Ruxandra Telso criticizes Rob Henderson on luxury beliefs; Musa al-Gharbi looks at leftism and unhappiness; Rob Henderson revisits Eric Hoffer; Chris Mims on batteries
Thanks! I would say though that my criticism is broader:
1. I do not think elites have "replaced" material signalling with belief signalling. I think this has always happened and I am not even sure there is so much evidence these ratios have changed. This is another argument for focusing on content of beliefs: elites will always signal, but do they believe in good things?
2. I think there is a mishmash of libertarian positions and far left positions in terms of what counts as "luxury beliefs" which is really misleading and confusing imo
3. The whole sphere formed around luxury beliefs has this conspiratorial, 4D chess mentality which I explain is the wrong framework to have. This is not to excuse elites, but more to stick to the truth.
As to your point, I think any criticism of these beliefs will implicitly target other elites. If you write in NYT that defunding the police is bad and why, you are realistically targeting other elites. You can also specifically stress this affects low income communities, I just don't get what the emphasis on the "class struggle" dimension adds to the conversation. Indeed, it arguably just creates another victimhood sphere: conservatives, who are now rivalling left wing people in finding new things to whine about.
One of Ruxandra's criticisms of Henderson is that the term luxury beliefs can be abused. Any term can be misused. If we insist that we use only terms that can't be misinterpreted, we'd never get to say anything. Jesus Christ is misinterpreted, what chance do mere mortals have?
Ruxandra suggests that the solution is to cultivate better elites. Good luck with that. Just look at what is happening now at NPR. Does anyone think that things will change there? Did the abysmal performance of three Ivy League Presidents lead to any real change at these Universities? I see some hope in platforms such as Substack where people are free to express themselves. I also see hope with young people that are avoiding college and instead learning a trade. Sometimes I feel that I'm nothing more than a ball in some billionaire's pinball machine.
"these changes are likely to mean that by 2030, gas vehicles will cost more than their electric equivalents"
I would say that, if this happens, it will more likely be because governments have forced up the prices of gas vehicles than because electric vehicles have gotten cheaper. I don't have a WSJ subscription, so I can't read the article, but this sounds to me like the hype about fusion energy for the last 50 years or more, which never seems to come through. I'd love to be wrong about it, but I'll believe it when I see it...
The comment about batteries charging as fast as a gasoline pump is pure nonsense.
Car batteries like my Ioniq-5 are already DC charging at up to 800 volts and 200 kw. Going 5 times faster (20 minutes to 4 minutes) would require larger charging cables with more copper and they are already about as big as can be handled by humans. You are already talking about more current that what you home electrical panel can handle and 4 times the voltage with DC current that would blow the main breakers apart in you home panel if you tried to switch them off.
That ties into your: "I would instinctively think that the causality runs from mental disposition to ideology" if you note that a mental disposition can be viewed as "scientific / data" approach vs "believer / feeling" approach to the world. Believing impossible ideology is possible is just a feeling. Your author on batteries was a believer with a feeling and I like a more analytical approach based upon the known behavior of energy and thermodynamics. Do you want to make a bet on which is correct? Superconductivity invention can make be wrong, but 2030 is only 6 years away.
I thought Ruxandra's theses were (i) the Luxury Beliefs theory is false (elites do not hold those beliefs in order to signal to the out-group); and (ii) Luxury Belief discourse accentuates a class divide. Point (i) alone would be enough to motivate rejecting the theory. I'm not sure how your response on behalf of Henderson addresses (ii). ("Stop talking about luxury beliefs" is not the same as "ignore the class divide.")
The power grid is highly regulated and sclerotic. Updating it to handle the power demands of EVs will lag the increasing demand for power. The power providers will try to implement constraints on the charging demands which will be curtailed by politicians leading to rolling blackouts and brownouts. This could lead to more backup generators being installed to reduce dependence on an increasingly unreliable power supply.
"If I were Henderson, I would respond that the class divide exists regardless of whether we talk about it. And it is the behavior of the elites that is accentuating the class divide."
It's not a perfect comparison but when I read this I couldn't help but think of people who say the best way to combat racism is to stop talking about it. The comeback would be, that racism "exists regardless of whether we talk about it. And it is the behavior of" racists that is the problem. I'm not saying who is right on either question but the comparison makes me wonder how consistent my views are on these two questions even while recognizing the issues might differ enough that my views don't have to be consistent.
1. "They are not merely present in the United States, but in most other studied countries as well". The data for other countries comes from 4 waves of the World Values Survey between 1980 and 2014. Which includes Iran. Lets suppose that the more patriotic, religious, more likely to be married, more attractive (yes this is a claim but only for Europe, the United States and Australia, but lets be generous), healthy, more conservative are supporters of the Supreme Leader. And the less patriotic, irreligious, less likely to be married, less attractive, unhealthy, liberals are more likely to oppose the Supreme Leader. I am biased towards Zahra Rahnavard.
2. One may not like "activists" or overly politically engaged or those preaching social justice, but I think we all free-ride an awful lot on their collective efforts. I absolutely do not have the physical courage to march against monopoly on salt production (https://www.britannica.com/event/Salt-March) or for voting rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches) but boy am I glad that others do.
To go along with Christopher Mims' prediction that gas vehicles will cost more than electric vehicles by 2030 and EVs will charge as quickly as filling up at a gas station, here are a few similar predictions:
"The electric automobile will quickly and easily take precedence over all other kinds of motor carriages as soon as an effective battery of light weight is discovered." -- from an L.A. Times article in 1901
"Prices on electric cars will continue to drop until they are within reach of the average family." -- from a Washington Post article in 1915
"By 2025, gasoline engine cars will be unable to compete with electric vehicles." -- from a report by Tony Seba in 2014
"Electric vehicles are The Next Big Thing, and they always will be." -- Robert Bryce (link above)
The argument to focus on class conflict rather than, or at a minimum paired with, a focus on the silliness of luxury beliefs is based on a false premise. Specifically, basing that argument on the fact of class conflict being a reality neglects the fact that solutions to complex problems do not necessarily require head-on attacks on the problem. For example, granting even a whole-hearted embrace of the idea of deeply embedded structural racism, the “solution” plausibly lies in a variety of approaches not tied in any principled way to or even requiring an acknowledgment of the existence of structural racism. For example, giving every low-income African-American child a K-12 education of the highest quality (see, e.g., KIPP, Harlem Children's Zone, Excellence Academy) will do immeasurably more for the welfare of minority kids than even a ten fold increase of today’s endless scolding about racist this and racist that.
If I think of the term luxury belief very broadly, I can't help but think of Thomas Sowell. I read his book Basic Economics and multiple times it seemed he did not recognize or simply avoided the difficult questions. My memory is there were many but the only one which comes immediately to mind is healthcare. He was very competent in making the case for not having third party payers. Great. But what about really expensive care and people who can't afford the care they need? How do we address that? Crickets. He says nothing. To me this makes only discussing the market option while ignoring the cases where the market fails is a "luxury belief."
One of the interesting things about mental health differences is the rural and urban divide. There are psych papers from the 80s documenting doubled rates of depression in urban areas. Schizophrenia has long been higher in urban areas as well. One of the interesting things about the digital world as a place is there is no measure of density. Yet the network of human connectivity might be significantly psychologically greater than any city that has ever existed. Many of the papers al-Gharbi links to try to correct for density factors in the physical world.
Thanks! I would say though that my criticism is broader:
1. I do not think elites have "replaced" material signalling with belief signalling. I think this has always happened and I am not even sure there is so much evidence these ratios have changed. This is another argument for focusing on content of beliefs: elites will always signal, but do they believe in good things?
2. I think there is a mishmash of libertarian positions and far left positions in terms of what counts as "luxury beliefs" which is really misleading and confusing imo
3. The whole sphere formed around luxury beliefs has this conspiratorial, 4D chess mentality which I explain is the wrong framework to have. This is not to excuse elites, but more to stick to the truth.
As to your point, I think any criticism of these beliefs will implicitly target other elites. If you write in NYT that defunding the police is bad and why, you are realistically targeting other elites. You can also specifically stress this affects low income communities, I just don't get what the emphasis on the "class struggle" dimension adds to the conversation. Indeed, it arguably just creates another victimhood sphere: conservatives, who are now rivalling left wing people in finding new things to whine about.
One of Ruxandra's criticisms of Henderson is that the term luxury beliefs can be abused. Any term can be misused. If we insist that we use only terms that can't be misinterpreted, we'd never get to say anything. Jesus Christ is misinterpreted, what chance do mere mortals have?
Ruxandra suggests that the solution is to cultivate better elites. Good luck with that. Just look at what is happening now at NPR. Does anyone think that things will change there? Did the abysmal performance of three Ivy League Presidents lead to any real change at these Universities? I see some hope in platforms such as Substack where people are free to express themselves. I also see hope with young people that are avoiding college and instead learning a trade. Sometimes I feel that I'm nothing more than a ball in some billionaire's pinball machine.
Luxury beliefs are so labeled because of two distinct qualities:
(1) The people advocating these ideas hold positions of influence in society - they are esteemed as more intelligent and more important than average.
(2) The people advocating these ideas do not suffer the negative consequences of the idea the way average people do.
I am also on board for calling out bad ideas as bad ideas. But then the follow up question: Why are supposedly smart people promoting bad ideas?
I do wish people would stop using "liberal" as a substitute for "left-wing" or "progressive".
Here's an ungated version of the WSJ battery article.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-ev-battery-of-your-dreams-is-coming/ar-BB1lxwzA
"these changes are likely to mean that by 2030, gas vehicles will cost more than their electric equivalents"
I would say that, if this happens, it will more likely be because governments have forced up the prices of gas vehicles than because electric vehicles have gotten cheaper. I don't have a WSJ subscription, so I can't read the article, but this sounds to me like the hype about fusion energy for the last 50 years or more, which never seems to come through. I'd love to be wrong about it, but I'll believe it when I see it...
The comment about batteries charging as fast as a gasoline pump is pure nonsense.
Car batteries like my Ioniq-5 are already DC charging at up to 800 volts and 200 kw. Going 5 times faster (20 minutes to 4 minutes) would require larger charging cables with more copper and they are already about as big as can be handled by humans. You are already talking about more current that what you home electrical panel can handle and 4 times the voltage with DC current that would blow the main breakers apart in you home panel if you tried to switch them off.
That ties into your: "I would instinctively think that the causality runs from mental disposition to ideology" if you note that a mental disposition can be viewed as "scientific / data" approach vs "believer / feeling" approach to the world. Believing impossible ideology is possible is just a feeling. Your author on batteries was a believer with a feeling and I like a more analytical approach based upon the known behavior of energy and thermodynamics. Do you want to make a bet on which is correct? Superconductivity invention can make be wrong, but 2030 is only 6 years away.
So why pay people to buy inefficient EVs now? Why subsidise old tech battery plants?
I thought Ruxandra's theses were (i) the Luxury Beliefs theory is false (elites do not hold those beliefs in order to signal to the out-group); and (ii) Luxury Belief discourse accentuates a class divide. Point (i) alone would be enough to motivate rejecting the theory. I'm not sure how your response on behalf of Henderson addresses (ii). ("Stop talking about luxury beliefs" is not the same as "ignore the class divide.")
The power grid is highly regulated and sclerotic. Updating it to handle the power demands of EVs will lag the increasing demand for power. The power providers will try to implement constraints on the charging demands which will be curtailed by politicians leading to rolling blackouts and brownouts. This could lead to more backup generators being installed to reduce dependence on an increasingly unreliable power supply.
"If I were Henderson, I would respond that the class divide exists regardless of whether we talk about it. And it is the behavior of the elites that is accentuating the class divide."
It's not a perfect comparison but when I read this I couldn't help but think of people who say the best way to combat racism is to stop talking about it. The comeback would be, that racism "exists regardless of whether we talk about it. And it is the behavior of" racists that is the problem. I'm not saying who is right on either question but the comparison makes me wonder how consistent my views are on these two questions even while recognizing the issues might differ enough that my views don't have to be consistent.
On Mr. Al-Gharbi's article, a couple of riffs:
1. "They are not merely present in the United States, but in most other studied countries as well". The data for other countries comes from 4 waves of the World Values Survey between 1980 and 2014. Which includes Iran. Lets suppose that the more patriotic, religious, more likely to be married, more attractive (yes this is a claim but only for Europe, the United States and Australia, but lets be generous), healthy, more conservative are supporters of the Supreme Leader. And the less patriotic, irreligious, less likely to be married, less attractive, unhealthy, liberals are more likely to oppose the Supreme Leader. I am biased towards Zahra Rahnavard.
2. One may not like "activists" or overly politically engaged or those preaching social justice, but I think we all free-ride an awful lot on their collective efforts. I absolutely do not have the physical courage to march against monopoly on salt production (https://www.britannica.com/event/Salt-March) or for voting rights (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches) but boy am I glad that others do.
I wish this (https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/teslas-turmoil-the-ev-meltdown-in) had come out a few days ago, but I'm going to go ahead and post it anyway...
To go along with Christopher Mims' prediction that gas vehicles will cost more than electric vehicles by 2030 and EVs will charge as quickly as filling up at a gas station, here are a few similar predictions:
"The electric automobile will quickly and easily take precedence over all other kinds of motor carriages as soon as an effective battery of light weight is discovered." -- from an L.A. Times article in 1901
"Prices on electric cars will continue to drop until they are within reach of the average family." -- from a Washington Post article in 1915
"By 2025, gasoline engine cars will be unable to compete with electric vehicles." -- from a report by Tony Seba in 2014
"Electric vehicles are The Next Big Thing, and they always will be." -- Robert Bryce (link above)
The argument to focus on class conflict rather than, or at a minimum paired with, a focus on the silliness of luxury beliefs is based on a false premise. Specifically, basing that argument on the fact of class conflict being a reality neglects the fact that solutions to complex problems do not necessarily require head-on attacks on the problem. For example, granting even a whole-hearted embrace of the idea of deeply embedded structural racism, the “solution” plausibly lies in a variety of approaches not tied in any principled way to or even requiring an acknowledgment of the existence of structural racism. For example, giving every low-income African-American child a K-12 education of the highest quality (see, e.g., KIPP, Harlem Children's Zone, Excellence Academy) will do immeasurably more for the welfare of minority kids than even a ten fold increase of today’s endless scolding about racist this and racist that.
If I think of the term luxury belief very broadly, I can't help but think of Thomas Sowell. I read his book Basic Economics and multiple times it seemed he did not recognize or simply avoided the difficult questions. My memory is there were many but the only one which comes immediately to mind is healthcare. He was very competent in making the case for not having third party payers. Great. But what about really expensive care and people who can't afford the care they need? How do we address that? Crickets. He says nothing. To me this makes only discussing the market option while ignoring the cases where the market fails is a "luxury belief."
One of the interesting things about mental health differences is the rural and urban divide. There are psych papers from the 80s documenting doubled rates of depression in urban areas. Schizophrenia has long been higher in urban areas as well. One of the interesting things about the digital world as a place is there is no measure of density. Yet the network of human connectivity might be significantly psychologically greater than any city that has ever existed. Many of the papers al-Gharbi links to try to correct for density factors in the physical world.