The economic analysis of politics goes by many names: political economy, rational choice theory, formal political theory, social choice, economics of governance, endogenous policy theory, and public choice. Each of these labels picks out a subtly different intellectual tradition. Each tradition expands our understanding of the world. My favorite, though, remains public choice.
Tag: behavior
The Subtle Power of Changing Your Identity
One of the most powerful switches I ever made when changing my entire life was switching up my identity.
Facebook’s Violence Standards Make for a Bad Business Plan
“Facebook Employees Are Outraged At Mark Zuckerberg’s Explanations Of How It Handled The Kenosha Violence,” reads the headline at Buzzfeed. One such employee asks “[a]t what point do we take responsibility for enabling hate filled bile to spread across our services?”
Anthill
Back in the 70s, I catered to peer pressure. I fired a guy because he wore bellbottoms to work. I acquiesced to the firing of a young native woman because she got arrested at Wounded Knee for demonstrating. I shudder to recall these events.
Local Tyrants Are Incredibly Diverse
The way to put checks on human interaction and incentivize respectful behavior is more liberty and a culture that promotes individualism.
ARK3 Returns, The Year 2020, & Changing Statists’ Minds (1h7m) – Episode 353
Episode 353 welcomes back Alex R. Knight III to chat with Skyler on the following topics: the tumultuous year 2020; coronavirus hysteria; looking forward 10 years and what we should expect; reducing statism through technology instead of ideological persuasion; Kamala Harris’ possible ancestry; what becoming a politician does to people; why voters are rationally ignorant; who’s to blame when democratic government fails; inconsistency in the behaviors we tolerate from other people, government and not; postmodernism; the effectiveness that communist defectors have on getting people in freer countries to see the mistake in pushing for more government; 2020 US presidential election prediction; and more.
The Uniformity and Exclusion Movement
Out of all the major political movements on Earth, none is more Orwellian than “social justice.” No other movement is so dedicated to achieving the opposite of what its slogans proclaim – or so aggressive in the warping of language. While every ideology is prone to a little doublethink, “social justice” is doublethink at its core.
Government Should Follow Rules Too
Those who want to keep political government around are the ones responsible for keeping it out of the lives of everyone else. If you won’t rein in your troublesome servant, his misbehavior is on your head.
Your New Ideology Probably Won’t Make You Better
It’s no new insight to say that the loudest proponents of virtuous utopia often lack virtue themselves. I only want to confess to the same sin.
Coronavirus vs. the Non-Identity Problem
If Avengers: Endgame had been released a week later, coronavirus would have never happened; the movie grossed $614M in China, so it must have indirectly changed the space-time positions of a bunch of people in Wuhan. If something alters which humans are born, it can also easily alter which pathogens are born.