Disqus - Latest Comments for Pete

Re: New on Free Will: Polluting the Polls with Jason Brennan

Pete — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 11:02:09 -0000

Higher-quality democratic decisions, and better policy, can be secured if bad voters choose to abstain

This seems to me to rely too much on the (unlikely) idea that high-information voters are voting for some sort of general, positive-sum good, rather than their own interests. If our "bad voters" are disproportionately poor and young, then saying that they should abstain from voting seems like a pretty good recipe for capture of the political process by the old and rich.

Re: Does the Financial Crisis Discredit “Neoliberalism”?

Pete — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 05:13:17 -0000

Take a famous thinker you really don’t like. See if they’ve ever had a meeting with anyone who is responsible for anything bad. Blame it on the thinker. Seriously.

OK, Naomi Klein's book was stupid, but that seems a little glib. Friedman was a guy who looked pretty happy to be consider one of the spokesmen for free markets: I think that gave him some responsibility to call bullshit free market policies when he saw them, and I think he could have done more in that regard. Given his earlier associations with Chile, for example, I think strident denunciations of Pinochet's regime would have been useful, but it was a subject he chose to keep pretty quiet on.

I think the Chomsky example is actually pretty telling here, because he does a lot more than printing books that Chavez may or may not choose to read - he talks a lot about how Latin America, Venezuela included is taking some giant steps towards setting up "genuine democracy." He also says he's worried about some of the tendencies towards centralization fo authority, but he tends to make less of that. And for folks of a left libertarian persuasion, that makes Chavez more credible.

Insofar as you find what's happening in Venezuela overall objectionable, it's not unreasonable to take a swipe at Chomsky for doing the wrong thing. But the same rules apply to Friedman.

Re: Easter Thoughts of Culture War

Pete — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:16:33 -0000

I think you are right to require "very reliable evidence" that Jesus rose from the dead.

It is very difficult to get independent sources for any aspect of history as old as the life of Jesus...

Is anyone else seeing a problem here?