March 14, 2012

Bryan Caplan v. Me

George Mason libertarian economist Bryan Caplan attacks something I said over on his blog.

By Steve Sailer on 3/14/2012

65 comments:

bjdubbs said...

Bryan's still suffering from the PTSD he picked up from all those beatings in fifth grade recess.

The only person worth reading over there is Kling. Caplan is a troll.

3/14/12, 3:42 PM
B322 said...

Caplan is Stupid Liberal Anti-White Bigot.

3/14/12, 3:49 PM
jody said...

yeah, but bro, you have to respect the gary gygax reference.

speaking of jeremy lin, linsanity came and went faster than fernandomania. tends to happen when you lose so much the coach gets fired. not lin's fault, but wow. that was a stupendous roller coaster ride. from top of the world to d'antoni gone in 1 month. never seen anything like it before, and never will again.

3/14/12, 3:50 PM
Mercer said...

I don't think Caplan will need military proctection in the US. As a public college employee he should be more concerned about what happens when a state has an increasing number of residents who receive more in benefits then they pay in taxes.

3/14/12, 3:52 PM
Anonymous said...

Libertarians should be force fed some Josiah Royce.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/roycejos/#SH2a

3/14/12, 3:54 PM
Anonymous said...

tends to happen when you lose so much the coach gets fired.

Didn't he resign?

3/14/12, 3:59 PM
SFG said...

Now that I've gone over there and argued your point, I have to say this does look a little juvenile...siccing your commenters on him and all.

Still, these autistic libertarians need a little reality check sometimes.

3/14/12, 4:17 PM
Jeff W. said...

Caplan demonstrates why libertarianism is a non-serious political philosophy and why libertarian candidates never attract more than one percent of the vote.

3/14/12, 4:27 PM
Baloo said...

This is a case of valid libertarian thinking being stretched into absurdity, as is too often the case with libertarians. There is much wisdom in economics, but there is also the wisdom of patriotism and HBD, which messes up the cozy little social-atomism world of the juvenile wing of libertarianism. Caplan fits snugly in to the beige area of the Venn Diagram that deserves to go viral. Me, I'm safely in the green, where I'm sure a lot of Istevers fit.

3/14/12, 4:34 PM
Anonymous said...

Eh. Steve, I think you deserve a lot of interest and respect for interest in the truth, but I'm much happier with Caplan's world of bubbles than I am in a homogenous culture. I don't expect to like what others like, I don't expect others to like what I like, and I find it way easier to be positive about many people when they're far away from me.

I do think Caplan's desire to build a bubble and his pro-immigration stance should be contrasted, but the militaristic, patriotic complaint totally misses the mark. America's built on the pursuit of happiness, and that means bubbles. If you had argued that immigration restriction makes it cheaper for the everyman to make his own bubble, I think that would have gone over a lot better.

3/14/12, 4:46 PM
Anonymous said...

This makes me nostalgic. When I was an eighteen year-old boy, with almost zero experience with women and extremely socially isolated from everyone, I was a proud libertarian. Then life intervened. Eventually I made some friends and it occurred to me that we in society are not all atomized free agents, but that we're somehow somewhat dependent on one another, no matter how little it flatters our pride to be reminded of it.

3/14/12, 4:56 PM
Brazilian said...

The simple of idea of more economic freedom,less government intervention, less taxes and laws don't have to be taken to the extreme, Reagan showed this.

3/14/12, 5:12 PM
No Name said...

Caplan's response is quite typical of "Libertarians".

History, Family, Culture, Patriotism, Religion, all meaningless - all that matters is the cash nexus.

Just more evidence that yesterday's Commie is today's Libertarian.

3/14/12, 5:17 PM
Anonymous said...

America's built on the pursuit of happiness


Why does nonsense like this get repeated and taken seriously? The fact that it does tells you all you need to know about the future of this country - it doesn't have one.

Just FYI, the phrase "the pursuit of happiness" did not mean, to the founders, "everyone do your own thing".

3/14/12, 5:24 PM
Anonymous said...

Jody, you take a particular interest in Asian peoples, why is that?

3/14/12, 5:26 PM
Anonymous said...

Libertarians talk out both sides of their mouths.

When they want to be free of you, "bubbles" are good.

But they spend most of their time making arguments that "bubbles" are bad. The "bubble" known as America is bad, for instance - it's borders should be completely porous to goods and people, under libertarian theory.

3/14/12, 5:45 PM
Anonymous said...

I really like Caplans perspective. Left out of any of the reviews of coming apart that I read was any mention of the fact that Charles Murray is personally an oddball, a perfectly decent man but definitely an oddball. He encourages his presumably highly intelligent kids to do menial jobs for the sake of doing something menial. He thinks this builds character. Obviously it does not build character. I did it an all it did was amplify my prejudice against dumb white people. Its a good thing that the brightest live in a bubble, as I bet Steve believes too because America is definitely in general an idiocracy.

3/14/12, 5:47 PM
ATBOTL said...

Fundamentalist libertarians are just as deranged as communists.

"This makes me nostalgic. When I was an eighteen year-old boy, with almost zero experience with women and extremely socially isolated from everyone, I was a proud libertarian. Then life intervened. Eventually I made some friends and it occurred to me that we in society are not all atomized free agents, but that we're somehow somewhat dependent on one another, no matter how little it flatters our pride to be reminded of it."

That's pretty much the story of all libertarians.

3/14/12, 5:53 PM
Anonymous said...

I'd be hard pressed to think of a group of people who spend more time telling other people how to live their lives than libertarian economists.

3/14/12, 5:54 PM
Anonymous said...

Do you notice liberatarians always push for gay marriage, open borders, etc, but ignore existing anti-discrimination laws, anything to do with race, or any freedom of association.. which leads to me to believe they are liberals in disguise, simply using a conservative argument to dismantle anything that remains of the western nation state.

3/14/12, 5:56 PM
Anonymous said...

Interesting back and forth on immigration going on right now in the comments section to Justin Raimondo's recent column:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/13/ron-pauls-hour-of-decision/#IDComment315700249

3/14/12, 5:58 PM
Anonymous said...

Steve,

I thought that another comment you made to Caplan's post deserved repeating here:

"Dr. Caplan's views on immigration differ only marginally from those of the editorial boards of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Barack Obama George W. Bush, John McCain, or Ted Kennedy. We should thank him for making explicit the hostility toward the American citizenry that motivates much of today's conventional wisdom on immigration."

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/03/my_beautiful_bu.html#193012

3/14/12, 6:10 PM
Truth said...

"Me, I'm safely in the green, where I'm sure a lot of Istevers fit."

Stop it Rex, any guy wearing a balmoral is a tree-hugger.

3/14/12, 6:21 PM
Truth said...

"Jody, you take a particular interest in Asian peoples, why is that?"

Well, there's a phrase that answers that. It starts with "race" and ends with "traitor."

3/14/12, 6:22 PM
stari_momak said...

Caplan's reference to Switzerland is especially dumb. You don't get to live in your bubble in that country -- as a male you are a reservist from 19 to 34. When a young, budding academic is 19 he has to give up 4-5 months of D and D to go train with bakers apprentices, future cops, farm hands, and other such distasteful folk. Worse, he's got to spend annual periods with this same dolts.

3/14/12, 7:00 PM
Anonymous said...

Bryan Caplan's ancestors lived in a bubble too. An enforced bubble in pre-Enlightenment Europe called the ghetto or Jewish quarter in which they were locked up every night. Some Jews are actually nostalgic about that period: the Hasidic Jews have chosen to continue living in such a bubble.

The christian protestant Amish also live in a pre-Enlightenment bubble, shunning all the modernity that came after that Revolution. The urban Hasidic jews and the rural Amish christians are living in the same time period.

Nothing wrong with bubbles per se. That is probably the human condition. A band of hunter-gatherers are living in a bubble. The village is a bubble. The tribe is a bubble. And so on. I think the bubble metaphor can be a very useful one.

3/14/12, 7:25 PM
Anonymous said...

I know economists read charts for a good time, but shouldn't they also have some understanding of people, economics being the social science it is?

He's clueless. What the heck is it with economists? Are they frequently misanthropists or recluses or Aspies?

3/14/12, 7:31 PM
Anonymous said...

Baloo, your ex-army pimping cracks me up...

3/14/12, 7:36 PM
Glaivester said...

I don't see a problem with Caplan on this issue. He doesn't like the current culture, and wishes to separate himself from it. That doesn't mean he hates or is unwilling to be civil to people outside the bubble, just that he does not want to assimilate into their (social) culture; a lot of conservative Christians feel the same way.

3/14/12, 7:41 PM
Anonymous said...

Questions to ask open borders advocates:

1) Do you believe in open borders for all countries in the world, or just the USA, if just yes for the USA, please explain why?
2) Do you believe that complex organizations like a country or society can be socially engineered for open borders and fully understand all the effects and side effects?
3) Is there a limit to human understanding, biases, and conceits, which could affect your understanding of the possible effects of open borders?
4) In the scientific method, there is hypothesis, and trial and error. What is you hypothesis and how come you are not willing to try this out as an experiment on a small country like Iceland; say open borders for 100 years to see the effects?
5) Does the original population of the country have a say in the matter, say some people disagree, what is in store for them, re-education?
6) How is Libertarianism like Marxism in its concern for the material, revolution, countries going away eventually, and the treating of people as economic cogs in search of prosperity?
7) Where do you think nations, states, or countries, came from?
8) You claim there were open borders in the past, isn’t it true that migration was much harder back then, and if a massive amount of people migrated from one place to another it would cause war, as in much of human history.
9) Do cultures have a right to exist, if so how do they protect themselves?
10) How would an open borders world control crime?

3/14/12, 7:52 PM
Baloo said...

""Me, I'm safely in the green, where I'm sure a lot of Istevers fit."

Stop it Rex, any guy wearing a balmoral is a tree-hugger."

Those are cabers, silly.

3/14/12, 8:06 PM
Anonymous said...

OT:

Joseph Kony is in the news. I looked him up.

"The Lord's Resistance Army (also Lord's Resistance Movement or Lakwena Part Two) is a militant group that was formed in 1987 in the Acholi ethnic region of Northern Uganda."

"The Acholi language is a Western Nilotic language, classified as Luo, and is mutually intelligible with Lango and other Luo languages."

On Wikipedia's list of internationally notable Luo people Obama is number 1, Kony is number 9.

3/14/12, 8:22 PM
Anonym said...

Here's a post from an Hispanic that is a window into how some Hispanics view Americans: As contaminants that should be cleansed from North America. It shows an attitude that in my view is a step toward a genocidal mentality:

"I wonder what the Mexicans say about you, the country that shamelessly stole 119% of their territory by means of murder and theft. "The land stolen from Mexico is considered to be among the riches in the world where an abundance of gold was found after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. The native Mexicans were forced to become US citizens or leave the area one year after the Treaty was signed. The well-known philosopher and historian Jose Vasconcelos wrote that one reason whites perpetrated horrible crimes against Mexicans, was because they believed in the concept known as 'manifest destiny' which in practice meant to 'kill all the Mexicans and take Mexico.' History has registered thousands of grotesque crimes against Mexicans in that part of the Native American Continent, but more outstanding for having similarities with the grave crimes by whites in Central and South America, are those related to the taken of men by force of arms out of their homes to be murdered, then the white killers would go back to the homes and rape women and little girls, murder them, set the homes on fire, and kill all the animals." What a civilized country indeed! Even though that relates to past history nothing seems to have changed fundamentally if we look at the attitudes and actions of some 'progressists' here. And some have the gall to write about infiltrators. The only infiltrators are those Europeans who came and contaminated America (the real one which covers both South and North) and whose progeny -you, of course- continue debasing these lands....others of a similar ilk, you are nothing more than transplanted Europeans to the real natives in America."

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/13/ron-pauls-hour-of-decision/#IDComment316362529

3/14/12, 8:32 PM
ATBOTL said...

Does this guy really think free markets are going to protect him from hoards of ruthless Zetas Cartel and Al-Qaeda types in the future third world America he wants to hasten?

3/14/12, 8:49 PM
Mr. Anon said...

"No Name said...

Just more evidence that yesterday's Commie is today's Libertarian."

Quite so.

Communist: "Capitalism is alienating. Isn't it a crime!"

Libertarian: "Capitalism is alienating. Isn't it great!"

3/14/12, 8:58 PM
Mr. Anon said...

I suppose that Brian Caplan might be more welcome among American soldiers than Leon Panetta will now be.

3/14/12, 9:04 PM
tommy said...

This is a case of valid libertarian thinking being stretched into absurdity, as is too often the case with libertarians.

This is the problem with all austere ideological positions. Ideology itself is something that is most powerful in the minds of the comfortable in a highly scaled society where practicality need not be much of an intrusion on thought. It's no accident that a substantial number of Marxist revolutionaries throughout history were recruited during their university days.

E.O. Wilson once wrote something to the effect that, "Marx had the right ideas but the wrong species. He should have picked ants." The same could be said of libertarians. They should have picked bears or tigers rather than primates.

3/14/12, 9:11 PM
Anonymous said...

This is a case of valid libertarian thinking being stretched into absurdity

To me libertarian ideas often sound sensible on a case by case basis but taking a step back, it all falls apart. As Baloo says, HBD issues the rest shatter it all.

Seems to me that libertarianism as it stands today is, like so much else, a lot of white folks arguing with each other. Most other groups simply arent interested and libertarians cant seem to see why thats a problem.

3/14/12, 9:32 PM
coldequation said...

Although it pains me to agree with Brian Caplan, he has a point when he says "In fact, I think my American "defenders" owe me an apology. My best guess is that, on net, the U.S. armed forces increase the probability that a big war will adversely affect me. While they deter some threats, they provoke many others."

It's hard to argue that the US military has done much besides destabilize the world since the Cold War ended. My thanks to the troops, but only in a "it's the thought that counts" sort of way.

3/14/12, 10:21 PM
Lugash said...

I am Lugash.

The only person worth reading over there is Kling.

+1 to that. His Harvard/Goldman Sachs Filter premise is one of the most important ideas around. I have a gut feeling(despite available evidence) that he almost 'gets it' w.r.t. immigration.

Caplan is a troll.

Or medicated. His writing has the feel of someone on a new course of anti-depressants.

He's a complete hypocrite for wanting to have his own cultural bubble, yet denying average Americans the same right.

I am Lugash.

3/14/12, 11:20 PM
Anonymous said...

"Caplan is Stupid Liberal Anti-White Bigot."

Yup

"Under Jim Crow, there were many places in America where blacks were not legally allowed to live."

Effectively like all the places Kaplan has and will ever live.

.
"Caplan demonstrates why libertarianism is a non-serious political philosophy"

The version espoused by people like Caplan is deadly serious and the latest in a long line of idealogies desgned to destroy any sense of national cohesion and boundaries.

It's Bowery's horizontal transmission thing again. The people who are most adapted to it constantly seek to reshape their environment to suit their adaptation but everyone else is adapted to mostly homogenous terriotorial nations hence why the adapted always end up destroying everything.

3/15/12, 12:28 AM
Anonymous said...

"Bryan Caplan's ancestors lived in a bubble too. An enforced bubble in pre-Enlightenment Europe called the ghetto or Jewish quarter in which they were locked up every night."

It's this bull that drives all the destructiveness. Caplan's ancestors in western europe had the monopoly on banking and money-lending during the entire 1000 year deflation that afflicted Europe after the fall of Rome. They were the financial sector 1% of the time and their "ghettos" were like the "ghetto" of the Upper East Side of Manhattan is today.

They only got persecuted when some Prince they'd lent millions to didn't want to pay it back or they screwed up the local money supply causing the economy to crash and they lived in ethnic enclaves in exactly the same way they - and every other ethnic minority - does now.

.
"This was a weak attack Steve. Why not live in your own bubble when the rest of our country is going to shit."

He's not solely living in his own bubble. He's safe in his bubble while publicly advocating support for open borders which effects everyone else - especially the people who can't afford the kind of bubble caplan has that allows him to be safe from the consequences of what he is advocating.

3/15/12, 1:07 AM
Anonymous said...

Libertarians have a weird pre-evolutionary world view in general:

Libertarian : People are motivated by self interest because it is rational! And self interest always = more money for the self!

Evolutionary Biology : People are motivated by self interest to the extent it helped them reproduce their genes in their historical environment, usually through survive and reproduction. They are also motivated by interest in their children and closely related others for the same reasons.

They are motivated by a wide range of desires for specific things, some of which money might give in our environment, some of which it may not, as a side effect of these drives, some of which may be evolutionarily maladapted (i.e. wanting more and more status beyond the ability to reproduce, patriotism as applied to wide ethnic groups rather than immediate kin, &c.).

3/15/12, 1:34 AM
Anonymous said...

I think you are being too hard on Bryan Caplan, Steve.
- Caplan doesn't mean any harm, and it's not even a case of deliberate unfriendliness, standoffishness or snobbery.
Human beings vary enormously psychologically in particular the extrovert/introvert scale.Caplan might well be a natural loner - not an unfriendly or cold, snobbish person by any case, but merely a soul who prefers solitude, contemplation and quiteness than the messy business of dealing with people he doesn't know.
I suspect many internet and obsessives and people who post a great deal on blogs such as this, are to some extent the same.
- The beauty of the internet - aspie heaven - is that it allows communication by pure austere word, with apparently no human attached.

3/15/12, 2:00 AM
Anonymous said...

It's this bull that drives all the destructiveness. Caplan's ancestors in western europe had the monopoly on banking and money-lending during the entire 1000 year deflation that afflicted Europe after the fall of Rome. They were the financial sector 1% of the time and their "ghettos" were like the "ghetto" of the Upper East Side of Manhattan is today.

Pointing out that the jews lived in ghettos "drives all the destructiveness"?? Wow, I have no idea where you are coming from.

Not all jews were money lenders. Not all jews are bankers or hedge fund managers today either. The majority were impoverished and lived in squalor in their ghettos. They had to be liberated. Who the heck needs to be "liberated" from the Upper East Side of Manhattan?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ghettos_in_Europe

Jewish ghettos in Europe existed because Jews were viewed as foreigners due to their non-Christian beliefs in a Renaissance Christian environment. As a result, Jews were placed under strict regulations throughout many European cities.[1] The character of ghettos varied through times. In some cases, they comprised a Jewish quarter, the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. In many instances, ghettos were places of terrible poverty and during periods of population growth, ghettos had narrow streets and tall, crowded houses. Residents had their own justice system. Around the ghetto stood walls that, during pogroms, were closed from inside to protect the community, but from the outside during Christmas, Pesach, and Easter Week to prevent the Jews from leaving during those times.

In the 19th century, Jewish ghettos were progressively abolished, and their walls taken down.

3/15/12, 5:24 AM
JSM said...

"but merely a soul who prefers solitude, contemplation and quiteness than the messy business of dealing with people he doesn't know."

Yeah, while he's enjoying his heavenly solitude, he's also being busy beaver about seeing to it, by bullying the rest of us for mass immigration of "vibrants," that lots of Americans don't GET to enjoy the lovely quietness.
He's a turd.

3/15/12, 6:35 AM
Marlowe said...

Mr. Caplan, from the little I've learned of him, has a wife and three children (twins & a single). If one must engage in ad hominem one must make sure one knows one's hominem beforehand.

3/15/12, 6:53 AM
Anonymous said...

>That's pretty much the story of all libertarians<

Not all. There is a hard core. Occidental Observer writer Bob Wallace claimed that much of it is homosexual. (NB: his use of "left" and "right" is peculiar; he means "ideologue" and "realist.")

3/15/12, 7:17 AM
Svigor said...

Eh. Steve, I think you deserve a lot of interest and respect for interest in the truth, but I'm much happier with Caplan's world of bubbles than I am in a homogenous culture. I don't expect to like what others like, I don't expect others to like what I like, and I find it way easier to be positive about many people when they're far away from me.

Caplan's world of bubbles, eh? So he supports the end of anti-Freedom (so-called "anti-discrimination") laws? Or rather, they're his primary concern?

Thought not (no, I didn't check).

Do you notice liberatarians always push for gay marriage, open borders, etc, but ignore existing anti-discrimination laws, anything to do with race, or any freedom of association.. which leads to me to believe they are liberals in disguise, simply using a conservative argument to dismantle anything that remains of the western nation state.

At worst. Or at best, they're cowards.

Bryan Caplan's ancestors lived in a bubble too. An enforced bubble in pre-Enlightenment Europe called the ghetto or Jewish quarter in which they were locked up every night. Some Jews are actually nostalgic about that period: the Hasidic Jews have chosen to continue living in such a bubble.

Judaism is ethnocentric (AKA "racist") to its core. That's why Jews lived in ghettos - to remain "pure" and "unsullied" by the "heathens" (AKA, "gentiles"). The bubbles were enforced, yes - by Jews.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

1) Do you believe in open borders for all countries in the world, or just the USA, if just yes for the USA, please explain why?

I'd like to know if libertarians believe in reciprocity. Why should a nation offer to foreigners that which foreigners deny to its citizens?

So the military is protecting me from goat herders in Afganistan. What about all the bad things that the state does like affirmative action and the welfare state.

See? You can tell he's a libertarian because he's going to whistle right past the graveyard of anti-Freedom ("anti-discrimination") laws. As if taking a cut of a man's wealth, or giving gubbmint jobs to NAMs trump telling him with whom he must form businesses, institutions, churches, communities, and neighborhoods in the "boy I'm being screwed" sweepstakes.

"Under Jim Crow, there were many places in America where blacks were not legally allowed to live."

In other words, I like bubbles, but only if I get to decide what kind of bubbles may be created. Bubbles for me, but not for thee. Libertarians really are this full of shit.

3/15/12, 8:39 AM
Matt said...

I don't know, this one seems pretty easy. Caplan doesn't think that lower class people shouldn't have their own bubbles, he just doesn't think that the American economy constitutes a social group. So, if blacks and hispanics want to contribute to it, they ought to be able to. I think he probably is pretty free-association, but coming out against the '64 CRA makes you sound like a racist lunatic, so no one with any brains does it, regardless of private feelings.

Caplan's position is oddball, but consistent enough.

3/15/12, 9:23 AM
Mannerheim said...

Caplan comes across as a dim-bulb college sophomore who just discovered Ayn Rand. I used to think like that too when I was a dumb kid, but then I grew up a little and realized that high-trust, high-cohesion, homogeneous societies really do just work better, if history and common sense are any guide. He keeps babbling about his "Beautiful Bubble" and how he looks down on 99% of the people he meets, yet he seems to think that that's a desirable social arrangement and not a symptom of a society swirling the drain. Hell, I look down on most of the people I meet but I have enough self-reflection to realize that that's mostly just arrogance on my part, not something to brag about.

3/15/12, 9:57 AM
Anonymous said...

"This was a weak attack Steve. Why not live in your own bubble when the rest of our country is going to shit."

It was a good attack, Anon, an accurate one, pointing out that the ideas espoused by Mr. Caplan actually restrict MY ability to create my own bubble as he has chosen to do for himself. You see, his advocacy bursts my bubble whether I look at the bigger bubble of my country, my state, or the more personal, intimate bubble of my neighborhood, my very street.

Yet he speaks of an ability to "bleed" for those who wish to come here. He speaks of his empathy.

He has no empathy. His choice not to leave his bubble even for a short time to see the conditions in which his countrymen live because of ideas he espouses and ideas he spreads shows he has no empathy, no such ability to "bleed."

In his own words, he paints the picture of the "ivory tower intelletual" and then wonders how those living outside those gates can detest sorts such as he.

3/15/12, 10:11 AM
Anonymous said...

Caplan might well be a natural loner - not an unfriendly or cold, snobbish person by any case, but merely a soul who prefers solitude, contemplation and quiteness than the messy business of dealing with people he doesn't know.




Unfortunately this natural loner who prefers solitude, contemplation and quiteness than the messy business of dealing with people he doesn't know devotes his life to making the rest of us live in close proximity to people who we don't know. Or worse - to making us live our lives in close proximity to people we do know, and don't like.

That is what the libertarian open borders project boils down to - smashing everyone else's "bubbles".

3/15/12, 11:46 AM
Anonymous said...

Charles Murray is personally an oddball, a perfectly decent man but definitely an oddball. He encourages his presumably highly intelligent kids to do menial jobs for the sake of doing something menial. He thinks this builds character. Obviously it does not build character. I did it an all it did was amplify my prejudice against dumb white people.



Maybe you it only builds character in those who already possess some it it, and you don't?

3/15/12, 11:51 AM
Paul Mendez said...

"Libertarianism" is not really a political philosophy. It is simply a parlor game - like Carnelli - for highly intelligent social outcasts.

Here's how you play.

One player picks a particular social tradition, institution, policy, rule or taboo.

The second players then completes the statement, "X is immoral because it diminishes my personal freedom by ..."

Then the two players exchange roles. While points are awarded based on how convoluted and absurd the answer is, nobody keeps score.

3/15/12, 12:31 PM
Anonymous said...

"Not all jews were money lenders."

For the 1000 year deflation in western europe after the fall of Rome jews had a monopoly on banking and money lending. The idea that a people who have a monopoly on banking and money-lending are "persecuted" is nonsense.

.
"The majority were impoverished and lived in squalor in their ghettos."

No they weren't. It was different in eastern europe after Jews were expelled from western europe but during the 1000 year deflation Jews were the 1% and lived in the same kind of ghettos the richest 1%always live in i.e. the kind designed to keep everyone else out.

3/15/12, 1:09 PM
Anonymous said...

Caplan's zinger at the beginning of the post is trading upon an unexamined premise. The people who Steve thinks are Idiocratic are not the people who Steve thinks of as Americans.

The idiocracy types are the lower IQ, post-1965 immigrants to the US, many of them non-citizens, many of them not particularly loyal to the US.

The Americans are the ones who built this country and all the armaments that defend it.

The tricky part now is that a fair fraction of the rank and file military are actually composed of members of the lower IQ groups, of which some are genuinely patriotic citizens. Not all, and not to the same extent as the Scots-Irish. But it's enough overlap to be a complicating factor. Heck, there are a lot more patriotic NAMs than NAM mathematicians, so this is a lot more than the PC usually have to work with.

3/15/12, 3:12 PM
Anonymous said...

I don't know, this one seems pretty easy. Caplan doesn't think that lower class people shouldn't have their own bubbles ..

Eh? That is exactly what he does think.

Caplan's position is oddball, but consistent enough.


I fail to see the consistency in "bubbles for me but not for thee".

Caplna has given us such works as "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies", to explain why the rabble should cede all decision making power to libertarian economist PhDs like himself.

3/15/12, 5:10 PM
Anonymous said...

Although it pains me to agree with Brian Caplan, he has a point when he says "In fact, I think my American "defenders" owe me an apology. My best guess is that, on net, the U.S. armed forces increase the probability that a big war will adversely affect me."



Even if this is correct (and I'm not sure it is) I find it unpersuasive. Where is it written that any great weight should be attached to whether or not something adversely affects Bryan Caplan? The solipsism at the heart of libertarianism is it's least attractive and least rational component.

3/15/12, 5:18 PM
K(yle) said...

Wikipedia is not a reliable resource; especially with anything relating to Jews or Israel.

Being a Wikipedia editor/sysop, et cetera is more than a full-time job and I'm pretty sure most of the people actually doing it are actually getting a paycheck to play watchdog over various articles.

So Wikipedia is the 'verifiable truth' (no original research allowed) as determined by well-funded Intelligence agencies and the PR departments of major corporations.

3/15/12, 9:22 PM
Anonymous said...

"Do you notice liberatarians always push for gay marriage, open borders, etc, but ignore existing anti-discrimination laws, anything to do with race, or any freedom of association.. which leads to me to believe they are liberals in disguise, simply using a conservative argument to dismantle anything that remains of the western nation state.'

Check out the book Democracy: The God that Failed written by Hoppe, who is a libertarian unlike most of them. He's quite interesting and is all for discrimination and against forced integration. He's not for open borders because that will destroy the country.

3/15/12, 9:24 PM
Anonymous said...

The idea that a people who have a monopoly on banking and money-lending are "persecuted" is nonsense.

In terms of selection for intelligence, Jews were probably more characterised by relatively high fertility at the high end than low fertility at the low end.

To contrast, increased fertility at the high end pushes your whole distribution up, where mere decreased fertility at the low end with typical (or slighlty improved) fertility at the medium and high ends mainly just narrows your distribution.

The Jews may not have done as well as European nobles, from whom present day Europeans are disproportinately descended and who are "our ancestors", but it's certainly the case that they did far better than J. Peasant, and probably more or less comparable to the gentile bourgeoise, who are again disproportionately represented in European ancestry (they fill essentially the same role), occasional pogroms and weird self imposed religious strictures aside. In terms of quality of life and average reproductive success, it's still better not to be a peasant.

3/16/12, 1:16 AM
Anonymous said...

>liberatarians always push for gay marriage, open borders, etc, but ignore existing anti-discrimination laws, anything to do with race, or any freedom of association.. which leads to me to believe they are liberals in disguise, simply using a conservative argument to dismantle anything that remains of the western nation state.'

Check out the book Democracy: The God that Failed written by Hoppe, who is a libertarian unlike most of them.<

Hoppe is the exception that proves the rule. Or whatever that saying is. He sticks out like sore thumb.

3/16/12, 7:30 AM
Anonymous said...

Check out the book Democracy: The God that Failed written by Hoppe, who is a libertarian unlike most of them. He's quite interesting and is all for discrimination and against forced integration. He's not for open borders because that will destroy the country.

Just like there is a huge divide between paleo conservatives and neo conservatives, there too is a divide among libertarians. I think, from the point of view of most on this blog, the evil libertarians are actually neo libertarians. Paleo libertarians would actually have much in common with the readers on this blog.

3/16/12, 9:45 AM
Anonymous said...

For more on paleo libertarians, read this short post by Ilana Mercer.

3/16/12, 3:30 PM

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