Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 34

How to Win Friends and Influence People: Q&A #1

Ive decided to interweave my main posts on Carnegies classic with Q&A.  Here are my reactions to the comments on yesterdays post.

Denver:

Carnegies third principle: arouse in the other person an eager want, sounds an awful lot like incentives matter. And he gives plenty of examples which boil down to changing the incentives of the situation to achieve the social outcome you desire (e.g. have your child make their own meal so they have skin in the game and thus a greater incentive to eat it).

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How to Win Friends and Influence People Book Club, Part 1

[Note: Please leave questions and comments below, and I will respond in later posts.]

Todays the first day of the How to Win Friends and Influence People Book Club.  Well start by walking through Part One, entitled Fundamental Techniques in Handling People.

Summary

In the opening chapter, Carnegie explains that almost everyone thinks theyre wonderful specimens of humanity.  Theyre firmly convince of their own moral excellence and superlative skill.  Even the infamous exude self-approval. ...

How to Win Friends and Influence People Book Club Commercial

I just shot this commercial for next weeks Book Club.  Enjoy!

 

The post How to Win Friends and Influence People Book Club Commercial appeared first on Econlib.

Teaching Teaching

Over the last three years, my older sons have gone from near-zero knowledge of Spanish to fluency.  Given my open disdain for foreign language education, whats the backstory?

I started them in 9th grade because almost all good colleges impose an admission requirement of 3-4 years of foreign language instruction.  From the outset, my boys planned to demonstrate their competence on the Spanish Language AP test.  Going through the motions would not suffice; we knew my sons actually had to learn...

Leiter-Caplan Capitalism vs. Socialism Debate Video

Heres full video for the last public debate Ill be doing for a long while.  See here, here, and here for further discussion.

Update: On his blog, Leiter writes:

My pointwhich alas Professor Caplan steadfastly ignoredis that a serious discussion of the merits of capitalism or socialism should not be based on the bad behavior of self-proclaimed capitalists or socialists.  It was striking that Professor Caplan did not have any real reply to my basic point about the logic of capitalism:

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The True CPI Just Jumped

I recently voiced fear of coming inflation.  Yet on reflection, high inflation is already here.  While measured inflation remains low, Ive been arguing for years that CPI bias heavily distorts official measures.  My point has always been that official measures of inflation are too high, because official measures fail to properly account for rising quality and variety of goods.  In the last month, however, all this has suddenly reversed.  Due to the coronavirus, official measures of inflation...

If It’s Wrong to Steal Your Wallet…

Ive been thinking more about Brian Leiters ethical trap.  (Caveat: Im quoting Leiters questions from memory, so his exact wording will slightly vary).

During our debate, he repeatedly asked the audience:

Suppose I threaten to shoot you unless you do what I want.  Are you free?

At least one person in the audience dodged the question, but everyone knew No was the correct answer.

This then led straight to Leiters next question:

Suppose I threaten to starve you unless you do what I want.  Are...

How to Win Friends and Influence People Book Club

When I was seventeen, I read Dale Carnegies classic self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People.  Even in my youth, I knew it was packed with wisdom, but I was not ready to listen.  Recently, I reread the book and it totally holds up.  As I read, I realized that Ive spent much of the last thirty years reinventing Carnegies wheel.  At the same time, though, I now feel able to articulate what Carnegie overstates and overlooks about the social world.

Upshot: Id really like to share...

Open Borders: Now Do You See What We’re Missing?

In Open Borders, I never claim that immigration restrictions make life in the First World bad.  I dont try to scare people into supporting more immigration, a la, Without more immigrants, were doomed.  What I claim, rather, is that immigration is a massive missed opportunity.  While life is fine the way it is (or was, until a month ago), there is no reason to settle for fine.  If there is a dependable way to dramatically improve our lives, we should seize it.

What then are we missing?  The...

Who Are All the People Dying of Flu?

Many people are baffled to hear that tens of thousands of Americans still die of flu every year.  The CDC estimate for 2017-2018 is 61,000, markedly more than die in all auto accidents.  Yet Ive never heard of any specific person dying of flu.  So who are these people?

The answer, roughly, is: the elderly.  Here are combined influenza and pneumonia death rates by age from National Vital Statistics Reports:

What about total mortality? Is the relatively low population of 85+ Americans enough...