Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Caring, Classical Liberalism, Extended Order, Religion, Tribalism, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Aug 20th, 2018
Gifts are the original sin of commerce. My theory is that this is why “the gift economy” is so cherished by critics of anonymous, ephemeral, market exchange. Market exchanges allow us to free ourselves from the power that our families and others exercise over us. The wider the extent of market competition, the less we […]
Posted in Central Planning, Constitution, Government Gone Wild on Jul 28th, 2018
In thinking about arguments that I have heard made against the NSA’s PRISM program (this program is basically the limitless power the NSA seems to be exercising in collecting an ungodly amount of information, without warrant, from all Americans’ use of the internet), a little conundrum came to mind. One of the things the NSA […]
Posted in Adaptation, Behavior, Environment on Dec 18th, 2017
Yes, I am now becoming an internet meme where basically anything and everything can be tied into climate change. I’d like to make a few short observations today. What happened to the climate change discussion? It really does seem to be low-level background noise. My advice to those people who are posting regularly about the […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Economics Problems, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Nov 11th, 2017
I’m getting too used to Twitter, so the idea of a full-length blog post is less attractive today than in the past. On the other hand, a solid blog post probably has a lot more influence today than it did at the height of blogging before social media really kicked into gear. I wanted to […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, If I Really Hated the Poor ... on Oct 24th, 2017
I have this really uneasy feeling these days. That uneasy feeling is coming from the people who are trying to convince me that one of the more serious existential threats we face is the possibility of dangerous, runaway AI. I get it, I do. We were having a discussion of Asimov’s i,Robot the other day. […]
Posted in Competition, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 16th, 2017
It seems to me that most anti-market voices actually DO understand and appreciate the “virtues” of competition. My sense is that they only see the force of competition working in some places and not others. Think of the fears that some people have from open immigration. Think of the fears people have with the “deskilling” […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Aug 9th, 2017
A particularly thorny philosophical problem for limited government classical liberal types is that while they want to see voluntary exchanges and private property governing as many human interactions as is “reasonable”, they typically leave it to the state to defend property rights and handle contracting disputes and third party spillovers. You can see the problem […]
Posted in Development on May 12th, 2017
The problems of nation-building on Earth sound pretty similar to the challenges of settling space: The authors are blind to the vision of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the prophet who started thinking seriously about space 150 years ago. Tsiolkovsky saw the future of space as a problem of biology rather than as a problem of engineering. He […]
Posted in Classical Liberalism, Disingenuous, Education, If I Really Hated the Poor ..., Innovation, Special Privilege, Tribalism on Mar 5th, 2017
Well, I can’t talk about it. But let me suggest one or two things to keep in mind. I feel like some part of the campus conservative movement is, itself, to blame for this. I know, I sound like blaming the victim, but my sense is that they are inviting controversial speakers to campus not […]
Posted in Behavior, Disingenuous, Government Gone Wild, Tribalism on Jan 31st, 2017
President Donald J. Trump is your Nudger in Chief. Here are some glowing endorsements. “For generations paternalism has had a bad odor, and individual autonomy has reigned supreme. Sarah Conly’s book will change all of that. She argues in favor of paternalism with rigor and gusto, and persuasively shows how shedding our reflexive aversion to […]
