Tag: civilization

Do You Talk About X in Open Borders? Yes!

Bryan Caplan

The modal question about Open Borders is, “Do you talk about X?”  The answer is “YES” for all of the following…

1. Do you talk about the historical pattern of global poverty rates?

2. Do you talk about people’s attachment to their country of birth?

3. Do you talk about overcrowding?

4. Do you talk about the global poor’s ability to function in a modern society?

5. Do you talk about global apartheid?

6. Do you talk about the level of illegal immigration?

7. Do you talk about human smuggling?

8. Do you talk about the effectiveness of immigration law at preventing and deterring illegal immigration?

9. Do you talk about immigration as a civil right?

10. Do you talk about whether the plight of the immigrant is our problem?

11. Do you talk about whether there is a right to immigrate?

12. Do you talk about whether this right is absolute?

13. Do you talk about America’s open borders era?

14. Do you talk about how America’s open borders era ended?

15. Do you talk about the potential dangers of open borders?

16. Do you talk about whether we should look before we leap?

17. Do you talk about the Antarctican farmer hypothetical?

18. Do you talk about the connection between mass consumption and mass production?

19. Do you talk about the benefits of immigration for immigrants?

20. Do you talk about the benefits of immigration for natives?

21. Do you talk about how much immigration actually helps immigrants?

22. Do you talk about why immigration helps immigrants?

23. Do you talk about how much a trillion dollars of gains really buys?

24. Do you talk about whether open borders is “trickle-down economics”?

25. Do you talk about how immigration affects native workers?

26. Do you talk about how immigration affects you personally?

27. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on average national incomes?

28. Do you talk about the Arithmetic Fallacy?

29. Do you talk about what open borders would really look like?

30. Do you talk about the effect of open borders on the visibility of poverty?

31. Do you talk about “swamping”?

32. Do you talk about diaspora dynamics?

33. Do you talk about Puerto Rico?

34. Do you talk about brain drain?

35. Do you talk about what good for places versus what’s good for people?

36. Do you talk about zombie economies?

37. Do you talk about how immigration’s fiscal effects vary by immigrant skill?

38. Do you talk about whether open borders and the welfare state are compatible?

39. Do you talk about rival versus non-rival government services?

40. Do you talk about how welfare states prioritize the old versus the poor?

41. Do you talk about the cost of educating immigrants’ children?

42. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on the sustainability of retirement systems?

43. Do you talk about the best way to measure immigrants’ overall fiscal effects?

44. Do you talk about Net Present Value?

45. Do you talk about empirical estimates of  immigrants’ overall fiscal effects?

46. Do you talk about whether more immigration is likely to save Social Security and Medicare?

47. Do you talk about empirical estimates of immigrants’ overall fiscal effects as a function of their education and age?

48. Do you talk about Milton Friedman’s arguments against open borders?

49. Do you talk about the parallels between the fiscal effects of native births versus immigration?

50. Do you talk about how human beings value their cultures?

51. Do you talk about the value of Western civilization?

52. Do you talk about the cultural dangers of admitting non-Western immigrants?

53. Do you talk about terrorism, mass rape, human trafficking, Sharia, and the decline of English?

54. Do you talk about numeracy?

55. Do you talk about the statistics of terrorism, including the share of terrorism committed by foreigners?

56. Do you talk about the Skittles argument against refugees?

57. Do you talk about immigrant crime rates?

58. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on overall crime rates?

59. Do you talk about the “What if it happened to you?” objection to statistical evidence?

60. Do you talk about first-generation immigrant language acquisition?

61. Do you talk about later-generation immigrant language acquisition?

62. Do you talk about immigrant assimilation across generations?

63. Do you talk about how modernity makes assimilation slower?

64. Do you talk about how modernity makes assimilation faster?

65. Do you talk about the social importance of trust?

66. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on national trust?

67. Do you talk about trust assimilation?

68. Do you talk about how much trust a successful society needs?

69.  Do you talk about the cultural benefits of immigration?

70. Do you talk about immigrants’ desire for freedom?

71. Do you talk about immigrants’ disdain for freedom?

72. Do you talk about the danger that immigrants will vote to “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs”?

73. Do you talk about how Democratic immigrant voters are?

74. Do you talk about Indian-American voting?

75. Do you talk about immigrants’ specific policy views?

76. Do you talk about how immigrants’ specific policy views vary by education?

77. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on actual government policy?

78. Do you talk about immigrants’ political assimilation?

79. Do you talk about whether immigrants undermine natives’ support for the welfare state?

80. Do you talk about “Magic Dirt”?

81. Do you talk about research on “Deep Roots”?

82. Do you talk about whether Deep Roots research shows that “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk” are illusory?

83. Do you talk about national IQ?

84. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on national IQ?

85. Do you talk about whether you’re virtue signaling?

86. Do you talk about whether IQ research shows that “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk” are illusory?

87. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on immigrants’ IQs?

88. Do you talk about human genetics?

89. Do you talk about “keyhole solutions”?

90. Do you talk about imposing admission fees and surtaxes on immigrants to help less-fortune natives?

91. Do you talk about why tax-and-transfer schemes are any better than simple exclusion?

92. Do you talk about restricting immigrants’ eligibility for government benefits?

93. Do you talk about requiring immigrants to learn English?

94. Do you talk about requiring immigrants to acquire cultural literacy?

95. Do you talk about the dangers of Islam?

96. Do you talk about Muslim bans?

97. Do you talk about keyhole solutions for the dangers of Islam?

98. Do you talk about restricting immigrant voting rights?

99. Do you talk about the political feasibility of keyhole solutions?

100. Do you talk about the bracero program?

101. Do you talk about H-1Bs and other work visas?

102. Do you talk about the fairness of keyhole solutions?

103. Do you talk about Sodom and Gomorrah?

104. Do you talk about what utilitarians, egalitarians, libertarians, wealth-maximizers, meritocrats, Christians, and Kantian should think about open borders?

105. Do you talk about whether immigrants have a right to immigrate to your house?

106. Do you talk about who Jesus would deport?

107. Do you talk about the connection between open borders and socialism?

108. Do you talk about immigration and political polarization?

109. Do you talk about why conservatives should favor open borders?

110. Do you talk about why liberals should favor open borders?

111. Do you talk about citizenism?

112. Do you talk about Trump’s views and policies?

113. Do you talk about the best argument against open borders?

114. Do you talk about whether any human is illegal?

115. Do you talk about the best way to frame the immigration debate?

116. Do you talk about immigration as charity?

117. Do you talk about immigration as justice and abundance?

118. Do you talk about open borders with Canada?

119. Do you talk about why you talk so much about the United States?

120. Do you talk about whether you hate America?

121. Do you talk about earlier cosmopolitan transformations?

122. Do you talk about Brexit?

123. Do you talk about public opinion on immigration?

124. Do you talk about scaring people with extremism?

125. Do you talk about the Overton Window?

126. Do you talk about whether open borders is another crazy Ivory Tower Proposal?

127. Do you talk about how to get there from here?

128. Do you have endnotes?  Lots of them?

129. Do you have references?  Lots of them?

130. Do you have acknowledgements?  Lots of them?

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Erratic Behavior

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Isn’t it odd when someone known for erratic behavior erratically does something with which an observer agrees, suddenly that erratic behavior becomes the mark of “stable genius?”  On the other hand, the action becomes betrayal.  Check out Senator Lindsey Graham, for instance.

Well the bad news is that there has never been a POTUS who was not a consistent warmonger.  The very nature of the office demands it.  There have been 45 warmongers, but some worse than others.  The good news is that the office of POTUS is on a path of self-destruction.  The path of civilization leads from authoritarianism toward laissez-faire.  A human being, a social animal of breadth and depth, does not need to relegate choice and responsibility to a fictional leader.

— Kilgore Forelle

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Dueling Mental Constructs

Kent McManigal

Rights, as I have pointed out, are a (human) mental construct. As are ethics, liberty, freedom, and so many other ideas.

However, those who use this fact as an excuse to violate people forget that they are usually relying on another mental construct: the State (what most people mean when they use the word “government”). You can’t justify allowing your mental construct to crush and enslave people by saying their rights are nothing but a mental construct.

Rights (and ethics and liberty) are positive mental constructs. Acting as though these things have physical reality, even though they don’t, is good for individuals and thus good for society. In fact, civilization isn’t really possible without at least most people respecting each other’s rights most of the time. A functioning society would be otherwise impossible.

Government/the State is a negative mental construct. Acting as though it has physical reality is generally used as justification for harming people through the political means. It’s not good. Even when it is claimed to be used for good, there is someone who has to lose for others to win. And to claim this negative mental construct trumps the positive mental construct of rights is to encourage evil.

All mental constructs are not created equal.

Instead of saying that rights are a mental construct, some people just say there’s no such thing as a right. That they are imaginary. When someone makes the claim that rights are imaginary, I’m OK with that, too. If there’s no such thing as a right, then no one can have the right to govern– to rule– other people in any way. They would be nothing more than a bully, relying on the most dangerous superstition for their power.

There’s also no reasonable way to pretend that the mental construct of rights is created or granted by another mental construct. This is the claim being made when saying that rights come from government. That’s magical thinking.

You can’t have it both ways. Since both concepts exist as mental constructs, I’ll choose to favor the positive one and reject the negative one. You may choose differently, but that would be your choice. I would appreciate you explaining your reasons in that case.

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Science “Knows” Nothing

Kilgore Forelle

Nobody asked but …

Science (or discovery) is not a knowledge set.  The Online Etymology Dictionary contains at least one reference to the Greek skhizein “to split, rend, cleave.”  A software engineering colleague said that all knowledge pursuit was either splitting or clumping of previously discovered things.  This means doing it now, more splitting and clumping — a process.  The object of the process is to make educated guesses toward future probabilities, and that those educated guesses will still, in an ongoing fashion, be the subject of splitting and clumping.  A knowledge set produced by science is a transitory thing — a mass that is soon to be split and re-clumped.  If science could not do this, we would be without several innovations of today, like the plate tectonics theories which underlie most modern geological thought, and, for further example, we would be without smartphones — 1940s and 1950s scientists might have assumed that vacuum tubes were a constant in digital processing.

Unfortunately, we often stop reading the etymology when we see the Latin scientia “knowledge, a knowing; expertness,” which, also unfortunately, implies a mastery over known information.  As if Latin were a refinement of Greek.  To me, Greek civilization was of discovery, while Roman civilization was derivative — eg the Greeks named the (fictive?) gods and their purviews, whereas the Romans only renamed those same gods.

Today, we need to return to the original meaning of science, an unceasing breaking apart and rebuilding. a continual questioning and re-synthesis of concepts.  Science is a guessing game, one impeded by conclusion, not impeded by inquiry.  Why do we want final answers when only clever new answers which spin off new inquiry will get us further down the evolutionary road?  That other fork is a cul-de-sac, a deadly one.

— Kilgore Forelle

 

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On the Crucial Role of Unobvious Virtues

Jakub B. Wiśniewski

When it turns out that the greatest enemy of truth is not falsehood, but gibberish, it turns out that the greatest intellectual virtue is not deductive brilliance or factual erudition, but common sense. When it turns out that the greatest enemy of decency is not hatred, but arbitrariness, it turns out that the greatest moral virtue is not kindness or mercy, but perseverance. When it turns out that the greatest enemy of good taste is not vulgarity, but ostentation, it turns out that the greatest aesthetic virtue is not elegance or refinement, but moderation. And when it turns out that the greatest enemy of civilization is not barbarity, but infantilism, it turns out that the greatest cultural virtue is not sophistication, but integrity.

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Dominance: Material vs. Rhetorical

Bryan Caplan

Do the rich dominate our society?

In one sense, they obviously do.  Rich people run most of the business world, own most of the wealth, and are vastly more likely to be powerful politicians.

In another sense, however, the rich aren’t dominant at all.  If you get in public and loudly say, “Rich people are great.  We owe them everything.  They deserve every penny they’ve got – and more.  People who criticize the rich are just jealous failures,” almost everyone will recoil in horror.

Do males dominate our society?

In one sense, they obviously do.  Males run most of the business world, hold most of the top political offices, hold a supermajority of the most prestigious jobs, and make a lot more money on average.

In another sense, however, males aren’t dominant at all.  If you get in public and loudly say, “Males are the superior sex.  We owe them everything.  We need to protect males from women’s emotional abuse and financial exploitation, and show them the great deference they deserve,” almost everyone will recoil in horror.

Do whites dominate our society?

In one sense, they obviously do.  Whites run most of the business world, hold most of the top political offices, hold a clear majority of the most prestigious jobs, and earn above-average incomes.

In another sense, however, whites aren’t dominant at all.  If you get in public and loudly say, “Whites have built Western civilization, the glory of the modern world.  Almost everything good in the modern world builds on white Europeans’ efforts.  The people of the world need to acknowledge how much they owe to the white race, and apologize for their many insults fueled by their own sense of inferiority,” almost everyone will recoil in horror.

My point: There are two very distinct kinds of dominance.*  There is material dominance – control of economic wealth and political power.  And there is rhetorical dominance – control of words and ideas.  Intuitively, you would expect the two to correlate highly.  At least in the modern world, however, they don’t.  Indeed, the correlation is plausibly negative: The groups with high material dominance now tend to have low rhetorical dominance.

Isn’t material dominance clearly more enviable than mere rhetorical dominance?  On balance, I suspect so.  Still, many people who could have won material dominance invest their lives in acquiring rhetorical dominance instead: intellectuals, activists, and religious leaders are all prime examples.  Why do they bother?  Because man does not live by bread alone.  Material dominance gives you luxuries, but rhetorical dominance makes you feel like you’re on top of the world: “I can loudly praise what I like and blame what I dislike – and expect the people who demur to meekly keep their objections to themselves.  Or even feign agreement!”

Conflation of material and rhetorical dominance helps explain why liberals and conservatives so often talk past each.  Liberals feel like conservatives dominate the world, because conservatives run the government half the time, and conservative-leaning groups – the rich, males, whites – have disproportionate influence over the economy.  Conservatives feel like liberals dominate the world, because liberals run the media, schools, and human resources departments.  In a sense, both groups are right.  Conservatives have the lion’s share of material dominance; liberals have more than the lion’s share of rhetorical dominance.  In another sense, though, both groups are wrong.  In the contest for overall dominance, both groups are roughly tied.  Both groups feel like underdogs because both yearn from the kind of dominance they lack.

Due to the endowment effect, moreover, both sides get angry when the other intrudes on “their” territory.  Thus, even though leftists have a near-stranglehold over research universities, the rare academic center that promotes free markets or social conservatism blinds them with rage.  99% rhetorical dominance?  We’re supposed to have 100% rhetorical dominance!  Conservatives have a similar, though less hyperbolic, reaction when business adopts liberal causes.  “Sensitivity training?!  Give me a break.”

The dream of both movements, naturally, is to hold all the dominances.  The conservative dream is a world where they consolidate their lead in the world of business and take over the whole culture.  The liberal dream is a world where they purge the last vestiges of conservative culture and bring business and the rich to their knees.  (The latter rarely means outright expropriation; I think even America’s far left would be satisfied if they could sharply increase regulation and regulation – and hear business and the rich repeatedly shout, “Thank you, may I have another?”)

When you put it this way, of course, both dreams sound like nightmares.  Neither liberals nor conservatives even dimly internalize Spiderman’s principle that “With great power comes great responsibility.” Both are epistemically vicious to the core, so habitually drunk with emotion they don’t even know what sober rationality looks like.  Frankly, I’d like to see both of these secular religions fade away like Norse mythology.  Since that’s unlikely to happen, however, I’m grateful to live in a world with an uneasy balance of power.  Or to be more precise, an uneasy balance of dominance.

* I suspect Robin Hanson will say that I’m conflating dominance and prestige.  Maybe a little, but when I picture “rhetorical dominance,” I’m picturing words and ideas that intimidate more than they inspire.  General point: You can have material prestige and rhetorical prestige as well as material dominance and rhetorical dominance.

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