If culture matters - and it does - then doesn't your open borders position clash with that, since importing other cultures into an existing culture changes and sometimes even overwhelms the native culture. See e.g. the recent mess in Cueta.
Acknowledging that culture matters (that is, that culture has effects on social dynamics) is a mere observation of reality, just as "sky is blue". It doesn't imply any value judgement on the positive or negative implications of those effects. You can as well be for or against immigration and acknowledge that culture matters.
I disagree. If persons in a particular country have established a culture with many traditions, rituals, language idioms, viewpoints, politics and much else, and some other alien culture invades and usurps it, that is close to the practical equivalent of a military invasion. For example, what would happen if large numbers of Somalis invaded Japan, with its history, culture, religion, politics and business practices all challenged by the invaders.
Bryan has something of a deontological view on immigration. He's support it even if it led to total destruction. Yeah, he tries to make some (mostly half assed and sometimes outright false) arguments as to why it it wouldn't be a disaster, but they mostly seem like trying to throw some empirical rationalizations on an already decided deontological choice.
If that's the graphic book, no. The graphics add nothing, the text isn't searchable, and the font isn't adjustable. It's a terrible format for people with fading eyes.
He addresses it, but he doesn't address is satisfactorily. Like a lot of people we don't think Bryan's ideas on this matter are very good, and not because we haven't read them.
I've been watching this blog for years and have not seen any reasonable response. I haven't read the comic books. The most basic questions haven't been answered. (1) the culture one, (2) the takeover of our political system by people who don't share our values, (3) how to distinguish from an invasion, e.g. the Chinese gov't sends 100's of millions over on ships, (4) does this apply to Israel, South Africa and others? If not, why not? (5) Is what's happening in Western Europe an example of the positive outcomes we should expect?
Not disagreeing, but you mentioned incentives matter.
If we collectively declare that people that change their mind after some years are probably dumb/have poor judgement and therefore should be silent, we incentivize them to keep denying reality because people don’t like being seen as dumb and silenced.
I think this is a bit uncharitable in interpreting what some of these sentences mean. “I stopped being a libertarian because I realized culture matters” is usually an attempt to say “my belief in the relative importance of culture, vs other issues, increased significantly, and libertarianism is less plausible in worlds where culture is so relatively important.”
For instance, I used to think political outcomes were fairly low salience in terms of what I should worry about. Median voter theorem, constitutional rights, etc made it so. I didn't vote in most elections.
Then in 2020 I woke up one day and they told me I couldn't leave my house or breath the fucking air and riotous mobs were burning cities and people were blacklisted from the livelihoods over insanity and they were printing so much money over a fucking flu that prices skyrocketed.
SO I updated my assessment of the salience of politics.
The way I understand this article is that Bryan doesn't seem to have stopped being a libertarian. Instead, Bryan is equating those who abandoned libertarianism because they claimed to have finally realized that culture matters to a hypothetical person who abandons libertarianism because he has finally realized that the sky is blue. I suggest you read the final paragraph carefully.
Er... I sincerely do not get the point of this post. Seems that everything that you get is obvious. What was the intent of this post? Culture matters and then? How does this impact Libertarianism? You didn't even discuss that. I feel as if there was some triggering event or activity that prompted this post, but after reading the entire post, I still have no idea what it is.
I’ve changed my mind on a few things in the last few years.
I confidently predicted that Covid wouldn’t be a big deal based on the works of contrarians like Michael Fumento, the reported declines in fatalities from China, and the apparent difficulty of spreading COVID outside of densely packed spaces. Also, people predicting catastrophe had been consistently wrong in my lifetime. Killer bees, y2k, acid rain, etc. I thought it would be like a bad flu season.
I later realized that Fumento and others had their own biases, China was lying about fatalities, and people congregate in tight spaces despite warnings not to.
I deserved criticism for going outside my field of expertise. Nevertheless, I don’t consider myself a fool for thinking what I did. I did give a mea culpa and admitted I was wrong.
I also changed my mind on immigration thanks to Bryan Caplan. I just hadn’t studied the data carefully enough.
Maybe not consider yourself a fool, but, with Caplan, it does diminish the reliability of statements you make. His point is that if you can make statements while being so casual with data or speaking about things outside your field of expertise, then people should rationally not pay as much attention to your views. Afterall, time is scarce. Speaking of which , have to cut this short.... 😉
I know it's tangential to the overall point of this post but I'm lost here on how culture matters in the context of libertarianism, or even socialism for that matter. Culture matters for a lot of things including how pleasant a libertarian society would be to live in, etc but it's completely irrelevant to the NAP. Likewise culture is completely irrelevant to the fact whether the workers own the means of production or not.
If I was a libertarian that would put me in your minority view but I just don't think I am here, I don't even see the relationship between the two hence curious.
An intellectually honest person who claims people are wrong will explain how and why they’re wrong, not spend paragraph after paragraph basking in their imagined superiority and enlightenment.
Randy Barnett suggests that the libertarian viewpoint is "modest" (In the "afterword" in 2nd edition of "The Structure of Liberty); his book discusses the question "How should society [or a culture, if you prefer] be structured so that individuals can pursue 'the good life' as they understand it, while living in close proximity to others?"
His framework makes sense to me; where do you disagree? (As an aside, his system recognizes that knowledge is distributed, and that much knowledge is yet to be discovered.)
I wonder what "blue sky" you have discovered, and what kind of differences you and Randy, both well-informed about libertarianism, might have.
If culture matters - and it does - then doesn't your open borders position clash with that, since importing other cultures into an existing culture changes and sometimes even overwhelms the native culture. See e.g. the recent mess in Cueta.
Acknowledging that culture matters (that is, that culture has effects on social dynamics) is a mere observation of reality, just as "sky is blue". It doesn't imply any value judgement on the positive or negative implications of those effects. You can as well be for or against immigration and acknowledge that culture matters.
I disagree. If persons in a particular country have established a culture with many traditions, rituals, language idioms, viewpoints, politics and much else, and some other alien culture invades and usurps it, that is close to the practical equivalent of a military invasion. For example, what would happen if large numbers of Somalis invaded Japan, with its history, culture, religion, politics and business practices all challenged by the invaders.
Bryan has something of a deontological view on immigration. He's support it even if it led to total destruction. Yeah, he tries to make some (mostly half assed and sometimes outright false) arguments as to why it it wouldn't be a disaster, but they mostly seem like trying to throw some empirical rationalizations on an already decided deontological choice.
Bryan has addressed your objection in his book and many of his blog posts. I would recommend starting with the book.
If that's the graphic book, no. The graphics add nothing, the text isn't searchable, and the font isn't adjustable. It's a terrible format for people with fading eyes.
He addresses it, but he doesn't address is satisfactorily. Like a lot of people we don't think Bryan's ideas on this matter are very good, and not because we haven't read them.
I've been watching this blog for years and have not seen any reasonable response. I haven't read the comic books. The most basic questions haven't been answered. (1) the culture one, (2) the takeover of our political system by people who don't share our values, (3) how to distinguish from an invasion, e.g. the Chinese gov't sends 100's of millions over on ships, (4) does this apply to Israel, South Africa and others? If not, why not? (5) Is what's happening in Western Europe an example of the positive outcomes we should expect?
Not disagreeing, but you mentioned incentives matter.
If we collectively declare that people that change their mind after some years are probably dumb/have poor judgement and therefore should be silent, we incentivize them to keep denying reality because people don’t like being seen as dumb and silenced.
He acknowledges that several times throughout the post:
"Strategically, you might want to condescendingly praise such concessions as “courageous” and “mature.”"
"you might humor the speaker to be polite, or to encourage others like him to admit that the sky is blue"
My bad, missed it. I am dumb and should be silent.
I think this is a bit uncharitable in interpreting what some of these sentences mean. “I stopped being a libertarian because I realized culture matters” is usually an attempt to say “my belief in the relative importance of culture, vs other issues, increased significantly, and libertarianism is less plausible in worlds where culture is so relatively important.”
Right.
For instance, I used to think political outcomes were fairly low salience in terms of what I should worry about. Median voter theorem, constitutional rights, etc made it so. I didn't vote in most elections.
Then in 2020 I woke up one day and they told me I couldn't leave my house or breath the fucking air and riotous mobs were burning cities and people were blacklisted from the livelihoods over insanity and they were printing so much money over a fucking flu that prices skyrocketed.
SO I updated my assessment of the salience of politics.
thats all well enough, but laggards are not leaders
The way I understand this article is that Bryan doesn't seem to have stopped being a libertarian. Instead, Bryan is equating those who abandoned libertarianism because they claimed to have finally realized that culture matters to a hypothetical person who abandons libertarianism because he has finally realized that the sky is blue. I suggest you read the final paragraph carefully.
I stopped being a libertarian when:
1) I learned about The Bell Curve/Genetics
2) I had spent enough time dating to draw some different conclusions about things like sexuality
3) I lived in an urban environment and developed a better understanding of human dysfunction
4) COVID era dramatically raised my opinion of the importance of political externalities
Basically, I had one big change in my outlook in my late 20s (related to 1-3) and another after COVID.
Er... I sincerely do not get the point of this post. Seems that everything that you get is obvious. What was the intent of this post? Culture matters and then? How does this impact Libertarianism? You didn't even discuss that. I feel as if there was some triggering event or activity that prompted this post, but after reading the entire post, I still have no idea what it is.
Wow, really missed the point. Read it again--he was giving examples to make a bigger point.
I’ve changed my mind on a few things in the last few years.
I confidently predicted that Covid wouldn’t be a big deal based on the works of contrarians like Michael Fumento, the reported declines in fatalities from China, and the apparent difficulty of spreading COVID outside of densely packed spaces. Also, people predicting catastrophe had been consistently wrong in my lifetime. Killer bees, y2k, acid rain, etc. I thought it would be like a bad flu season.
I later realized that Fumento and others had their own biases, China was lying about fatalities, and people congregate in tight spaces despite warnings not to.
I deserved criticism for going outside my field of expertise. Nevertheless, I don’t consider myself a fool for thinking what I did. I did give a mea culpa and admitted I was wrong.
I also changed my mind on immigration thanks to Bryan Caplan. I just hadn’t studied the data carefully enough.
Maybe not consider yourself a fool, but, with Caplan, it does diminish the reliability of statements you make. His point is that if you can make statements while being so casual with data or speaking about things outside your field of expertise, then people should rationally not pay as much attention to your views. Afterall, time is scarce. Speaking of which , have to cut this short.... 😉
These are not necessarily ridiculous things to have been wrong about. A rational person should temper their judgement accordingly.
I know it's tangential to the overall point of this post but I'm lost here on how culture matters in the context of libertarianism, or even socialism for that matter. Culture matters for a lot of things including how pleasant a libertarian society would be to live in, etc but it's completely irrelevant to the NAP. Likewise culture is completely irrelevant to the fact whether the workers own the means of production or not.
If I was a libertarian that would put me in your minority view but I just don't think I am here, I don't even see the relationship between the two hence curious.
An intellectually honest person who claims people are wrong will explain how and why they’re wrong, not spend paragraph after paragraph basking in their imagined superiority and enlightenment.
Randy Barnett suggests that the libertarian viewpoint is "modest" (In the "afterword" in 2nd edition of "The Structure of Liberty); his book discusses the question "How should society [or a culture, if you prefer] be structured so that individuals can pursue 'the good life' as they understand it, while living in close proximity to others?"
His framework makes sense to me; where do you disagree? (As an aside, his system recognizes that knowledge is distributed, and that much knowledge is yet to be discovered.)
I wonder what "blue sky" you have discovered, and what kind of differences you and Randy, both well-informed about libertarianism, might have.