Disclaimer: I am a man, and this article is written with respect to the development of my understanding of the issue While both men and women can and should have a say in such a philosophical debate, a woman will probably have given more thought to a matter that directly affects her.
I am neither “Pro-choice” nor “Pro-life”. A year ago, after changing my opinion on the matter for a fourth time, I realized that the issue was so complex such that I didn’t know enough to defend a particular opinion. From my experiences, I don’t think there are many people who do. Yet, reasoned discussion is stonewalled by the adamant insistence on the most basic and simple reasoning of each perspective.
Most libertarians can identify that the key arguments surrounding abortion are based in conflict between two human rights: the right of life and the right to one’s body. This conflict is not elucidated by objective science, but by subjective philosophy. If a fetus or embryo is a life, then ending it could be morally wrong, but if not, then restricting a woman’s control over its viability could be morally wrong.
However, abortion goes beyond these foundation arguments. Some assert that even if a fetus is alive, it is similar to someone on a life support system, only the support system requires another’s body. Many would agree that being obligated to lend your body to a sick person is wrong; however, the fact that a fetus is brought into existence in this situation presents a possible exception. If a child were born in such a way that it was connected to other being, and needed to be so to continue life, would severing the connection not be an act of killing?
On the other hand, a “Pro-life” objection to the traditional “Pro-choice” argument asserts that even if a fetus is not a life, terminating its development into a life is immoral. One argument for this, presented by philosopher Don Marquis, asserts that ultimately, killing a person is wrong because it deprives them of a future, and abortion is wrong on the same grounds. However, this has been countered by questioning if, by the same logic, a killing a sperm or egg would be wrong as well.
These arguments, presented simply in this flowchart, only scrape the surface of the complex issue of abortion. They all have their own rebuttals and counter-rebuttals, and they don’t even begin to address utilitarian arguments or exceptions for rape, incest, or the mother’s life. However, by presenting some of the complexities, I believe I have illustrated the complexity of issues to be considered before being able to justifiably claim oneself as “Pro-choice” or “Pro-life”
It’s incredible how simple and yet revolutionary the principles are behind effective altruism as well as the ideas behind GiveWell and the Open Philanthropy Project; if you want to help people, don’t just donate to a charity that is looking to cure a rare disease, donate in a way that can do the maximum amount of “good” per dollar. That often means donating to a problem that affects many people, that has known, measurable, positive solutions, and that has lots of room for additional resources to combat the problem. If you don’t know about those organizations, you should definitely check them out.
Of course, there is an obvious elephant in the room when it comes to effective altruism: politics is complex, unscientific, and unpopular. In fact, GiveWell largely sidesteps the political sphere, ignoring a big swath of human activity which has tremendous impacts on society. Of course, they have good reason to do this; it allows them to focus on doing good things without harming anyone’s tribal identities or alienating their donor base. Moreover, it’s hard to get good unbiased data on what political policies would actually provide benefits; if there was, politics wouldn’t be so divisive.
However, I don’t have a donor base, and I have slightly different feelings on which policies would be most effective than the average American or even the average effective altruist. I wanted to see what would happen if we could assume away some of the unknowns about political policy. Let’s assume that the postlibertarian philosophy this blog espouses is correct: markets are pretty good at allocating resources efficiently, government policy can help address some economic areas where markets might not work (inequality, externalities), giving the state power is generally a bad thing and must be justified, and individuals should have robust protections from their government. We aren’t assuming away the current political landscape of the US, we’re just assuming we’re right.
So what would a libertarian trying to maximize efficiency in advocacy do? Do you try and emulate the Koch brothers and create or fund political organizations that change policy outcomes? Do you focus on viable candidates? How much do you accept the political process as given? Do you focus on political reforms (proportional representation), education (IHS, Economics of Library and Liberty), or do you try to work on making your own rules (crypto, seasteading, space exploration)? Let’s leave those hard questions for another time, and focus on perhaps the most mainstream approach to politics: how should you prioritize the importance of various political issues? People usually have specific issues they care about that determine which candidate they’d like to back, and the Open Philanthropy Project even has a U.S. policies page. But which issues are actually the most important? Continue reading Efficient Advocacy
The advent of vaccines has led to a dramatic rise in the quality of life in the 20th century. Vaccines have reduced morbidity of diptheria, mumps, polio, and several other diseases by over 99%. In the wake of such overwhelming success, many government policies have moved to make vaccines mandatory, but many libertarians and conservatives have argued that this infringes on the individual right to his or her body. However, I believe that mandatory vaccines may in fact protect rights.
When evaluating individual rights, the quote “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins” is important to consider. Does the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate harm other individuals? In the sense that you enable yourself to transmit disease to unvaccinated individuals, yes. But the act of not vaccinating could easily be considered a conscious choice to be more vulnerable to a disease.
The problem with this logic falls in the concept of “herd immunity”. “Herd immunity” is when such a large percentage of a population is immune to a disease that, even if one susceptible person becomes ill, the disease is unlikely to spread. For example, if 96% of a population has received a measles vaccine, when one individual gets measles, it is unlikely that they confer the disease to the other 4% of people, because the individual is surrounded by so many who are immune (This Romina Libster TED talk explains the concept well).
These individuals aren’t all free riders either. Vaccines are not 100% effective, they cannot be used on people of all ages, and some people are allergic to them. These individuals did not make a conscious choice to be vulnerable to a disease, and by one person choosing not to vaccinate, their “herd immunity” is weakened, significantly increasing their risk of becoming sick.
This has happened several times before, particularly after Andrew Wakefield’s false autism link. In 2014, a measles outbreak occurred in California, only 45% of measles cases occurred in unvaccinated individuals, and among those 12 were in infants too young to be vaccinated.
In defending mandatory vaccines, I have been asked if this same argument could be applied to justify gun control. While the data is conflicting depending how it’s looked at, even if there is a link between gun ownership and gun violence, I don’t believe that the increased risk associated with gun ownership is not grounds considering it a right infringement. With guns, the decision that puts others in harm’s way is not the decision to purchase, but the decision to fire. Furthermore, the decision to fire is already controlled by the illegality of assault, manslaughter, and murder, while the decision not to vaccinate cannot be controlled by anything other than laws mandating it.
Vaccines are one of the most important health advancements of the 20th century, but there are many people that they cannot directly protect. For this reason, it is critical that we prevent healthy adults from making a choice not to vaccinate.
In 1996, Hurricane Fran hit Raleigh, knocking out power and trees. Duke Political Science Professor Michael Munger describes the response of several citizens from a neighboring town who decided to exploit the situation. These budding opportunist entrepreneurs rented some refrigerated trucks, filled them with ice and drove to Raleigh, where they sold the bags of ice for about $8 each. Raleigh police eventually arrived, arrested them for price gouging, and allowed the ice to melt with virtually none distributed to the locals.
The tension between the social justice movement and the liberal ideals of tolerance and free speech came crashing into the mainstream last week, as activists at the University of Missouri and Yale gained widespread attention for events occurring on their respective campuses. There has been a lot of coverage, so if you are not familiar with the situation, I would recommend (sorted by brevity) this video, reading Popehat’s two posts here and here, Robby Soave at Reason, Jonathan Chait in NY Magazine, and for a longer piece, Connor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic.
Having observed many events and effects of the social justice movement, I’d like to propose a way to think about the liberal value of tolerance, a value that social justice activists have generally disregarded. There are other issues with the movement’s methods, and for more on that, I would recommend some Slate Star Codex links in the first footnote (1).
Recent events have indicated that many social justice activists are not concerned about the movement’s chilling effects on free speech. I think the coverage of the events and general political sentiment recognize this is a dangerous situation, and that free speech must be defended, even for speakers with whom we disagree (2). But I’d like to submit a broader defense of tolerance, especially in light of what free speech does not defend. Randall Munroe of xkcd (3) presents the counter-thesis, essentially arguing for intolerance as long as it is allowed by law:
Use of this comic for criticism purposes qualifies as fair use under Copyright Act of 1976, 17 US Code Section 107.
Although Munroe is correct in that it is totally legal to advocate for people who you disagree with to lose their jobs, I think it is a pretty disturbing, intolerant position. But I want to better understand what tolerance means by looking at a thought exercise I call the Tolerance Gradient. Continue reading On Tolerance
This is my last post (with 75% certainty). Not only do I have no time to blog, I have no time to maintain the site enough to keep everything updated and secure. If you’re interested in buying the domain to inherit some ephemeral backlinks contact me at the sidebar email.
Last week I spent two and a half hours watching the second GOP presidential debate. I knew that almost none of it would matter in twelve months. I knew I could more efficiently read a few articles in the morning. But my willpower wasn’t strong enough to resist the immediate gratification.
I was struck by how much the candidates are selling fear. Carly Fiorina wants me to fear ISIS and Iran. Donald Trump wants me to fear immigrants. Mike Huckabee wants me to fear gay rights. Ted Cruz wants me to fear Obama. Rand Paul wants me to fear the government’s assault on civil liberties.
While the candidates are all trying to sell themselves with fear about everything, everyone else is busy trying to make us afraid of the candidates themselves. And no matter who wins the nomination of either major party, great sums of money and time will be spent selling fear of both of them. Fear that Trump would be a reckless diplomat. Fear that Fiorina would be way too militaristic. Fear that Clinton’s corruption would damage the nation. Fear that Bernie Sanders’ socialism would destroy the economy. Fear fear fear fear fear.
It probably says more about who I am these days than any of the candidates, but as I watched the politicians and wanna-be outsiders evade questions and recite rhetoric during the debate, I thought to myself, you know, I’m not really afraid of any of these guys. I guess I’m supposed to be afraid that Jeb Bush isn’t a true conservative, or that several of the leading candidates show little interest in preserving civil liberties or restraining the unintended consequences of military intervention, but I just can’t get worked up about it anymore.
To hear the candidates talk about Iran, you’d think the threat of a country that doesn’t even have nuclear energy was on the same level as the Cuban Missile Crisis. To hear them talk about the economy, you’d think we were still at the peak of the Great Recession, not rolling through sixty-something months of job growth.
It’s not that I think the country has no challenges. It’s not that I don’t have concerns about how certain candidates would address them. But on the one hand I don’t think things are as bad as they want me to think, and on the other hand I don’t think they have as much power as they pretend to affect those things anyway. When you consider the limits and effects of Congress, financial realities, demographic changes, black swan events, and more…
It’s just hard for me to get excited about opposing any of these folks as The Wrong One For Our Country. I can’t buy the fear they’re selling, and I can’t buy the fear of their fear, either. The opportunity cost is too high; I’d rather spend my mental cycles on other things.
Since then, millions of Baby Boomers have retired, and…. stocks are up 50%…
Apparently, demographic realignments are no still match for the dynamism of the modern American corporate machine and its ability to turn invested dollars into innovative dividends. My pessimistic musings based on ten years of evidence are looking increasingly naive compared to the roaring hundred-year-based optimisms of Mr. Money Moustache and jlcollinsnh. Maybe this time, it’s… not different?
The unemployment rate has been dropping. Pundits like to point to the labor-participation rate or the employment-participation rate and argue about how much can be blamed on retiring Baby Boomers and how much it matters. There seems to be a significant chunk of people quietly hiding under the rug of Social Security disability (if you haven’t seen the excellent This American Life podcast). The less well-known fund is set to run dry at the end of 2016, leading to all sorts of interesting political game theory.
Some people seem to assume that falling employment rates are a problem. The labor participation rate is the lowest SINCE 1977!! With every drop, the year goes back and sounds more ominous. Yet every time, I think, well how did the country survive 1977 anyway? We went through several decades with a lower proportion of people employed than today.
What changed between then and now? Participation rates went up as lots of women started working and now goes down as Baby Boomers retire while living longer. So we’ve essentially traded a world where men worked to support their wives for a world where men and women both work to support their grandparents. The biggest difference, of course, is that the support is channeled through the government at mismatched levels, essentially relying on foreign investors to give those grandparents better support.
Some seem to see the downfall of America and its self-sufficient legacy in the growing numbers of non-workers. If we include children under 16, surely the number of productively employed people supporting the rest of the country is less than 50%. Yet there does not seem to be any fundamental problem with that proportion. We used to do it all the time, and we were far less productive then.
Earlier this month Slate published a beautiful recap of 2014 as “The Year of Outrage.” (hat/tip @NickSacco55) A giant grid depicts their dutiful tracking of what they considered the most outrage-inducing story of every single day of the year, It’s stunning to look back at all the outrages I forgot about or never knew about in the first place. It’s interesting to ponder how many of the ephemeral outrages I avoided with my blogging hiatus.
It’s illuminating to see the stupid outrages side-by-side with the serious ones.
Throughout the piece(s), there’s a mournful tone about how the silly outrages distracted from the genuinely important issues (which naturally are the ones featuring the greatest crimes against Slate’s writer’s progressive political positions). Their conclusion is relevant for pundits of all stripes:
it’s fascinating to look at how our collective responses skipped from the serious to the picayune without much modulation in pitch.
When everything is outrageous, nothing is.
But it’s not just liberals who are questioning the long-term value of our obsession with outrage. Mollie Hemingway took on those trying to tie the NYPD police murders to Democratic politicians, reminding us of a similar Palin-blame game and asking if we can all “try to see the best in each other’s arguments.” An Atlantic feature on Erick Erickson noted that the Red State hero has been questioning the anger that made him famous:
In August, he wrote, “I increasingly find conflict between my faith and some conservative discourse.” He cited the right-wing furor over undocumented minors, Ebola, and the protests in Ferguson, Missouri…
He told me about a man who had come up to him to rant about immigrants ruining schools and neighborhoods. “I’m like, ‘Why are you so angry?’ ” He thinks conservatives suffer from a persecution complex…
Most of our modern political groups do. I’m encouraged to see more pundits recognizing the problems of outrage. Perhaps the movement will continue to grow, though I suspect the demand remains too strong for such things. Nash equilibria do not tolerate vacuums. Even if Red State manages to fend off the temptations to keep peddling its own outrage, will that just send more readers to the Matt Walshes of the world? Or can leaders like Erickson help bring down the demand curve while shutting off the supply?
This summer marked the one hundred year anniversary of World War I. It means that for the first time in 75 years, only one world war was begun in the last century (presuming that any current regional conflicts do not flair up and become retroactively associated with the beginning of another). Even World War II is quickly fading into the farthest quadrant of the most recent hundred years.
That may sound like a trivial mathematical curiosity, but I believe it is a significant marker. Essentially, everyone alive today has experienced their entire lives in the shadows of two world wars, something that was previously not experienced in the entirety of human history. It was natural to wonder, especially after the second war and during the Cold uncertainties, if this was a new normal, if this previously uncharted territory would continue and take us to the end of the world. I suspect we do not appreciate how much that paradigm influenced decisions of the last several decades.
Yet many an eschatological timeline has since been foiled. World Wars are increasingly a distant memory, and they increasingly present fewer difficulties for Pinker’s narrative that humanity is following an arc towards peace. For the first time since global war burst onto the scene, a new generation is arising who will not know anyone who has lived through it. Globalization has connected us all, and it is now plausible to imagine that the steps on the above graph will turn out to be nothing more than a momentary blip in the course of history.
Not that I would not bet on it. Today’s nonpocalyptics may be as unrealistically optimistic as their apocalyptic counterparts were pessimistic decades ago. Thomas Friedman’s Golden Arches Theory appears increasingly strained. Obama’s mockery of Romney’s Russiaphobia now appears hubristic. Markets may be swifter than missiles for limiting the upper bounds of Putin’s aggression, but the double-edged sword of global connectivity also may make them less capable of ending it altogether.
And so we plod on in this lukewarm era that is too complex for any certain predictions. Many have over-expected war, but I am also wary of under-expecting it. Human nature does not change, and it only gets more tools to use. Old Russia and new ISIS/L are simply the latest heralds of both wars and the rumors of them. Are we now living in an era with both the greatest potential for violence and the least manifestation of violence in history? Every day it proceeds I wonder if it increases the chance that it is self-stabilizing or if it increases the chance of correction. Assuredly I do not know.
Since starting this blog three years ago, I have continued to explore territory further from traditional libertarian camps. Much of my recent shifting has been influenced by reading fewer blogs and reading more books. Jesus For President strengthened the anti-war views of my libertarian past and added skepticism about the importance of private arms for personal security. Fast Food Nation and Salt, Sugar, Fat strengthened my growing concerns about negative externalities and unintended consequences in the food industry and added somewhat greater sympathies for unions and regulations. Affluenza strengthened my growing skepticism about the usefulness of GDP as a measuring stick and added skepticism about the value of much of our rising standards of living.
So Where Am I Headed Now?
Enter this video, shared by a Facebook friend.
I am more sympathetic than I used to be to some of these ideas. I strongly believe the cycle of debt-fueled growth is a harmful and unsustainable manifestation of short-term thinking that often masks external costs. I agree that it feels like we should be able to come up with a better way to channel the productivity increases of recent decades into fewer working hours and more freedom to pursue personal passions that could have greater benefits to the rest of humanity.
Not So Fast…
However, I strongly disagree when the video accuses companies of taking resources that used to be free and selling them to us for profit, or when it apparently claims that problems arise because money is artificially scarce. These claims may be emotionally or superficially appealing, but I believe they betray fundamentally flawed understandings of economics.
Money essentially represents resources, and it is resources that are truly scarce. Most resources cannot be free in the utopian sense that air is free because they have a limited supply. Sure, I “have to” pay money to my electric company, and they profit from it, but this setup has several advantages over a “free” energy source of wood. First, the electric company provides a greater amount of energy at a far greater efficiency than I could acquire myself. Despite the dirtiness of fossil fuels (and I am very excited about solar energy), they are said to at least be cleaner than the “free” wood burning of the past.
Additionally, those old forests were never really “free,” anyway. The “tragedy of the commons” indicates time and time again how freely available resources become exhausted. Conversely, private property rights incentivize owners to make energy sustainable to maintain their source of profits while simultaneously incentivizing consumers to use less energy so they can save money. When the buffalo was “free,” it was almost hunted to extinction. When resources are owned, they almost never run out.
Even if I somehow deserve some ownership of those limited resources, the electric company is still not simply taking something that would be free and selling it back to me; they are providing a valuable service by refining those raw fossil fuels into forms of energy I can actually use. So I voluntarily choose to pay my electric company for a larger, faster, cleaner, more sustainable, and more useful source of electricity than I could otherwise find for “free.”
On The Other Hand…
On the other hand, it is quite probable that I simply don’t understand Charles Eisenstein’s “gift economy” and need to read his book. Flawed ideas about resources do not necessarily invalidate many of his ideas, and the deep hunger for a better way is not necessarily a utopian fantasy.
“Cleaner” is still dirty enough to pollute countless rivers and lungs. “More sustainable” may not be sustainable enough. Why do I need “larger” amounts of energy, anyway? So I can drive farther to work? What do I do with my extra time from getting it “faster”? Check Facebook more often?
For years, I’ve extolled the virtues of markets that provide us with so much growth and innovation only to find myself wondering what all that innovation is really doing for us. The System now helps Brazilian students learn English by connecting them to online chats with lonely elderly Americans! The System keeps giving us better pills to increase our quality of life! The System gives us fancier treadmills with cup holders and customizable TV screens! Isn’t that awesome?!
But what if the American seniors are only lonely because the System made transportation so cheap that the rest of their family moved away? What if we only need those pills to offset all the negative health effects we got when the System gave us television and TV dinners? What if we only need those treadmills because the System made our lives so convenient that we didn’t have to walk anywhere? (Maybe we are paying for things that used to be free…) When I start peeling back the layers of “why,” I feel like I don’t have to go very far before I wonder if we’re really making much progress.
I used to like to say it was the Government that kept setting up new programs to fix the very problems caused by the old programs (see the old yarn about government breaking your leg and giving you a crutch). But I’m starting to realize that this happens with the whole system, businessmen and regulators all mixed in together! At least with the Government paradigm you have a convenient entity to blame. If it’s the entire System that’s breaking our legs and inventing newer, shinier, foldable crutches paid for by tiny ads on the handles… then maybe we have no one to blame but ourselves. And when I dare to think this way I lose all interest in the ideological turf wars about whether the Auto-Syncing Wi-Fi enabled LED SmartBulb 3000X was the product of profit-seeking market innovation or government research and regulation. How did we end up in a world where fancy lightbulbs made us so excited in the first place?
…Maybe I’m Starting To Shift
For a while I dealt with my growing unease by appealing to technology as a savior. Solar panels and electric cars will free us from pollution. Self-driving software will free us from road deaths and unproductive commutes! 3d printers and asteroid mining will save us from manufacturing scarcities and stagnation! Maybe Bitcoin will even save us from the financial system! But if new technology merely solves the problems old technology gave us, why should we assume the new forms won’t create new problems that lead to new “treadmills” that we have to discretely add back in to our increasingly compartmentalized days that are still only twenty-four hours long? What if new technology just distracts us even further?
I used to relish every new Apple product presentation with religious fervor. Now I think future civilizations will find our archives of “incredible” and “amazing” new ways to swipe a screen and won’t believe it was real.
I think I need a new paradigm.
I thought I had achieved political enlightenment when I stopped seeing things from a left-right Democrat-Republican paradigm and started seeing things from a freedom-authoritarian paradigm. The real question wasn’t whether Democrats or Republicans should grow government; the real question was whether or not we should grow government at all! But I’m starting to think that this “mind-blowing” revelation is just another axis on the same false plane of economic progress.
Maybe I need to look at things from a third dimension – a more spiritual plane that considers the purposes behind our clamor for conveniences, a paradigm that accounts for the unintended consequences of each “new” and “improved” innovation. This kind of thinking is certainly not exclusive to religion, though I find it quite at home with the teachings of Jesus Christ; it seems more difficult to help “build the kingdom of God” when your money is tied up in mortgages and your time is tied up cleaning, mowing, fixing, and organizing the properties he “blessed” you with. Have I gained the whole world wide web in my pocket, but lost my sole purpose for living? Maybe the real question isn’t whether a bigger or smaller government is better for economic growth; maybe the real question is whether or not we still want economic growth at all!
Gasp! Surely not! Old paradigms do not quickly surrender to such heresies. Whatever complaints one may have about the diminishing returns of Western materialism, surely we do not need to throw the air conditioning and the antibiotics out with the neo-Luddite bathwater! The march of progress may have a few unpleasant side effects, but it would be foolish to presume that life is not better now than it was a hundred years ago. Life will never be perfect and people will always have something to complain about, so just keep your head down and play along and if you don’t like the treadmills or the Taco Bells just ignore them and make different choices. What’s so hard about that?
Well, I don’t know. This is the cognitive dissonance I have recognized but not yet resolved. What good are power windows if they make your muscles atrophy from lack of use? Is there a point at which the march of progress stops making life better and just makes it more complicated? Can we filter the “bads” the System gives us and keep the “goods,” or are they inseparably linked? How much can a citizen free himself from the consequences of the System’s conveniences without uprooting all of them, and how does one reach those limits, and how does one extend them?
These are the kinds of questions I’ve started asking. These are the kinds of ideas at which I’ve started directing my meager grasps of economic principles and political insights. These may just be the silly and pretentious existential musings of a privileged blogger, but I’m willing to take that risk to see where it leads me…
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