Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Woke intimidation on campus; Timothy Taylor on "blockbusting"; Vitalik Buterin on BalajiLand; Timothy Taylor on Economists' parents;
"White residents in these neighborhoods were apparently unwilling or unable to sell to blacks directly, and thus accepted a lower prices for their houses."
People selling their houses for 1/2 what they are worth so someone else can flip them and get rich quick because they aren't willing to sell to a black person strains credulity. Quite frankly, its the kind of BS that should get laughed at.
And who’s going to do that? Academic administration has been professionalized (i.e. it is populated by people who have a tenuous connection with the faculty - carpetbaggers) and that asserted silent majority has not incentivized it to act against the intolerant minority. Didn’t Taleb write about the intolerant minority always winning?
> The argument for blockbusting is that it enabled blacks to buy homes that they wanted.
It's an understandable argument, but it's also silly on the part of the arguer and naive on the part of the buyers, because most of the value of homes in block-busted blocks consisted (as today most of the value of homes in 'good school districts' consists) in well-adjusted, well-behaved neighbors rather than in acreage, physical plant, or even location relative to nexuses of business activity etc. This is obvious from reading such period books as Left Behind in Rosedale, from comparing the fate of housing projects in say Chicago and Singapore, and from the experience of gentrification. Basically, buyer communities have three long-term viable options: (i) they can apply effort, enforce rules of good behavior on their own members and create value, (ii) they can remain mired in bad equilibria, or (iii) they can disperse into other communities which perform this work and free ride on the externality. Under the second option, they can be satisfied with keeping their native culture, and/or carp about being stuck in a bad equilibrium and demand that something be done for them. The third and last option works only at low concentrations for obvious reasons. (A stereotypical example is Oak Park, IL.) As concentrations rise, it quickly fails if the first option is not vigorously exercised at the same time, as neighborhood members who do the work of enforcing rules of good behavior flee the influx of free-riders. This includes those new buyers who do attempt to join in this work but are not successful; it's easy to see this outcome as tragic. In sum, buyer groups who aren't willing or able to enforce rules of good behavior on their own members can only make a short-term "profit" (in terms of community standards) by expropriating (perhaps with outside help) part of the "capital" accumulated by those groups who are willing and able to do it. This process can repeat many times as tragic buyers move again and again; in American context, some used to call the resulting pattern of repeated displacements, which is a counterpart of white flight, the 'black undertow'.
> Kick that minority out.
This is another example of a community where the majority is unwilling or unable to enforce its standards of good behavior on everybody, and is stuck in option (ii) above. The more conservative part of the community tends to carping about being stuck in a bad (by its lights) equilibrium and proclaiming that Something Must Be Done, and the more progressive part acquiesces in the standards of behavior being enforced by the minority because it has no substantive disagreements with said minority and only wishes it wouldn't be quite so nasty about enforcement.
*ETA*: to be fair, the legal environment makes it harder for the majority to enforce standards of good behavior, as such enforcement may be classified as creating an unsafe work environment (or whatever the equivalent is in colleges).
Timothy Taylor's remarks on blockbusting concentrate on firms that bought and resold houses. Most real estate agents derive their income from commissions, rather than from taking the risk of buying houses themselves. Blockbusting increased real estate sales and therefore the commissions from sales.
I remember back in the mid '50s when blockbusting was being claimed meeting a professor at UCLA working on the subject. The data didn't match the narrative. The black community in our area had a disadvantage from the HUD mandated red-line directives to the banks from the '30s. However, there was financing available outside government and banks at that time, with a thriving market in first and second trust deeds. My mother was in some of the second trust deed market and never lost money on people she directly selected with her criteria being the "quality of their character".
Other than racial change in the areas of my youth, not much else has changed beyond the trees being larger. Ironically the culture of the people is the same. Pill hill (an expensive area with rich doctors, etc. ) as we called it is still occupied by highly educated doctors/lawyers, etc. and other upper middle class people whose value systems and culture are the same. My public schools when down hill requiring more private schools and charter schools in the area.
>>Kick that minority out. If they are so determined to undermine the function of the university, then they don’t belong there.
What you're calling for is viewpoint discrimination--which is itself contrary to the mission of the university, and a huge part of the problem with universities today.
There's a strong correlation between illiberal progressive values and certain other factual views which are reasonable, supported by at least some good evidence, and deserve a fair hearing on campus. If you kick out illiberal students, you are denying other students the opportunity to engage with those views. Another solution needs to be found.
‘Network states, with some modifications that push…’
People who do the ‘wanting’ and ‘pushing’ = authoritarians/tyrants, but of course they are big promoters of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ just as long as everyone does what they ‘want’ and let’s themselves be ‘pushed’ around in the ‘right’ direction.
"White residents in these neighborhoods were apparently unwilling or unable to sell to blacks directly, and thus accepted a lower prices for their houses."
People selling their houses for 1/2 what they are worth so someone else can flip them and get rich quick because they aren't willing to sell to a black person strains credulity. Quite frankly, its the kind of BS that should get laughed at.
RE: “Kick that minority out.”
And who’s going to do that? Academic administration has been professionalized (i.e. it is populated by people who have a tenuous connection with the faculty - carpetbaggers) and that asserted silent majority has not incentivized it to act against the intolerant minority. Didn’t Taleb write about the intolerant minority always winning?
> The argument for blockbusting is that it enabled blacks to buy homes that they wanted.
It's an understandable argument, but it's also silly on the part of the arguer and naive on the part of the buyers, because most of the value of homes in block-busted blocks consisted (as today most of the value of homes in 'good school districts' consists) in well-adjusted, well-behaved neighbors rather than in acreage, physical plant, or even location relative to nexuses of business activity etc. This is obvious from reading such period books as Left Behind in Rosedale, from comparing the fate of housing projects in say Chicago and Singapore, and from the experience of gentrification. Basically, buyer communities have three long-term viable options: (i) they can apply effort, enforce rules of good behavior on their own members and create value, (ii) they can remain mired in bad equilibria, or (iii) they can disperse into other communities which perform this work and free ride on the externality. Under the second option, they can be satisfied with keeping their native culture, and/or carp about being stuck in a bad equilibrium and demand that something be done for them. The third and last option works only at low concentrations for obvious reasons. (A stereotypical example is Oak Park, IL.) As concentrations rise, it quickly fails if the first option is not vigorously exercised at the same time, as neighborhood members who do the work of enforcing rules of good behavior flee the influx of free-riders. This includes those new buyers who do attempt to join in this work but are not successful; it's easy to see this outcome as tragic. In sum, buyer groups who aren't willing or able to enforce rules of good behavior on their own members can only make a short-term "profit" (in terms of community standards) by expropriating (perhaps with outside help) part of the "capital" accumulated by those groups who are willing and able to do it. This process can repeat many times as tragic buyers move again and again; in American context, some used to call the resulting pattern of repeated displacements, which is a counterpart of white flight, the 'black undertow'.
> Kick that minority out.
This is another example of a community where the majority is unwilling or unable to enforce its standards of good behavior on everybody, and is stuck in option (ii) above. The more conservative part of the community tends to carping about being stuck in a bad (by its lights) equilibrium and proclaiming that Something Must Be Done, and the more progressive part acquiesces in the standards of behavior being enforced by the minority because it has no substantive disagreements with said minority and only wishes it wouldn't be quite so nasty about enforcement.
*ETA*: to be fair, the legal environment makes it harder for the majority to enforce standards of good behavior, as such enforcement may be classified as creating an unsafe work environment (or whatever the equivalent is in colleges).
Timothy Taylor's remarks on blockbusting concentrate on firms that bought and resold houses. Most real estate agents derive their income from commissions, rather than from taking the risk of buying houses themselves. Blockbusting increased real estate sales and therefore the commissions from sales.
I remember back in the mid '50s when blockbusting was being claimed meeting a professor at UCLA working on the subject. The data didn't match the narrative. The black community in our area had a disadvantage from the HUD mandated red-line directives to the banks from the '30s. However, there was financing available outside government and banks at that time, with a thriving market in first and second trust deeds. My mother was in some of the second trust deed market and never lost money on people she directly selected with her criteria being the "quality of their character".
Other than racial change in the areas of my youth, not much else has changed beyond the trees being larger. Ironically the culture of the people is the same. Pill hill (an expensive area with rich doctors, etc. ) as we called it is still occupied by highly educated doctors/lawyers, etc. and other upper middle class people whose value systems and culture are the same. My public schools when down hill requiring more private schools and charter schools in the area.
>>Kick that minority out. If they are so determined to undermine the function of the university, then they don’t belong there.
What you're calling for is viewpoint discrimination--which is itself contrary to the mission of the university, and a huge part of the problem with universities today.
There's a strong correlation between illiberal progressive values and certain other factual views which are reasonable, supported by at least some good evidence, and deserve a fair hearing on campus. If you kick out illiberal students, you are denying other students the opportunity to engage with those views. Another solution needs to be found.
‘ I want to see…’
‘Network states, with some modifications that push…’
People who do the ‘wanting’ and ‘pushing’ = authoritarians/tyrants, but of course they are big promoters of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ just as long as everyone does what they ‘want’ and let’s themselves be ‘pushed’ around in the ‘right’ direction.