From the monthly archives:

March 2005

Fey Accompli

March 30, 2005

Since I’m giving recommendations, let me direct your attention to a great newish blog, Fey Accompli, where you can find a singular mix of finely crafted political commentary, literary analysis, ruminations on marketing & business & fashion, and poetic spiritual reflection. Be sure to check out this post about “special music” at Sunday service. [...]

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You Should Buy Explaining Postmodernism

March 30, 2005

My friend Stephen Hicks, a professor of philosophy at Rockford College, has written an outstanding book, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. Steve is an incredibly lucid writer, and has a rare talent for making fordbidding ideas accessible. Steve traces the dismal [...]

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Opinon Duel

March 30, 2005

The New Republic and The National Review are hosting an “Opinion Duel” between Jonathan Chait and Jonah Goldberg. I’m quite pleased to see that Jonah has availed himself of my post criticizing Chait’s silly empiricism article, which, naturally, makes the first round a blowout in Jonah’s favor.
Now, if I can whip up an anti-Goldberg [...]

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Inexcusable Failure of Vanity

March 30, 2005

In an utterly bizarre breakdown of narcissism, I failed to promote myself on my own blog.
Anyway, the oversight is that I failed to mention my piece in TCS the other day, “Insuring Against the Inevitable” on the “don’t think about rates of return; social security is insurance canard.
I don’t know how this happened, and [...]

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On Trivers

March 29, 2005

Great profile in the Boston Globe about Robert Trivers. I had the privelege of meeting Trivers at a little conference I helped Tyler Cowen & Robin Hanson organize on self-deception while I was at Mercatus. Trivers is undoubtedly one of the weirdest people I’ve ever met. He apparently has a penchant for stealing and hoarding [...]

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Coming to Boston

March 28, 2005

I’ll be giving a talk on “Pluralism, Sympathy, and Lifestyle Entrepreneurship” or something along those lines, at the Boston University Libertarian Society’s imaginatively named Liberty Conference on Saturday April 9th. If you’ll be in Boston, or across the river among the dorks and snots, please come by. I aim to edify.
I just thought of something [...]

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Style and the CPI

March 28, 2005

Virginia Postrel has a nice little piece on hotel rooms and the problem of setting up the CPI. I am quite sure that the CPI overestimates inflation, underestimates real wages, and that the gap between the methodologically “correct” CPI and the actually existing CPI is growing at an ever accelerating rate. Before coming to Washington, [...]

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Good Government : Nice, But Unnecessary

March 28, 2005

Deep in the comments of this characteristically puzzling Elizabeth Anderson post, David Velleman strikes back at those who deny that the state is productive:
This is the fallacy that lies behind so much of the distrust of government in which Mr. Ridgely revels (irresponsibly, in my opinion). The fallacy is to think that because government doesn’t [...]

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IHS Summer Seminars

March 28, 2005

Time is running out! If you’re a libertarian or libertarian-curious college student with some time on your hands over the summer, you’ve got to apply for one of the Institute for Humane Studies’ fantastical free summer summer seminars. You’ll make new friends! You’ll explore WILD new ideas! Face the ultimate contrarian challenge of alienating even [...]

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Hartz Brain Farts

March 27, 2005

From Louis Hartz’s bizarrely rambling and free-associative The Liberal Tradition in America (1955), for all you Austrians out there:
But Lippmann’s defense of liberalism, if it utilized the bogey of foreign totalitarianism, was for the most part devoid of American nationalism. It was theoretical, philosophic, relying, as we know, on the Austrian school of Von Mises [...]

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Is There a Problem With “Libertarian Paternalism”?

March 27, 2005

From this artilce in the NYT:
Mr. Thaler and Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School suggested that it is proper for the government, or an employer, to set boundaries to choice to achieve desired social objectives, an approach they call “libertarian paternalism.”
Government, employer. Same thing.
Rumination:
This last clause of that sentence captures the [...]

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The Conscious Cosmic Block

March 25, 2005

There’s a very entertaining discussion of consciousness and rights in this post of Julian’s that started out as an email conversation between us.

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Blackburn v. Rationalists

March 17, 2005

I’m sure Blackburn isn’t being altogether fair to Sam Kerstein (a friend and former professor) in this paper [.pdf], but I very much liked the overall gist of his argument. And I liked the conclusion, which puts me in mind of an ongoing conversation I’ve had with Julian over the last few years.
…the kinds of [...]

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Friedman on Shiller on Risk

March 17, 2005

Patri Friedman has posted a commentary on a talk by Robert Shiller that is just plain delicious mind candy.

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Is “Superannuation” a Risk?

March 17, 2005

One of the mantras of social security reform obstructionists is: “Don’t think about rates of return. It’s social insurance stupid!”
That is, SS is a big risk pooling scheme, and it’s working just fine if you’re sufficiently insulated against risk. Expecting a high rate of return is just a category error. You would be glad [...]

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Democracy and Deception

March 17, 2005

There was a lot wrong with Max Sawicky’s part in his WSJ debate with Tyler. This bit in particular exemplifies a mode of thought that really bugs me, and ought to bug people who care about democracy:
. . . the mission of the public sector in my view goes well beyond aid to the poor. [...]

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Strategic Vagueness vs. Rallying Clarity

March 16, 2005

I’ve been surprised by the weakness of the conservative grassroots push for social security reform. Here’s some illumination from The Note:
When the President first enunciated his Social Security principles, business groups, prodded by the White House, said they’d spend millions to influence public opinion. That was predicated on the Administration’s announcing its support for a [...]

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The Importance of Caring About Harry Frankfurt

March 16, 2005

From Lindsay Beyerstein’s comments in her post about freezing in line to see Harry Frankfurt talk about his book On Bullshit on the Daily Show, here’s the segment.
I found it delightful to see a real philosopher on The Daily Show. And I was pleased to see that Stewart was smart enough to have genuine [...]

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Taboo, Coordination, and the Game of Reasons

March 13, 2005

The other night I was talking to my roommates about family, communes, thick normative concepts, and the nature of not-further-questionable reasons for action. Among our topics: Can “Because she’s your sister” be sufficient reason for doing something? Why “Why should I care that she’s my sister,” is both a necessary and unacceptable question.
This bit of [...]

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Gilbert Gottfried, Living Legend

March 10, 2005

Good but dry Frank Rich column on The Aristocrats, Deadwood, and our stiflingly censorious political climate.

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Firty Nifty

March 9, 2005

In honor of Matt’s safe return from the heart of darkness, and in lieu of an actual blog post, I thought I would display my geographical experience of America:
bold the states you’ve been to, underline the states you’ve lived in and italicize the state you’re in now…
Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California [...]

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Brad Smith Summons Blog Attack?

March 3, 2005

Regarding FEC Commissioner Brad Smith’s incendiary comments that McCain/Feingold could lead to a crackdown on blogs . . . I wonder if Smith, a sworn enemy of the speech restrictions he is supposed to impose in his capacity at the FEC (for which Smith gained the sworn enmity of McCain), is strategically baiting bloggers to [...]

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Sandefur on the Third Letter

March 3, 2005

Tim Sandefur writes:
Wilkinson’s argument seems to be that when Rand says that a morality of reason is necessary for man’s survival, that isn’t true, because you can see all around you that there are many people who live and who are not rational. Isn’t this rather like saying that alcoholism isn’t really bad because there [...]

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When is a Cut Not a Cut?

March 2, 2005

Good thoughts by Brooke Oberwetter (in her new digs) about how a genuine debate about Social Security is almost impossible to have given the systematically misleading way economists and journalists insist on using language.
One of the things that makes talking about Social Security so infuriating is the fact that conventional ways of talking about [...]

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Third Letter to a Young Objectivist: Ethics

March 2, 2005

[For an explanation of this series, go here.]
Dear Young Will,
I’m sorry; it’s been a while. You’ll be glad to know that I’ve been busy and happy. I hope you’ve been the same.
So, where were we? Oh, last time, I wrote to you about Objectivism’s inadequate conception of human sociality. This lack points [...]

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