Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 96

Cosmopolitans and False Consciousness, by Bryan Caplan

Early this month, Ross Douthat derided the false consciousness of self-styled "cosmopolitans":

Genuine
cosmopolitanism is a rare thing. It requires comfort with real
difference, with forms of life that are truly exotic relative to one's
own. It takes its cue from a Roman playwright's line that "nothing human
is alien to me," and goes outward ready to be transformed by what it
finds.

The people who consider themselves "cosmopolitan" in today's West, by contrast, are part of a meritocratic order
that transforms difference into similarity, by plucking the best and
brightest from everywhere and homogenizing them into the peculiar
species that we call "global citizens."

Question: Suppose you go outward into the world, ready to be transformed by what you find.  How should you decide which transformations to embrace?  Chance?  Quotas?  No.  The cosmopolitan with common sense takes the best mankind has to offer - the path of meritocracy without borders.  This approach inevitably "homogenizes" us: When everyone has the best of everything, there's a sense in which diversity vanishes - but only because mankind's cultural cornucopia is available to all mankind.  Douthat seems to criticize elites for embracing the only kind of cosmopolitanism that makes sense.

Do I misread him?  Here is what Douthat considers "genuine" cosmopolitanism:

It
is still possible to disappear into someone else's culture, to leave
the global-citizen bubble behind. But in my experience the people who do
are exceptional or eccentric or natural outsiders to begin with -- like a
young writer I knew who had traveled Africa and Asia more or less on
foot for years, not for a book but just because, or the daughter of
evangelical missionaries who grew up in South Asia and lived in
Washington, D.C., as a way station before moving her own family to the
Middle East...

In
my own case -- to speak as an insider for a moment -- my cosmopolitanism
probably peaked when I was about 11 years old, when I was simultaneously
attending tongues-speaking Pentecostalist worship services, playing
Little League in a working-class neighborhood, eating alongside aging
hippies in macrobiotic restaurants on weekends, all the while attending a
liberal Episcopalian parochial school. (It's a long story.)

This really does sound like cosmopolitanism by chance or quota - and a complete waste of time.  If you're searching for greatness, you should start in the centers of civilization and judiciously branch out, not aimlessly wander the Earth or spend five minutes a day speaking in tongues.

The punchline of Douthat's piece is that self-styled "cosmopolitans" are merely another tribe:

But no less than Brexit-voting Cornish villagers, our
global citizens think and act as members of a tribe.

But if "tribe" has any distinctive feature, it's that membership is not based on merit.  If he wanted to dismiss self-styled cosmopolitans as a mere tribe, he should have denied that their claim to merit is justified.

I agree with Douthat that global elites overrate themselves.  But their chief failing is that their devotion to global meritocracy is superficial: In their hearts, and in absolute terms, most "cosmopolitans" are nationalists.  They're like all those "international" socialists who backed their national governments in  World War I: Internationalists on the outside, jingoists on the inside.  Or to take a modern example, consider the audience at my Intelligence Squared Debate on "Let Anyone Take a Job Anywhere."  While initially keen to affirm the cosmopolitan position, many changed their minds when my opponents pointed out that "anyone" includes foreigners who will compete with the American working class, and "anywhere" includes the United States.  As Kathleen Newland of the Migration Policy Institute - a prime example of a Douthatian "global citizen" - stated in our debate: "I think our governments are obliged to discriminate in our favor."  An employer thinks a foreigner is the best person for the job?  Tough luck; this is our country.

The problem with modern cosmopolitanism is not that it's meritocracy in disguise.  Cosmopolitanism without meritocracy is pointless.  The problem is that elite commitment to meritocratic cosmopolitanism is a veneer.  They should reject nationalism and all its works and all its empty promises, but do not.  Cosmopolitanism has not failed.  It has barely been tried.

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Immigrants and Everest, by Bryan Caplan

Immigrants use less welfare the natives, holding income constant.  Immigrants are far less likely to be in jail than natives, holding high school graduation constant.*  On the surface, these seem like striking results.  But I've heard a couple of smart people demur with an old statistics joke: "Controlling for
barometric pressure, Mount Everest has the same altitude as the Dead Sea."  Sometimes controls conceal the truth rather than laying it bare.

Who's right?  Does adjusted quality matter?  Or is it just a bait-and-switch?

It all depends on what your audience takes for granted.  If listeners falsely assume immigrants are just as welfare-dependent and criminally-inclined as comparable natives, the adjusted results provide new and valuable information.  If reasonable, they may not become pro-immigrant, but at least they should become less anti-immigrant. 

This point is even stronger, of course, if listeners falsely assume immigrants are more welfare-dependent and criminally-inclined than comparable natives.  As far as I can tell, 90% of native-born Americans angrily believe both negative generalizations.  If they would scrupulously face facts - adjusted facts - much of their anger and desire to "do something about immigrants" would dissolve.

Pointing out that immigrants are better than comparable natives is directly analogous to, say, pointing out that the much-maligned Ford Pinto was not unsafe for a compact car.  In both cases, false beliefs lead to foolish actions - scapegoating immigrants and Pintos when they're at least as good as comparable natives and comparable cars. 

* There is also good evidence that immigrants commit less crime, making no statistical adjustments at all.  But that's a separate point.

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A Numerate Sermon on Terrorism, by Bryan Caplan

I've long regarded serious fear of terrorism as a sign of deep innumeracy.  Deaths from terrorism remain a tiny share of the thousand-odd murders that happen on Earth on an average day.  Terrorism is special primarily because people overreact to it - and occasionally kill a hundred thousand innocents along the way.  Since my ability to persuasively convey these facts is minimal, however, I was pleased to discover this inspired numerate sermon by Sam Hughes.  Highlights:

As an ordinary human being, you may feel that there is nothing you can do in the fight against terrorism. You couldn't be more wrong.

You see, terrorism directly targets ordinary people. You, an ordinary person, can deny terrorists their victory simply by refusing to be a victim. Believe it or not, you have a choice in the matter. This is because the victims of terrorism are not
simply those who get blown up during the initial attack. It's the
people who are scared to fly in airplanes or visit big cities
afterwards. It's the people who get dragged into a war against an
abstract concept. It's the people who get attacked in the street because
they look like they might come from a hot country...

Here is how you, an ordinary human being, can fight terrorism:

Ignore it.

The more you think about a threat, the larger it grows in your mind.
The more you talk about it, the more worried you and people around you
become. So quit talking about terrorism. Quit seeking out horror stories
in news shows and on the internet. The media's job is to sensationalise
things to get you to watch them. That's how they get ratings and they
are very, very good at it. Don't get dragged in by these ploys. Turn off
the sensationalist television. Be informed, yes, but don't stand for
any of that alarmism, speculation, bias, uncertainty and denial.

Instead:

Know the facts. There is no risk.

The odds against you being killed in a terrorist attack are millions
to one. Ditto plane crashes. Only somebody who regularly enters lottery
draws would be put off by odds like these. You have more chance of dying
in a car crash tomorrow, and do you fret about that? Hell no.

Understanding this will enable you to:

Show no fear.

Terrorism, by its very definition, sets out to provoke terror. If you
are scared afterwards, the act of terrorism was successful. If you
refuse to be intimidated, the terrorists have lost. It really is as simple as that. You are not a mindless animal. You can choose not to give in to your basic impulses. Show some backbone.

Don't be provoked.

Don't get irrationally angry against the entire country that the
terrorists originate from. Don't start to take out that anger on nearby
people who look like they might be from that country. And don't accept a similar reaction from your leaders.
The reason? Hate breeds terrorism. If you attack people, you give them
motivation to retaliate. And if you hit back harder then they'll hit
back harder still. It's a cycle of aggression which only you can break.

As the attacked party, you're supposed to be the good guy here: act like it. Back down. Walk away. Be the bigger man...

Refuse to alter your lifestyle in any way.

Amen.

P.S. Sermon notwithstanding, I see little sign Americans have learned a thing since September, 11, 2001.  In fact, they seem more irrational and impulsive than ever.  If there's another domestic terrorist attack that kills over a thousand people, I predict the U.S. will mount another War of Negligence - easily winning the war, but bungling the peace yet again.

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I Win My Cruz Bet with Steve Pearlstein, by Bryan Caplan

In early February, noted journalist and GMU professor Steve Pearlstein bet me $50 at even odds that Ted Cruz would win the Republican nomination.  I have now officially won.

Why did I make this bet?  Simple: At the time, betting markets gave Cruz about a 10% chance of winning.  Pearlstein claimed to know Cruz was very likely to win, so I bet him.  Soon after we made the bet, Cruz rebounded, peaking at 34% in mid-April, marginally shaking my confidence.  But nothing came of it in the end.

My final assessment: I have great respect for Pearlstein's knowledge of American politics.  I think he did know more than betting markets.  But he didn't know enough to see a 10% probability in the market and conclude the true probability exceeded 50%.

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The Hyperbole of Backlash, by Bryan Caplan

Tyler tries to cure my immigration backlash confusion, but not to my satisfaction.  The overarching flaw: He equivocates between two different versions of "backlash to immigration." 

Version 1: Letting in more immigrants leads to more resistance to immigration.

Version 2: Letting in more immigrants leads to so much resistance to immigration that the total stock of immigration ultimately ends ups lower than it would have been.

Backlash in the first sense is common, but no reason for immigration advocates to moderate.  Backlash in the second sense is a solid reason for immigration advocates to moderate, but Tyler provides little evidence that backlash in this sense is a real phenomenon.  I say he's engaged in journalistic hyperbole.  If you seek clarity rather than attention, it's far better to consistently stick to Version 2 for "backlash," and call Version 1 mere "resistance."  That's what I'm doing from here on.

Point-by-point:

1. Had the UK had much freer immigration, London would be much
more crowded. 

In the very short-run, of course.  Before long, however, firms build more housing.  Outskirts become more like central London - what's so terrible about that?

With truly open borders, people would be sleeping on the
sidewalks in large numbers.  London itself would have turned against
such a high level of immigration, which quickly would have turned into a
perceived occupation.

Probably true in the short- and medium-run.  But it's still far from clear this would lead to genuine backlash as defined above.  In any case, there's no sign existing immigration has had any such effect, even in London.

2. Changes often have different effects than levels:
"Where foreign-born populations increased by more than 200% between
2001 and 2014, a Leave vote followed in 94% of cases. The proportion of
migrants may be relatively low in Leave strongholds such as Boston,
Lincolnshire, but it has soared in a short period of time. High numbers
of migrants don't bother Britons; high rates of change do."

In other words, had there been higher levels of immigration into
non-London parts of the UK, the backlash may well have been stronger
yet.  For a careful reader of the Caplanian corpus, that is in fact a
Caplanian point and I am surprised it did not occur to Bryan.

I'd really like to see a multiple regression, because there's very likely a strong negative correlation between immigration levels and immigration changes.  In any case, I'm surprised it does not occur to Tyler that today's changes are tomorrow's levels.  This is entirely consistent with my claim that high enough immigration will eventually destroy nativism.

3. The highest quality and most easily assimilating immigrants will
be attracted to London and the greater London area.  Packing Birmingham
with London-style levels of immigration won't give you London-style
immigrants, nor will it turn Birmingham into London.

Why not try and see?  Patterns often generalize.  There'd be no social science if they didn't.

4. London already has a population pre-selected to like immigration. 
Spreading London-like levels of immigration to the rest of England
wouldn't make immigration as popular elsewhere as it is currently in
London, even if that immigration went as well elsewhere (which would not
be the case, see #3).

Was London "pre-selected" to like immigration before it had much immigration?  Where's the evidence?  How could we even tell?

5. Post 1980s, England underwent a very rapid and significant change
with respect to the number of immigrants it allowed to stay in the
country.  If that wasn't fast enough for the open borders idea to avoid a
backlash along the way, then perhaps the new saying ought to be "Only
whiplash avoids backlash." But that won't exactly be popular either.

I never said immigration was popular.  In fact, I've repeated said the opposite.  I'm also happy to admit few people would decry immigration if it barely existed.  But Tyler's backlash thesis has to claim something much stronger to be interesting, and he presents little evidence in favor of that stronger claim.

There is a very simple interpretation of current events, including of
course the Trump movement in the United States.  It is "the backlash
effect against immigration is stronger than we used to think, and we
need to adjust our expectations accordingly."  When Bryan writes "I know
he disagrees, but I honestly can't figure out why", I think he is
simply afraid to stare that rather obvious truth in the eye.  In any
case, it's staring rather directly at him.

I agree that anti-immigration sentiment is staring me in the face, and freely concede that I am afraid of it.  But that hardly shows that relatively open immigration is self-defeating.  And if it doesn't mean that, the language of backlash is empty.

Question for Tyler: Suppose Trump loses, taking the whole Republican Party down with him.  Unified Democratic government then further liberalizes immigration.  Would this show you were wrong to claim the U.S. had an immigration backlash in 2016?  If so, your backlash thesis is far less obvious than you claim.  If not, your backlash thesis is far less scary than you claim.

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7th Grade: The Homeschooling Experience, by Bryan Caplan

My sons and I have finished our first year of homeschooling.  It was a great success by all vital measures.  My two students were vocally much happier than they were in regular school.  They also learned vastly more, covering over two semesters of advanced math in a single year.  Our most impressive achievement: My 13-year-old sons both took the Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) Exam, normally taken by advanced high school students for college credit.  Caplan Family School's average score was 5, the maximum.  Ex ante, I only gave this a 10% probability.

How did we spend our year?  While I respect my unschooling brethren, neither I, my wife, nor my sons felt any affinity for that approach.  What we're after is demanding intellectual training, free of all pap.  I'm tempted to call it an "old-school" approach, but I don't know of any school, however old, that embodies it.

Here was our normal weekly schedule in the Fall: Seven and a half hours of Algebra a week, my GMU Labor Economics class Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, four hours of reading and flash cards on U.S. history, four hours of essay writing on U.S. history, and about five hours to work on their own research projects. 

Friday was test day, followed by two enrichment classes: "Life Skills" and "Something Different."  I often outsourced these special classes to my colleagues or advanced students.  In Life Skills, for example, I enlisted socially adept students to teach my sons the social graces.  For Something Different, we once got Tyler Cowen to guide us through his art collection.  During the commute, we listened through the history of classical music.

How did I teach?  I spent hours on curriculum design and textbook selection.  Once that was done, my sons scrupulously followed the schedule.  There were virtually no lectures.  In math, they read the textbook and solved the problems.  If puzzled, they overcome it by sequentially (a) asking each other for help, (b) googling, and finally (c) asking me.  In history, I carefully critiqued their essays for content and style, and made them rewrite until the essays were very good.  My sons also often asked me broader historical questions outside of class - questions like, "What would have happened if the United States stayed out of World War I?"  Fun stuff.

While testing is helpful for learning, all in-house tests were low-pressure.  I gave no formal grades.  If my students performed poorly (or, more often, I designed a poor test), I just assigned more practice wherever they were weak.  The goal: To get clear feedback about what we knew and what we didn't, then systematically close the gaps in our knowledge. 

For external tests, in contrast, we drilled for a full month, taking roughly fifteen practice APUSH tests, and strove to mimic the official grading system.  I also gave my sons formal grades for my undergraduate Public Choice class, trying to minimize subconscious nepotism by putting their exams at the bottom of the stack.

How do I justify all the stuff I didn't teach?  A few "Something Different" sessions aside, we covered no natural science.  My reasoning: There's little point in studying natural science until you've at least mastered algebra and geometry.  We didn't do English literature because (a) we did tons of reading and writing for APUSH, and (b) my sons didn't have a passion for it.  I'm not even slightly scared my omissions will hurt them later on; in fact, I think they're far better-prepared for advanced science and literature courses than their peers because they'll have rock-solid foundational knowledge.

Well-wishers often ask me, "How can you get any research done when you're homeschooling?"  With my students, it's child's play: I write the curriculum, and they follow it diligently, day after day.  Truthfully, I complete more research than ever, because my kids' presence keeps me working longer and more regular hours than I'd do on my own.

The hardest thing about homeschooling is the realization that it will end.  My sons are so content at Caplan Family School that the thought of sending them back to regular school saddens me.  In coming months, I'll be researching the effects of high school homeschooling on elite college admission, hoping to find a credible way to beat the system.  Fingers crossed.

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Slavery in the Age of Em, by Bryan Caplan

Robin Hanson:

Bryan Caplan made strong, and to me incredible, claims that econ consensus predicts all ems would be fully slaves with no human personality. As he won't explain
his reasoning, but just says to read the slavery literature, I've done a
quick lit review, which I now summarize, and then apply quickly to the
future in general, and to ems in particular.

I think I explained my reasoning repeatedly, but I'm happy to clarify.

For starters, Robin overstates my position.  I can't remember the last time I wrote a sentence like "All ems would be fully slaves with no human personality."  But I would say, "A large majority of ems are likely to be effectively slaves with little human personality."

Now why do I think this? 

1. Most human beings wouldn't see ems as "human," so neither would their legal systems.  Robin wants to soften people's attitudes, but he's unlikely to succeed.  One of the main reasons his project seem so "weird" outside the sci-fi and futurist communities is that normal humans feel little sympathy for non-humans.  There's an obvious evolutionary explanation: Our empathy primarily exists to encourage cooperation between humans.  We feel mild empathy for other animals - especially larger mammals - but not much.

2. At the dawn of the Age of Em, humans will initially control (a) which brains they copy, and (b) the circumstances into which these copies emerge.  In the absence of moral or legal barriers, pure self-interest will guide creators' choices - and slavery will be an available option.

3. Moral and legal barriers aside, imperfect information about workers' ability is the only self-interested reason not to treat them as slaves, especially when you can pre-select workers for docile personalities.

4. Since brain scans allow for cheap copying, employers would have excellent information about ems' true abilities.  Create a few dozen copies, give them life-or-death incentives to excel, and see what they accomplish.  Then use that information against all the copies: Perform at your potential or we'll inflict horrible pain on you.

5. There's little reason to think initial human control will devolve into anything else as the Age of Em proceeds.  As the em economy expands, the cost of treating ems more nicely gets higher and higher.  And since, like farm animals, ems are bred for docility, there's little reason to fear organized rebellion.

I understand how Robin can disagree with this argument.  But I don't understand how he could be unable to understand it.  I can also understand why Robin would like more details.  But I'm not confident enough about the details to want to describe them.

To repeat: If, like me, you think ems wouldn't really be conscious anyway, my scenario is a great outcome.  Humans would be fabulously rich and safe.  And ems would genuinely experience no more pain than paper in a paper-shredder.

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Observations from Europe, by Bryan Caplan

Just got back from a month in Europe, where I was a visiting professor at the University of M��nster, teaching a short course in Advanced Public Choice.  Along the way, we drove to London for the Institute of Economic Affairs THINK conference, and to Heidelberg to address European Students from Liberty.  Overall, a month of fantastic intellectual and aesthetic experiences, and I can't thank all my gracious hosts enough.

Random observations:

1. I was based in M��nster, near the Dutch border, the historic home of the original Khmer-Rouge-type communist revolution.  From 1534-5, Anabaptist fanatics seized power and established a theocratic communist dictatorship, predictably drenched in blood.  While 20th-century socialists minimized their crimes, Rothbard's gruesome account seems right to me.

A crucial part of the Anabaptist reign of terror was their decision,
again prefiguring that of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, to abolish
all private ownership of money. With no money to purchase any good, the
population became slavishly dependent on handouts or rations from the
power elite. Accordingly, Matthys, Rothmann, and the rest launched a
propaganda campaign that it was un-Christian to own money privately; and
that all money should be held "in common," which in practice meant that
all money whatsoever must be handed over to Matthys and his ruling
clique...

After two
months of unremitting propaganda, combined with threats and terror
against those who disobeyed, the private ownership of money was
effectively abolished in M��nster. The government seized all the money
and used it to buy goods or hire workers from the outside world. Wages
were doled out in kind by the only employer: the theocratic Anabaptist
State.

Food was confiscated from private homes, and rationed
according to the will of government deacons. Also, to accommodate the
host of immigrants, all private homes were effectively communized, with
everyone permitted to quarter themselves everywhere; it was now illegal
to close, let alone lock, one's doors. Compulsory communal dining halls
were established, where people ate together to the readings from the Old
Testament.

[...]

Totalitarianism in M��nster was now complete. Death was now the
punishment for virtually every independent act. Capital punishment was
decreed for the high crimes of murder, theft, lying, avarice, and
quarrelling. Death was also decreed for every conceivable kind of
insubordination: the young against the parents, wives against their
husbands, and, of course, anyone at all against the chosen
representative of God on earth, the government of M��nster. Bernt
Knipperdollinck was appointed high executioner to enforce the decrees.

The
only aspect of life previously left untouched was sex, and this
deficiency was now made up. The only sexual relation now permitted by
the Bockelson regime was marriage between two Anabaptists. Sex in any
other form, including marriage with one of the "godless," was a capital
crime.

But soon Bockelson went beyond this rather old-fashioned
credo, and decided to enforce compulsory polygamy in M��nster. Since many
of the expellees had left their wives and daughters behind, M��nster now
had three times as many marriageable women as men, so that polygamy had
become technically feasible. Bockelson convinced the other, rather
startled preachers by citing polygamy among the patriarchs of Israel,
reinforcing this method of persuasion by threatening any dissenters with
death.

Compulsory polygamy was a bit much for many of the
M��nsterites, who launched a rebellion in protest. The rebellion,
however, was quickly crushed and most of the rebels put to death...

The rest of the
male population also began to take enthusiastically to the new decree.
Many of the women reacted differently, however, and so the Elders passed
a law ordering compulsory marriage for every woman under (and
presumably also over) a certain age, which usually meant becoming a
compulsory third or fourth wife.

Since marriage among the godless
was not only invalid but also illegal, the wives of the expellees became
fair game, and they were forced to "marry" good Anabaptists. Refusal of
the women to comply with the new law was punishable, of course, with
death, and a number of women were actually executed as a result.

2. German Master's students are even more reluctant to participate than American undergraduates.  Eventually, however, I found a topic that drew them out: the political economy of environmentalism.  In my lecture on expressive voting, I argued that popular environmental policies are often driven by expressive, not instrumental concerns, as evidenced by pronounced disinterest in trade-offs, cost-benefit analysis, and creative ways to "take the easy way out."  There are 663,000 square miles in Alaska, so why not use .1% of that area for an immensely valuable pipeline?  My students' favorite answer was the slippery-slope: After the first pipeline mars the virgin wilderness, further desecrations are likely to follow.  I pointed out that M��nster stably combines natural beauty with ample development, but I don't think that convinced my class.

3. In contrast, my lecture on anarcho-capitalism sparked minimal pushback.

4. While my class largely drew on U.S. data and examples, I routinely asked students if my claims generalized well to Germany.  They usually affirmed that they did.  Voter motivation in Germany, as in the United States, seems driven by ideology and group identity rather than material self-interest.  But for finer-grained details, the U.S. results are more contingent.  Religious identity plays little role in modern German politics, the legacy of the Thirty Years War notwithstanding.

5. Brexit passed right before I went to London.  I was aggravated but not surprised that many observers hastily claimed I had lost my 2008 EU bet.  The original specified "official withdrawal" by January 1, 2020 to guard against this overreach.  If the UK disappears from the list of EU members before January 1, 2020, I will happily pay.  If it disappears on January 1, 2020 or later, I will declare victory and demand payment (assuming, of course, that no other EU member with 2007 population over 10M withdraws by that date). 

6. Betting markets got Brexit very wrong, but they're still the best forecasting institution in the world, and they imply a roughly 50/50 chance of Article 50 being invoked no sooner than 2018.  Since Article 50 opens up to two years of negotiations, I'm still somewhat optimistic about winning - though I would not make the same bet again.

7. Socially, of course, what's important is not whether I win my bet, but what happens to the British, European, and global economies.  Many analysts treated the initial stock market crash as proof that Brexit is terrible; others treated the rebound as proof that Brexit is fine.  I reject both views.  I've long regarded financial markets as a poor measure of the goodness of policy.  If X happens and stock markets hold steady, this could mean X is harmless.  But it could also mean that the burden of X falls on consumers rather than capitalists.  Does that ever happen?  Probably yes - the standard view of trade agreements, for example, is that they make consumers better off, but leave the average domestic business earning its standard vanilla rate of return.

8. The important question, rather, is how British exit from the EU would change economic policy.  Both sides seem overconfident here, but I lean toward those who think overall trade and especially migration openness would fall in Britain, Europe, and the world.  Indeed, even if Britain never leaves the EU, its behavior marginally raises the probability the EU moves away from internal freedom of movement.

9. Students at the THINK conference in London leapt at every chance to participate.  Why were they so different from my German students?  Since Students for Liberty Heidelberg were similarly enthusiastic, I'd guess the gap was 20% cultural, 80% self-selection.

10. Accents in Germany were easier to understand than accents in England, strangely.

11. Due to a strong accent, I think I failed to properly answer one THINK attendee's question.  In my open borders talk, I addressed the political externalities of immigration.  My claim: While immigrants are indeed more socially conservative and economically liberal than natives, the differences are marginal and immigrants don't vote much anyway.  When the attendee asked why my results were so atypical, I claimed they were standard.  In hindsight, I should have acknowledged that immigrants are much more likely to vote for left-wing parties.  But since this holds even for the richest, most socially conservative immigrants, the best explanation is that right-wing parties treat immigrants with great disrespect.  Since parties are potent name brands, even pro-immigration right-wing politicians have trouble winning immigrant support.

12. Germany is much more multi-cultural and multi-racial than I remember it, even in a smaller city like M��nster.  And horrific headlines notwithstanding, it's wonderful to behold.  The people of the world can and should work side-by-side to Finally Make Mankind Great.

13. When I taught my German students Kuran and Sunstein's availability cascades model, I used terrorism as a prime example.  Over a thousand people are murdered on Earth on an average day.  Every death is a tragedy, but there's no good reason to treat the small minority of terrorist murders as disproportionately important or revealing, except in the trivial sense than countries overreact to terrorism.  I know this is an unpopular view, especially after a major attack, but I love numeracy more than popularity.

14. This was my first trip to London.  I'd heard it was remarkably multi-cultural, but I didn't expect it to be the most multi-cultural place I'd ever seen.  While I personally find big cities claustrophobic and inconvenient, if London doesn't convince you that Western civilization is a hardy weed, nothing will. 

15. The fact that Londoners showed little sympathy for Brexit is telling: People who experience true mass immigration first-hand tend to stop seeing it as a problem.  "Backlash," as Tyler Cowen calls it, is a symptom of insufficient migration - the zone where immigrants are noticeable but not ubiquitous.  I know he disagrees, but I honestly can't figure out why.

16. Averaging over my four days, the UK had the nicest people I've ever encountered.  They were more than polite.  Strangers literally handed me money for parking.  Why did Americans want independence again?

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The Signs of Signaling, by Bryan Caplan

How can you empirically distinguish between human capital and signaling?  In this talk, I explore not only the basics of the issue, but the subtleties.

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Is Education Good for the Soul?, by Bryan Caplan

Four years ago, Jacob Levy inspired me to explain how I love education.  This blog post eventually became a whole chapter in The Case Against Education on "Is Education Good for the Soul."  Here are the slides for a recent talk summarizing my conclusions. 

Enjoy.

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