Here I am....
Friday, November 10, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Donald Rumsfeld has cut and run.
Perhaps I can be the first to make this obvious observation.
If only our troops were given similar options. Alternatively, isn't it a shame he can't have his tour of duty involuntarily extended and be reassigned to Iraq without sufficient body armor?
We should also note the timing: this was obviously planned long in advance, and scheduled to coincide with the election so that there would be fewer news cycles unfavorable to the Republicans and distraction from the Democratic victory.
If only our troops were given similar options. Alternatively, isn't it a shame he can't have his tour of duty involuntarily extended and be reassigned to Iraq without sufficient body armor?
We should also note the timing: this was obviously planned long in advance, and scheduled to coincide with the election so that there would be fewer news cycles unfavorable to the Republicans and distraction from the Democratic victory.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
The Social Welfare State, beyond Ideology
Newly added:
Jeffry Sachs' Scientific American article on how social welfare states do as well as or better than low-tax, high-income countries. The punch line is that Friedrich Von Hayek was wrong.
Jeffry Sachs' Scientific American article on how social welfare states do as well as or better than low-tax, high-income countries. The punch line is that Friedrich Von Hayek was wrong.
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Markets in everything: murder
At Marginal Revolution, the article Rent Seeking Kills makes an argument to legalize organ sales.
One respondant writes:
The people who are worried about slayings committed to involuntariyly harvest human organs are jumping at shadows. It might happen once in a great while under a regime of legalized organ sales, but far less than under a black-market regime. If anything, the option to pay for an organ from a voluntary donor is a substitute for knocking someone on the head and stealing it.
Outside the fact that this fellow has no real evidence about frequency (he's merely asserting it), we might ask if this same argument applies to murder. Right now there's a black market in murder: should taking lives be marketized?
A common theme at Marginal Revolution is "markets in everything". A common libertarian fantasy. So what would a murder market look like?
If you wanted to murder, perhaps you'd be required to negotiate for suicide, or buy a hunting/execution permit.
Or perhaps people would be issued a "life rights" deed, which they could hold onto or sell. The holder of the deed would be able to kill the "property" at whim.
We can explore this, but the basic problem is what societal purposes are being served with the creation of this market?
Additionally, our initial revulsion at this concept indicates subtle problems due to undermining of traditional underpinnings of our social institutions, especially the basic liberal assumptions of bodily security which are essential to political and commercial activity.
One respondant writes:
The people who are worried about slayings committed to involuntariyly harvest human organs are jumping at shadows. It might happen once in a great while under a regime of legalized organ sales, but far less than under a black-market regime. If anything, the option to pay for an organ from a voluntary donor is a substitute for knocking someone on the head and stealing it.
Outside the fact that this fellow has no real evidence about frequency (he's merely asserting it), we might ask if this same argument applies to murder. Right now there's a black market in murder: should taking lives be marketized?
A common theme at Marginal Revolution is "markets in everything". A common libertarian fantasy. So what would a murder market look like?
If you wanted to murder, perhaps you'd be required to negotiate for suicide, or buy a hunting/execution permit.
Or perhaps people would be issued a "life rights" deed, which they could hold onto or sell. The holder of the deed would be able to kill the "property" at whim.
We can explore this, but the basic problem is what societal purposes are being served with the creation of this market?
Additionally, our initial revulsion at this concept indicates subtle problems due to undermining of traditional underpinnings of our social institutions, especially the basic liberal assumptions of bodily security which are essential to political and commercial activity.
Iraqi oil revenues.
Jane Galt writes in Trust in oil? about some foreseeable problems with the idea of an oil trust for Iraq. Fair enough: we certainly couldn't expect perfection to spontaneously emerge, and the more problems anticipated, the better the designed solutions can be.
But she and the libertarian repondants miss the big point: who's getting the oil money now? Is the current distribution of oil profits and revenues anywhere near as good for the Iraqi people as even a flawed oil trust would be?
It would be nice if she had included a link to the original post.
But she and the libertarian repondants miss the big point: who's getting the oil money now? Is the current distribution of oil profits and revenues anywhere near as good for the Iraqi people as even a flawed oil trust would be?
It would be nice if she had included a link to the original post.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Wiki propaganda watch: Rights
The wikipedia article on rights is badly in need of a rewriting to present a clear overview and index to the subject.
For a start, it does not address the fundamental difference between moral and legal rights. Moral rights are claims, can multiply like angels on a pinhead, and can conflict willy-nilly. Legal rights are claims that are enforced, and where they conflict they need to be resolved lest enforcement conflicts (battles) ensue.
In addition, it's entirely missing the Hohfeld taxonomy of rights, which emphasizes that every right creates an obligation (duty) for others.
But the annoying thing is this grotesque paragraph viewing rights through the ideological lens of positive and negative rights:
The conception of a right to something that implicitly creates an obligation on someone else to provide that thing (a positive right) is widely challenged. You can not enforce your wish for something (under the auspices of a right) if it implicitly constitutes an obligation on another to do something for you. However, one person's right to something creates a negative right in that you have the right for that thing not be interfered with by another, and that other is obligated not to interfere with your right to it. The obligation test is widely used to determine what constitutes a right. To illustrate: You have the right to own an axe, but you do not have a right to an axe. If you do own an axe, others have an obligation not to steal it.
This isn't a description of rights: it is an application of a libertarian theory of ethics to rights. In first world societies, positive legal rights abound, ranging from rights to jury trial to social welfare rights.
Revising the whole rights page would be a great deal of work: perhaps we should start small and address this one paragraph.
For a start, it does not address the fundamental difference between moral and legal rights. Moral rights are claims, can multiply like angels on a pinhead, and can conflict willy-nilly. Legal rights are claims that are enforced, and where they conflict they need to be resolved lest enforcement conflicts (battles) ensue.
In addition, it's entirely missing the Hohfeld taxonomy of rights, which emphasizes that every right creates an obligation (duty) for others.
But the annoying thing is this grotesque paragraph viewing rights through the ideological lens of positive and negative rights:
The conception of a right to something that implicitly creates an obligation on someone else to provide that thing (a positive right) is widely challenged. You can not enforce your wish for something (under the auspices of a right) if it implicitly constitutes an obligation on another to do something for you. However, one person's right to something creates a negative right in that you have the right for that thing not be interfered with by another, and that other is obligated not to interfere with your right to it. The obligation test is widely used to determine what constitutes a right. To illustrate: You have the right to own an axe, but you do not have a right to an axe. If you do own an axe, others have an obligation not to steal it.
This isn't a description of rights: it is an application of a libertarian theory of ethics to rights. In first world societies, positive legal rights abound, ranging from rights to jury trial to social welfare rights.
Revising the whole rights page would be a great deal of work: perhaps we should start small and address this one paragraph.
New Feature: Wiki propaganda watch
Posting frequency has been way down in this blog: I'm fairly busy, and don't want to get to involved in lengthy arguments. In addition, most of the things I want to write are longer than one sitting's worth of work.
However, it just occurred to me that there's something simple to do which could build traffic to this site and encourage others to perform a service.
Wikipedia is usually a fine starting point for investigating a subject. But as people come to rely on this, they become vulnerable if wikipedia can be corrupted by propagandists, ideology, business interests, and a host of other aggressive people who wish their viewpoint to become dominant.
Just as libertarians have injected their ideology in most web forums, they infest wikipedia. There are a number of wikipedia authors fighting the good fight to keep things more objective, but they are not omniscient. I'd like to help out by pointing people to some places which bear unmistakable marks of libertarian propaganda. Hopefully, some of you will feel inspired to make changes to improve the articles so that they won't indoctrinate innocents looking for basic information.
It will be interesting to see whether my suggestions produce some action, even if only in the discussion.
However, it just occurred to me that there's something simple to do which could build traffic to this site and encourage others to perform a service.
Wikipedia is usually a fine starting point for investigating a subject. But as people come to rely on this, they become vulnerable if wikipedia can be corrupted by propagandists, ideology, business interests, and a host of other aggressive people who wish their viewpoint to become dominant.
Just as libertarians have injected their ideology in most web forums, they infest wikipedia. There are a number of wikipedia authors fighting the good fight to keep things more objective, but they are not omniscient. I'd like to help out by pointing people to some places which bear unmistakable marks of libertarian propaganda. Hopefully, some of you will feel inspired to make changes to improve the articles so that they won't indoctrinate innocents looking for basic information.
It will be interesting to see whether my suggestions produce some action, even if only in the discussion.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
How does Walmart compare to public schooling?
Here's an idea I had, and thought I'd toss out. Partly I'd like to see if my 3 readers (a guess) are paying attention, and partly I'd like to explore this idea: I haven't decided if I like it or not.
Public schools are a bit like Walmart. Pretty much anybody can be served: you don't need specialty schools except perhaps for some very special students (such as the deaf.) There are economies of scale and combinatorial choice in (for example) a comprehensive high school.
If libertarians want to demand school choice as public policy, why shouldn't we demand shopping choice as public policy?
Public schools are a bit like Walmart. Pretty much anybody can be served: you don't need specialty schools except perhaps for some very special students (such as the deaf.) There are economies of scale and combinatorial choice in (for example) a comprehensive high school.
If libertarians want to demand school choice as public policy, why shouldn't we demand shopping choice as public policy?
Sunday, September 10, 2006
The Virtue of Sycophancy
For a good time, check out these two posts.
The Virtue of Sycophancy (1)
The Virtue of Sycophancy (2)
Daniel Barnes evaluates James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics".
It's also funny to read the Shia and Sunni reviews of this book at Amazon. There is no god but the market, and Rand is it's prophet!
The Virtue of Sycophancy (1)
The Virtue of Sycophancy (2)
Daniel Barnes evaluates James Valliant's book "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics".
It's also funny to read the Shia and Sunni reviews of this book at Amazon. There is no god but the market, and Rand is it's prophet!
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature
I've had "Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature" sitting on my bookshelf for a while, but hadn't yet opened it. So imagine my joy when Daniel Barnes wrote me to say that he's created a blog for its discussion! And to top that, I find that the whole book is available online (buy a copy anyhow!) So I've added two entries to the Critiques website.
Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature
Greg S. Nyquist provides perhaps the most extensive criticism of Rand. He finds that her assumptions about human nature do not match scientific knowledge of human nature.
Blog: Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature
Daniel Barnes has started a blog for the discussion of Greg Nyquist's 'A.R.C.H.N' and other criticisms of objectivism.
The first substantial entry in the blog is a thorough shredding of Fred Seddon’s review of ARCHN in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. This is an important kind of critique: believers rely on specious dismissals by authorities to justify ignoring criticisms of their beliefs.
Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature
Greg S. Nyquist provides perhaps the most extensive criticism of Rand. He finds that her assumptions about human nature do not match scientific knowledge of human nature.
Blog: Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature
Daniel Barnes has started a blog for the discussion of Greg Nyquist's 'A.R.C.H.N' and other criticisms of objectivism.
The first substantial entry in the blog is a thorough shredding of Fred Seddon’s review of ARCHN in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies. This is an important kind of critique: believers rely on specious dismissals by authorities to justify ignoring criticisms of their beliefs.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Imaginary origin of Twoflower
I'm a huge fan of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series: I like fantasy that admits it's fantasy, unlike libertarianism.
Since the first book came out, I've wondered about the name of Twoflower, one of the major characters. A lot of humorous SF has in-jokes in the names of the characters: a great example is "The Flying Sorcerors", where the character Purple's name comes from a misunderstanding of a machine translation: "as a color, mauve", which is Asimov.
According to Discworld Annotations:
- [p. 24/22] Terry has this to say about the name 'Twoflower': "[...] there's no joke in Twoflower. I just wanted a coherent way of making up 'foreign' names and I think I pinched the Mayan construction (Nine Turning Mirrors, Three Rabbits, etc.)."
So the author denies intention in the name. But it's a basic principle of literary interpretation that the author's intentions don't limit legitimate interpretation. So, in that vein I'd like to offer my own origin of the name, which I thought of many years ago.
My idea is that Twoflower is a mistranslation from Greek. Aster, the Greek word for star, is a name of a flower in English. Perhaps in Greek also? I dunno. Dis is the Greek word for twice or two. Put them together, and you get DISASTER. And that's pretty much what you got whenever Twoflower was around, and what Rincewind and the other magicians thought of him: disaster. The origin of the word disaster means "evil star", which is literally what the red star threatens in the second book.
In conclusion, it's possible that Terry has been fooling us for 20+ years, and had this in mind all the time, in which case I deserve a prize. Or it's possible my creativity has driven me to lunatic lengths to create theories that rationally explain things that are merely accidents. The latter happens a lot in literary criticism.
In any event, I find it satisfying. And since this is fiction, I can set aside my normal skepticism and just enjoy it.
Since the first book came out, I've wondered about the name of Twoflower, one of the major characters. A lot of humorous SF has in-jokes in the names of the characters: a great example is "The Flying Sorcerors", where the character Purple's name comes from a misunderstanding of a machine translation: "as a color, mauve", which is Asimov.
According to Discworld Annotations:
- [p. 24/22] Terry has this to say about the name 'Twoflower': "[...] there's no joke in Twoflower. I just wanted a coherent way of making up 'foreign' names and I think I pinched the Mayan construction (Nine Turning Mirrors, Three Rabbits, etc.)."
So the author denies intention in the name. But it's a basic principle of literary interpretation that the author's intentions don't limit legitimate interpretation. So, in that vein I'd like to offer my own origin of the name, which I thought of many years ago.
My idea is that Twoflower is a mistranslation from Greek. Aster, the Greek word for star, is a name of a flower in English. Perhaps in Greek also? I dunno. Dis is the Greek word for twice or two. Put them together, and you get DISASTER. And that's pretty much what you got whenever Twoflower was around, and what Rincewind and the other magicians thought of him: disaster. The origin of the word disaster means "evil star", which is literally what the red star threatens in the second book.
In conclusion, it's possible that Terry has been fooling us for 20+ years, and had this in mind all the time, in which case I deserve a prize. Or it's possible my creativity has driven me to lunatic lengths to create theories that rationally explain things that are merely accidents. The latter happens a lot in literary criticism.
In any event, I find it satisfying. And since this is fiction, I can set aside my normal skepticism and just enjoy it.
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