Links to Consider, 1/24

John R. Wood, Jr. on MLK; N. S. Lyons vs. pmarca and Tyler; Long live COBOL; Tove K on the fertility decline; Arctotherium on same

John R. Wood, Jr. writes,

Racism used to be an easy thing to define in America. We knew it was geographically concentrated in the southern states and fundamentally interpersonal. If there were racist laws on the books, it was because people were racist. Thanks to the teachings of the inspirational Martin Luther King Jr. and to the movement he led, that racism was defeated. Or so the story went. Today, however, the American progressive Left thinks of racism in terms that are less interpersonal and more systematic. Racism, in this view, is fundamentally resistant to moral persuasion. Most Americans today associate Dr. King with the paradigm of racism as an interpersonal problem. But, in his sophisticated and holistic understanding of racism, Dr. King’s thought bridges the two worldviews.

This reminds me of Kmele Foster’s discussion with Yascha Mounk. There is racism rooted in the heart, and there are disparities in outcomes by race. In the process of moving from the former to the latter,

we've changed the way that we use [the word racism] in a practical way. But we haven't taken away any of the sting of “racist”.

To me, the problem in the Ivy League is political prejudice, rooted in the heart. Consider that John McWhorter would have been an excellent choice to be the first black president of Harvard. (I also think that Coleman Hughes would make a great college president, but he does not have McWhorter’s academic cred.)

But for the powers that be at Harvard, McWhorter is not “our kind.” They would rather have a third-rate leftist than a first-rate centrist.

About Marc Andreessen’s techno-optimist manifesto, N.S. Lyons writes,

the manifesto, being a paean to limitless progress and an unrealized utopian future, isn’t just un-conservative – it’s actively anti-conservative. If you believe everything in the future will be better than in the past, then there is nothing from the past that deserves to be conserved.

…The truth, in my view, is that it is in part precisely an unrestrained lust for change in the name of progress that got us into our current civilizational mess in the first place. It’s not going to be what gets us out.

His view is that Marc Andreessen (and Tyler Cowen as well as others I can think of) share with left-wing Progressives a dangerous contempt for the present and an extravagant faith in an imagined future. Lyons labels this “Right-Wing Progressivism.” Or you could call it the progress cult.

What I think that Lyons misses is the difference between social change that emerges from the evolutionary, trial-and-error process of the market on the one hand and the change that emerges from the authoritarian impatience of social justice activists on the other. The activists impose their innovations without testing them beforehand or evaluating them afterward.

The change wrought by technological innovation is incremental and ruthlessly evaluated by the market. I believe that makes it safer. But I would concede that for any given innovation the profits for the firms involved could disguise the overall social costs from the disruption (consider social media as a possible example). By framing his critique in that way, Lyons could better make the conservative case against the cult of progress.

Speaking of conservative, JD Sartain reports,

According to the International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology (IJARSCT), 43 percent of all banking systems are still using COBOL, which handles those $3 trillion daily transactions, including 95 percent of all ATM activity in the US, and 80 percent of all in-person credit card transactions.

Pointer from Alexander Kruel. The problem is that nobody learns COBOL any more. The obvious solution, which the article is about, is to turn to generative AI models to translate the old code into something more contemporary.

Tove K writes,

If Joyce Benenson's theory is right, I think it in itself is enough to explain the mystery of why humans are the animal that seemingly lacks an instinct to reproduce. The explanation is simple: Because having children actually feels bad. 

Having children causes a woman to be in an endless state of anxiety.

My wife often quotes a saying, “You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child.”

I do know many women who are anxious about their children. I think that this has the potential to explain a lot of behavior, perhaps even including explaining the rise in safetyism. But I do not agree that the drop in fertility comes from anxiety.

Arctotherium writes,

The Baby Boom was the sudden rise in fertility, beginning in the late 1930s, of the wealthiest and most advanced countries in the world…

we can effectively reduce the Baby Boom to a marriage boom: more people getting and staying married at younger ages.

Pointer from Rob Henderson. I think that the reversal of the trend toward early marriage is the key to understanding the decline in fertility. If anxiety has anything to do with the delay of marriage, I suspect that anxiety about divorce is the main culprit.

substacks referenced above:

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The Good Fight, Hunter-Gatherers, Prisoner’s Dilemma

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The Baby Boom

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Behind the fertility crisis, there is an army of worried mothers

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Links for 2024-01-15

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The Rise of the Right-Wing Progressives

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🎧 How (Not) to Think About Race