Disqus - Latest Comments for josh

Re: Dan Phiffer - Rationality vs. Economics

josh — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:17:51 -0000

I agree that this is the obvious conclusion.

Re: Dan Phiffer - Rationality vs. Economics

josh — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:24:34 -0000

I think Hanson's futurarchy idea really does get to the heart of the issue. Would anyone not expect the prediction markets to come much closer to the "experts" opinions when it comes to maximizing the voters chosen utility function than does the result of a typical election. If this is the case, than essentially Caplan's is correct, experts>median voter (although still worse than prediction markets) when it comes to actually meeting some predetermined goal.

Re: Dan Phiffer - Rationality vs. Economics

josh — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:28:02 -0000

Well, first you identify he problem (eg voters could do a much better job), then you think of solutions that are within the principles of justice. Caplan is only doing the first bit.

Re: Dan Phiffer - Rationality vs. Economics

josh — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 12:38:45 -0000

Futurarchy. But this is purely utopian. The problem with your suggestions is that the systematic poor judgment of voters is natural, and essentially uncurable unless it becomes worth a persons while to become an expert. This would require changing the way we make collective decisions.

This best thing we can and should do is fight to leave as many decisions as possible to individuals.

Re: Relatively Awesome

josh — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:39:12 -0000

Matt,

I suppose Russianpoets are for Russian people, but probably not for Haitian people. They only get obscure Haitian poets.

Re: This Week on Free Will: Stephen Marglin

josh — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:42:07 -0000

Title suggestion: The Marglinal Cost of Thinking Like an Economist

Re: George Kateb vs. Patriotism

josh — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:42:03 -0000

Matthew,
I think your response confuses patriotism with a general sort of taking other people into account in your social welfare function. What is the logical basis for valuing one group of people above another? Isn't that the really important distinction of patriotism or nationalism?

Re: Let Me Serve You Up!

josh — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:21:55 -0000

Nice post, but that most certainly was not the best song ever. ;)

Re: How to Be Grotesquely Reductionist and Utilitarian about Human Love and Life

josh — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:29:35 -0000

"they were written with more than the goal of reducing the numbers of poor, fatherless children. No, they are there to protect the future."

For an exploration on the efficacy of anti-prostitution laws on meeting these stated goals see Malthus, Thomas R.

Re: Here Comes Clay Shirky

josh — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:52:59 -0000

is the title from finnegan's wake?

Re: Wherein I Do Not Accept Crispin Sartwell’s Challenge

josh — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:17:58 -0000

crispin,

does it matter to your argument that atomic weaponry has already been developed?

Re: Kindlenomics

josh — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:05:22 -0000

Most conversations are actually very shallow. Actually, probably 99.9% of all conversations are extremely shallow, whether or not they are New York intellectuals.

Re: New on Free Will: Bruce Caldwell on Hayek

josh — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:29:34 -0000

Will, you should be a bit more deferential to your guests and not interrupt them.

Re: Grandly Nugatory? Hardly

josh — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:06:19 -0000

Beyond simply voicing arguments against individual policies, libertarians can certainly advocate certain policies that would move the world in a liberal direction, e.g. increased immigration, perhaps greater federalism, etc.

Happily, as near as most of us can tell, the relationship between liberalism and reasonable social welfare functions seems to be monotonic, so any measure toward liberalism is good whether we can ever establish a libertarian paradise. This is a benefit that Marxism doesn't even have in theory.

Re: Today in Backwardsville

josh — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:59:18 -0000

Inflation in libertarianville has been less than 12% since yesterday.

Re: Today in Backwardsville

josh — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:03:19 -0000

It's not okay to voice disagreement with the majority? Most Americans want a society where you are not asked to leave because you disagree with a law. There are plenty of countries where stating disagreement with government policy is outlawed to choose from, so maybe you should leave.

Re: Pre-Dawn Elephant Groping

josh — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:46:58 -0000

Do you want me to bite, webgrrl? Okay. What happened?

Re: Naomi Klein Quote of the Day

josh — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:25:09 -0000

yes. that's it! thank you.

Re: Should Freedom-Loving Americans Fear the Mexican Voter?

josh — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:56:13 -0000

What first, second, third generation Mexican Americans tend to believe has been consistently and predictably different from what Mexicans believe.

Re: War's Costs

josh — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:15:45 -0000

How about a voluntarily funded millitary.

Re: War on Humanity

josh — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:36:29 -0000

Steve,

I don't believe anybody has even mentioned the fact that prohibition leads to murder, and lots of it. Drug gangs maintain monopolies over "turf" via violence against rival gangs. The do this so that prices are not competed down to marginal cost and profits remain high. Since they are commiting felonies that call for serious jail time just by selling the drugs, the marginal cost of murder is low. Low marginal cost of murder, high marginal benefit of murder; this is the result of drug prohibition.

Re: The Festival of Freedom

josh — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 12:10:45 -0000

The first time? I doubt it.

Theres a good chance the whole sequence of events didn't take place at all.

Re: The Essence of a Masonomist

josh — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:56:51 -0000

Gil,

What do you mean by:

"government approximates a perfect world better than markets,"?

I believe the issue is how well market based models of neoclassical economics approximate reality. I don't know what it means for "government" to approximate something.