Scott A. vs. Tyler on Ukraine; Scott Sumner on Ukraine; Robert Wright and Freddie deBoer on Ukraine; Luke Burgis on hot capital; Tanner Greer on Ukraine
I watched the Mearsheimer video when it was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago, and I do not think Sumner is giving a fair or accurate summation of Meirsheimer's arguments. His position was that Putin would not try to occupy Ukraine, not there would be no invasion. These are two different things. Secondly, Meirsheimer's criticism of NATO expansion is not that it is sinister, but that it extends security guarantees to countries of little strategic interest to the West but which Russia views rightly or wrongly as being in its sphere of influence, creating conflict that is high risk low reward. Ditto for Ukraine joining the EU.
Frankly, I think Sumner watched a different video than I did, and if I were doing the scoring I'd give him negative fantasy points for that post.
In today's blogpost, and in yesterday's ("Safe Haven No More"), Arnold Kling offers sharp insights about political psychology, incentives, and unintended consequences. He highlights the "Do something!" bias in emergency response.
Do his insights square with his recent analysis of state-capacity libertarianism?:
"Competent governance during pandemics, power outages, and other emergencies would diminish calls for greater government intervention during times of crisis."—Arnold Kling, "State Capacity and Accountability" (3 January 2022).
Consider several empirical generalizations that inform Arnold's analyses:
1. Fear drives intervention.
2. We construe social conflicts as moral dyads: a deliberate agent vs a feeling victim.
3. Banks depend on partnership with government.
4. Elites, perhaps via college, constitute a broad, informal bloc (across government, finance, media, firms, orgs, academe, cultural institutions, entertainment).
5. Information technology (Twitter etc) enables broad elites quickly to coordinate on a moral dyad and to pressure all institutions to cancel the bad actor.
Taken together, these mechanisms crowd out competent governance and greatly increase the scope of intervention during times of crisis.
Zelensky even gives these people awards. I also didn't know until recently that the guy had a 31% approval rating right before the war started and was considered the hack frontman for a manipulator oligarch. That the country was going bankrupt.
I think Ukraine is a backward gangster state where the two gangs feud over who is top dog and nothing more. They should probably split up. Either way we shouldn't have a dog in the fight over which gang wins.
Re: "bad guys are bad," let me try and steelman the Wright argument. I think steelman-Wright would say that:
1. yes, bad guys are bad, but it matters what kinds of bad they choose to be, and how effective they are in being that.
2. when the less-bad guys (hopefully, "we") fall short of what (arguably) should be our own standards, it gives the bad guys more excuses to do even worse things, and more ways to generate support for their doing so.
So for instance, the Iraq war and the 1999 bombing of Belgrade were better-intentioned and harmed civilians less than what Putin has done in Chechnya, Syria, and now Ukraine. But they arguably gave him excuses for doing those things and helped him build Russian support. If you believe that the Iraq and Yugoslavia actions were wrong in themselves, this is one more reason to oppose them; and even if you supported them morally, this should count among their costs prudentially.
An analogous argument might apply for those of us who oppose Trump wrt Clintonian corruption. What Trump has done was, on the anti-Trump view, obviously much worse than anything either Clinton ever did. But a Trump opponent can nonetheless be mad at the Democratic establishment for turning a blind eye to the Clintons' corruption, on the grounds that it helped Trump get away with his even worse corruption by giving him an excuse and making him look "not so bad" in comparison.
> "Incidentally, Rothman writes for Commentary, a publication known as a home for Neocons, notorious for being interventionist. If Rothman is more cautious than the Twitter mob, that tells you something."
Alternate hypothesis: Neocons are uncomfortable with non-governmental reaction for the same reason they're interventionists. They're power hungry and their power stems from government monopoly on force and being an "established voice" (i.e. recognized lobbyists) of various interests.
They'd love to put the genie back in for exactly the same reasons that Putin hurriedly trying to roll back modern Russia into the Soviet era police state.
<i>It’s not just the non-profit sector. Eighteen years ago, I wrote
My theory is that the political process preys on fear. A politician identifies something that constituents might perceive as a threat. Next, the politician "markets" the threat, playing up its importance. Then, the politician says, "If you are afraid of this threat, then vote for me." The politician's proposal for addressing the threat typically involves expanded government activity, which often does more harm than good. Rinse, soak, repeat.</i>
I don't even think politicians are the cause. It's the news media. Whenever there's a slow news day, Big Media will make up an alleged "crisis" and start trying to convince you and me it exists. The "why" is simple: emergencies (real or phony) sell papers and get people to read them or turn on the TV. Of course when one of them does start to be believed, there are all the politicians, and the lawyers too, circling like vultures to see whom they can attack while we are distracted.
The media don't care how much this damages the market or society; they just want to get your blood pressure up so they can exploit you. And neither do the politicians or lawyers.
This is how Big Media came to be in bed with authoritarians. But there is a cure. Burn your TV.
Scott Alexander critiques Cowen for not making clearer predictions, but his prediction was "50/50" that Russia invades Ukraine- that isn't a prediction- even saying "90/10" isn't really a prediction. A prediction is either yes or no. As for the other predictions he critiques, the ones he claims are wrong about weak resistance aren't really wrong yet- we are ten days into the invasion with no real insight into the actual Russian strategy being followed.
As for me- I was wrong- I said explicitly that Russia wouldn't invade, and then I compounded the mistake it by saying that Russia would only annex the separatist territories when they did invade. I have also predicted that the Russians will succeed in whatever their goal turns out to be. I stand by that last prediction.
Outside of the Alexander essay, the idea that this invasion could have been avoided by the West not pushing NATO to the Russian border is clearly a correct one. The entire idea expanding NATO this way was ludicrous overreach by the US and its allies and served no useful purpose other than to antagonize the Russians. It made the world more dangerous, not less, as events of the last 2 weeks clearly demonstrate.
The new ideas are old axioms . Consider these two observations made some 80 years ago:
From Churchill:
"Never let a good crisis go to waste"
From H L Mencken:
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
If crisis elevates the power of the state should we not be surprised to see nations in constant crisis? Adam Smith observed governments have a massive capacity for destruction saying in context of the British / American conflict:
"There is a great deal of ruin in a nation"
So what is the "Western" interest in the Russia / Ukraine conflict? Do American leaders want peace? Or do they want a crisis? Well, consider the dilemmat Democrats have with energy prices and their anti-fossil fuel platform. High gas prices are bad in the political short-term, but they serve the goal of "weaning" Americans off fossil fuels.
Consider this statement by the Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm in regards to energy priorities and ask yourself, if high gas prices encourage the desired energy transition, is the current administration opposed to high prices if they can be blamed on "world events?"
"We're working through an energy transition...The reality is, we have to take some time to get off of oil and gas, we recognize this. This is a transition."
I watched the Mearsheimer video when it was making the rounds a couple of weeks ago, and I do not think Sumner is giving a fair or accurate summation of Meirsheimer's arguments. His position was that Putin would not try to occupy Ukraine, not there would be no invasion. These are two different things. Secondly, Meirsheimer's criticism of NATO expansion is not that it is sinister, but that it extends security guarantees to countries of little strategic interest to the West but which Russia views rightly or wrongly as being in its sphere of influence, creating conflict that is high risk low reward. Ditto for Ukraine joining the EU.
Frankly, I think Sumner watched a different video than I did, and if I were doing the scoring I'd give him negative fantasy points for that post.
In today's blogpost, and in yesterday's ("Safe Haven No More"), Arnold Kling offers sharp insights about political psychology, incentives, and unintended consequences. He highlights the "Do something!" bias in emergency response.
Do his insights square with his recent analysis of state-capacity libertarianism?:
"Competent governance during pandemics, power outages, and other emergencies would diminish calls for greater government intervention during times of crisis."—Arnold Kling, "State Capacity and Accountability" (3 January 2022).
Consider several empirical generalizations that inform Arnold's analyses:
1. Fear drives intervention.
2. We construe social conflicts as moral dyads: a deliberate agent vs a feeling victim.
3. Banks depend on partnership with government.
4. Elites, perhaps via college, constitute a broad, informal bloc (across government, finance, media, firms, orgs, academe, cultural institutions, entertainment).
5. Information technology (Twitter etc) enables broad elites quickly to coordinate on a moral dyad and to pressure all institutions to cancel the bad actor.
Taken together, these mechanisms crowd out competent governance and greatly increase the scope of intervention during times of crisis.
Kling vs Kling?
Who are the good guys supposed to be in Ukraine?
The more I learn about Ukraine, the more I don't see one.
Putin calling them neo-Nazi's is made fun of, but then I go on YouTube and find that was the opinion of places like Time and the BBC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE6b4ao8gAQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SBo0akeDMY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy910FG46C4
Not only did these people help overthrow the government and brutalize the Donbass, but they also burned Russian protestors in Odessa alive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec0mgpwW6_Y
Zelensky even gives these people awards. I also didn't know until recently that the guy had a 31% approval rating right before the war started and was considered the hack frontman for a manipulator oligarch. That the country was going bankrupt.
https://mate.substack.com/p/by-using-ukraine-to-fight-russia?s=r
https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/04/nazis-ukrainian-war-russia/
I think Ukraine is a backward gangster state where the two gangs feud over who is top dog and nothing more. They should probably split up. Either way we shouldn't have a dog in the fight over which gang wins.
Re: "bad guys are bad," let me try and steelman the Wright argument. I think steelman-Wright would say that:
1. yes, bad guys are bad, but it matters what kinds of bad they choose to be, and how effective they are in being that.
2. when the less-bad guys (hopefully, "we") fall short of what (arguably) should be our own standards, it gives the bad guys more excuses to do even worse things, and more ways to generate support for their doing so.
So for instance, the Iraq war and the 1999 bombing of Belgrade were better-intentioned and harmed civilians less than what Putin has done in Chechnya, Syria, and now Ukraine. But they arguably gave him excuses for doing those things and helped him build Russian support. If you believe that the Iraq and Yugoslavia actions were wrong in themselves, this is one more reason to oppose them; and even if you supported them morally, this should count among their costs prudentially.
An analogous argument might apply for those of us who oppose Trump wrt Clintonian corruption. What Trump has done was, on the anti-Trump view, obviously much worse than anything either Clinton ever did. But a Trump opponent can nonetheless be mad at the Democratic establishment for turning a blind eye to the Clintons' corruption, on the grounds that it helped Trump get away with his even worse corruption by giving him an excuse and making him look "not so bad" in comparison.
Kicking Anna Netrebko doesn't even *feel* good.
> "Incidentally, Rothman writes for Commentary, a publication known as a home for Neocons, notorious for being interventionist. If Rothman is more cautious than the Twitter mob, that tells you something."
Alternate hypothesis: Neocons are uncomfortable with non-governmental reaction for the same reason they're interventionists. They're power hungry and their power stems from government monopoly on force and being an "established voice" (i.e. recognized lobbyists) of various interests.
They'd love to put the genie back in for exactly the same reasons that Putin hurriedly trying to roll back modern Russia into the Soviet era police state.
<i>It’s not just the non-profit sector. Eighteen years ago, I wrote
My theory is that the political process preys on fear. A politician identifies something that constituents might perceive as a threat. Next, the politician "markets" the threat, playing up its importance. Then, the politician says, "If you are afraid of this threat, then vote for me." The politician's proposal for addressing the threat typically involves expanded government activity, which often does more harm than good. Rinse, soak, repeat.</i>
I don't even think politicians are the cause. It's the news media. Whenever there's a slow news day, Big Media will make up an alleged "crisis" and start trying to convince you and me it exists. The "why" is simple: emergencies (real or phony) sell papers and get people to read them or turn on the TV. Of course when one of them does start to be believed, there are all the politicians, and the lawyers too, circling like vultures to see whom they can attack while we are distracted.
The media don't care how much this damages the market or society; they just want to get your blood pressure up so they can exploit you. And neither do the politicians or lawyers.
This is how Big Media came to be in bed with authoritarians. But there is a cure. Burn your TV.
Scott Alexander critiques Cowen for not making clearer predictions, but his prediction was "50/50" that Russia invades Ukraine- that isn't a prediction- even saying "90/10" isn't really a prediction. A prediction is either yes or no. As for the other predictions he critiques, the ones he claims are wrong about weak resistance aren't really wrong yet- we are ten days into the invasion with no real insight into the actual Russian strategy being followed.
As for me- I was wrong- I said explicitly that Russia wouldn't invade, and then I compounded the mistake it by saying that Russia would only annex the separatist territories when they did invade. I have also predicted that the Russians will succeed in whatever their goal turns out to be. I stand by that last prediction.
Outside of the Alexander essay, the idea that this invasion could have been avoided by the West not pushing NATO to the Russian border is clearly a correct one. The entire idea expanding NATO this way was ludicrous overreach by the US and its allies and served no useful purpose other than to antagonize the Russians. It made the world more dangerous, not less, as events of the last 2 weeks clearly demonstrate.
The new ideas are old axioms . Consider these two observations made some 80 years ago:
From Churchill:
"Never let a good crisis go to waste"
From H L Mencken:
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
If crisis elevates the power of the state should we not be surprised to see nations in constant crisis? Adam Smith observed governments have a massive capacity for destruction saying in context of the British / American conflict:
"There is a great deal of ruin in a nation"
So what is the "Western" interest in the Russia / Ukraine conflict? Do American leaders want peace? Or do they want a crisis? Well, consider the dilemmat Democrats have with energy prices and their anti-fossil fuel platform. High gas prices are bad in the political short-term, but they serve the goal of "weaning" Americans off fossil fuels.
Consider this statement by the Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm in regards to energy priorities and ask yourself, if high gas prices encourage the desired energy transition, is the current administration opposed to high prices if they can be blamed on "world events?"
"We're working through an energy transition...The reality is, we have to take some time to get off of oil and gas, we recognize this. This is a transition."