By Michael Munger airJune 5, 2024.
excerpt:
This seems like a contradiction: the commercial system has consistently produced outcomes that are broadly distributed across the population, but the requirement that individuals participate in a system in which they plan, save, invest, and engineer their own “pursuit of happiness” places a burden on those who should be seizing all the new opportunities the system reveals.
I think the explanation for this paradox is simple. All the difficulties have been eliminatedJust as our physiological immune systems require threats to mature and avoid self-attack, so too our sense of commercial efficacy needs to face challenges and overcome those challenges in order to mature into effective citizenship.
Children are taught that they can do anything, that they are powerful and important, but they never experience the daily struggles and failures that come with it. In fact, children are encouraged to avoid anything that might “stimulate” them or motivate them to play or act out. This is because Jonathan HaidtAs aforementioned, Lenore SkenazySo young people are overwhelmed with anxiety. Unless they cure cancer or become a U.S. senator, they’ve failed. But they don’t know how to build a birdhouse out of junk, or fix a toilet, or change a tube on their $6,000 mountain bike. They’re powerless, but they have an inflated sense of doom and self-importance.
DRH’s comment when I read this: One of my proudest accomplishments at the Naval Postgraduate School was when, one afternoon about 15 years ago, I saw a distinguished professor (and by distinguished professor, I mean gray-haired and old-looking, which is what I look like now) in the parking lot with a flat tire. I asked the professor if I wanted to help, and he did. Although I hadn’t changed a tire in over 30 years, I remembered all the steps correctly, and we were both on the road in less than 15 minutes.
DRH says: I hesitate to disagree with Michael. After all, he works with younger students than I do. So my five counterexamples probably seem less persuasive because of the self-selection involved. A local organization I’m involved with, the California Arts and Sciences Institute (CASI), held an event for young people last Wednesday, from elementary school to college students. My friend François Melèze spoke with three of them, and I spoke with two of them. My two were college students, one at the College of Monterey Peninsula and the other at UC Berkeley. Like François, I was very impressed. I know the dangers of anecdotes. My point is that if you follow Mike Munger’s view, you risk convincing yourself that there’s no point in attending such events.
By Roger Pirke Jr. Honest BrokerMay 20, 2024.
Many, but not all, Democrats support extreme views on climate and extreme events and have abandoned the IPCC. Many, but not all, Republicans believe they are fairly in line with the IPCC’s findings on climate and extreme events. Similarly, that may be why I have been invited to testify by Republicans in recent years.Four
Of course, alignment (or inalignment) with the IPCC means very little about policy preferences: Democrats remain the party that champions climate policy initiatives, while Republicans remain less so.The key question here, of course, is “What initiatives?” I have long argued There is an untapped opportunity for greater bipartisan support for practical energy and adaptation policies that accelerate decarbonization and reduce vulnerability, but that’s a topic for another day.
comment:
Last month, the Stanford Classical Liberal Society invited Roger to speak over Zoom, and it was very impressive.
By John V. Walsh Antiwar.comMay 27, 2024.
Sometimes, a book is persuasive not just because it is true, but because of the author’s identity. It is not surprising to come across a book written by a socialist or pro-China critic that takes aim at the false image of China that the US media boasts. However, The false China threat and its real dangers, I am neither a socialist nor a pro-China.
Solis Mullen is a libertarian like Randolph Bourne and Justin Raimondo. Therefore, he is classified as a conservative in our poor political classification. However, his book was not written to appeal to people with a particular political view. It was written only with the interest of the American people and, dare I say, the interest of the whole of humanity, including China, in mind. Therefore, it is very useful for people of all political affiliations who feel that the public is being deceived by the false China threat. This book may answer your and your friends’ questions about China in a way that the average American can understand.
Comment: I don’t completely deny the threat from China, but I think it’s been overstated. Certainly, if they are going to threaten us with trade, they’re going to do it in a weird way: at taxpayer expense in the form of subsidized exports. As Milton Friedman once said, “Why should we reject foreign aid?” Especially if that foreign aid goes to consumers and not to our wasteful governments.
By Christopher J. Snowdon, Quillette, June 6, 2024.
excerpt:
A central premise of Orwell’s political writings from the mid-1930s onwards was that capitalism would be destroyed and replaced by a totalitarian socialism, perhaps of the kind satirised in Moses of Persia. 1984. Despite his contempt for capitalism, Orwell saw the world caught in between: “Capitalism leads to unemployment queues, scrambles for markets, and war,” he wrote in 1944; “Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war.” In his view, the only alternative was a planned economy that preserved democracy and allowed individual freedom, but as the 1940s progressed he became increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for the libertarian brand he called democratic socialism. Indeed, he saw no “practical way of achieving it.”
This explains why he became so despondent about the world’s outlook in the last few years of his life that he decided to write. 1984But he was wrong. Capitalism did After surviving, subsequent communist revolutions followed the same path as the USSR, and Orwell’s democratic socialism was not necessary to prevent totalitarianism from sweeping the world. In the end, it wasn’t a simple choice between democratic socialism and communist (or fascist) totalitarianism. There was a third way.
By the way, the 1944 quote is from him. Review of 2 booksOne of them is Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Slavery.
Judge Napolitano, Judging freedomYouTube, June 5, 2024.
Ritter says three U.S. government agents pulled him off a plane as he was about to depart for Russia and stole his passport without explanation. They didn’t tell him who sent them, and when he asked, he was told he needed to contact the State Department to recover his stolen property.
