TLP watch; Tyler Cowen on how to get rich; Bill Galston on abortion politics; Matt Yglesias on Democrats moving left; Glenn Greenwald on arms for Ukraine
"The problem that Democrats have is that they make “always legal” sound like the whole point is to demonize religious people."
The whole point is to defend a maximalist interpretation of individualism and sexual telos that is at odds with most people and requires a genocide to maintain.
People don't just want abortions. They want ABSOLUTION. They want to be told that their abortion was CORRECT. That there was NOTHING WRONG WITH IT. Further, there was NOTHING WRONG WITH THE ACTIONS THAT LED TO THE ABORTION.
"Safe, legal, rare" doesn't absolve guilt or justify modern sexual mores, so it's a non starter. Pragmatic libertarian arguments don't make hooking up on tinder and getting knocked up something one shouldn't be ashamed of.
One of the biggest reasons I stopped being a libertarian is I found their views on social issues to be wrong. Especially sexual morality. The traditional views about sex and marriage are just superior in every way to the libertarian ones. We've got enough data at this point to realize that the sexual revolution had too many externalities to it for it to have been freedom enhancing overall.
The trouble with economists, and other social scientists, is that they only demonstrate their humble self doubt when it comes to their own money. When it comes to dealing with everyone else's lives they are more than willing to get up to their elbows in there and tell us how we should be making decisions.
There is something a little strange to me about how much the American left keeps arguing that it hasn't moved left. Conservatives constantly bemoan that their politicians have drifted left, or at least are not moving right enough, but somehow with the left the defense is "Hey, we are not nearly so serious about our ideological commitments as you think!" Possibly it is a defensive reaction to how unpopular the far left progressive politics have become, but one wonders too how much is driven by a "don't look behind the curtain" desire to hide what they actually want to do. That is, they don't need to convince their base that they are moving in their direction, but rather convince everyone from the middle to the right that they are not trying to do a lot of things they definitely do not like.
Michael Shellenberger is probably the best we could hope for in a politician. Perhaps because he's not really a politician. I agree with your assessment that he has no chance.
Re: "I don’t believe that you can legislate the age of viability, nor do I want a court to have to determine what qualifies as special circumstances. I think that abortion should be always legal."
In various blogposts, and in your National Affairs essay, "Designing a Better Regulatory State," you make a case that greater complexity in modern life requires regulation.
Here is an excerpt from your essay:
"While the conservative critique of the regulatory state is not unfounded, from a historical perspective, the rise of regulation — and the attendant rise in the need for institutions to develop, adopt, and enforce new rules — was a necessary response to the dramatic changes that took place in our society after the founding. Such changes led to an increase in the complexity of daily life and, in turn, a rise in the complexity of the challenges facing our governing institutions."
I submit that changes in technology around contraception, pharmacological termination of pregnancy, safe surgical abortion, diagnosis of genetic markers in utero, "viability," and imaging of a fetus in utero exemplify "a rise in the complexity of the challenges facing our governing institutions."
What is the special case that would justify absence of regulation in this context?
In a recent post about abortion (May 6th), you wrote:
"I think that the libertarian approach is to leave the decision to the parents. [...] I would rather trust parents to come up with the right decision for their circumstances."
By contrast, in your post today, you allocate decision-authority to "the woman" (rather than to "the parents"):
"my pragmatic libertarian argument that the woman involved is in a better position to know the circumstances than a judge or a legislator or a poll of the people not involved."
The shift of decision-authority from the a joint-decision of the parents to a decision by the mother is de facto a change in regulation.
There is a complexity case for regulation. The more fundamental issue is whether there is a case for prohibition, given widely held beliefs that a fetus is a uniquely vulnerable person who deserves equal protection.
It's not about being devoid of offensive threats. A country tied for first place in the world in nuclear arsenal size has no need to worry about offensive threats. Just the other day in the ODKB meeting, Putin shrugged off Sweden and Finland joining NATO despite Finland bringing NATO within 50 miles of St. Petersburg and adding almost a thousand miles of direct border with NATO to Russia. No, would-be Putin-verstehers such as Abelow ought to read what Putin himself said in his war speech on 24/02, what he wrote about Ukraine last year, and what his propagandists wrote this year, for example the canned article that was un-published on the third morning of the invasion (https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html) and the one published last month (https://web.archive.org/web/20220403223221/https://ria.ru/20220403/ukraina-1781469605.html - it is so egregious that it has its own Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Russia_should_do_with_Ukraine). Google Translate is good enough now. Note that both of the latter articles are on RIA, Russia's official information agency and the direct organizational successor of Sovinform. This sort of thing can't be dismissed as "bad cops" (where's the "good cop"?) or random pundits blowing off steam in their blogs. It does not, of course, oblige America to follow any particular policy - no amount of facts obliges anyone to pursue any course of action, it's a logical error to think otherwise whatever some philosophers say - but one can be reasonably sure that Ukrainians are very grateful to America for promising them 5% of the vast yearly deluge of grift that is American defense spending to defend themselves.
> I don’t believe that you can legislate the age of viability, nor do I want a court to have to determine what qualifies as special circumstances. I think that abortion should be always legal.
I agree in principle that sometimes we are confronted with very heavy moral choices, and that we should avoid punishing people who have had to make an impossible decision. But this in particular is a bad standard both morally and politically.
Morally you are going to be permitting some very obviously evil things, e.g. abortion right before baby is due. That baby is going to feel pain while it dies.
Politically, having a federal ruling on the legality of abortion has turned it into a major political football. Returning that power to the states is most likely going to de-escalate the conflict overall.
I'm not saying I know what the criteria should be. I mean, personally I think it should be outlawed from conception except for medical emergency, but I recognize that without a culture that broadly understands the immorality of abortion imposing such a stringent policy policy is going to be a losing battle.
I expect that within 100 years Americans will view abortion much the same way we view slavery today. Between better imaging, better care for premature babies, more reliable birth control, etc, the culture has changed and will continue to change.
I admit to being very confused about abortion – or the morality of it to be precise. (I'm fine, in practice, with it being generally legal.)
This isn't intended as a gotcha, but if you sincerely believe that "abortion should be always legal", do you also think that infanticide should be illegal? There was a 'cute' philosophy (?) paper within the past few years (?) that argued that infanticide should be legal. I don't remember if it was also intended to be an obvious or even deliberate 'reductio ad absurdum' too, but I just can't see that that conclusion is _obviously_ wrong – not when starting from what seem like the common premises/principles that I observe people invoking most often.
The obvious objection to infanticide is that birth/delivery is special, or even if not exactly special, it's still a clear, bright line/standard.
I think that, if I knew of some people – in truly desperate circumstances – that had engaged in infanticide, I wouldn't find it obvious to prosecute them for that, even as terrible as infanticide seems to me.
It really does seem like that abortion just wasn't much a moral-political issue ever, all throughout history, until very recently. And, given my confusion about the morality or ethics of 'potential people', I'm not sure there _is_ a coherent and consistent moral or ethical understanding of abortion and related topics – not one that would agree with all of the various moral intuitions people seem to have. Is not avoiding conception equivalent to pre-emptive abortion? Do people have a moral obligation to create as many people as possible? My intuition is that it's not and we don't, but I'm less sure that there isn't a kind of 'distributed obligation' for _someone_ to have kids at all. I certainly would consider it sad if, e.g. literally everyone decided not to have kids. But I also wouldn't think that _forcing_ anyone to have kids would be much of an improvement to that (very unrealistic) scenario.
Less directly related, I thought Dave Chapelle made a great point in one of his recentish specials about how, if women have a unilateral right to an abortion (or to _not_ have an abortion), then biological father's shouldn't be legally (or morally) compelled to support them (e.g. financially).
Re Abelow/Ukraine: I don't accept his equivalency. A US military response to Russian encroachment in North America is justified because the US is strong. A Russian military response to Western encroachment in Europe is unjustified because Russia is weak. I think everyone understands this asymmetry. Indeed, Western Europe sat on the sidelines at the beginning of the conflict precisely because this fact was not yet clear. If Russia had been strong and rapidly conquered the Ukraine, everyone would have conceded Abelow's point. Since Russia was weak and was unable to subdue Ukraine, everyone concluded that the Russian offensive is unjustified. Weak countries don't have any right to a zone around their border devoid of offensive threats. Only regional superpowers have such a right.
On the Ukraine question(s) I've found that non-US/Western Europe sources have been much more useful to understand the reasons for invasion. Almost none of them cite NATO as a major reason. A good Twitter feed to follow is former Estonia president Toomas Ilves (https://twitter.com/IlvesToomas). The Estonians have lived under constant harassment from Russia so they are familiar with Russian maneuvers in a way that the West is not and their BS meter is more finely tuned. Another good source is Claire Berlinski (https://claireberlinski.substack.com). I finally unsubscribed from Greenwald as the proportion of garbage just got too high (not just on Ukraine). The easy Russian acceptance of Sweden and Finland into NATO is another indicator of Russian rhetorical credibility.
As far as keeping the war funding going, I believe there is risk, but it is probably worth it. As long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight there is at least some US moral responsibility to help based on the Budapest Memorandum. No matter what Putin and Russia are going to be viewed as war criminals. So the rules of engagement are going to change. If the Ukrainians beat the Russians the dollar cost will be small compared to the value for the US (and the world).
I'm a chicken, too, about buying* puts on the economy. Wish I had more money, glad I chose marriage & kids & family over more money-grubbing. I didn't come to Slovakia to get rich, and have succeeded at that.
"I fear that our countrymen have caught war fever, and I wish that could be cured."
Maybe getting more Americans killed in Biden's Excellent Adventure in Somalia might work after a few months and a dozen or more body bags come back.
Most Americans are truly happy to fight Evil Russian Putin to last UKRAINIAN in a body bag. Because it seems many Ukrainians are, too, sending them weapons is "the least we can do". Plus there's virtue signaling, who supports the brave Ukrainians the most. (We recently donated a few boxes of summer clothes for a Ukrainian refugee center at my wife's college.)
Inter-country wars might actually cease when borders are internationally secure and respected and the oligarch decision makers know there will be a heavy financial cost to any invasion. Supporting Ukraine now is the cheapest, and possibly lowest death way to protect Taiwan during the lives of Putin and Xi.
As Matt says "It’s very hard to reason clearly about the world if you don’t start by acknowledging the reality." But if the goal is to get power, unreasonable emotions are more effective. That's what the Democrats are doing. Reality? Like boys OR girls? Magic thinking is far more fun.
*tiny typo: buy puts, not by puts (nor by putting).
"trying to inflict maximum defeat on Russia will not end well."
Status quo ante bellum is not "maximum defeat" on Russia. It IS quite embarrassing for Mr. Putin, but what's the good of being an autocrat if not to suffer embarrassment without losing your job?
"my pragmatic libertarian argument that the woman involved is in a better position to know the circumstances than a judge or a legislator or a poll of the people not involved" plus making clear that they are ALSO trying to create the environment where that right would seldom have to be exercised. That's not Kavanaugh's position and there no reason not to call him out on it.
Shallenberger sound like he has the right orientation, but I wonder how that plays out in specific tradeoffs. I think that protecting the vulnerable (redistribution in general) need have only very small negative trade-off on liberty-economic growth and protecting civilization positive tradeoff.
"I think that we tend to be risk averse and have too much self-doubt. Last night, when I discussed with two other economists the current state of financial markets, we came up with a lot of reasons to buy put options on stocks and bonds. But none of us had done so."
The problem is not so much self-doubt as lack of knowledge.
Separately, the only reason to buy puts (as opposed to going short) is if you think option vol is cheap. I doubt if most economists have strong opinions of the relative value of implied versus actual volatility.
Arnold, I understand this position to mean that as long as the baby is in the woman, the woman owns the baby's life. I do not object to this perspective in the early months of a pregnancy. However, when the baby could live independent of the woman, it does not seem morally right for the woman to persist in claiming ownership of the baby's life. This labeling creates a range or moral / legal paradoxes.
Last week in Baltimore a pregnant woman was shot. She died. Her baby was delivered alive. What if the woman had a living will and in it she had declared her baby should not be born alive?
Sorry kid, you should have never been born. Society will now rectify the mistake ...
"The problem that Democrats have is that they make “always legal” sound like the whole point is to demonize religious people."
The whole point is to defend a maximalist interpretation of individualism and sexual telos that is at odds with most people and requires a genocide to maintain.
People don't just want abortions. They want ABSOLUTION. They want to be told that their abortion was CORRECT. That there was NOTHING WRONG WITH IT. Further, there was NOTHING WRONG WITH THE ACTIONS THAT LED TO THE ABORTION.
"Safe, legal, rare" doesn't absolve guilt or justify modern sexual mores, so it's a non starter. Pragmatic libertarian arguments don't make hooking up on tinder and getting knocked up something one shouldn't be ashamed of.
One of the biggest reasons I stopped being a libertarian is I found their views on social issues to be wrong. Especially sexual morality. The traditional views about sex and marriage are just superior in every way to the libertarian ones. We've got enough data at this point to realize that the sexual revolution had too many externalities to it for it to have been freedom enhancing overall.
The trouble with economists, and other social scientists, is that they only demonstrate their humble self doubt when it comes to their own money. When it comes to dealing with everyone else's lives they are more than willing to get up to their elbows in there and tell us how we should be making decisions.
There is something a little strange to me about how much the American left keeps arguing that it hasn't moved left. Conservatives constantly bemoan that their politicians have drifted left, or at least are not moving right enough, but somehow with the left the defense is "Hey, we are not nearly so serious about our ideological commitments as you think!" Possibly it is a defensive reaction to how unpopular the far left progressive politics have become, but one wonders too how much is driven by a "don't look behind the curtain" desire to hide what they actually want to do. That is, they don't need to convince their base that they are moving in their direction, but rather convince everyone from the middle to the right that they are not trying to do a lot of things they definitely do not like.
Michael Shellenberger is probably the best we could hope for in a politician. Perhaps because he's not really a politician. I agree with your assessment that he has no chance.
Re: "I don’t believe that you can legislate the age of viability, nor do I want a court to have to determine what qualifies as special circumstances. I think that abortion should be always legal."
In various blogposts, and in your National Affairs essay, "Designing a Better Regulatory State," you make a case that greater complexity in modern life requires regulation.
Here is an excerpt from your essay:
"While the conservative critique of the regulatory state is not unfounded, from a historical perspective, the rise of regulation — and the attendant rise in the need for institutions to develop, adopt, and enforce new rules — was a necessary response to the dramatic changes that took place in our society after the founding. Such changes led to an increase in the complexity of daily life and, in turn, a rise in the complexity of the challenges facing our governing institutions."
https://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/designing-a-better-regulatory-state
I submit that changes in technology around contraception, pharmacological termination of pregnancy, safe surgical abortion, diagnosis of genetic markers in utero, "viability," and imaging of a fetus in utero exemplify "a rise in the complexity of the challenges facing our governing institutions."
What is the special case that would justify absence of regulation in this context?
In a recent post about abortion (May 6th), you wrote:
"I think that the libertarian approach is to leave the decision to the parents. [...] I would rather trust parents to come up with the right decision for their circumstances."
By contrast, in your post today, you allocate decision-authority to "the woman" (rather than to "the parents"):
"my pragmatic libertarian argument that the woman involved is in a better position to know the circumstances than a judge or a legislator or a poll of the people not involved."
The shift of decision-authority from the a joint-decision of the parents to a decision by the mother is de facto a change in regulation.
There is a complexity case for regulation. The more fundamental issue is whether there is a case for prohibition, given widely held beliefs that a fetus is a uniquely vulnerable person who deserves equal protection.
It's not about being devoid of offensive threats. A country tied for first place in the world in nuclear arsenal size has no need to worry about offensive threats. Just the other day in the ODKB meeting, Putin shrugged off Sweden and Finland joining NATO despite Finland bringing NATO within 50 miles of St. Petersburg and adding almost a thousand miles of direct border with NATO to Russia. No, would-be Putin-verstehers such as Abelow ought to read what Putin himself said in his war speech on 24/02, what he wrote about Ukraine last year, and what his propagandists wrote this year, for example the canned article that was un-published on the third morning of the invasion (https://web.archive.org/web/20220226224717/https://ria.ru/20220226/rossiya-1775162336.html) and the one published last month (https://web.archive.org/web/20220403223221/https://ria.ru/20220403/ukraina-1781469605.html - it is so egregious that it has its own Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Russia_should_do_with_Ukraine). Google Translate is good enough now. Note that both of the latter articles are on RIA, Russia's official information agency and the direct organizational successor of Sovinform. This sort of thing can't be dismissed as "bad cops" (where's the "good cop"?) or random pundits blowing off steam in their blogs. It does not, of course, oblige America to follow any particular policy - no amount of facts obliges anyone to pursue any course of action, it's a logical error to think otherwise whatever some philosophers say - but one can be reasonably sure that Ukrainians are very grateful to America for promising them 5% of the vast yearly deluge of grift that is American defense spending to defend themselves.
> I don’t believe that you can legislate the age of viability, nor do I want a court to have to determine what qualifies as special circumstances. I think that abortion should be always legal.
I agree in principle that sometimes we are confronted with very heavy moral choices, and that we should avoid punishing people who have had to make an impossible decision. But this in particular is a bad standard both morally and politically.
Morally you are going to be permitting some very obviously evil things, e.g. abortion right before baby is due. That baby is going to feel pain while it dies.
Politically, having a federal ruling on the legality of abortion has turned it into a major political football. Returning that power to the states is most likely going to de-escalate the conflict overall.
I'm not saying I know what the criteria should be. I mean, personally I think it should be outlawed from conception except for medical emergency, but I recognize that without a culture that broadly understands the immorality of abortion imposing such a stringent policy policy is going to be a losing battle.
I expect that within 100 years Americans will view abortion much the same way we view slavery today. Between better imaging, better care for premature babies, more reliable birth control, etc, the culture has changed and will continue to change.
I admit to being very confused about abortion – or the morality of it to be precise. (I'm fine, in practice, with it being generally legal.)
This isn't intended as a gotcha, but if you sincerely believe that "abortion should be always legal", do you also think that infanticide should be illegal? There was a 'cute' philosophy (?) paper within the past few years (?) that argued that infanticide should be legal. I don't remember if it was also intended to be an obvious or even deliberate 'reductio ad absurdum' too, but I just can't see that that conclusion is _obviously_ wrong – not when starting from what seem like the common premises/principles that I observe people invoking most often.
The obvious objection to infanticide is that birth/delivery is special, or even if not exactly special, it's still a clear, bright line/standard.
I think that, if I knew of some people – in truly desperate circumstances – that had engaged in infanticide, I wouldn't find it obvious to prosecute them for that, even as terrible as infanticide seems to me.
David Chapman has written a bit about the rise of anti-abortion politics; one example: https://meaningness.com/schaeffers-religious-right
It really does seem like that abortion just wasn't much a moral-political issue ever, all throughout history, until very recently. And, given my confusion about the morality or ethics of 'potential people', I'm not sure there _is_ a coherent and consistent moral or ethical understanding of abortion and related topics – not one that would agree with all of the various moral intuitions people seem to have. Is not avoiding conception equivalent to pre-emptive abortion? Do people have a moral obligation to create as many people as possible? My intuition is that it's not and we don't, but I'm less sure that there isn't a kind of 'distributed obligation' for _someone_ to have kids at all. I certainly would consider it sad if, e.g. literally everyone decided not to have kids. But I also wouldn't think that _forcing_ anyone to have kids would be much of an improvement to that (very unrealistic) scenario.
Less directly related, I thought Dave Chapelle made a great point in one of his recentish specials about how, if women have a unilateral right to an abortion (or to _not_ have an abortion), then biological father's shouldn't be legally (or morally) compelled to support them (e.g. financially).
Re Abelow/Ukraine: I don't accept his equivalency. A US military response to Russian encroachment in North America is justified because the US is strong. A Russian military response to Western encroachment in Europe is unjustified because Russia is weak. I think everyone understands this asymmetry. Indeed, Western Europe sat on the sidelines at the beginning of the conflict precisely because this fact was not yet clear. If Russia had been strong and rapidly conquered the Ukraine, everyone would have conceded Abelow's point. Since Russia was weak and was unable to subdue Ukraine, everyone concluded that the Russian offensive is unjustified. Weak countries don't have any right to a zone around their border devoid of offensive threats. Only regional superpowers have such a right.
On the Ukraine question(s) I've found that non-US/Western Europe sources have been much more useful to understand the reasons for invasion. Almost none of them cite NATO as a major reason. A good Twitter feed to follow is former Estonia president Toomas Ilves (https://twitter.com/IlvesToomas). The Estonians have lived under constant harassment from Russia so they are familiar with Russian maneuvers in a way that the West is not and their BS meter is more finely tuned. Another good source is Claire Berlinski (https://claireberlinski.substack.com). I finally unsubscribed from Greenwald as the proportion of garbage just got too high (not just on Ukraine). The easy Russian acceptance of Sweden and Finland into NATO is another indicator of Russian rhetorical credibility.
As far as keeping the war funding going, I believe there is risk, but it is probably worth it. As long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight there is at least some US moral responsibility to help based on the Budapest Memorandum. No matter what Putin and Russia are going to be viewed as war criminals. So the rules of engagement are going to change. If the Ukrainians beat the Russians the dollar cost will be small compared to the value for the US (and the world).
I'm a chicken, too, about buying* puts on the economy. Wish I had more money, glad I chose marriage & kids & family over more money-grubbing. I didn't come to Slovakia to get rich, and have succeeded at that.
"I fear that our countrymen have caught war fever, and I wish that could be cured."
Maybe getting more Americans killed in Biden's Excellent Adventure in Somalia might work after a few months and a dozen or more body bags come back.
Most Americans are truly happy to fight Evil Russian Putin to last UKRAINIAN in a body bag. Because it seems many Ukrainians are, too, sending them weapons is "the least we can do". Plus there's virtue signaling, who supports the brave Ukrainians the most. (We recently donated a few boxes of summer clothes for a Ukrainian refugee center at my wife's college.)
Inter-country wars might actually cease when borders are internationally secure and respected and the oligarch decision makers know there will be a heavy financial cost to any invasion. Supporting Ukraine now is the cheapest, and possibly lowest death way to protect Taiwan during the lives of Putin and Xi.
As Matt says "It’s very hard to reason clearly about the world if you don’t start by acknowledging the reality." But if the goal is to get power, unreasonable emotions are more effective. That's what the Democrats are doing. Reality? Like boys OR girls? Magic thinking is far more fun.
*tiny typo: buy puts, not by puts (nor by putting).
"trying to inflict maximum defeat on Russia will not end well."
Status quo ante bellum is not "maximum defeat" on Russia. It IS quite embarrassing for Mr. Putin, but what's the good of being an autocrat if not to suffer embarrassment without losing your job?
"when everyone is enthusiastic to see Putin get slapped around."
"Only enough to get the Russians out of Ukraine. If he changed his policy he should be praised, not slapped.
"my pragmatic libertarian argument that the woman involved is in a better position to know the circumstances than a judge or a legislator or a poll of the people not involved" plus making clear that they are ALSO trying to create the environment where that right would seldom have to be exercised. That's not Kavanaugh's position and there no reason not to call him out on it.
Shallenberger sound like he has the right orientation, but I wonder how that plays out in specific tradeoffs. I think that protecting the vulnerable (redistribution in general) need have only very small negative trade-off on liberty-economic growth and protecting civilization positive tradeoff.
"I think that we tend to be risk averse and have too much self-doubt. Last night, when I discussed with two other economists the current state of financial markets, we came up with a lot of reasons to buy put options on stocks and bonds. But none of us had done so."
The problem is not so much self-doubt as lack of knowledge.
Separately, the only reason to buy puts (as opposed to going short) is if you think option vol is cheap. I doubt if most economists have strong opinions of the relative value of implied versus actual volatility.
"I think that abortion should be always legal."
Arnold, I understand this position to mean that as long as the baby is in the woman, the woman owns the baby's life. I do not object to this perspective in the early months of a pregnancy. However, when the baby could live independent of the woman, it does not seem morally right for the woman to persist in claiming ownership of the baby's life. This labeling creates a range or moral / legal paradoxes.
Last week in Baltimore a pregnant woman was shot. She died. Her baby was delivered alive. What if the woman had a living will and in it she had declared her baby should not be born alive?
Sorry kid, you should have never been born. Society will now rectify the mistake ...