Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 27

A Portrait of My School

If I created my own school, what would it be like?  Picture something like this:

1. The school has two goals: to (a) prepare students for independent adult life, and (b) give them a fun childhood.

2. Pursuant to 1(a), all students do at least 90 minutes of math every day.  Most high-status jobs require good math skills, and that’s unlikely to change.  So even if you don’t enjoy math, I insist on it.

3. Pursuant to 1(b), this is a traditional face-to-face school, where kids talk and play together...

Should I Start a School?

When fellow professors discover that I homeschool my children, their most common reaction is: “How do you get any work done?”  Hand to God, I’ve never found it hard.  I started homeschooling my older sons back in 2015 when they were 12.  They were already more mature than most adults will ever be, so Caplan Family School ran like clockwork.  Since the pandemic, I’ve added my younger kids to my student body.  While I don’t have Caplan Family School 2.0 running like clockwork yet, we’re well on ou...

Two Cato Book Forums

This month I’ve done two Cato Book Forums: one on Laurence Siegel’s Fewer, Richer, Greener; the other on Ilya Somin’s Free to Move.  Here’s full video of the events.  Enjoy!

 

The post Two Cato Book Forums appeared first on Econlib.

It’s Complicated: A Syllogism

Consider this general syllogism:

 

Issue X is complicated.

Perspective Y’s position on X is not complicated.

Therefore, Perspective Y is wrong about X.

 

It’s a solid argument, and one we can apply to endless pressing issues.

 

For instance:

Gender relations are complicated.

MeToo’s position on gender relations is not complicated.

Therefore, MeToo is wrong about gender relations.

 

Or:

Relations with Russia are complicated.

Russia hawks’ position on Russian relations is not complicated.

Therefor...

Escaping Paternalism Book Club: My Final Response to Questions

I’m now ready to wrap up my side of the Escaping Paternalism Book Club; Rizzo and Whitman will have the last word, coming soon.  Hope you enjoyed the ride!

Response to final questions:

Knut Heen:

When the unit of measurement is cash, discounting is standard practice and non-controversial.

When the unit of measurement is utils, discounting is somehow highly controversial.

This is a surprisingly complex issue, but I think I handle it pretty well here.

Denver:

(This question is for anyone)

What arg...

Omniscience is Not Enough

I’ve repeatedly debated with Tyler Cowen about the epistemic value of betting.  Long before I amassed my 21-bet winning streak, I’ve argued that betting about substantive intellectual questions does all of the following:

1. Greatly improves the quality of our thinking by converting vague, ambiguous language into clear, specific claims.

2. Greatly improves the quality of discourse by incentivizing the rationally ignorant and rationally irrational to mute themselves.

3. In the long-run, creates tr...

I Win My Warren Bet

Over three years ago, I made the following bet with my friend Ben Haller:

I therefore offered Ben 2:1 odds against Warren being elected, and he’s accepted.  The bet gets called off if Warren doesn’t run… The stakes are my $100 against Ben’s $50.

Since Warren didn’t even get the vice-presidential nomination, Ben had just conceded the bet.

This brings my cumulative public betting record to 21 wins, 0 losses.

As I’ve conceded many times in the past, every bet contains signal and noise.  You can win...

Escaping Paternalism Book Club: Rizzo and Whitman Response, Part 3

This is the third of a series of responses by Mario Rizzo and Glen Whitman, authors of Escaping Paternalism, for my Book Club on their treatise.

Once again, we’d like to thank Bryan for hosting this book club.  We also appreciate the many insightful contributions in the comments section.  In this post, we’ll discuss a handful of questions raised over the course of the book club but especially in Bryan’s last installment.

But first, a personal request.  If you’ve read the book, we would truly app...

Escaping Paternalism Book Club: My Response to Questions

Thank to everyone who’s participated in the Escaping Paternalism Book Club. I just left my review on Amazon, and encourage readers to do the same.

I’m also happy to take one last round of questions on Escaping Paternalism, and suspect that Rizzo and Whitman are up for an encore as well.  If you have any remaining or Big Picture comments or questions, please share them in the comments for this post.

For now, here are my responses to some earlier questions.

Matt:

Hazlitt takes an economic model of...

You Will Not Stampede Me

During the last twenty years, I’ve lived through a series of public crises.  9/11.  The Iraq War.  The Great Recession.  The Syrian Refugee Crisis.  ISIS.  Systemic sexism (“MeToo”).  Systemic racism.  And of course COVID-19.

In each case, society’s demands have been the same.

First, hysteria.  We’re all supposed to embrace fear and anger as the leitmotivs of our lives.

Second, herding.  We’re all supposed to not merely refrain from criticizing the popular view, but to fervently join the chorus ...