Don Boudreaux on home schooling as gov't failure; Gurwinder on concepts to know; David C. Geary on WEIRD sex differences; Sam Hammond on American sectarianism; me on the Richard Reeves book on men
1) There is a difference between a process that is wildly inefficient on your own (growing your own food) vs something where your about as productive as most anyone else but your hoping to engage in a labor arbitrage (cleaning your house).
For the vast majority of people their free time isn't worth a lot more then the cost of this menial labor, and in a lot of cases government subsidies are keeping the cost of that labor artificially low (think of all the government benefits that your cleaning lady gets that she probably doesn't pay enough in taxes to pay for).
It probably wouldn't be the end of the world for most middle class people (including the professional class) to clean their own homes rather then get an imported underclass to do it.
As far as schooling goes, the state has shown no economies of scale. Their value was always limited to the fact that the child to adult ratio can't really get beyond 10 or 20 to 1, and at that level we are talking Dunbar number and parents can organize themselves without a big state apparatus. The government should just write checks and get out of the way.
2) I'm hardly calling for a papal theocracy, but I know people in my own extended family that have gotten on the crazy train culturally. My wife's brothers kid got a sex change and moved to Portland. My nephew is a socially awkward progressive socialist living with his parents who can't hold a job and is depressed. My niece came home from college in California and fights with her mother because she can't keep straight all the different names for her new sexual identity.
By contrast, the trad Catholic school we send our kids to seems to have a lot of well adjusted people in it.
It kind of reminds me of Richard's debate with Claire Lehmen over Biden's trans BDSM dog fetish guy. Richard says that perverts are probably to fucked up to have important responsibilities. Claire demands that being a sexual degenerate has NOTHING TO DO with mental health in any other aspect of ones life. Then it turns out the weirdo also steals peoples luggage at the airport. Who could have guessed?
How about we settle on this. We don't institute a theocracy, but we all acknowledge as a society that some norms are superior to others and people who don't follow those norms are probably fucked up and should be nudged in the other direction by public opinion.
I had a different opinion of Reeves’ book, though I see where you’re coming from. While I disagreed with some of his reasoning and conclusions, I still learned a lot and I appreciated his efforts to persuade progressives and centrists by meeting them where they are.
Re: Reeves, if absent fathers were a major cause of bad outcomes for less educated men, we should see considerably less of those bad outcomes in countries with lower percentages of single parent households. Do we? There are a bunch of countries where that percentage is much lower than in the US per this map:
Those appear to include Finland, which Reeves mentions as having no better educational outcomes for boys than the US. So that's one point against such a correlation -- but maybe other comparisons would go the other way, I don't know.
Reeves: Even supposing Reeves is pulling his punches in not mentioning so uncomfortable truths that would upset feminists, might the book not still be quite valuable. Darwin could have made "Origin" anti-religious, but chose not to. Wasn't that a good choice? An a review pointing out Reeves self-imposed lacuna would also be useful.
Is there a book that you would recommend instead of "Of Boys and Men" that covers the same or a similar topic? I think Warren Farrell covers this area; however, I have not read his work.
Boudreaux has been on Econtalk so many times I can't believe he would make such a weak argument regarding home schooling. Which of his points is weakest?
Basically, he is saying that because more kids are being home-schooled, it MUST BE because public schools are failing. He can't think of any other possibilites? I'm not saying he's wrong but doesn't he need to present some evidence his hypothesis is right?
His supposed evidence is no better. Increases in quickie oil changes, prepared meals, and food deliveries tells us exactly nothing about why people are home-schooling. Correlation does not tell us the cause.
1) There is a difference between a process that is wildly inefficient on your own (growing your own food) vs something where your about as productive as most anyone else but your hoping to engage in a labor arbitrage (cleaning your house).
For the vast majority of people their free time isn't worth a lot more then the cost of this menial labor, and in a lot of cases government subsidies are keeping the cost of that labor artificially low (think of all the government benefits that your cleaning lady gets that she probably doesn't pay enough in taxes to pay for).
It probably wouldn't be the end of the world for most middle class people (including the professional class) to clean their own homes rather then get an imported underclass to do it.
As far as schooling goes, the state has shown no economies of scale. Their value was always limited to the fact that the child to adult ratio can't really get beyond 10 or 20 to 1, and at that level we are talking Dunbar number and parents can organize themselves without a big state apparatus. The government should just write checks and get out of the way.
2) I'm hardly calling for a papal theocracy, but I know people in my own extended family that have gotten on the crazy train culturally. My wife's brothers kid got a sex change and moved to Portland. My nephew is a socially awkward progressive socialist living with his parents who can't hold a job and is depressed. My niece came home from college in California and fights with her mother because she can't keep straight all the different names for her new sexual identity.
By contrast, the trad Catholic school we send our kids to seems to have a lot of well adjusted people in it.
It kind of reminds me of Richard's debate with Claire Lehmen over Biden's trans BDSM dog fetish guy. Richard says that perverts are probably to fucked up to have important responsibilities. Claire demands that being a sexual degenerate has NOTHING TO DO with mental health in any other aspect of ones life. Then it turns out the weirdo also steals peoples luggage at the airport. Who could have guessed?
How about we settle on this. We don't institute a theocracy, but we all acknowledge as a society that some norms are superior to others and people who don't follow those norms are probably fucked up and should be nudged in the other direction by public opinion.
My take on Sam Brinton is that he/she appears to care a lot more about his/her sex life than his/her job. Which is not a recipe for doing a good job.
I had a different opinion of Reeves’ book, though I see where you’re coming from. While I disagreed with some of his reasoning and conclusions, I still learned a lot and I appreciated his efforts to persuade progressives and centrists by meeting them where they are.
I would love to interview him.
From Reeves substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/ofboysandmen/p/honey-or-vinegar?r=24sbz&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
Re: Reeves, if absent fathers were a major cause of bad outcomes for less educated men, we should see considerably less of those bad outcomes in countries with lower percentages of single parent households. Do we? There are a bunch of countries where that percentage is much lower than in the US per this map:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/
Those appear to include Finland, which Reeves mentions as having no better educational outcomes for boys than the US. So that's one point against such a correlation -- but maybe other comparisons would go the other way, I don't know.
The ethnic identity of the single parent households certainly matter in such cross country comparisons. A harsh truth, but a real one.
Reeves: Even supposing Reeves is pulling his punches in not mentioning so uncomfortable truths that would upset feminists, might the book not still be quite valuable. Darwin could have made "Origin" anti-religious, but chose not to. Wasn't that a good choice? An a review pointing out Reeves self-imposed lacuna would also be useful.
Is there a book that you would recommend instead of "Of Boys and Men" that covers the same or a similar topic? I think Warren Farrell covers this area; however, I have not read his work.
The final idea about a judge/advocate dichotomy seems important. Is the idea from elsewhere or is this the spring?
Boudreaux has been on Econtalk so many times I can't believe he would make such a weak argument regarding home schooling. Which of his points is weakest?
Basically, he is saying that because more kids are being home-schooled, it MUST BE because public schools are failing. He can't think of any other possibilites? I'm not saying he's wrong but doesn't he need to present some evidence his hypothesis is right?
His supposed evidence is no better. Increases in quickie oil changes, prepared meals, and food deliveries tells us exactly nothing about why people are home-schooling. Correlation does not tell us the cause.