February 14, 2014

Tyler Cowen tries to arbitrate between Bryan Caplan and me

78 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't that like Engels arbitrating between Karl Marx and Adam Smith?

IHTG said...

Sailer is de facto less on his actual professed side than his own writings will admit, and in fact a group of ardent Citizenists, if they were informed enough to apply their doctrines consistently, might cut him down some notches as a non-conformist and smart aleck who plays at the status games of The False Cosmopolitanites. Sailer insists on relativizing and deconstructing The False Cosmopolitanites, which is fine by me, but at the same time he overestimates their power and influence and thus he falsely imagines a need to take up common cause with the Citizenists, a group it seems he enjoys more from a distance.

wat

Anonymous said...

The tide on immigration is turning. The comments around Palo Alto are turning nasty when it comes to the quality of restaurants staffed entirely by Mexicans.

How goes the restaurant debate, so goes immigration. In a year or so, Tyler Cowen will be farther right on this issue than anyone.

Anonymous said...

I'm with Heartiste on this. Caplan's autism, odd looks and ethnicity makes him the last person who should dictate US immigration policy. It would be disastrous for the common white man he wants to destroy.

Anonymous said...

http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction/

Experts vs readers.

Anonymous said...

With bitcoins crumbling, I think maybe Cowen should come up with beancoins. Counting beans could be way of the future.

Anonymous said...

"A group of ardent Citizenists, if they were informed enough to apply their doctrines consistently, might cut him down some notches as a non-conformist and smart aleck who plays at the status games of The False Cosmopolitanites."

How does Steve play at status games of The False Cosmopolitanites? Honest question.

--Ichabod Crane

Anonymous said...

OT: Has Steve commented on Woody Allen's latest assault on reality? The plot line around which Blue Jasmine revolves is a waspy businessman (Alec Baldwin) who swindles $200,000 off of an obviously Jewish ("Augie" played by Andrew Dice Clay) blue collar guy (LOL!). I suspect Allen's next movie might be about an investment banker named Graham Wellington who spends his nights serially raping inner-city black children (ala Law & Order).

BurplesonAFB said...

"I would say Bryan has the moral high ground"

In the bean addled mind, the right of people to exist and have self determination is an indefensible proposition.

Anonymous said...

Look, I'm not trying to disparage the guy, but does Cowen always right in such an convoluted way. Maybe I'm just not that bright. OTOH, I seem to follow Steve and some other highly intellectual writers just fine.

Anyway, I'll learned over the years to be distrustful of people smart enough to write who don't.

Anonymous said...

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-darren-sharper-rape-20140214,0,2386941.story#axzz2tFBJ5LMu

Seek asylum in France.

Anonymous said...

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/big-breakthroughs-come-in-your-late-30s/283858/

Daniel S said...

Bryan Caplan is utopian to the extreme when it suits his libertarian dogma. I've never seen him respond to any serious criticisms of his views. If millions of Muslims wanted to move to his state and set up sharia law zones, there would be nothing in his open-borders proposals to stop them.

Caplan is totally detached from reality.

blogger said...

"The main hurdle to further immigration is insufficient immigration. If countries could just get over the hump of status quo bias, anti-immigration attitudes would become as socially unacceptable as domestic racism. Instead of coddling nativism with gradualism, we can, should, and must peacefully destroy nativism with abolitionism."

So, Caplan thinks 'domestic racism' has been killed as an idea but not as a resurgent possibility. So, he wants to destroy the very material basis of 'domestic racism' so that it can never return.. to challenge Jewish supremacist power.

He sees anti-immigrationism as the possible resurgence of nativist feelings that might morph into 'domestic racism' and then into 'antisemitism'. Of course, Caplan isn't bothered by 'racism' per se. Rather, it's the majority 'racism' insisting on majority rule that rankles him since he's a member of the minority elite.
I doubt if Caplan is bothered by Jewish, La Raza, black, and yellow 'racist' diatribes against whites. Like many Jews, he probably encourages such anti-white sentiments. When he says 'domestic racism', he means the majority 'racism' of whites. That is what he wants to undermine with increased immigration. He wants to protect Jewish supremacism of minority elite rule from potentially resurgent white/nationalist interests.

If the vast majority of immigrants to the US were fast-assimilating whites who join with national conservatives, Caplan would be the first one to call for end of immigration(and we would be the first one to argue for more immigration). Caplan and us, it's all about race and power. It's not about ideals.

Anyway, just as Marx said there must be conditions(created by capitalism) for a true communist revolution to be possible, people like Caplan understand(to a degree rightly)that certain conditions make certain outcomes more likely.

So, the only CERTAIN way to prevent such an outcome is not only through ideas and suasion but by changing the very social/material/demographic conditions that make it possible even if not certain. Thus, if white majority nations were to become substantially or even majority non-white, there would be less of a condition for white rebellion and rising up against globo-Jewish elites since whites would be too busy contending with other diverse gentile groups.

Caplan is a really a Jewish race-ist who's working for Jewish power. His 'cosmopolitanism' is just a ruse. It's not utopian at all but tribal. And I suspect Cowen knows too, but he's pretending that Caplan is just a naive idealist.

Same thing with Jewish interest in nuclear non-proliferation. Jews act like they're being idealistic but it's to ensure that the 'enemies' of Israel never gain any parity with the Jewish state that have violated all international laws and has 300 illegal nukes. So, even though Iran has no nukes--and in nowhere close to having a single one--, it is under assault from the 'international community'(controlled by Jewish-American power and capital). But if Jews are really for the idealism of world peace, why does Israel get snub its nose at international laws and have nukes?

Never trust the likes of Caplan. And if that makes me an 'anti-Semite', I'm proud to be one.



Shawn said...

Outside of Israel, are there any examples where Jews have actually made a country *more* conservative? I wonder how Cowen & Caplan's views of non-Jewish white countries & immigration square with their stance towards Israel...

Old Odd Jobs said...

Tyler: "Caplan can point to the fallacies of the Citizenists, which are numerous, extreme, and which create high humanitarian costs, including through war and unnecessary immigration restrictions."

Presumably he's talking about denying war refugees a place to flee (live?), rather than Citizenists gunning for war themselves, which they generally don't do. Doesn't Cowen just assume here what is under question - the obligation of existing citizens to strangers?

P.S Maybe I'm missing something, but what does a nightclub brawl have to do with Sailer's position on immigration?!

Anonymous said...

I found Cowan's piece just the same old semantic word salad. As someone stated, well-to-do tenured economists living in upper-middle class neighborhoods have little to lose from massive immigration.

Perhaps we need to start importing 3rd world economists for these soft, over-paid Econ prof jobs that seem immune from the competitive global economy.

Who would benefit? Everyone. Lower taxes to pay lower Econ Prof salaries, happy 3rd World Econ profs, students - who would get smarter and more motivate professors. Plus - Diversity!

bjdubbs said...

Wow, was that a convoluted mess. No wonder I stopped reading MR.

eah said...

Typical of such threads, no one's mind is being changed. Those who think mass immigration is OK - or more than OK - at the beginning of the thread still think the same at the end of the thread. And vice versa. Regarding this subject matter, I've never seen a comment thread where someone's mind was changed by the compelling counterarguments.

Anonymous said...

Cross-posting this to marginal revolution:

How much of this Caplanian and Cowenian thinking of immigration as unmitigated good is really just the application of lessons drawn from the last war their tribe was seriously involved in, i.e. WWII? Jews are just as guilty of preparing for the last war as most militaries have been throughout history.

The lessons that appear to have been drawn from WWII by certain Jews and seemingly adopted by others without much thought are the following:
1) White people cannot be trusted to live in populations without other races, lest they spontaneously turn into Nazis and want to murder us.
2) Capable white people are the worst kind of white people because they make the most formidable enemy when aroused.
3) Because 1 and 2, we must do everything we can to encourage immigration of other races, especially of the more incompetent types, and have them breed with whites, which includes crushing opposition to this in whatever way we can.
4) It is also necessary for white countries to allow immigration in case the Nazis rise to power again, so that they can accept Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution. However, we don't want us specifically identified in the legislation, so it is necessary to have open immigration for all so that the 0.1% of the world's population we actually care about can move freely.

This is the sort of thinking derived from an understandably highly emotional mindset ("never again!"), but one that has not really examined the situation that well. This thinking is not nuanced and it is not logical when examined closely. First, it ignores the issue that Hitler did not come to power in a vacuum, that Jews did play a very large part in the fomenting of Communist revolution around the world at the time (which was not in the interest of their populations despite the propaganda), agitation for such revolution in Germany, and the impoverishment of Germany at the time due to what happened in WWI and the aftermath. It would have been better to avoid such a war in the first place I would think. Pre-WWI Europe was not a bad place for Jews at all in the scheme of things.

Secondly, it ignores the fact that most of Jewish history for quite a long time (hundreds to thousands of years) has been that of living within a European host for which they are best adapted, and that in many cases they have lived in certain countries for long, long periods of time (e.g. hundreds to thousands of years) without pogroms. In those host countries (e.g. Britain and the greater Anglosphere, most likely others), they have had a relationship with the host that has worked well and could be expected to work well into the future if nothing was done to significantly upset the host (like advocating for massive, host-destroying immigration). Why screw up a good thing? Why create the ill-feeling when there is no great benefit to be derived? We saved your asses in WWII and the thanks we get is race replacement.

Anonymous said...

Cowen is farther to the right than would seem obvious on a superficial reading. He writes in a convoluted, "Straussian" fashion so that he can insinuate thought-crime ideas while maintaining his moderate right cred. In fact, he has often referred to the writings of Leo Strauss who believed that many authors had works with hidden meanings because their real ideas were taboo. His blog has pushed ideas about meritocracy, skepticism about feminism, and now criticism of his open borders colleagues while still professing his social liberal bonafides. He probably does more to move some fraction of the mainstream center right than any other blogger.

el supremo said...

"Outside of Israel, are there any examples where Jews have actually made a country *more* conservative?"

I don't think the foundation of Israel actually made the region more conservative. The Arab political forces in Palestine pre-1947 were a mix of traditional clan-led religious patriarchy, monarchism, Mussolini/Ataturk-inspired Arab nationalism, and elite liberalism in collaboration with the British empire. All of which were more conservative than Israel, especially in its Kibbutznik early generations.

The rise of Palestinian far left organizations came later in the 50s and 60s, in the tumult caused by the default of the old Arab order in its first wars with Israel and the rise of the Soviets as the self styled champion of the Third World.

el supremo said...

Re: Caplan and Israel

I believe Caplan said he supports open borders in Israel/Palestine as well, on the grounds that letting in waves of random Hindus, Buddhists, and Catholics would dilute the current local conflict between Jews and Muslims. Completely absurd, but then one doesn't expect much sense from Caplan.

Its less of double standards than being a true believer with a massive and willful defiance of reality.

Anonymous said...

"Typical of such threads, no one's mind is being changed."

Only of those who commented. And same can be said of 99.999% of all internet discussions.

Guess we should stop having them, huh?

Sword said...


-------
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Mahatma Gandhi
------
I'd say that the first stage seems to have passed now.



Anonymous said...

Caplan can support in a mild, feeble, and minimal way "open borders" for Israel, secure in the knowledge that it will never, never happen.

And then go back to spending 99% of his time attacking those who wish to maintain US and European cultural identities.

Anonymous said...

"I believe Caplan said he supports open borders in Israel/Palestine as well"

He does on grounds that he knows it will NEVER happen. So, he gets to have the cake and eat it too. By calling for open borders for Israel too, he comes across as principled. But knowing that American government and American Jewish establishment will NEVER pressure Israel to adopt such a loony policy, Caplan can rest assured that the Jewish state is here to stay.

Anonymous said...

Caplan's entire argument relies on the idea that there is an absolute 'right' to have anybody work for you, regardless of any externalities of this. This isn't a matter of utilitarian ethics

Given that he is an atheist (the diatribes of our Chechenistics friend notwithstanding), I'm not sure how he reaches the conclusion that certain things are absolute rights and it is gravely immoral to oppose them.

Anonymous said...

"He does on grounds that he knows it will NEVER happen. So, he gets to have the cake and eat it too. By calling for open borders for Israel too, he comes across as principled. But knowing that American government and American Jewish establishment will NEVER pressure Israel to adopt such a loony policy, Caplan can rest assured that the Jewish state is here to stay."

What makes you think Caplan cares about the Jewish state? There are tons of Jews who oppose Israel--ultra-religious ones based on Talmudic arguments, ultra-leftist ones based on Marxist arguments, and, I would bet, libertarian ones like Caplan on universalist 'rights' arguments. White Christian people don't seem to care about their future; why is it so hard to believe some (many?) Jews don't either?

Svigor said...

I believe Caplan said he supports open borders in Israel/Palestine as well, on the grounds that letting in waves of random Hindus, Buddhists, and Catholics would dilute the current local conflict between Jews and Muslims. Completely absurd, but then one doesn't expect much sense from Caplan.

Its less of double standards than being a true believer with a massive and willful defiance of reality.


Sort of like how Dread Pirate Roberts supported drinking games in The Princess Bride.

Anonymous said...

"I believe Caplan said he supports open borders in Israel/Palestine as well, on the grounds that letting in waves of random Hindus, Buddhists, and Catholics would dilute the current local conflict between Jews and Muslims. Completely absurd, but then one doesn't expect much sense from Caplan.

Its less of double standards than being a true believer with a massive and willful defiance of reality."

That was my understanding as well. Caplan seems to be a genuine Aspy zealot, a man who thinks only in terms of abstractions. Of course, there is zero chance that anyone in power in Israel would actually listen to such nonsense. Sadly, the USA is a different story.

Svigor said...

By calling for open borders for Israel too, he comes across as principled.

Only to those who want to be duped. It's obviously no more "principled" than giving a dollar to the pauper and a dollar to the billionaire; the principled thing to do would be to give two dollars to the pauper. Or to spend none of one's efforts to curtail the arms trade in America, and all of it in Africa. Or to spend all of one's efforts to end racist immigration policies in Israel, and none of it in America.

Anonymous said...

An example of Israeli thinking on non-White immigration:

"The roundup is part of a larger policy to deport all of Israel’s asylum seekers, drafted by Interior Minister Eli Yishai who said earlier this month that Israel is for “the white man.” Speaking to Maariv on June 3, 2012 the minister said: “Muslims that arrive here do not even believe this country belongs to us, to the white man,” continuing that he is prepared to use “all the tools to expel the foreigners, until not one infiltrator remains.” The program was also endorsed by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu" (via MONDOWEISS)

So, a top Israeli official feels free to say that Israel belongs to the White man.Can anyone imagine a top American official saying that the USA belongs to the White man?

Whiskey said...

Anon the lesson of never again is always always always be armed and have a nuclear nation state of your own. Deiudonne is incontrvertible proof that mass third world immigrstion is bad for Jews.

Caplan is White. His skin color is his uniform. That's reality.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"He does on grounds that he knows it will NEVER happen. So, he gets to have the cake and eat it too. By calling for open borders for Israel too, he comes across as principled. But knowing that American government and American Jewish establishment will NEVER pressure Israel to adopt such a loony policy, Caplan can rest assured that the Jewish state is here to stay."

How do you know that that is his reasoning? Caplan does not strike me as a duplicitous, Straussian type thinker. If anything, he seems almost childlike in his lack of guile and naivete.

Anonymous said...

"Typical of such threads, no one's mind is being changed"

I've changed my mind on things over the years, but never during an argument. Most people, maybe even all people, simply get defensive during arguments. Our self-worth becomes involved. Agreeing with the other side is seen as defeat.

I've changed my mind while reading things written by people I had no access to (i.e. to whom I could not talk back) and then half-subconsciously applying their insights to news events and real-life situations. It was a gradual process. If I had an opportunity to talk back to those people, I'd have gotten defensive and my opinions would have stayed the same.

Anonymous said...

"Anon the lesson of never again is always always always be armed and have a nuclear nation state of your own. Deiudonne is incontrvertible proof that mass third world immigrstion is bad for Jews."

You're oversimplifying it. Some Jews said "never again" and built a relatively wealthy nuclear armed state. Others said "never again" means endless worship at the foot of the Diversity and Tolerance cult.

A third group of Jews, encompassing all sorts of extreme universalists such as communists and libertarians, don't see themselves as Jews and don't have much of a personal response to the Holocaust.

Anonymous said...

"Typical of such threads, no one's mind is being changed."


I'll tell you why that is so - the "arguments" of the open borders side are not the reasons for their own beliefs. They don't tell you what they really think. So the counter-arguments to their specious arguments will of necessity fail to change their minds. Conclusively refuting their argument "X" has no effect because they don't believe their argument "X" themselves, it's merely offered in an attempt to con others.

We all know why Caplan and Cowen want open borders, and it's not because of the transparently nonsensical reasons they present.

Anonymous said...

"Deiudonne is incontrvertible proof that mass third world immigrstion is bad for Jews."

Anyone who engages in a divide and rule strategy finds it necessary to support the weaker side in a conflict between two enemies. In the arena of global power struggles you can't go any weaker than Black. Even if there were only ten native Frenchmen left in France, they would have more power potential than millions of French blacks.

It's the same thing that we're seeing in the Ukraine. The neocons aren't supporting Ukrainians because the like them. They hate Ukrainians. They're supporting them because Ukraine is weaker than Russia.

If a divide-and-ruler supports the stronger of his two enemies, he runs the risk of this stronger enemy defeating the weaker one and then redirecting all of his energy on fighting the divide-and-ruler. To avoid that the divide-and-ruler always has to support weak groups against strong ones. It's very simple.

Jon said...

There's an obvious tell regarding Kaplan's position on Israeli's Jews only (and no black Jews) immigration policy: the articles where he's even mentioned all at (never mind in detail or made the focus of the article).

Anonymous said...

Secret NSA Facility Located In Jerusalem

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/02/10/secret-nsa-satellite-facility-located-in-jerusalem/

2Degrees said...

I am a Judeophile gentile. The Jews are massive contributors to the world, because they have policed their own borders. The same can be said to a lesser extent of Brits, Germans, Japanese and Armenians.

There are two possible outcomes to the world proposed by Caplan.

1). A mixed race society like Brazil or India with a GINI coefficient from hell.

2). A vast mush of mediocrity.

Anonymous said...

"We all know why Caplan and Cowen want open borders, and it's not because of the transparently nonsensical reasons they present."

Why do you assume malice rather than idiocy, or more precisely, Asperbergism?

Plenty of non-Jewish whites support policies that are dangerous to themselves and their progeny. What makes Jews immune to this phenomenon? I think it's fair to say that Jews are more ethnocentric (i.e. they think more about what the effect of policies will be on their group) than non-Jewish whites, but it makes no sense to believe that there aren't Jews who evaluate policies without regard to the effect they will have on their own group.

(Of course, third world immigration is awful and dangerous for Jews and for their interests, but that's another matter.)

Anonymous said...

Komment Kontrol must be back with a vengeance if you can't talk about the fallout from the Balkan War occurring in the US due to Open Borders.

Anonymous said...

"Caplan seems to be a genuine Aspy zealot, a man who thinks only in terms of abstractions."

Yes, just like Marx, Lenin, Hitler, and lot of others. Looks like "people who think only in abstractions" can do a lot of damage.

2Degrees said...

I sometimes worry when I read comments that are hostile to women and Jews. If we’re going to survive, it’s no good being just a bunch of angry white guys.

1). We need more women in our ranks. They are mothers to our children and are the ones who actually police social boundaries. Some people here and on Takimag say chicks don’t matter. They do. They are not like men, but if they can be won over in large numbers, there would be real social stigma attached to sleeping with a Nigerian illegal immigrant.

2). Jews are more motivated by self interest than any group of people I have ever come across. It should not be too hard to convince them that filling Britain and France with Moslems is a bad idea. America, as currently constituted, is, and always has been, good to Jews. Assuming that Multistan will be too requires a leap of faith.

If more of them came over from the dark side, we wouldn’t here any more rubbish about open borders.

Anonymous said...

...moral high ground... = loving brown strangers more than your white neighbors.

Svigor said...

Why do you assume malice rather than idiocy, or more precisely, Asperbergism?

Odd how consistent the idiocy, or Aspergerism, is, in the aggregate.

And how it seems to fade away in Israel.

Anonymous said...

Why do you assume malice rather than idiocy?

Malice and idiocy are not disjoint sets. Malicious people are frequently idiotic, and idiotic people malicious. Caplan's raving about destroying those who oppose him are self-evidently malicious. What more does he have to say to convince you - "The white race is the cancer of human history"?

Anonymous said...

"Why do you assume malice rather than idiocy, or more precisely, Asperbergism?"

Pattern recognition.

It is obviously malice. The only question is wholly conscious or partially unconscious.

Automatic_Wing said...

Typical of such threads, no one's mind is being changed. Those who think mass immigration is OK - or more than OK - at the beginning of the thread still think the same at the end of the thread. And vice versa. Regarding this subject matter, I've never seen a comment thread where someone's mind was changed by the compelling counterarguments.

Of course the people arguing in the comments don't change their mind. You have to feel pretty strongly about an issue to bother debating it with a bunch of anonymous strangers on the internet.

The mind changing happens with lurkers, people who haven't thought about it enough to form a position. And I would imagine that there are many more lurkers than active commenters on a thread like that.

Anonymous said...

Typical of such threads, no one's mind is being changed.

I know my mind was changed! I think there must be some effect on readers who lurk but dont comment as much, they are less invested. Also I think if you keep being on the losing side, using the weakest arguments - thats got to tell after a while.

Auntie Analogue said...


Safe bet no one's ever going to exclaim, "O Caplan! My Caplan!"

Anonymous said...

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-many-misunderstandings-of-Richard-Hofstadter-7809

Who's paranoid of whom?

Hoffer's Protocols of Elders of White Americans.

ben tillman said...

I give him credit for not slamming you and not treating you like a heretic.

ben tillman said...

The tide on immigration is turning. The comments around Palo Alto are turning nasty when it comes to the quality of restaurants staffed entirely by Mexicans.

This reminds me of that Nicholson line from A Few Good Men:

Is there another kind?

Just Another Guy With a 1911 said...

Arrr...Arrr...ghhhh...

Jesus Christ on Pogo Stick, Nick Cage with a Pachinko Machine, Mary, and Joseph - There IS -- THERE IS -- GONNA BE A PARTY WHEN THE WOLF COMES HOME

there's bound to be a ghost
at the back of your closet
no matter where you live
there'll always be a few things
maybe several things
that you're gonna find really difficult to forgive

there's gonna come a day
when you'll feel better
you'll rise up free and easy on that day
and float from branch to branch
lighter than the air
just when that day is coming
who can say
who can say

our mother has been absent
ever since we founded Rome
but there's gonna be a party
when the wolf comes home

we're gonna commandeer
the local airwaves
to tell the neighbors what's been going on
and they will shake their heads
and wag their bony fingers
in all the wrong directions
and by daybreak we'll be gone

i'm gonna get myself in fighting trim
scope out every angle
of unfair advantage
i'm gonna bribe the officals
i'm gonna kill all the judges
it's gonna take you people years
to recover from all of the damage

our mother has been absent
ever since we founded Rome
but there's gonna be a party when the wolf comes home

Clarence Rutherford said...

Obamacare is now recruiting illegal aliens in California.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/14/Obamacare-Enrolling-Illegals-in-California?utm_source=e_breitbart_com&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+February+14%2C+2014&utm_campaign=20140214_m119195347_Breitbart+News+Roundup%2C+February+14%2C+2014&utm_term=More

"The Covered California website includes a special page entitled: "No temas si eres indocumentado/a y quieres inscribir a tu familia en un seguro médico" ("Fear not if you are undocumented and want to enroll your family in health insurance"). The website goes on to explain that information shared with Obamacare cannot be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It does not explicitly warn that illegal aliens are ineligible."

Anonymous said...

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/september/26.44.html?paging=off

Ghost of Christmas Past said...

Somewhat OT, but Steve: did you see the crypto-swastika logo the "Open Borders" website finally adopted? It reminded me of your posts on the subject and I enjoyed a nice chuckle.

Anonymous said...

Anon the lesson of never again is always always always be armed and have a nuclear nation state of your own.

That's not the lesson at all. Plenty of Americans are heavily armed and the US has nukes, but that hasn't stopped immigration.

Anonymous said...

"Caplan's autism, odd looks"
- just checked, looks like Ben Elton, a British comedian.

Anonymous said...

The difference between Steve and Caplan is this: Steve talks sense. Caplan talks shit.

No further analysis or explanation is needed. All additional discussion is purely superfluous to this succinct nutshell summary.

Willis said...

People seldom admit when their minds are changed, and even quite compelling arguments often take time to work their magic. Some people are just too damn proud to admit when their minds have been changed. And sometimes it's not the people adamantly on the other side you're trying to change - it's the folks in the middle.

Anonymous said...

I am a Judeophile gentile. The Jews are massive contributors to the world, because they have policed their own borders.

This doesn't actually make any sense. The Jews indeed have made massive contributions to the world (many highly positive but some highly negative), but the vast majority of these are due to Diaspora Jews, who aren't in a position to police their borders. Some see a tendency to "de-police" the borders of their host countries.

Israel polices its borders, but is a pretty minor contributor (especially, net contributor) to the world in general.

Anonymous said...

"Caplan seems to be a genuine Aspy zealot, a man who thinks only in terms of abstractions."

Yes, just like Marx, Lenin, Hitler, and lot of others. Looks like "people who think only in abstractions" can do a lot of damage.


"And who will lead this libertarian revolution of yours? Dr. Caplan, at the Cato Institute?"

Mr. Anon said...

"Maguro said...

""Typical of such threads, no one's mind is being changed. Those who think mass immogration is OK - or more than OK - at the beginning of the thread still think the same at the end of the thread. And vice versa. Regarding this subject matter, I've never seen a comment thread where someone's mind was changed by the compelling counterarguments.""

Of course the people arguing in the comments don't change their mind. You have to feel pretty strongly about an issue to bother debating it with a bunch of anonymous strangers on the internet.

The mind changing happens with lurkers, people who haven't thought about it enough to form a position. And I would imagine that there are many more lurkers than active commenters on a thread like that."

That's quite true. When I first started frequenting iSteve and other websites in the HBD / alt-right universe, it was as a lurker. I didn't dare to post anything - why it would be thoughtcrime to engage such ........racists!......on an equal footing. Needless to say, my opinions have changed. I'm sure that my experience has not been an uncommon one. These discussions really do have some effect on the Zeitgeist.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Secret NSA Facility Located In Jerusalem

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/02/10/secret-nsa-satellite-facility-located-in-jerusalem/"

Interesting link. Thanks.

From the article: "Working with an Israeli researcher, I’m publishing the first known picture of the facility, which is located on Martin Buber Street......."

Hah! I Spy and Thou.

Anonymous said...

Steve, could you explain the "a group he enjoys more from a distance" quip at the end, especially in relation to the link about the Amerind on Vietnam crime?

Anonymous said...

"These discussions really do have some effect on the Zeitgeist."

Only among a subset of guys who spend a lot of time in non-corporate parts of the Internet. I've come across several people on IRC, for example, who completely independently from me had discovered Steve, Roissy/Heartiste or the works of A. Jensen, J.P. Rushton or K. MacDonald. That's never happened in real life though. Few of the people who are interested in politics read blogs. An interest in politics is typically satisfied by Fox News, MSNBC, the NY Times, talk radio. You will never find out that this world exists from those sources. Most smart people who are curious about politics and love arguing about it have never followed and will never follow any blogs.

Anonymous said...

Most smart people who are curious about politics and love arguing about it have never followed and will never follow any blogs.

Then, in some sense, they arent interested in politics.

Years ago I used to be like and had (still have) friends like that. Our interests were served by newspapers, TV, radio etc. But to stay trapped in that heavily controlled environment when you've got internet access seems bizarre.

But for some of them its still 1990. What happens online isnt 'real'. What makes a story on TV in the evening is 'real' and thus worthy of comment. I barely even know what the TV is pushing in terms of news anymore.

Anonymous said...

I'm wondering how the Vietnamese vs. Aztec nightclub girlfight in Santa Ana goes to Caplanism > Sailerism. It sounds like another pointless MTV-capitalism-fueled human tragedy which, semi-relevantly, Anti-Borders ideology wouldn't ameliorate (unless the hijab set is presumed to win out). If Cowen can dig up one clubber or bouncer there who is an iSteve reader I will buy his lousy book. But if Cowen is just mocking the OC club trash for being dumb ethnocentrics then he sounds ever more like Sailer--where's the rebuttal?

we have been a nation of Cowens said...

So what did Immanuel Kant have to say about bar fights

Alcalde Jaime Miguel Curleo said...

"It is only the synthetic and marginalist cosmopolitan approach which sees its way through this thicket"

I don't read Cowen's blog often--do his posts usually sound like a cult leader at an ashram in Idaho somewhere

explication of the deconstructionism said...

I dooubt it was very thought-through, Cowen's just saying that, as an aristocratic citizenist of sorts, Sailer's really out of touch with the vibrant Santa Ana nightlife (lol) whereas anti-borders libertoids are All Up In Tha Club & sippin' Cristal wit fine ladiez, yo.

Try Getting A Reservation At Dorsia Now said...

Ummmm, any self-respecting open-marginalist-synthetic Economist would already know by now that Cristal Is Racist.

IHTG said...

"Outside of Israel, are there any examples where Jews have actually made a country *more* conservative?"

Over the next few decades, New York City. Believe it or not.

kaganovitch said...

Svigor wrote "Why do you assume malice rather than idiocy, or more precisely, Asperbergism?

Odd how consistent the idiocy, or Aspergerism, is, in the aggregate.

And how it seems to fade away in Israel."


This is not so - Israeli smart set centered around haaretz newspaper (roughly equivalent to NY Times)supports broad grants of asylum to africans, amnesty for illegal migrant and service industries workers etc. Absent critical bloc of sephardic Prole types and ex soviet immigrants, would have become law of land already because of Ashkenazi elite support.