February 2005

Since Matt accused me of committing the pundit’s fallacy(and although I claimed in his comments that I didn’t, I sort of did,) I got to wondering what makes it a fallacy, exactly. The pundit’s fallacy putatively occurs when a pundit sets forth his own preferences as the solution to some kind of strategic political problem. [...]

Arnold Kling also discusses the Daley/Hooks microfinance piece. But the valedictory Kling question poses a false alternative:
For Discussion. Which is an easier problem to solve–a shortage of capital, or institutional deficiencies?
I think it’s increasingly apparent that institutions are a form of capital. Money and machines are more or less useless, aren’t really capital at all, [...]

I am not now, nor have I ever been, an acrobat.
[Update: The mysterious Fey Accompli vouches for my authenticity. Now, regarding the Libertarian Girl debacle, it may be that I know all of the extremely attractive libertarian women in existence, although I am very glad to doubt it, but there are a passel of [...]

Tim’s link to Andrej Bauer’s primer on Objectivism reminded me that the cartoon Rand of our zeitgest dreams was never put to better use than by the astounding artificially intelligent replicated personas of Forum 2000. Here AI Andrej discusses the axiom of identity with AI Ayn. Also try here, and here.
That Reason’s so-called Rand-O-Rama failed [...]

I would enthusiastically endorse the Larry White plan if it was possible for the state to credibly commit to refusing benefits to people who fail to invest.
Here’s Larry’s idea:
Here’s how it works: we give Ms. Smith, a worker, the right to opt out of paying $100 in social security payroll taxes provided she also [...]

Today is Ayn Rand’s 100th birthday. Bryan Caplan, who is smarter than you are, defends Rand’s legacy at the EconLog. I especially like this bit:
Yes, many of her philosophical arguments are question-begging. Shocking… unless you’ve read the work of Descartes, Locke, Kant, or Mill. They all make plenty of embarrassingly bad arguments. If you don’t [...]

Jacob Levy has been sighted in Yglesias’s comments making helpful clarificatory points about Rawls and Hayek.
Regarding the Rawls luck argument, of which Matt remains unwisely enamored, may I suggest my August TCS essay, which also gives substance to Jacob’s point that the luck argument proves too much?