Links to Consider, 4/17
Scott Alexander on vetocracy; Eli George on kids today; Eric Kaufmann on Republicans and their base; Matt Goodwin on hyper-globalization
we can’t blame the situation on one bad decision by a 1998 bureaucrat. I don’t know exactly who to blame things on, but my working hypothesis is some kind of lawyer-adminstrator-journalist-academic-regulator axis. Lawyers sue institutions every time they harm someone (but not when they fail to benefit someone). The institutions hire administrators to create policies that will help avoid lawsuits, and the administrators codify maximally strict rules meant to protect the institution in the worst-case scenario. Journalists (“if it bleeds, it leads”) and academics (who gain clout from discovering and calling out new types of injustice), operating in conjunction with these people, pull the culture towards celebrating harm-avoidance as the greatest good, and cast suspicion on anyone who tries to add benefit-getting to the calculation. Finally, there are calls for regulators to step in - always on the side of ratcheting up severity.
A type I error is approving something that is accused of generating a bad outcome. A type II error is failing to approve something that could have had a good outcome. The axis of which Scott speaks builds in a strong bias against type I errors, leading to many type II errors.
No survey or study that we could find reported that teenagers had a positive view of their cohort’s mental health or overall well-being. And only four commenters on our document had any reason to doubt that Gen Z was headed down a dangerous path, even though disagreement on that point is what we asked for. The kids do not believe that they’re alright.
This is at the end of a long post that uses various types of evidence to evaluate how young people themselves view their health and social media’s impact.
With a nod to Tyler Cowen, I take an “average is over” view of contemporary technology. People with natural advantages will do much better than they would have otherwise. People with natural shortcomings will do worse than they would have otherwise.
For example, when I see what some really bright people are doing with ChatGPT, the phrase that comes to mind is “lapping the field.” Even though in principle ChatGPT is widely accessible and useful to many people, I think that most folks will either shy away from it or misunderstand how best to use it, and the early adopters will get a disproportionately large share of the benefits.
I had something of a “lapping the field” experience with the Web from 1994 - 1996, so that when other people hopped on I saw them making mistakes I already had gotten past. It took a long time for most people to catch up.
Reviewing a book by George Hawley, Eric Kaufmann writes,
The tension between the GOP’s classical liberal elite and its communitarian and tradition-minded base continues. While Trump has reshaped the party, Hawley correctly observes that its policy agenda has remained conventional. Commercial interests and established lobby groups continue to punch above their weight. It may be that Republican voters are only after a cheerleader who can fire up the crowds and provide a communal identity while politicians’ day-to-day business continues to concentrate on tax cuts over cultural conservatism. The identitarian anxieties this book so adeptly highlights may, once again, merely flow towards the partisan reality TV show while power continues to reside with the party’s economic liberals.
Note that the disconnect between the party base and the conservative party elite is even stronger in the UK.
If we believe Murray Edelman, it was always thus. The elites placate the masses using the politics of symbolism, while the politics of dividing up the spoils takes place in the back room.
a new and disruptive model of ‘hyper-globalisation’, which fuelled economic and social inequalities. It opened Britain’s borders to a new and unprecedented era of mass immigration which upended communities and established ways of life. And it hollowed out Britain’s democracy, handing greater power to supranational and unelected institutions, leaving many feeling voiceless.
In the United States, we did not need to turn to transnational organizations to make people feel powerless. The administrative state did the trick.
Substacks referenced above:
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It's a little ironic that we are actually witnessing the long awaited payoff on cultural conservatism. The most obvious being abortion, in which the GOP not only overturned Roe v Wade but has basically stuck its neck out on six week bans and fighting over abortion pills.
Similarly affirmative action will probably be overturned. I have all the same caveats and reservations about this as everyone else but at least it's happening. "Dems are the real racists" is cringe but it beats "exterminate white people."
Immigration is a mixed bag but I can't imagine the Bushes busing migrants to NY.
School choice to has at long last, at least in Red States, become a reality. That's the most substantial GOP win to me.
Ultimately I think the GOPs problem is that it can't just acknowledge its interests. "We are the party of married middle class heterosexual normies with kids and those that aspire to that norm." This ultimately means being judgmental about alternative lifestyles, at least to the point of saying that one lifestyle deserves support more then another (how else does one argue for a bigger child tax credit unless children are a superior good).
I suspect that a lot of this is going to be swallowed by abortion in the short term. It would be good if the GOP could coordinate some "grand bargain" on abortion in which it traded some loosening of restrictions for meaningful pro-family reforms (like school choice, child subsidies, etc), but I doubt Dems will let them off the hook.
In response to a few comments: symbolic issues are issues that the public cares about but the elites don't. The elites fight, or pretend to fight, about these issues. Even if an amicable settlement were possible (as has been suggested about immigration, for example), they don't want a settlement, because that would reduce public willingness to rally to partisan leaders.
"Real" issues are issues like bank regulation or support for housing and real estate interests, where there is backroom consensus to make policies that benefit special interests. The administrative state can handle those issues, out of the public eye.