Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 59

A Kahnemanian Theory of Funerals

Two weeks ago, I finally got to meet the great Daniel Kahneman.  Since then, his work has been strongly present in my mind, especially his “peak-end rule.”  Quick version: How people remember an experience heavily depends on the way the experience ends.  A standard summary:

The peak-end rule states that the way an experience ends determines the happiness we ascribe to it. There are two classic experiments demonstrating the peak-end rule.  Kahneman and his associates showed, in 1993 that parti...

How Is Immigration Like Nuclear Power?

Nuclear power has the ability to provide cheap, renewable, safe, clean energy for all mankind.  But only 11% of global electricity comes from nuclear power.

Why is something so great so rare?

Because government strangles nuclear power with regulation.

Why do governments strangle it?

Because nuclear power is unpopular.

Why is it so unpopular?

First, innumeracy.  The gains of nuclear power vastly outweigh all the complaints put together, but the complaints are emotionally gripping.  Deaths from...

Why I Seek Converts

I recently Tweeted:

I don’t want to crush, humiliate, frighten, silence, irritate, defeat, discredit, demoralize, delegitimize, depress, frustrate, or ostracize my intellectual opponents. I want to convert them and be friends.

— Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan) November 11, 2018

The first sentence won wide acclaim, but the second sentence provoked much criticism.  Why do I want to “convert” my intellectual opponents rather than learn from them?

I have several partial answers:

1. Of course I want...

Great Misinterpretations

Suppose you publicly declare, “X causes Y.”  If people have strong emotions about X or Y, they’re likely to misinterpret you in at least one of the following ways.

1. Misinterpretation of certainty: “So X certainly causes Y.”

Reply: Who said anything about certainty?  In normal English, assertions are not certain.  That’s why people will often hear a statement, then request further information about your confidence.  As in: “Are you certain of that?” or even “Are you absolutely certain of tha...

Open Borders as Global Justice: Sowell Edition

Immigration laws don’t merely allow discrimination; they require it.  As the result, such laws are deeply anti-meritocratic.  Employers may be allowed to hire the best citizen for the job, but not the best person.

Even more strikingly, the injustice ripples down through the generations.  When you trap a foreign-born father in a Third World country, you don’t just stunt his prospects; you stunt his children’s prospects as well.  Indeed, this physical and mental stunting is often plain as day.

...

The Siren of Democratic Fundamentalism

In an otherwise outstanding primer on Scandinavian economic policy, Timothy Taylor remarks:

I won’t try to make the case here either for or against the Scandinavian model of capitalism. Strong majorities of people living in those countries seem to like the tradeoffs, which is all the justification that is needed.

“All the justification that is needed”?!  Frankly, this is a textbook case of what I call “democratic fundamentalism.”

Almost all economists, regardless of ideology, would scoff at t...

Against Veneration

         Ye venerate me; but what if your veneration should some day collapse? Take heed lest a statue crush you!          Ye say, ye believe in Zarathustra? But of what account is Zarathustra! Ye are my believers: but of what account are all believers!                                     –Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

I have close friends who venerate Adam Smith, John Rawls, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, John Maynard Keynes, Ayn Rand, John Stuart Mill, Ludwig von Mises, Paul...

Wise Words

I normally avoid discussing specific elections, but Matt Yglesias is so well-calibrated here that I’m going to make an exception:

Trump’s accession to the presidency alarmed liberals on two levels.

On the one hand, there was the policy damage he might wreak. That policy worry doesn’t go away with the House in Democratic hands, since control over the judiciary and the administrative state still matters. But in truth, the GOP’s legislative accomplishments in 2017-’18 were quite modest, and Tue...

Election Boilerplate

What do I think about today’s election?  Basically the same thing I think about every election.  For starters: I hate politics, both popular ideologies are insipid, the main parties’ differences are primarily rhetorical, politicians are evil, voters are irrational, and democracy is rule by demagogues.

P.S. Whether or not you choose to participate, I strongly advise you to build a Beautiful Bubble.

The post Election Boilerplate appeared first on Econlib.

“Sanction”: The Triumph of Ayn Rand’s Worst Idea

Ayn Rand is widely hated.  Indeed, if you made a list of thinkers that people “love to hate,” she’d be near the top of the list.  Liberals hate her.  Conservatives hate her.  Socialists hate her.  Indeed, plenty of libertarians hate her.  It’s hardly surprising, then, that she has not been broadly influential.  While she has millions of fans, they’re only a tiny share of any country’s population.  Even when her fans gain positions of power, they’re hopelessly outnumbered by powerful people wh...