmed at the official narrative that declaratively states that inexpensive treatments for Covid do not work. Common sense begs the question: Have all inexpensive treatments been evaluated? It also nags the soul with the concen: Why the animosity towards inexpensive treatments?
Then one does a little research and learns there are a number of inexpensive treatments that show promise. Just this weekend I read an Israeli study showing Vitamin D is beneficial. So again, the question nags the soul: Why is the official narrative so opposed to the idea of inexpensive treatments for Covid? And if the officials are so against people actually being helped to survive Covid, why the charade of masks and social distancing on the pretense of helping people?
The FITs and you are in agreement, the popular narrative is driven by neurotics. Fortunately, most people do not watch the news, so the influence of the perpetually anxious is not as powerful in public life as it could be. But angst does dominate organizations / institutions and this includes politics.
Put Hanania, Zvi, and Douthat in a blender, and the Left views elections not as a means of making decisions (or transferring power) but as a means for the populace to express allegiance to the Narrative and the rule making of the experts, thus the drive for universal participation.
Arnold says he only wants a peaceful transfer of power, but then claims that Democrat to Democrat transfers in California don't count? Why? They are peaceful! In fact more peaceful then transfers of power between actually competing groups.
And what could be more peaceful then all power being in the hands of unelected mandarins.
Obviously Arnold wants RESULTS. The whole idea with transfers of power is that it allows incompetent groups to transfer power to competent groups without a war. If it's from incompetent to incompetent there is little point in transferring power. Arnold may wish democracy was better at figuring out competence then it sometimes is, but the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. Elites gave us children in masks all day. I'll take populism any day over that.
You make a very good point. Arnold wants "good" government without war. Democracy cannot deliver it (in 1951, I was 10 and I could observe closely Perón's re-election working as errand-boy for his rival, and since then, I have observed many elections in several countries, including the U.S. where I had my first experience in the 1968 election while attending U Minnesota and attended HH's postelectoral lectures).
Arnold is agitated because he cannot live with it. If he reads Ezra Klein's last NYT column
"I think that the solution to the trust problem is to examine the manner of discourse. You can tell whether someone is operating in Scout Mindset rather than in Soldier Mindset."
It's often hard to tell. Many claims are made as mere assertions of fact, or hearsay reporting the assessments of the fact by 'experts'. "Experts say available evidence weighs against lab leak hypothesis." Is that soldier or scout? Can I tell from this discourse itself whether I can trust this publication, journalist, expert?
The solution to the crime problem, as I think Becker would have said, is "crime doesn't pay". Skin in the game regarding high expected costs deters violations and keeps a lot of would-be criminals on the straight and narrow path. Same goes for betrayal of trust.
Without costs, one is left with second best heuristics the utility of each of which changes quickly and varies considerably according to social context in a way that is very hard to assess. That's why Zvi is right about Scott overstating the role and usefulness of 'savvy' about such matters.
"Populists believe in mutual flattery between the people and a demagogue."
So much for taking a charitable view of those who disagree.
I think you should consider the possibility that those seeking "a foundation of cultural libertarianism" would look very much like "populists"... perhaps even to those who claim to want it.
On the left, you've got a vision of what you might call a Hamiltonian democracy. A commercial, urban democracy with a powerful and complicated government. The control the voter has over the government is largely limited to assent, and the government has proportionately more power and is thus quite a large danger to individual liberties.
The "foundation of cultural libertarianism" though, is a vision of a Jeffersonian democracy. A limited state full of equal citizens (maybe a small subset of the whole population or a state of limited size altogether). Citizens are proportionally stronger and more independent. It's a republic of farmers, and (despite the fact that Jefferson was an elitist) fundamentally anti-elite.
What's really interesting, though, is that this sort of vision consistently gets labeled "populism". From Jefferson himself onward, anyone who pushes a libertarian vision is called a populist.
Some people who identify as populists do have a libertarian streak, and, to their credit, most blue collar populists in the US are more capitalism-friendly than the Sohrab Ahmari types would like, but I wouldn't overestimate the overlap in that Venn diagram. J.D. Vance, for example, sounds more like a Marxist than a Hayekian, and a sad fact is that historically populists often fall for a sort of Marxist way of thinking. Relative to 'traditional' conservatism (e.g., Ronald Reagan), populists are probably a a step in the wrong direction from a libertarian standpoint.
"The left believes in a democracy where the people elect to be ruled by experts." You must be assuming that, besides their technical expertise, the experts will favor DEI.
Yglesias: "But it then also pushes lots of students who might have attended the lower-tier UC schools out of the UC system altogether. And when you drop out of the system into other schools, you’re not only talking about a different cohort of peers; you’re talking about a different level of resources dedicated to students.
To flag a point that I’ll return to later, part of the harm that Bleemer is identifying is the perversity of the American system of higher education financing — we deliver the fewest resources to the students who need the most help."
Wouldn't the better approach be to reform the UC system, then, rather than maintain differential racial admissions policies? If the problem is that kids at lower-tier universities don't get the support they need, "just admit them to higher tier universities" seems like a second best solution. Are you telling me poor white or Asian students wouldn't benefit from additional resources, as well?
Alas, I'm not sure I buy Yglesias' story that academic mismatch is a myth, either. Let's put aside the strong possibility of motivated reasoning on the part of academics who study the issue. I suspect that some of these "additional resources" at more selective colleges simply amount to a lot of hand-holding and rule-bending for minority students. If you were to compare the trajectories for minority students who attended more selective colleges and then got a degree vs those who didn't, wouldn't better outcomes be exactly what you'd expect? After all, as he notes, credentialism is a thing. Perhaps I am missing something here, but I don't have time to actually dive into any of the research he's citing.
The Founders missed an opportunity in allowing the House to be elected by popular vote. The popular vote should have been done at the state level legislatures, just like the Senate was set up originally. Of course, given the later amendment changing the Senate elections, it might not have held. Our federal goverment would probably be better functioning were there an additional layer of representatives between the federal offices and the people themselves. The same would probably be true of the Presidency as well. That disconnection between the elected state governments and federal government has served us ill.
Wise deference is crucial to a healthy democracy because most voters lack time or competence to become well-informed about complex policy issues.
Wise deference amounts to having good reason to trust person X about complex policy issues. Trust comprises (a) trust in person X's *competence* (expertise, judgment) and (b) trust in person X's *motivations* (values).
The great challenge is to decide whom to trust when trustworthy persons -- persons who exhibit both competence and a scout mentality -- disagree about complex policy issues. What am I (who am nobody) to think when Arnold Kling and Tyler Cowen disagree about mechanisms and prospects for inflation? (I've decided to trust Arnold. But why?)
Doubtless, polarization entrenched by soldier mentalities is a major problem. But good-faith non-experts are perplexed by disagreement among experts who analyze issues fairly and humbly. And such disagreements open the field to soldier mentality and polarization.
"I view of democracy as good for nothing more and nothing less than facilitating peaceful transitions of power."
Transfers of power are routine and peaceful in any state with sufficiently capable internal security, which, especially due to modern technological multipliers, is most states these days. Obviously those transfers are much less frequent in non-democracies, but every man is mortal.
Arnold, you write: "I think that the solution to the trust problem is to examine the manner of discourse. You can tell whether someone is operating in Scout Mindset rather than in Soldier Mindset"
The first defense of not being fooled is common sense - does what I am hearing make sense? Is the argument being made dogmatic or is it considerate of life's complexities?
An example, one doesn't need to be a medical expert to be alarmed at the official narrative that declaratively states that inexpensive treatments for Covid do not work. Common sense begs the question: Have all inexpensive treatments been evaluated? It also nags the soul with the concen: Why the animosity towards inexpensive treatments?
Then one does a little research and learns there are a number of inexpensive treatments that show promise. Just this weekend I read an Israeli study showing Vitamin D is beneficial. So again, the question nags the soul: Why is the official narrative so opposed to the idea of inexpensive treatments for Covid? And if the officials are so against people actually being helped to survive Covid, why the charade of masks and social distancing on the pretense of helping people?
The FITs and you are in agreement, the popular narrative is driven by neurotics. Fortunately, most people do not watch the news, so the influence of the perpetually anxious is not as powerful in public life as it could be. But angst does dominate organizations / institutions and this includes politics.
Put Hanania, Zvi, and Douthat in a blender, and the Left views elections not as a means of making decisions (or transferring power) but as a means for the populace to express allegiance to the Narrative and the rule making of the experts, thus the drive for universal participation.
Arnold says he only wants a peaceful transfer of power, but then claims that Democrat to Democrat transfers in California don't count? Why? They are peaceful! In fact more peaceful then transfers of power between actually competing groups.
And what could be more peaceful then all power being in the hands of unelected mandarins.
Obviously Arnold wants RESULTS. The whole idea with transfers of power is that it allows incompetent groups to transfer power to competent groups without a war. If it's from incompetent to incompetent there is little point in transferring power. Arnold may wish democracy was better at figuring out competence then it sometimes is, but the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. Elites gave us children in masks all day. I'll take populism any day over that.
You make a very good point. Arnold wants "good" government without war. Democracy cannot deliver it (in 1951, I was 10 and I could observe closely Perón's re-election working as errand-boy for his rival, and since then, I have observed many elections in several countries, including the U.S. where I had my first experience in the 1968 election while attending U Minnesota and attended HH's postelectoral lectures).
Arnold is agitated because he cannot live with it. If he reads Ezra Klein's last NYT column
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/06/opinion/covid-pandemic-policy-trust.html
I bet he will cry.
"I think that the solution to the trust problem is to examine the manner of discourse. You can tell whether someone is operating in Scout Mindset rather than in Soldier Mindset."
It's often hard to tell. Many claims are made as mere assertions of fact, or hearsay reporting the assessments of the fact by 'experts'. "Experts say available evidence weighs against lab leak hypothesis." Is that soldier or scout? Can I tell from this discourse itself whether I can trust this publication, journalist, expert?
The solution to the crime problem, as I think Becker would have said, is "crime doesn't pay". Skin in the game regarding high expected costs deters violations and keeps a lot of would-be criminals on the straight and narrow path. Same goes for betrayal of trust.
Without costs, one is left with second best heuristics the utility of each of which changes quickly and varies considerably according to social context in a way that is very hard to assess. That's why Zvi is right about Scott overstating the role and usefulness of 'savvy' about such matters.
"Populists believe in mutual flattery between the people and a demagogue."
So much for taking a charitable view of those who disagree.
I think you should consider the possibility that those seeking "a foundation of cultural libertarianism" would look very much like "populists"... perhaps even to those who claim to want it.
On the left, you've got a vision of what you might call a Hamiltonian democracy. A commercial, urban democracy with a powerful and complicated government. The control the voter has over the government is largely limited to assent, and the government has proportionately more power and is thus quite a large danger to individual liberties.
The "foundation of cultural libertarianism" though, is a vision of a Jeffersonian democracy. A limited state full of equal citizens (maybe a small subset of the whole population or a state of limited size altogether). Citizens are proportionally stronger and more independent. It's a republic of farmers, and (despite the fact that Jefferson was an elitist) fundamentally anti-elite.
What's really interesting, though, is that this sort of vision consistently gets labeled "populism". From Jefferson himself onward, anyone who pushes a libertarian vision is called a populist.
Some people who identify as populists do have a libertarian streak, and, to their credit, most blue collar populists in the US are more capitalism-friendly than the Sohrab Ahmari types would like, but I wouldn't overestimate the overlap in that Venn diagram. J.D. Vance, for example, sounds more like a Marxist than a Hayekian, and a sad fact is that historically populists often fall for a sort of Marxist way of thinking. Relative to 'traditional' conservatism (e.g., Ronald Reagan), populists are probably a a step in the wrong direction from a libertarian standpoint.
"The left believes in a democracy where the people elect to be ruled by experts." You must be assuming that, besides their technical expertise, the experts will favor DEI.
Yglesias: "But it then also pushes lots of students who might have attended the lower-tier UC schools out of the UC system altogether. And when you drop out of the system into other schools, you’re not only talking about a different cohort of peers; you’re talking about a different level of resources dedicated to students.
To flag a point that I’ll return to later, part of the harm that Bleemer is identifying is the perversity of the American system of higher education financing — we deliver the fewest resources to the students who need the most help."
Wouldn't the better approach be to reform the UC system, then, rather than maintain differential racial admissions policies? If the problem is that kids at lower-tier universities don't get the support they need, "just admit them to higher tier universities" seems like a second best solution. Are you telling me poor white or Asian students wouldn't benefit from additional resources, as well?
Alas, I'm not sure I buy Yglesias' story that academic mismatch is a myth, either. Let's put aside the strong possibility of motivated reasoning on the part of academics who study the issue. I suspect that some of these "additional resources" at more selective colleges simply amount to a lot of hand-holding and rule-bending for minority students. If you were to compare the trajectories for minority students who attended more selective colleges and then got a degree vs those who didn't, wouldn't better outcomes be exactly what you'd expect? After all, as he notes, credentialism is a thing. Perhaps I am missing something here, but I don't have time to actually dive into any of the research he's citing.
The Founders missed an opportunity in allowing the House to be elected by popular vote. The popular vote should have been done at the state level legislatures, just like the Senate was set up originally. Of course, given the later amendment changing the Senate elections, it might not have held. Our federal goverment would probably be better functioning were there an additional layer of representatives between the federal offices and the people themselves. The same would probably be true of the Presidency as well. That disconnection between the elected state governments and federal government has served us ill.
Wise deference is crucial to a healthy democracy because most voters lack time or competence to become well-informed about complex policy issues.
Wise deference amounts to having good reason to trust person X about complex policy issues. Trust comprises (a) trust in person X's *competence* (expertise, judgment) and (b) trust in person X's *motivations* (values).
The great challenge is to decide whom to trust when trustworthy persons -- persons who exhibit both competence and a scout mentality -- disagree about complex policy issues. What am I (who am nobody) to think when Arnold Kling and Tyler Cowen disagree about mechanisms and prospects for inflation? (I've decided to trust Arnold. But why?)
Doubtless, polarization entrenched by soldier mentalities is a major problem. But good-faith non-experts are perplexed by disagreement among experts who analyze issues fairly and humbly. And such disagreements open the field to soldier mentality and polarization.