Links to Consider, 8/28
Caplan and Hanson on the Myth of Left and Right; Scott Sumner on demographics; Tevi Troy on moderating Presidential debates; Greg Clark tries to pass as a progressive
Bryan Caplan and Robin Hanson both posted after discussing The Myth of Left and Right with the authors. Bryan writes,
The thesis of The Myth of Left and Right: Despite much pretense, neither “left” nor “right” are remotely coherent philosophies. There is no foundational leftist premise from which leftist conclusions flow, nor is there any foundational rightist premise from which rightist conclusions flow. Ideologies don’t just change mightily over the long-run; they change sharply even from one election to another. For intellectually irrelevant reasons.
I would distinguish the casual tribalism of most normal people from the intense tribalism of those who are very engaged on political issues and The Current Thing. I think that those who are very engaged disagree most fundamentally on the value of tradition relative to the opinions of a moral/cognitive elite. People who see tradition as having little value, or even negative value, have what Thomas Sowell calls the Unconstrained Vision, and they are on the left. Those of us who see tradition as valuable, because we see the moral/cognitive elite as having limited wisdom to defy tradition, fall on the other side.
Those on the left gravitate toward beliefs that help them to feel qualified to steer society. About 120 years ago, eugenics served this purpose. That changed, especially after the second World War. Socialism and strong government direction of the economy perennially serves this purpose, no matter how often it fails in practice.
It sounds like Tyler Cowen is tired of those who are highly politically engaged.
I have no idea as to the optimal world population. Is it five billion? Ten billion? Fifteen billion? How would we go about proving that one figure is better than another? I cannot even begin to imagine how this question could be answered.
Nor do I believe we have any ability to predict population trends in the 22nd century. Most demographers failed to predict that birth rates would fall so sharply over the past five years—why would anyone take long-term forecasts seriously?
Tevi Troy writes (WSJ),
Instead of featuring moderators so prominently in presidential debates, the public would be better served by Oxford-style debates, in which candidates give opening statements and then rebut their opponents, engaging directly with one another. Candidates could then take audience questions and conclude with closing remarks. Time limits could be enforced with signal or buzzer, or by having the microphone muted when time expired.
Chess clocks! I would love to see a speaker make his point and then triumphantly hit the button to start the next speaker’s clock. With chess clocks, it would be up to speakers to decide how to allocate their time.
Troy is absolutely right that the “moderators” are an abomination. But my understanding is that the networks mostly host the debates in order to showcase their anchors.
In the course of exploring an extended genealogy of English families extending over four hundred years between 1600 and 2022, I made what seemed an innocuous, but interesting, discovery. This was that over four hundred years, social outcomes for lineage members were closely tied to their genetic similarity, even down to the level of fourth cousins.
He insists on stressing the importance of genetics and the inability of other policy interventions to overcome genetic factors. This analysis leads him to support income redistribution.
This puts Clark in the same position as Freddie deBoer. They see themselves as progressives (deBoer claims to be a Marxist), but they reject what Thomas Sowell calls the Unconstrained Vision. In that vision, income inequality cannot be a result of something like genetic differences. It must result from systemic flaws.
These days, you can’t be a member in good standing of the progressive club if you have a picture of reality that rejects the Unconstrained Vision. Clark and deBoer paint a realistic picture, and as a result they get right-coded.
substacks referenced above:
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The Myth of Left and Right: If Robin Hanson's summary is a fair one, this book by two 'professors who are brothers' would seem to be one written by two people whose fraternal relationship has helped each to narrow the mind of the other.
Whilst (in a narrow sense) it is true that the Left/Right polarity originates from political jockeying in post revolutionary France, in the 20th/21st c. West it is a shorthand (albeit and imperfect one) for a very real and profound philosophical divide. The Left dreams that human society can be made to 'progress' via political means and the Right is (in varying degrees of intensity) sceptical of this - seeing it as springing from a willful blindness to eternal verities of human nature . This is a very big - and entirely non-arbitrary - philosophical divide. And to call it 'tribal' is merely fatuous.
I get it, Sumner wants to remind us that he's not racist.
Look, I'm an actuary. I'm as aware as anyone the limits of long term forecasting. But I also don't through up my hands and go "wow, long term demographics are hard to predict, guess I'll stop selling life insurance".
And I guarantee the office of the actuary doesn't stop publishing the annual shortfall projections for SS & Medicare because robot caretakers and artificial wombs will solve the situation real soon now.
"While I don’t favor policies explicitly aimed at boosting fertility"
Jeez man just get OK with child tax credits. And yeah it's OK for them to be bigger for people who make more income. We aren't equal.
It's so hard for these people to admit that the childless are free riders and low IQ immigration is bad. So judgmental. We must bury our heads in the sand and do nothing. God (or robots) will save us.