"Be my mirror, my soul and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field."
~ Coldplay
Dr. Caplan,
I have learned a lot from you. I especially like your comic books: Build Baby Build and Open Borders. They present your arguments well and are quite interesting. I also enjoyed some of your longer works especially the Case Against Education and Selfish Reasons to have more children.
I remember the main premises from each:
* Case Against Education: Education isn't inherently all that valuable. It is mainly a way to signal that you had certain traits that you had before you went to school, namely: intelligence, conscientiousness and conformance to social norms. That's why people with a degree get paid more. Not because they actually learned all that much in school.
* Selfish Reasons to have more kids: Kids aren't actually all that expensive. You just think they're expensive cause you think you have to enroll them in all these expensive extra-curricular activities to ensure they'll grow up to be successful in life. But such expensive extra-curricular activities barely make a difference. Their future success is mainly genetic.
Although I found a lot of the pages to be a "data dump".
But you're asking about your blog, not your books...
I especially enjoyed one of your blog posts in EconLog where you published my e-mail! 😁
And you introduced me to Huemer, Szaz, etc. and I love when you feature other people such as the Lewis brothers, etc. and give them the last word. I found your ongoing debate with Scott Alexander about psychiatry to be quite thought provoking. Although, I, ultimately, found myself agreeing more with the Lewis brothers and Dr. Alexander.
Generally speaking, if you really want to know what people think of your posts, maybe read the comments? 😛
Some of my favourite posts: Don't be a Feminist, the one about do libertarians actually care about liberty and the ones about how Covid restrictions were dumb and sometimes anti-colonialism is dumb.
I find some of your ideas absurd, like: only using disposable dishes and I strongly disagree about ruling Third World countries! I liked your post about carrying your tired daughter through Paris. It was touching and I could relate. Though, I think trying to relate that to how anti-immigration Europeans call immigrants "rapefugees" fell flat amongst the people you were most trying to convince.
In some of your posts like "Sour Grapes" and the one about "Abundance" the book, you seem to be insisting too hard that you're not jealous or bitter that you come off sounding jealous and/or bitter.
Also, I like the private AMAs for paid subscribers, but you should do it at least once per month to make it worth it. I didn't renew my annual subscription because of that. But I just bought a monthly subscription just to post this comment. 😛
Overall, I really enjoy your blog, sir, and hwhilst I don't agree with you on everything (can anyone agree with ANYONE on everything??), I have learned a lot from you and you have really made me think!
1. My best guess is I've been reading the blogs since around the time Open Borders came out, so about 6 years.
2. One particular post I liked was The Ideological Turing Test, which argued "the ability to pass ideological Turing tests – to state opposing views as clearly and persuasively as their proponents – is a genuine symptom of objectivity and wisdom", https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html
3. I don't have any worst posts in mind, except that I'd love to see posts where you try to pass the Ideological Turing Test on your favorite issues such as immigration, housing, and use of race in college admissions decisions.
Your best stuff is pretty much everything you write related to "The Case Against Education," which is consistently superb.
For worst post this year, "America's Most Successful Terrorist?" was very poorly argued and crafted at a much lower level of rigor than typical.
In the past few years, your various connected posts leading up to "The Szaszian Fork: Another Reply to Scott Alexander on Mental Illness" have been among your worst. In general, your replies seem evasive or tangential instead of being on point and directly addressing Scott's core arguments. The way you present the Szaszian position is one bordering on unfalsifiability, especially in the way the arguments rely heavily on semantic games. Specifically, you fail to lay down an intellectual marker by clearly defining and articulating conditions that if met would be sufficient for you to change your opinion on the matter.
You tend to get yourself onto shaky ground of unresolved internal tension whenever you start extolling the virtues of "common sense" while maintaining that what are the most common ideas that reflect people's typical sense of things are, well, dead wrong. The commoners commonly don't do common sense correctly, apparently.
I've been reading since the '00s, when EconLog was just you and Arnold Kling. I definitely preferred you to Kling, but I got the impression back then that there was more of a conversation among econ-bloggers like Delong, Krugman, Mankiw and the GMU economists. After you published The Case Against Education and complained that nobody bothered to argue with your footnotes, you shifted to graphic novels popularizing libertarian/deregulatory policies, which may be worth doing but I've found less interesting than your earlier material on voting & education.
You often assert that people must not care about relative wealth because nobody ever moves to a poor neighborhood to increase their relative wealth. I think you're overlooking the people who *could* buy a nicer house in a better neighborhood, but choose not to, exactly because they would prefer to be wealthy in their current neighborhood rather than average in a nicer neighborhood. This choice not to upgrade is important because most people's financial situation tends to improve over time, and the expectation based on your theory would be for them to constantly upgrade to the nicest house they can buy. I think you could measure that this happens less then you'd expect based purely on family's improving financial situations. I don't have any numbers, but I know there are people living well beneath their means, and I suspect it's because they actually value relative wealth!
People COULD move in either direction, revealed preference shows what people actually do. And people seem to bid up the prices of real estate in "better neighborhoods".
My point is that not moving isn't a neutral choice, given the tendency for income to increase as one ages. If fewer people "move up" than can afford to, then the revealed preference is for at least some people to stay among less wealthy peers.
I have been reading your blog for several years now I can’t remember how many. I read them every day so I gather I must find something pleasing about them. I hope you will continue for a long time. I also share my favorites with others.
Hi Prof. Bryan Caplan! I have been reading your blog for the last 9 years since 2016.
Your best post was regarding Build the beautiful Bubble and related posts, also all your posts during COVID-19 pandemic against the draconian lockdowns, your posts on social desirability bias and the case against education, your self-help posts are the prominent ones I can recall now.
Worst posts are few as such. They are not worst because of your writing but because some of the readers like me may not know exactly the people and the conceptions that you are referring to. Some context there would go a long way in making them more comprehensible.
I feel I could relate more with your posts from India earlier, now sometimes I feel they are getting a bit US centric and hard to relate to for an international audience.
The quality remains the best as usual.
I loved the book club you did on EconLog a lot. I am even now currently stuck at the book on Behavioral Paternalism. Ironically, COVID-19 for me was the best time to read your blog.
I missed your posts on Build, Baby, Build (Housing) despite my area of work being Household Finance which is closely connected. I will go to the archive and to YouTube to read those.
Your posts on Feminism were great too.
Last but not the least, on Dr. Thomas Szasz are second to none.
I have enjoyed reading your blog and learned immensely. Thanks for the great scholarly content you provide us with.
Not about your posts, but here is some related feedback you might be interested in.
I have noticed in your interviews, debates, and speeches that you convey more friendliness and humility now than in the past, and it seems like it’s been a fairly steady march of progress. It’s a very attractive change, and you should definitely lean into it!
Gosh, I can't remember particulars, but my favorite posts are always the ones where you are seeking the science of unexpected topics.
3. What are my worst posts?
Also can't remember, but I think Dr Caplan overestimates his competence in informal logic and philosophy, and that has caused some eye rolling in rare cases.
4. How has the content of my writing changed over time?
Less fiscal and monetary; more generally social. I don't know if his interests influenced mine, or if they just travelled together.
5. How has the quality of my writing changed over time?
Hmm.. this one is tough. I would say it's improved or stayed the same, for the most part.
I've only been reading your blog/s at all for a couple of years (although I have done a bit of an archive trawl).
I struggle to identify individual best and worst posts, but if you want a few, I think "Explaining the LGBT explostion" and "Do Ten times as much", and "The Strange Economics of HOT Lanes" are pretty good. I find your arguments contra SA on mental illness and more recent stuff about insect suffering pretty unconvincing, but I can't pinpoint a particular post.
I think your writing now is better than in the EconLib days, for sure. It's more nuanced, more persuasive to someone who isn't already extremely libertarian (like me, for example), less preachy- just better all round. I think you also talk about a wider range of topics.
1. Long time reader, longer on econlib. (Did I get there from the SSC link?) Big fan, even paid one year.
2. Obviously, the first 20 posts or so I read impressed me most. As many positions were new to me (I did read David Friedman as a young guy - but not much other libertarian stuff), and shook up old thinking modes - more than I can remember now. Besides that, I see no "becoming worse"; actually, I am impressed how the takes remain fresh over such a long period. I still 'like' most every post I read, and I read nearly all. So, I can not single out "one best post" - I most vividly remember "steelmanning the Iraq War" https://www.econlib.org/archives/2018/03/how_i_would_hav_1.html
(not because I completely agree; but I wished "we" had transparent, clear war-aims before going to war)
3. "Worst" posts: There is no bad one. That said: Well, I was kinda surprised about the Dale Carnegie book club. Does that fine book need further explanations? / Your takes on mental illness were less convincing than Dr. Scott Alexander's - I praise the Szasz/Caplan-take for being potentially very HELPFUL for most people diagnosed with mental issues: incentives matter much more than the standard approach dares to admit. But it is not just "preferences". Graciously admitting more of Scott's points, would be, well, gracious. And more correct. / I bought "open-borders" and love it. But to succeed in the political arena, I'd recommend to qualify: "Visa for each one with a work+rental contract+clean-record and w/o most social-security - and a deposit that would pay for a deportation". Win more arguments AND change the world. / I LIKE the re-posting of old econlib-posts, but I wished they were marked as such at the beginning, not the end. And some deserve a little updating.
4. Content change: I see more philosophy. (Also, afair, no book clubs on econlib). More family and travel. Also longer pieces and more multi-part pieces. All appreciated, even if I may skip some.
5. Quality change: I see no deterioration. Probably the writing got even better over the decades? - One of my very favorite blogs. Very much appreciated. Please, never stop! Lots of love :D
I would suggest to increase the quality ratio of your posts. Every week there are some posts for which I subscribe. And there are posts that add nothing for me, as I read all your posts. For some bloggers it is worth reading there history. On this blog that would be more work than pleasure..
Many posts contain announcements, self referrals to other media or reposts from EconLib that contain references to current events from 10+ years ago.
Posts need a feature to let you rate each one on a scale.
Get the feedback immediately after a read.
Maybe Substack can help?
"Be my mirror, my soul and shield, my missionaries in a foreign field."
~ Coldplay
Dr. Caplan,
I have learned a lot from you. I especially like your comic books: Build Baby Build and Open Borders. They present your arguments well and are quite interesting. I also enjoyed some of your longer works especially the Case Against Education and Selfish Reasons to have more children.
I remember the main premises from each:
* Case Against Education: Education isn't inherently all that valuable. It is mainly a way to signal that you had certain traits that you had before you went to school, namely: intelligence, conscientiousness and conformance to social norms. That's why people with a degree get paid more. Not because they actually learned all that much in school.
* Selfish Reasons to have more kids: Kids aren't actually all that expensive. You just think they're expensive cause you think you have to enroll them in all these expensive extra-curricular activities to ensure they'll grow up to be successful in life. But such expensive extra-curricular activities barely make a difference. Their future success is mainly genetic.
Although I found a lot of the pages to be a "data dump".
But you're asking about your blog, not your books...
I especially enjoyed one of your blog posts in EconLog where you published my e-mail! 😁
And you introduced me to Huemer, Szaz, etc. and I love when you feature other people such as the Lewis brothers, etc. and give them the last word. I found your ongoing debate with Scott Alexander about psychiatry to be quite thought provoking. Although, I, ultimately, found myself agreeing more with the Lewis brothers and Dr. Alexander.
Generally speaking, if you really want to know what people think of your posts, maybe read the comments? 😛
Some of my favourite posts: Don't be a Feminist, the one about do libertarians actually care about liberty and the ones about how Covid restrictions were dumb and sometimes anti-colonialism is dumb.
I find some of your ideas absurd, like: only using disposable dishes and I strongly disagree about ruling Third World countries! I liked your post about carrying your tired daughter through Paris. It was touching and I could relate. Though, I think trying to relate that to how anti-immigration Europeans call immigrants "rapefugees" fell flat amongst the people you were most trying to convince.
In some of your posts like "Sour Grapes" and the one about "Abundance" the book, you seem to be insisting too hard that you're not jealous or bitter that you come off sounding jealous and/or bitter.
Also, I like the private AMAs for paid subscribers, but you should do it at least once per month to make it worth it. I didn't renew my annual subscription because of that. But I just bought a monthly subscription just to post this comment. 😛
Overall, I really enjoy your blog, sir, and hwhilst I don't agree with you on everything (can anyone agree with ANYONE on everything??), I have learned a lot from you and you have really made me think!
So, thank you for that!
What Lewis brothers?
Hyrum and Verlan Lewis. Authors of The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America
1. My best guess is I've been reading the blogs since around the time Open Borders came out, so about 6 years.
2. One particular post I liked was The Ideological Turing Test, which argued "the ability to pass ideological Turing tests – to state opposing views as clearly and persuasively as their proponents – is a genuine symptom of objectivity and wisdom", https://www.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/the_ideological.html
3. I don't have any worst posts in mind, except that I'd love to see posts where you try to pass the Ideological Turing Test on your favorite issues such as immigration, housing, and use of race in college admissions decisions.
Your best stuff is pretty much everything you write related to "The Case Against Education," which is consistently superb.
For worst post this year, "America's Most Successful Terrorist?" was very poorly argued and crafted at a much lower level of rigor than typical.
In the past few years, your various connected posts leading up to "The Szaszian Fork: Another Reply to Scott Alexander on Mental Illness" have been among your worst. In general, your replies seem evasive or tangential instead of being on point and directly addressing Scott's core arguments. The way you present the Szaszian position is one bordering on unfalsifiability, especially in the way the arguments rely heavily on semantic games. Specifically, you fail to lay down an intellectual marker by clearly defining and articulating conditions that if met would be sufficient for you to change your opinion on the matter.
You tend to get yourself onto shaky ground of unresolved internal tension whenever you start extolling the virtues of "common sense" while maintaining that what are the most common ideas that reflect people's typical sense of things are, well, dead wrong. The commoners commonly don't do common sense correctly, apparently.
I've been reading since the '00s, when EconLog was just you and Arnold Kling. I definitely preferred you to Kling, but I got the impression back then that there was more of a conversation among econ-bloggers like Delong, Krugman, Mankiw and the GMU economists. After you published The Case Against Education and complained that nobody bothered to argue with your footnotes, you shifted to graphic novels popularizing libertarian/deregulatory policies, which may be worth doing but I've found less interesting than your earlier material on voting & education.
You often assert that people must not care about relative wealth because nobody ever moves to a poor neighborhood to increase their relative wealth. I think you're overlooking the people who *could* buy a nicer house in a better neighborhood, but choose not to, exactly because they would prefer to be wealthy in their current neighborhood rather than average in a nicer neighborhood. This choice not to upgrade is important because most people's financial situation tends to improve over time, and the expectation based on your theory would be for them to constantly upgrade to the nicest house they can buy. I think you could measure that this happens less then you'd expect based purely on family's improving financial situations. I don't have any numbers, but I know there are people living well beneath their means, and I suspect it's because they actually value relative wealth!
People COULD move in either direction, revealed preference shows what people actually do. And people seem to bid up the prices of real estate in "better neighborhoods".
My point is that not moving isn't a neutral choice, given the tendency for income to increase as one ages. If fewer people "move up" than can afford to, then the revealed preference is for at least some people to stay among less wealthy peers.
1 - around 15 years
2 - Hard to pick, quality is excellent in general. Open borders posts were eye-opening. Bettor's Oath is great.
3 - I think Szaszanism is your greatest blind spot. Incidentally, I wonder how you explain people paying lots of money for Ozempic.
4 and 5 - Haven't noticed great changes, consistently good.
I have been reading your blog for several years now I can’t remember how many. I read them every day so I gather I must find something pleasing about them. I hope you will continue for a long time. I also share my favorites with others.
Hi Prof. Bryan Caplan! I have been reading your blog for the last 9 years since 2016.
Your best post was regarding Build the beautiful Bubble and related posts, also all your posts during COVID-19 pandemic against the draconian lockdowns, your posts on social desirability bias and the case against education, your self-help posts are the prominent ones I can recall now.
Worst posts are few as such. They are not worst because of your writing but because some of the readers like me may not know exactly the people and the conceptions that you are referring to. Some context there would go a long way in making them more comprehensible.
I feel I could relate more with your posts from India earlier, now sometimes I feel they are getting a bit US centric and hard to relate to for an international audience.
The quality remains the best as usual.
I loved the book club you did on EconLog a lot. I am even now currently stuck at the book on Behavioral Paternalism. Ironically, COVID-19 for me was the best time to read your blog.
I missed your posts on Build, Baby, Build (Housing) despite my area of work being Household Finance which is closely connected. I will go to the archive and to YouTube to read those.
Your posts on Feminism were great too.
Last but not the least, on Dr. Thomas Szasz are second to none.
I have enjoyed reading your blog and learned immensely. Thanks for the great scholarly content you provide us with.
Not about your posts, but here is some related feedback you might be interested in.
I have noticed in your interviews, debates, and speeches that you convey more friendliness and humility now than in the past, and it seems like it’s been a fairly steady march of progress. It’s a very attractive change, and you should definitely lean into it!
1. How long have you been reading my blog?
Since ~ 2008, so, 17 years or so?
2. What are my best posts?
Gosh, I can't remember particulars, but my favorite posts are always the ones where you are seeking the science of unexpected topics.
3. What are my worst posts?
Also can't remember, but I think Dr Caplan overestimates his competence in informal logic and philosophy, and that has caused some eye rolling in rare cases.
4. How has the content of my writing changed over time?
Less fiscal and monetary; more generally social. I don't know if his interests influenced mine, or if they just travelled together.
5. How has the quality of my writing changed over time?
Hmm.. this one is tough. I would say it's improved or stayed the same, for the most part.
OK.
I've only been reading your blog/s at all for a couple of years (although I have done a bit of an archive trawl).
I struggle to identify individual best and worst posts, but if you want a few, I think "Explaining the LGBT explostion" and "Do Ten times as much", and "The Strange Economics of HOT Lanes" are pretty good. I find your arguments contra SA on mental illness and more recent stuff about insect suffering pretty unconvincing, but I can't pinpoint a particular post.
I think your writing now is better than in the EconLib days, for sure. It's more nuanced, more persuasive to someone who isn't already extremely libertarian (like me, for example), less preachy- just better all round. I think you also talk about a wider range of topics.
1. Long time reader, longer on econlib. (Did I get there from the SSC link?) Big fan, even paid one year.
2. Obviously, the first 20 posts or so I read impressed me most. As many positions were new to me (I did read David Friedman as a young guy - but not much other libertarian stuff), and shook up old thinking modes - more than I can remember now. Besides that, I see no "becoming worse"; actually, I am impressed how the takes remain fresh over such a long period. I still 'like' most every post I read, and I read nearly all. So, I can not single out "one best post" - I most vividly remember "steelmanning the Iraq War" https://www.econlib.org/archives/2018/03/how_i_would_hav_1.html
(not because I completely agree; but I wished "we" had transparent, clear war-aims before going to war)
3. "Worst" posts: There is no bad one. That said: Well, I was kinda surprised about the Dale Carnegie book club. Does that fine book need further explanations? / Your takes on mental illness were less convincing than Dr. Scott Alexander's - I praise the Szasz/Caplan-take for being potentially very HELPFUL for most people diagnosed with mental issues: incentives matter much more than the standard approach dares to admit. But it is not just "preferences". Graciously admitting more of Scott's points, would be, well, gracious. And more correct. / I bought "open-borders" and love it. But to succeed in the political arena, I'd recommend to qualify: "Visa for each one with a work+rental contract+clean-record and w/o most social-security - and a deposit that would pay for a deportation". Win more arguments AND change the world. / I LIKE the re-posting of old econlib-posts, but I wished they were marked as such at the beginning, not the end. And some deserve a little updating.
4. Content change: I see more philosophy. (Also, afair, no book clubs on econlib). More family and travel. Also longer pieces and more multi-part pieces. All appreciated, even if I may skip some.
5. Quality change: I see no deterioration. Probably the writing got even better over the decades? - One of my very favorite blogs. Very much appreciated. Please, never stop! Lots of love :D
update: as most comments named the "mental illness" topic, here a newish post by Scott Sumner (fine comments, incl a link to Scott A. on lesswrong) https://www.econlib.org/does-it-matter-whether-addiction-is-a-disease/
I would suggest to increase the quality ratio of your posts. Every week there are some posts for which I subscribe. And there are posts that add nothing for me, as I read all your posts. For some bloggers it is worth reading there history. On this blog that would be more work than pleasure..
Many posts contain announcements, self referrals to other media or reposts from EconLib that contain references to current events from 10+ years ago.
Maybe not post daily?
Thanks for asking for feedback, Bryan! I like your posts. I think your greatest blindspot is your philosophical populism with respect to animal welfare (https://benthams.substack.com/p/bryan-caplan-replied-to-me-on-bugs).
Another of my very favorite Bryan posts, on the lessons of trembling hand perfect equilibrium
https://www.betonit.ai/p/escape_from_thehtml?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true