Bryan Caplan joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality. Bryan begins by explaining why he hates politics. Much of the conversation then centers around Caplan’s simplistic theory of the right and left. This is compared and contrasted with Scott Alexander’s
“The fact that people are stupid should not blind us to the fact that they are rational. It is a popular theory that people are very clever but highly irrational; I think this theory could only have been devised by people who are rational but not very bright.” —David Ramsay Steele
Re: Hume's bulldozer about lies vs. nature going out of it's course: if that worked it would just as convincingly refute Robin's belief in UFOs. Now I think Robin is wrong but the fact that this doesn't persuade a smart person like him casts some doubt on it's power.
You might say: but UFOs aren't a violation of natural law. Ok, but in the relevant sense why is divine intervention? If you really lived in a world where prayer caused miraculous intervention that would just be part of how the world worked. And many of them would have had indirect evidence of miracles much akin to Robin's UFO evidence.
Regarding being more annoyed by Musk than people in foreign states how is this any different than Bryan being more annoyed by feminists in the US than by religious nutters in Iran?
We all see people who are within our political, conversational etc sphere as more pressing than those of random people in far off lands. It's such a widely acknowledged issue it has a cutsey little saying: heretics are hated more than heathens.
I don't think I'd describe more people saying having an affair is wrong as a conservative win given that there has been an increased acceptance (or at least ease of getting one) of divorce and non-monogamous relationships over that time period as well as the extent to which wives are dependent on husbands.
That's substantially changed the meaning of having an affair. It's removed any excuse you might have -- it's just lying to your partner now.
You can't say any longer that -- ohh the reason I don't tell them is to spare them the humiliation or that it's the only way you can find happiness given society has locked you into this mistaken relationship.
https://epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html. Letter to Menoeceus. The witch book is Malleus Maificarum. http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org One thing about Reagan is that he never had a majority in the House, so to the extent he wanted to end AA by legislation, he couldn’t have. I agree with Caplan that he didn’t really try. Yglesias would say that, like all Republican presidents, his genuine priority was a tax cut for the rich, which he achieved by greatly increasing the deficit, since he didn’t cut spending.
“The fact that people are stupid should not blind us to the fact that they are rational. It is a popular theory that people are very clever but highly irrational; I think this theory could only have been devised by people who are rational but not very bright.” —David Ramsay Steele
Gerd Gigerenzer: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9Aw2_QV-zJI&fbclid=IwAR3CMFOqy03-jcUCezMy_qEDtuykeEeZnWeJA0TeRozVRs3_aPlq6oCS808&mibextid=tejx2t
Re: Hume's bulldozer about lies vs. nature going out of it's course: if that worked it would just as convincingly refute Robin's belief in UFOs. Now I think Robin is wrong but the fact that this doesn't persuade a smart person like him casts some doubt on it's power.
You might say: but UFOs aren't a violation of natural law. Ok, but in the relevant sense why is divine intervention? If you really lived in a world where prayer caused miraculous intervention that would just be part of how the world worked. And many of them would have had indirect evidence of miracles much akin to Robin's UFO evidence.
Regarding being more annoyed by Musk than people in foreign states how is this any different than Bryan being more annoyed by feminists in the US than by religious nutters in Iran?
We all see people who are within our political, conversational etc sphere as more pressing than those of random people in far off lands. It's such a widely acknowledged issue it has a cutsey little saying: heretics are hated more than heathens.
I don't think I'd describe more people saying having an affair is wrong as a conservative win given that there has been an increased acceptance (or at least ease of getting one) of divorce and non-monogamous relationships over that time period as well as the extent to which wives are dependent on husbands.
That's substantially changed the meaning of having an affair. It's removed any excuse you might have -- it's just lying to your partner now.
You can't say any longer that -- ohh the reason I don't tell them is to spare them the humiliation or that it's the only way you can find happiness given society has locked you into this mistaken relationship.
https://epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html. Letter to Menoeceus. The witch book is Malleus Maificarum. http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org One thing about Reagan is that he never had a majority in the House, so to the extent he wanted to end AA by legislation, he couldn’t have. I agree with Caplan that he didn’t really try. Yglesias would say that, like all Republican presidents, his genuine priority was a tax cut for the rich, which he achieved by greatly increasing the deficit, since he didn’t cut spending.
Bryan mentions some argument by Epicurus. It would be nice to have a link to that in the description.