In a democracy, when and where should majorities rule?

A familiar question - I mean my headline, not the cartoon. I don't intend to answer it. My title comes from In a democracy, when and where should majorities rule? (via X) which is an actual real paper by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. I'm not going to review it properly either. I did kinda skim it, but I think that really what they've done is a fairly std.tactic: arrange a set of ostensibly-neutral criteria in order to arrive at the answer they want. In reality, I don't think there's any such objective criteria. Instead, it is very much a matter of give-n-take, as well - most importantly - as a matter of history; in most places the rules are, correctly, not easily changable.

If you'd like to read me advising you not to fetishise democracy, then see Aristotle's politics which also discusses balancing O[M|D]OV; or just read Popper telling you that democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Two views of democracy is also worth reading, or so I tell myself.

Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson discusses Majoritarianism vs Constitutionalism.

Seguing on from there (yes this is one of those posts where I dump a pile of links I've been accumulating) is Why Is Democracy Tolerable? Evidence from Affluence and Influence. That's from Bryan Caplan in 2012 but recently reposted. The core of it is Democracy has a strong tendency to simply supply the policies favored by the rich.  When the poor, the middle class, and the rich disagree, American democracy largely ignores the poor and the middle class. To avoid misinterpretation, this does not mean that American democracy has a strong tendency to supply the policies that most materially benefit the rich.  It doesn’t.  Gilens, like all well-informed political scientists, knows that self-interest has little effect on public opinion.  Neither does this mean that Americans strongly object to the policy status quo.  They don’t, because poor, middle class, and rich tend to agree.  Gilens’ key conclusion is simply that when rich and poor happen to disagree, the rich generally get their way. BC finds some comfort in that, because Democracies listen to the relatively libertarian rich far more than they listen to the absolutely statist non-rich. 

Finally, one of the elements of the paper I started with is - if I recall - some kind of pean to the virtues of proportional representation on the grounds that it allows you to exclude the "far right" (though I think that in an effort to appear neutral they probably phrase it differently). Which I think is iffy; because one of the virtues of having parties in power is the electors get to see what a bunch of clueless clowns they are. If you persistently exclude them it looks - and is - anti-democratic¹, but it also allows them to keep going "but it would be so much better if we were in charge", and allows their supporters to believe the same. As the Austrians amongst others are finding out (more).

Notes

1. I'm not a strong democrat, so you could say this is rich coming from me; but the point is that the people saying it are, hence look like a bunch of hypocrites. Which of course they are, but normally they try to hide that. 2025/05: RH has a yes-its-fine-to-suppress-wackos post: No, You Don't Get to Elect the Microchips in Soda Guy; Limits on democracy are necessary. But I'm doubtful.

Refs

* How Is Immigration Like Nuclear Power?

* Is hereditarian research "abhorrent"?

* For those still wondering, Biden confirms that he is senile (a politer comment), and Harris that she is an NPC.

* Trump's Illegal First-Day Executive Actions.

* The Original Meaning of "Subject to the Jurisdiction" of the United States (more).

* Scientists extend and straighten iconic climate “hockey stick”.

* The AMOC is slowing, it’s stable, it’s slowing, no, yes, …

* Association, Exclusion, Liberty, and the Status Quo.

* Trump's Attempt to Usurp Congress's Spending Power - is he spinning out of control or is this just a bit of flailing around? - but that one at least didn't last long.

* Climate Change in the Courts: A 2024 Retrospective Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

* Understanding Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century.

* Throw Biden under the bus - even the faithful are falling, although not far enough.

* The Republican Party is doomed - a while ago, but illustrates the problems the R's have if all the folk in actual charge are Progressive.

* Apology for a Trainwreck - Bryan Caplan, the ethnographies of Oscar Lewis paint a bleak picture of lower-class life. And Who's Afraid of Oscar Lewis?

* The Danger of Trump Disobeying Court Orders [Updated].

* We Tried to Warn You.

* Why do people believe true things?

* Is the AfD Crypto-Fascist? No More Than Republicans Are.

* Immigrants Used Less Welfare than Native-Born Americans in 2022.

* Book review: the Grand Titration.

* Is the Male Female Divide a Social Construct or Scientific Reality? / Our letter to the three societies on the definition of sex—with signers.

The work of disenchantment never ends

Or, the year in Stoats, 2024. This year, with too few comments to meaningfully rank anything, I'm returning to ranking by what I like. Now available on Substack, woo. Spot the odd one out.

Happy New Year, World.

* Jan: Sandel: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.

* Feb: The parable of the Antheap and the Anteater.

* Mar:The burden of thought.

* Apr: There is no human right to a safe or stable climate / Your right to protest.

* May: Your right to lorenorder.

* Jun: The morality of not meddling in other people's business.

* Jul: The Loper's so Bright, I gotta wear shades.

* Aug: France 2024: Orsay, Chamonix, Argeles, Canal du Midi.

* Sep: By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die.

* Oct: The Foundations of Morality.

* Nov: DOGE.

* Dec: The Syrian Experiments.

Refs

* Book review: Icehenge.

* 2023; 2022; 2021; 2020.

* The Partialtarian Corporation.

* On Priesthoods - ACX.

* The media very rarely makes things up.

* Should America Buy Greenland?

* The Origins of Wokeness.

* No, Marx Was Not an Important Economist.

* How To Stop Worrying And Learn To Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates - ACX.

* Why A Canada/U.S. Union is a Bad Idea.

* Neuromancer, Beedle and The Uses of Enchantment.

Me

Activities this year:

Weight:

Three easy pieces

In the strange quiet 'twixt Christmas and the New Year I bring you three light fluffy concoctions of confusion: Starmer asks UK regulators for ideas to boost growth; A new Iranian approach to regional security and prosperity, by M. Javad Zarif; and Andrew Dessler with Out-of-control corporate power is the real cause of climate change.

But before we begin, a few lines come my way (via Icehenge) from Poly Olbion:

Ill did those mightie men to trust thee with their storie,

That hast forgot their names, who rear’d thee for their glorie:

For all their wondrous cost, thou that hast serv’d them so,

What tis to trust to Tombes, by thee we easely know³.

We start with poor Starmer who asks UK regulators for ideas to boost growth⁴. The poor idiot Labour party - indeed, a great many politicians - remind me of Atlas Shrugged; not the wodges of philosophy, of course, but the uncomprehending stupidity with which they attempt to solve the problems they themselves have created by doing yet more things. In this case Starmer is - of course - correct to worry about regulation; but the problem is over-regulation, not the exact wording of any particular rule; and expecting the regulators to suggest less regulation falls foul of it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it. [2025/01: as if to prove just how hopeless it is, we get Tougher checks on knife sales fast-tracked after Southport attack. Hopeless from our performative-theatre-pols, and our ditto media. And of course the courts are infected by idiocy too.]

No less witty and amusing is the Economist's Iran’s vice-president on how his country can make the region more secure and prosperous (probably paywalled). It is witty because near the beginning he offers us the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-intervention and collective security, and yet he never once mentions that the Iranian theocrats have been funding terrorists in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, causing untold harm, most especially to the poor people of these various countries; ironically of course his country does hold the key to making the region more secure and prosperous, by just not doing all those evil things. It is all, of course, a pointless waste of words; with some good luck, he won't be around to spew this nonsense for too much longer¹.

Coming in at number three is Andrew Dessler² who, in order to prove that "trust the scientists" should extend no further than the science, says "I stand with unions", and argues that the Real Cause of Climate Change is not greenhouse gases, but concentrated corporate power. Since I'm trying to keep this light 'n' fluffy I'll go no further than to say this is all deeply stupid: the Evil Corporates are striving hard to fulfill the desires of their customers, and no: arguing that they "create desire" is drivel and excuse-making.

Notes

1. That isn't a prediction, it is a hope.

2. Via QS. Amusingly, I find (via myself) AD saying "If a fossil fuel company wants to fund my research, I will gladly take their money". More Dessler chez moi; I'll stop at The flower of poor thinking is to lack influence.

3. He is writing about Stonehenge, so - fittingly for this post - is also a bit confused; nonetheless the words are lovely.

4. Laughing about the EU's pro-growth plans was in 2024. Continuing, here: The irony of issuing a 27-page, five-year plan to become more competitive is lost on the European Commission.

Refs

* ¡AI Caramba! - RC.

The Syrian Experiments

Geddit? I'm not entirely sure Der Spiegel does, those heavy-humoured Germans y'know. But anyway, this is my excuse to spread my wisdom.

Overall, I feel hopeful.

The Israelis are pushing their hand a bit; some of this is reasonable, some perhaps less so; but the new bloke is so far being very sensible about it and saying, correctly, that rebuilding Syria is his first priority. The Russians are fucking off, which is always good news for anywhere; the Turks are a bit murkier, ditto the Iranians.

The optimistic scenario is that the Syrians do indeed settle down to national reconstruction, focussing on actually making life better for the people rather than the minutiae of borders or imposing theocracy. They (continuing the optimism) stop terrorists using it as a pathway to attacking Israel; reach an accomodation with Israel on the frontier; reach an accomodation with the Kurds; and expel Iran. Whose theocracy then falls, leading to an outbreak of Peace and Light across the entire region. Oh, and of course the idiot West revokes their blacklisting.

Apart from that I leave you with a collection of links to my previous thoughts on this and related topics.

Refs

* [2013] Syria: the West makes the usual mistake.

* [2014] The Iraqi government really is rubbish, isn’t it?

* [2014] Ukraine: Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.

* [2015] The UK should not bomb Syria. [2019] Governance is hard.

* [2020] Coronavirus days: more endless summer.

* [2021] Shamima Begum cannot return to UK, Supreme Court rules / All this fuss over one dickhead.

* SCOTUS: How To Think About Justice Jackson "& Juliet": answer: the Supremes should have the sense to decline such offers.

* Syrian HTS leader says rebel factions that overthrew Assad will be ‘disbanded’ (FFS Graun, will you drop the shit-for-brains scare quotes please?).

* US lifts $10m bounty on HTS leader after talks in Syrian capital.

* Why We Should Separate Health and State.

* This chapter, on “Conservation, Ecology, and Growth,” is an early statement of free-market environmentalism.

* Inside a Syrian 'reconciliation centre' where Assad's soldiers give up their weapons.

* Army chief elected Lebanon's president after years of deadlock [2025/01/09].

* Supreme Court allows Trump’s New York criminal sentencing to go forward.

* Syria's New Government Cancels Russian Port Lease at Tartus - caution non-mainstream source.

* 2025/05: Trump’s decision to lift sanctions is a triumph for Syria’s president.

* 2026/03: We are carefully calculating our steps and working to keep Syria away from any conflict - sensible.

* 2026/07: Rebuilding Syria will cost over $200bn. Bombs are not helping. But the article rather than the headline is actually hopeful.

* 2026/07: Monty Python - Prejudice.

DOGE

Following on from my brilliant analysis of USAnian politics I feel inclined to write some words on DOGE and related matters; and Sabine's vaguely-related Science is in trouble and it worries me tips me over. Let's begin with her thesis; you should probably at least watch her graphs for context.

The exponential increase of people, money and papers in science is no evidence for an exponential increase in science being done, of course. Partly because if the proportion of scientists as a fraction of people is increasing, their average quality is inevitably going down, and as we all know the best produce a disproportionate amount of what is valuable. But also because - at least I assert this - science is increasingly a job, a career, and while the people doing it will undoubtedly be happy to discover wonderful new things it likely isn't their prime motivation; nor indeed is it the prime motivation of the people employing them. I may be falling victim to the hoary old trope of the Victorian gentleman-scientist motivated purely by curiosity; or I may not. Overall, on this model, there's probably a lot of decent science being done, but quietly, and not necessarily making Nurture. If so, then the vast reams of <stuff that isn't exactly junk, but is just low-quality career-science> isn't doing anyone any great harm.

From that, we move onto DOGE. There are two ways of looking at this, and I think most people are looking at the first and least interesting, which is saving money. And then immeadiately saying "it is pretty hard to save money". Which is true. Most science money, for example, goes on salaries; either of the scientists, or the admin and support staff; if you cut that you'll just have roving homeless packs of feral scientists doing drugs on the streets, which helps no-one. Similar hand-waves apply to social security or medical stuff.

The more interesting stuff is what kicked off Musk in the first place, as it inevitably must, to anyone actually trying to run a company: the vast reams of goverment gumpf that stand in the way of getting anything done.

But rolling that back is hard work, our society has come to love it so much, so many people are beholden to so many special interests who want it continued.

Perhaps if Musk could interest that nice Dominic Cummings he might get somewhere. So I wish him the best but fear for the worst¹.

2025/06

Well, it seems to have ended. Musk has bowed out - mostly - and has managed to exit rather more gracefully that I'd expected (or maybe I spoke too soon) (see-also: Elon Musk’s failure in government; His legacy will be to make reform even harder). In other news, Musk just twat "I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it" so perhaps he is coming down off the drugs.

Refs

* Climate chickenhawks.

* The energy transition will be much cheaper than you think.

* How Scientific American's Departing Editor Helped Degrade Science.

* How Industrial Strategy Killed British Industry.

* Link to Twit.

* Peter Schickele / P.D.Q. Bach.

* Inactivity is a choice, not an inevitability in British politics. The projects approved by Labour in its first full week had sat on the desks of Conservative predecessors for months. The Economist.

* No evidence for inequity aversion in non-human animals: a meta-analysis of accept/reject paradigms, Ritov et al..

* Canadian Euthanasia as Moral Progress. Individual liberty, the common good, and human dignity.

* Democracy's Opportunity Cost.

* International school scores comparison.

* 2013: Syria: the West makes the usual mistake; 2015: The UK should not bomb Syria.

* Perhaps US health spending is not so bad after all?

* Around the world, an anti-red-tape revolution is taking hold.

* I was asked to keep this confidential - Sabine.

* DOGE as a Control Mechanism of the Trump-Musk Co-Presidency.

* 50 Thoughts on DOGE.

* How Would Milton Friedman Do DOGE?

Notes

1. Consider DOGE Can Succeed by Scaling Back Its Ambitions.

Me on USAnian politics, 2024

So another election looms. I find my words from 2020 are weirdly recyclable: Well, there's an election coming up - you may have noticed - so it is Time to Opine, thereby fixing my words in stone for posterity to hold against me. Just like last time the presidential choice is unappealling. Trump is, obviously, horrible: personally, and in many but not all policies. By contrast Biden Kamala is a nice enough std.pol, or at least projects that as an image, but it is hard to get enthused over his her policies. Last time I continued Given his opponent I hope he wins; and given a choice I'd hold my nose and vote for him but I find that harder to do this time; read on.

As a reminder of how different things can look in retrospect, the Economist has Angela who? Merkel’s legacy looks increasingly terrible.

If you want to believe that the election is about character, then you'll vote for Harris, obvs. Here for example is Paul Graham saying so. Or in Supreme Court Refuses to Remove RFK Jr. from Wisconsin and Michigan Ballots I can find "I'm going to let [RFK] go wild on health. I'm going to let him go wild on the food. I'm going to let him go wild on the medicines," Trump told supporters at Madison Square Garden; and RFK is a nutter. Or you can listen to Arnie^3,4.

The case against Harris - as far as I am concerned - is that she is a low-grade generic Dem Pol with precious little to recommend her. You might well say - and you'd be correct - that in most respects that puts her far ahead of the Mango Mussolini. But all her policies and instincts are bad; see e.g. the price-gouging stuff. [Update: and of course that the Dems have somehow managed - again - to field a low-grade candidate says bad things about them.]

The case for Trump is the one I need to make. And it isn't for Trump himself, obvs, no it is for the people he'd bring in. Not Vance either, obvs. It's effectively Richard Hanania's Hating Modern Conservatism While Voting Republican¹. Here's a bad answer to Hanania; if you want to say that again, please don't. I should also point out that many of Harris's stupid economic ideas require Congress to pass them, so will likely not happen; Trump's stupid ideas on tariffs can likely be done via executive action, so might happen. Trump is more hawkish for Israel, which is good, but less for Ukraine, which is bad and more important⁶.

The point of this post, though, is to write down my thoughts now so I can't pretend they were different later, not to offer you advice that you'll ignore. In brief, I think it amounts to: Harris is a bland non-entity who will hopefully do very little²; Trump is everything you think he is, and unacceptable. In the end I would cast a vote, if I had one, against Trump and therefore for Harris.

A couple of other thoughts: firstly, I don't see much if anything said about Harris being female, or being "of colour". Which is good, obvs; such properties are irrelevant to the role. I also see little about abortion, which is similarly good; the much-reviled-by-the Progressives Dobbs seems to have had the desired effect of drawing some poison from national poitics. Secondly, I don't see anyone (credible) endorsing Harris as a good candidate; only as "Trump is worse". So we perhaps think about her selection process. I discard the last-minute nature of the choice, because I think we'd likely have had the same result regardless: so we're left with the totally unsurprising result that the Dem machine has chosen someone so unappealling. Which tells you a lot about the said Dem machine prioritising its own interests above those of the country.

Update: the result

Trump won, fairly strongly. To find out what this means we'll need to wait, especially in the Ukraine. If I were the MMs⁵, I'd be keeping very quiet (update: they didn't). Initial S+P reaction is up, modestly, by ~100 aka ~2% to 5900. I take that to be a good sign.

David Broockman: This is how I’ve always understood the Biden administration: a million little decisions that made small interest groups much better off and most people a tiny bit worse off. Do enough of that and you lose. Or, put another way, you have to have principles.

Refs

* Elon Musk's Story Highlights Harm Caused by Immigration Restrictions.

* Mission unaccomplished: The British budget combines large numbers and a narrow vision. A bigger state but an irrational way to fund it. Or, the govt as bandits (my take). But on the scale of USAnian politics, just a ripple; the AIM market even rose a little.

* El Econo explains why they (unlike WaPo) do endorse candidates. Their reasoning is somewhat obscure; in their words "To give opinions on policies but not politicians would be odd".

* Noah Smith is sad that "Trumpism systematically appoints the worst people to positions of power, since it prizes *loyalty to a personality cult* above competence and principle". But he doesn't really explain why it is a personality cult. Part is easy: thinking about policy is hard, supporting or hating people is easy. But the hard part - that he doesn't really want to talk about - is the people that see <someone, anyone, oh very well Trump> as a bulwark against the woke-that-is-evil.

* Living in a Post-truth World - Peter Woit.

* Conservatism in Crisis: Rise of the Bureaucratic Class; Kemi Badenoch.

* Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down (h/t).

* Just one of many bad takes: Welcome to the American petrostate, Michael E. Mann. Or None of this is meant to imply that most progressive causes are mistaken... in the Graun. Stefan Rahmstorf: it's all the fault of the right wing meeja.

* A collection of great hang-wringing: Trump Didn't Deserve to Win, But We Deserved to Lose.

* Journal of Free Speech Law: "Corporate Speech and Corporate Purpose: A Theory of Corporate First Amendment Rights," by Sean J. Griffith.

* PG: Socialists... cherish the idea that the game is rigged so much that they'd rather talk about that than about how to improve their situation.

* The Graun flounces out: Why the Guardian is no longer posting on X.

* Sam Harris on why critique of the media and the establishment must not turn into nihilism, though I now rather regret linking because of his use of "coronated".

* Dear Journalists: Stop Trying to Save Democracy.

* Economath Fails the Cost-Benefit Test.

* The best-case scenario for Trump's second term.

* Disproportionate elite influence saves us from many destructive public opinions (Robin Hanson).

* Why You Should Feel Good About Liberalism (Jonathan Rauch).

* Biden pardons Hunter. Bad; but the kind of thing you expect from pols. I think Biden should have pardoned Trump at the same time, to draw the sting and provide some semblance of impartiality; all the reasons re politically-motivated-prosecution that he gives as excuses apply to the Trump case. Although... Trump is a State crime and the pardon may or may not apply there; the Supremes have never ruled on it. To be fair to Biden though, stuff like Biden professed a willingness to abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle is nonsense; he has pardoned a pile of other people already, though fewer than others so far. See-also How To Ban Lame-Duck Pardons. In an effort to pretend that this is nothing unusual, some progressives are just making shit up (and then, when caught, are in the usual way failing to apologise).

* ‘Nobody was tricked into voting for Trump’: Why the disinformation panic is over.

Notes

1. "Cut the applause and dim the light".

2. Although it is arguably in the spirit of the framer's intent, I find it... well, not amusing, but whatevs... that a better candidate than either on offer can be constructed by simply offering to do nothing. I should probably also point out that I've paid very little attention to anything she has said.

3. Or ACX Endorses Harris, Oliver, Or Stein. But that brings in some problems: it reminds me that Trump, if he won, would have had his two terms and not be up for re-election (if you doubt that you need to explicitly argue against it). And it also asserts that Repubs are typically-Trump, which I doubt.

4. Or A second Trump term comes with unacceptable risks: if The Economist had a vote, we would cast it for Kamala Harris.

5. Reading this in arrears, it took me a while to work out what I meant by "MMs"; the answer is: Mad Mullahs.

6. Not because one is instrinscially more important than the other; but because US support for Israel is ingrained and largely immovable.

Sound to hide the broken bone the sunken ship

My headline is a half-remembered quote from a poem read at school in childhood. And since I haven't had a poem or art here for a bit... good greif has it really been that long? I think I have to go back to Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I in 2018. Doesn't time fly when you/re getting old. Since then I've been to the Orsay, but fortunately that one isn't there, I'd have been sad to have missed it, if you see what I mean. Which you probably don't, but I no longer worry about that.

Aanyway, the point is that having searched the web in vain, I finally remembered that I probably still had the book - and it turned out that I did - and leafing through managed to find this, after some Betjeman complaints about Encase your legs in nylons.

Not quite the words I remember, and A. S. J. Tessimond turns out to be not-very-famous. Still I'm a bit surprised that "Sound like a sea to conceal the bone, the broken shell, the broken ship" gets me only one hit. Perhaps I can invoke more with this post. As to the meaning, ah well, see perhaps Old B+W speakers: I don't play music at home any more. But I do in the car.

As to the words, I kinda like mine more.

Refs

* The Progressive Moment Is Over.

* Kamala Harris is a Far Lesser Evil than Donald Trump.

* Illegitimate Attacks on the Court’s Legitimacy.

* Writes and Write-Nots - PG.

Reason and Morality

Having established - at least to my own satisfaction - The Foundations of Morality, I can now play the fun game of deconstructing other people's ideas. And by happy chance Reason and Morality by Alan Gewirth, falls into my hands¹. The contrast in language with Hazlitt is immeadiately obvious; this is academic philosophy. But casting that aspect aside, he's wrong, which is the important point. Wiki, naturally, can't bring itself to say this; partly because it just doesn't do that and partly because - all together now - philosophy doesn't do that, because philosophy is too scaredy-cat to make such sharp distinctions³.

AG is keen to found morality on rationality; to this extent he is part of the Enlightenment Project and that is good. Unfortunately... well, read his words:

...every agent must claim, at least implicitly, that he has rights to freedom and well-being for the sufficient reason that he is a prospective purposive agent. From the content of this claim it follows, by the principle of universalisability, that all prospective purposive agents have rights to freedom and well-being. If the agent denies this generalization, he contradicts himself. For he would then be in the position of both affirming and denying that being a prospective purposive agent is a sufficient condition of having rights to freedom and well-being.

This is (I think; don't let me claim to have read the whole thing) the core of his argument: that if you have F+WB, you're logically obliged to accept that others also have F+WB. And so:

...the statement that some person or group of persons has a certain right entails a correlative ought-judgment that all other persons ought at least to refrain from interfering with that to which the first person or group has the right. Since, then, the agent must accept the generalized rights-statement, All prospective purposive agents have rights to freedom and well- being, he must, on pain of contradiction, also accept the judgment, 'I ought at least to refrain from interfering with the freedom and well- being of any prospective purposive agent.' The transition here from 'all' to any is warranted by the fact that the 'all' in the generalization is distributive, not collective: it refers to each and hence to any prospective purposive agent.

And there we have it; we've deduced a general duty to behave nicely to people whoops I mean agents².

The problem though is that this isn't morality; the morality that we all know and use isn't found in an absence of contradiction or in logical reasonning. Worse, what he has deduced is essentially just the Golden Rule: do (or refraim from doing) unto others what you would have them do (or refraim from doing) unto you.

His error is to attempt to apply rigourous logic to morality, where it doesn't belong. In something more like normal language, he is attempting to found morality on benevolence: he wants us to behave well to others - implicitly, at some cost to ourselves - having logically deduced that we "owe" that to them. Hazlitt is closer to founding morality on prudence - the moral rules experience have taught us show that being nice to people is not only good for them, but for us as well, over the long term. Hazlitt is congruent to human nature; Gewirth isn't.

AG's scheme (like Kant's; like Hazlitt's) isn't actually a moral code but a schema that moral codes must fit. In chapter four he looks at what he can actually deduce. Do-not-harm-people is his first deduction, in 4.5, but with an exception for self-defence, in 4.6. This doesn't work well: the problem is that although he "knows" there must be such an exception, his schema doesn't really provide for it; nonetheless he tortures it into doing so. This is, incidentally, yet another hint that his proposed moral principle is wrong: he is not really deducing morals from it, instead he is desperately trying to make things he knows to be moral fit into it. Similar things happen with the duty-to-rescue in section 4.7. In chapter five he realises that we actually live by various social and moral rules; but he still prioritises his principles and does not as far as I can see, get to realising that those rules bind because they have "evolved" to, rather than because of his abstract principles.

Notes

1. I bought it second-hand for £15 from the Oxfam bookshop - it had been relegated (or stolen?) from the University of Lancaster philosophy department. If you're not from the UK, or are from some benighted part of the UK, Oxfam run a number of shops that are just second hand books; this works well in Oxford and Cambridge; though for Cambridge, Heffers is generally better for the heavyweight stuff.

2. But not to non-agents. Is animal cruelty bad, in his world? There's some whiffling around this (and mentally deficient persons) that I didn't have the patience to plough through; I sense he is uneasy on this point.

3. And partly of course because they don't even realise it is wrong, sadly.

Refs

* Reflections on United Arab Emirates.

* Do We Need Sports Betting to Get to Mars? Maybe.

* The flower of justice is peace.

Who knew what when, again?

WKWW refers. The shiny new Parliamentarians’ Guide to Climate Change says "Climate change is an area fraught with disinformation, creating a vital need for reliable, accessible and trusted data and analysis". How true. Naturally, it will hold itself to the highest standards, and rigourously eschew any misleading statements, such as That a warming planet is chiefly the result of human carbon emissions is extremely well understood. The greenhouse effect has been known about since the 19th Century and the first detection of human-caused warming was in the 1930s... oh, hold on. This "first detection" is Callendar's stuff. He did indeed make some kind of global temperature series, and he did indeed think It Woz Us Wot Dun It, but to present this as agreed upon or sure or even as "detection" is distinctly dubious¹; we have IPCC '90 saying Global - mean surface air temperature has increased by 0 3°C to 0 6°C over the last 100 years... The size of this warming is broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability Thus the observed increase could be largely due to this natural variability, alternatively this variability and other human factors could have offset a still larger human-induced greenhouse warming. IPCC '90 had not "detected" human-caused warming; claiming it for the 1930's is dodgy.

Don't ask me about the rest of it; I stopped at that point.

Notes

1. I'm pretty sure that calling it "the first definitive proof of rising global temperatures" is wrong too. We like it, now, because he turned out to be right (and British, too, which is nearly the same thing). As Spencer Weart puts it, It all sounded dubious to most meteorologists. Temperature data were such a mess of random fluctuations that with enough manipulation you could derive all sorts of spurious trends. Taking a broader look, experts believed that climate was comfortably uniform.

Refs

* Supreme Court allows EPA emissions rule to stand while litigation continues (Three Thoughts on same); actual text.

* Court Holds the First Amendment Bars Florida from Threatening Media with Criminal Punishment for Spreading Supposed Health-Related Disinformation. The ACLU’s wise decision to defend the NRA in NRA v. Vullo bears fruit.

* SpaceX is NASA’s biggest lunar rival.

* Don’t forget the 1965 Revelle Report ordered by president Lyndon B Johnson, says Stefan Rahmstorf.

The Foundations of Morality

The Foundations of Morality by Henry Hazlitt is an essentially correct analysis of morality; I recommend it highly². You can, if you like, read his Summary and Conclusion but that might be a mistake; it is better to start from the beginning.

Somewhat more precisely, it is a morality-schema; its main point is not pushing any one morality³, but in telling you what morality is.

And the schema is: morality is a system of general rules that ensure social cooperation in the long-term.

Note: I have a late-published early draft from 2022 of some possible interest.

Other, failed, theories

There are many many wrong theories of morality. Hazlitt goes through various of these; I won't. That morality is divinely imposed, I consider not worth considering. Kant's ethics of Duty doesn't work, as everyone who reads it immeadiately realises, the only puzzle left being why people take him seriously⁴.

Morality, Law, Manners

Morality is abstract rules that you should observe, for your own long-term good and the good of society, which in itself is your own long-term good. Law (as opposed to legislation) is similar, but enforced by coercion by the State when required; since it is enforced by coercion it should be the minimum. Manners are again similar, but enforced by disapprobation or honour.

The curious case of Haidt

There's a curious relationship to Moral foundations theory, which is essentially what went into The Righteous Mind. The curiousity is that much of the value of TRM is contained in FOM, and yet nowhere does Hadit show any awareness of prior art. It seems unlikely that he can genuinely be ignorant; that leaves rather less pleasant motives for the exclusion. Because whilst TRM contains quite a bit that FOM doesn't cover - Haidt is rather interested in explaining political differences - there is much that could be compressed into "read Hazlitt". The same goes for Morality as cooperation, 2024/03¹. Haidt has a slightly different focus, as the word "Righteous" implies, but that's not enough.

As a bonus, Hadit's definition of morality, viz Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate self-interest and make cooperative societies possible, isn't as good, since it omits the explicit "long term", which would have got him out of his cult and fascist problems.

One of Haidt's prize examples is the eating-a-dog. He struggles to fit that into his schema, because he struggles mightily to ensure that no harm is done. But everyone "knows" it is immoral, and in Hazlitt's version it is clear why: it is violating one of our taboos, which we know even though we don't know the reason we have it.

Notes

1. When we discussed that then, Tom complained that I'd omitted coercion in discussing cooperation. In retrospect I should have said that is simply part of it.

2. Although not unreservedly; he needs to read a bit more Popper; he wouldn't be so confused by Thrasymachus if he had. And his discussion of free will, like everyone else's, is a waste of space.

3. Although he correctly defends Capitalist morality and attacks Socialist "morality".

4. Astonishingly, I'm not the first person to notice that a lot of well-respected philosophy is crap. See e.g. here for links to Michael Huemer and David Chapman. Although ironically MH's own intuitionist theory of morality looks to be wrong, too.

Refs

* On morality, 2008.

* A Kahnemanian Theory of Funerals.

* Kant's Dialectic.

* China's Upside-Down Meritocracy.

* Why Americans Should Die for Ukraine.

* A Fashionable Appeal to a Benevolent State (or read Noah Smith).

* Reflections on India.

* ACX reminds me how tit-for-tat fits into this (though why early-Christians weren't cooperate-bot is obvious: despite the fine words, they were effectively tit-for-tat with a high forgiveness factor).

* Bryan Caplan in Maximum Progress on Progressivism recommends Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism (also available for free via IA). A quick scan says I don't believe him, but I should look closer... the index has no entry for Hazlitt, which is dodgy.

* From The Nietzschean Challenge to Effective Altruism I find "In the final chapter of Practical Ethics, Peter Singer addresses the question: ‘Why Act Morally?’ One answer he’s drawn towards..." but notice that in Hazlitt's version the question doesn't arise; it is self-answered.

* “Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis of all morality.” - Dune says El Musko, but no.

* SSC: Contra Askell on moral offsets.

* More Drowning Children -  ACX. The obvious reply to most of that is that morality doesn't cover arbitrary situations - or at least, we don't have moral intuitions / theory that so cover. SA seems to be pushing an "essentialist" view without realising it: i.e., the view that there is a thing such as morality, with an essential definition, and if only we could sieze that definition we could understand the world. Of the details, the bit about understanding distance as physical-distance is obviously absurd. The bit about the megacity, if you tried to adapt it to the real world, is a bit like considering charity to help third world children and then realising that their corrupt governments waste far more money on arms and luxury for the elite, and anyway only need help cos their govt is poor; we thus return to the important long-term element in Hazlitt, which SA generally ignores.

* Another person who has failed to read Hazlitt is Alasdair MacIntyre; see his After Virtue; shades of Gray the Sinner.

* And people keep re-inventing this stuff, badly: e.g. Tit-for-Tat in Politics.

* In the Neolithic Age.

By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die

By the sword you did your work and by the sword you die¹ will be recognised by all cultured folk as a quote from Aeschylus, spoken by Clytemnaestra to Agamemnon. My reference will confuse no-one I'm sure. But what are we to make of claims that this is a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty? Lebanon is not, I think, officially at war with Israel; and moreover claims to be a sovereign state; so we must ask why armed forces are, and have been for quite some time, firing missiles from Lebanon into Israel, with no apparent attempt by the Lebanese state to prevent this? The answer I think is that Lebanon is not, despite its claims, really a SovState². Instead it is a very weak state, whose chief problem is an infestation of Hezbollah. If they get really lucky, Israel may help them eradicate it. The real problem is Iran sponsoring all this nonsense of course; without their malignity, Hezbollah would collapse.

Re-reading my past, I find Torture and Terrorism from 2006.

Speaking of culture, you may care to test yours in my "identify the cathedral" test. Hint: it's in France.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites an ‘existential threat to astronomy’ - predictably, all the ideas are "more regulation". There's not even a thought of cost-benefit analysis: is Starlink a better use than radio astronomy? Or even "would we be better off doing this from space?"

Mario Draghi’s best ideas are those Europe finds least comfortable (full report). But his answers are always things like "unify decision-making on public investments" so its all doomed⁷; the idea of dealing with over-regulation is still-born (he does manage to notice that "innovative firms that want to scale up are hindered by inconsistent and restrictive regulations" but his answer is to unify the regulations, not to think). And as the Economist says, the "recommendations are so numerous that policymakers will be able to pick and choose from among them"; this always happens. As an employee of a USAnian megacorp in the UK, I'm think I'm kinda insulated from the slow death of Yorp.

And then by happy chance, via Xitter, comes Foundations: Why Britain has stagnated. You'll notice, of course, that this compares Britain unfavourably with Yorp, particularly France, so is not perfectly in accord with me; nonetheless it is well-reasoned.

Update

[2024/10/02] Since I wrote the above the popcorn vendors have been making out like bandits. There's no shortage of talking heads proffering their foolishness, so I'll try to avoid adding much more. One notable theme has been of the "oh you know getting into these wars is very very dangerous" variety, written by idiots sat in comfortable arm chairs to be read by idiots sicac⁶, as though the Israelis who are actually risking their lives haven't thought of it; a sort-of variant on Dumb America. When done by e.g. Al-Jazmagi it's whistling in the wind / what their base want to hear; when done by the West it is more, I think, "intellectuals" desperate to be relevant in a time of soldiers (this seems to be a more decent assessment, though still somewhat pro-H; notice that what has happened wasn't on their list of possibilities). As I write this the Mad Mullahs have flung a pile of missiles at the kikes to little obvious effect⁵ but seems likely to provoke interesting consequences. I don't have a good feel for what will happen, but let me attempt a prognostication just to show how wrong I can be: the Israelis will hit Iran, taking out air defences (quite likely with US help), missile sites, and some of the nuke programme, and a token hit on oil facilities. And if they have any sense, take out their navy including the spy ship that helps the Houthis.

[2024/10/04] Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has vowed that Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza will emerge with new leaders and will not back down says the Graun; this is convenient if you were under any illusion that Hammy or Hezzy were independent entities; but no, Iran speaks for them. He continued "the brilliant action of our armed forces a couple of nights ago was completely legal and legitimate”... any nation had the right to defend its soil and its interests in the face of aggressors. And yet it isn't clear to me how flinging a pile of missiles at Israel was helping defend his Iran; since the near-inevitable consequence is Israel attacking Iran, it might be the reverse.

[2024/10/08] Astonishingly, the Beeb manages Siniora is unflinching in his assessment of Lebanon’s lost sovereignty. "Practically, Lebanon as a state has been kidnapped by Hezbollah. And behind Hezbollah is Iran. They make up for that brief interlude of sanity by hiding it under a blame-misattributing headline of "Lebanon abandoned by international community - ex PM". And another note: from the Economist, which tracks attacks in Lebanon, I see that Hezbollah attacks on Israel haven't gone down, counting raw numbers. The Israeli incursion won't be a success until it goes to ~zero [2025/01/01: well they now have a ceasefire so yes the Israelis succeeded].

[2024/10/18] 'Death of Hamas mastermind' and One Direction tribute to 'brother' Liam: another one bites the dust. And I love the irony that in the fat Cold West, we can't tell the difference between news and entertainment. Without Sinwar, as the Economist notes, there is some hope for change. The Pales could even see sense and surrender; it can't be much of a life being Hamas, after all; even fanaticism must have limits. But hopefully not before Israel twats the Iranian nooks. Speaking of the Mad Mullahs, they say "the spirit of resistance will be strengthened", which is exactly what would be bad for the Pales, but then the MMs never had Pale welfare at heart, only their own weird theocratic objectives.

[2024/10/26] The Israelis seem to have gone for the minimalist reply against Iran; mostly air defences, following step one in the std.us playbook; and some missile production sites. This is somewhat disappointing, especially for the popcorn vendors. And the MMs seem to have gone for "that didn't hurt much" instead of getting Really Angry so likely all will go quiet for a bit on that front. But it must gall the MMs that the only thing that keeps the Israelis off them is US pressure; they have no ability to defend themselves; consider for contrast the laughable idea that the MMs might try to bomb Israel from the air.

[2024/11/27] The ceasefire in Lebanon doesn’t ensure a lasting victory for Israel, but does signal a strategic setback for Iran sez the Graun.

[2025/03/23] Israel’s strikes on Hamas leaders in recent days haven’t hit key military commanders - a misleading headline; what it means is they've been targetting head of internal repression; [2025/03/25] Hundreds join Gaza's largest anti-Hamas protest since war began [2025/04/02] Palestinians Against Israel’s Genocide and Hamas - even Jacobin has noticed.

[2025/03/27] Deaths in Gaza by age and gender (unverified).

[2025/04/09] As calls for Lebanon’s Hezbollah to disarm gain momentum, a senior Hezbollah official told Reuters the group is ready to hold talks with the Lebanese president about its weapons if Israel withdraws from south Lebanon and stops its strikes. US-backed president Joseph Aoun, who vowed when he took office in January to establish a state monopoly on the control of arms, intends to open talks with Hezbollah over its arsenal soon, three Lebanese political sources told Reuters. Says the Graun, but doesn't comment on how this shows Hezzy is holding the nominally-sov Lebanon hostage.

[2025/04/28] The Israelis are still bombing Hezzy in Beruit, and the Lebs are still saying "The ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are unacceptable under any pretext" but failing to address the point: if this is SovLeb, why are they letting Hezzy pile up missiles there? Meanwhile, the Graun is unable to think: Israel’s strikes on the greater Beirut area on Sunday pointed to the fragility of a November ceasefire agreement is precisely wrong: it actually shows that the ceasefire is strong, since Hezzy aren't using it as an excuse to start fighting again; and that in turn is, obvs, because Hezzy are too weak to fight.

[2025/05/09] The Gaza Famine Myth.

[2025/07/05] Hamas was demanding aid be distributed exclusively by the UN and its partners, and that the controversial aid distribution system run by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) end immediately - Hamas would rather have less aid, than have aid it cannot control; note that the BBC reports this straight, with no comment; it really is that unsurprising.

[2026/03/24] A plan to reclaim Beirut: The state must finally assert its authority over Lebanon’s parallel army, writes Fouad Makhzoumi, a politician.

Notes

1. Absurdly, Wiki's article on "live by the sword" insists that the quote is biblical, despite the play preceeding the New Testament by centuries. I tried to correct them but they wouldn't listen.

2. Despite this being the bleedin' obvious, which I said in June, the fuckwitted meeja still haven't realised. Update: this is a fine example: Lebanon's economy minister Amin Salam says "It is very clear if we decide, or if Hezbollah decides, or the whole country decides to take a big risk and gamble more in this war, we will be paying a very, very, very big price that will take Lebanon to a very difficult place, and it will take many, many years to get back from that place". So, errm, why not decide not to take that risk? Why not decide not to fight? The answer, of course, is that he is unable to say "oh shit we have no control of Hezbollah we wish they'd all fuck off but if I say that they'll kill me".

I find, belatedly, "the one responsible for the fire from Lebanon is not only Hezbollah or the terrorist elements that carry it out, but also the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese state that allows the shooting from its territory" from csis.org/analysis/coming-conflict-hezbollah.

3. Holy Shiite Batman: the Graun actually quotes someone saying "Get the official Lebanese army on the ground on the Israel Lebanon border – not Hezbollah not Iran – get state authority back into the south Lebanon border." Admittedly, buried in other ideas and obvs the Graun doesn't take this up, but even a brief interlude of sanity is welcome.

4, More [2024/09/26] shitty reporting from Politico; the bit they're missing is the obvious: Hezbollah refusing to accept a ceasefire (and no, the fuckwitted tying it to Gaza isn't sane).

5. Ironically, the only reported fatality is "Sameh al-Asali, a 37-year-old Palestinian from Gaza living in the occupied West Bank". However - correctly IMO - people are regarding it as a serious attack.

6. There's plenty of that in The Economist; just recently they seem to change their tune somewhat with What Hamas misunderstood about the Middle East.

7. Others have also noticed this.

Refs

* Against Censorship and Its Academic Supporters.

* 2024 SAT Data Drop.

* Galileo Galilei vs The Holy Roman Catholic Church – Round: 5555555555…………

* Privatize Archaeology!

*Preliminary Milei Report Card - ACX.

* SLS is still a national disgrace.

* "In light of the wars and crises that threaten Arab and regional security, we have no choice but to restore the concept of the nation-state and respect its independence and sovereignty. The era of militias with its sectarian and regional dimensions has cost the Arabs dearly and burdened the region.  The future is for security, peace and prosperity with an independent Arab project reconciled with its surroundings" take that, Hezzy and Hammy.

* Who is really in charge of Lebanon?

* Conservatives Are Lying on Immigrant Crime.

* Compendium of Writings on the October 7 War and Western Reactions to it (including Far-Left Support for Hamas is not an Aberration).

* The Struggle / Polling Pales / Reporting of yer conflict.

* The Non-Conservation of Identity.

When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?

Having come back from France I guess I really ought to knuckle down and post some scintillating content, despite the lack of interesting things going on. Never mind, the children will be back soon, and it's Nines autumn regatta this weekend.

My pic is a gorgeous view of the Aiguille du Midi taken from about 4000 on the Gouter route; you'll notice it isn't a picture from the top because I didn't get there this time; I'll bore you with the full story at some point. Climate related hook: it had been a fairly snowy spring; the glaciers weren't obviously terrible this year.

So working through my backlog I start with When will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down? Intensifying extreme weather events and an insurance crisis are likely to cause significant economic and political disruption in the U.S. sometime in the next 15 years. It's by Jeff Masters and features stuff like "It is inevitable that climate change will stop being a hazy future concern and will someday turn everyday life upside down. Very hard times are coming..." and you sense his deep disappointment that it hasn't happened yet; he is yearning to be able to say "I told you so" and would love it if life was already upside down, but alas it isn't and he can only promise it for the indefinite future.

Although only briefly, it appears. Because he also believes that "By late this century, I am optimistic that we will have successfully ridden the rapids of the climate crisis, emerging into a new era of non-polluting energy with a stabilizing climate..." Quite how he gets there I don't know; the chances of CO2 levels having gone down significantly are low, and I'd expect SLR to just be getting interesting at that point. Never mind, it is sufficiently far off that whatever he says won't be tested in his lifetime.

Continuing on we have the obligatory nod to wokeness: "the impacts of climate change will be apocalyptic for many nations and people — particularly those that are not rich and White...". This is bullshit. The only bit that matters there is wealth; colour of skin isn't a factor, except insofar as it determines your wealth.

We then move on to how insurance is going to be a disaster, but completely fails to mention that the problem is idiot pols meddling with the system which would work fine if only the evil capitalists were allowed to run it without interference. I gave up at that point.

Refs

* Aldred's Case (1610).

* The Road to (Mental) Serfdom & Misinformation Studies via Brazil as a Warning.

* Cheap at the price: Political donations are the highest grossing investments you’ll ever make.

* How Different Are the Trump Judges?

* Ranking Fields by p-Value Suspiciousness.

* Trump’s success is based on him being an avatar of what the American right has become. It’s angry, confused about all the numbers and facts liberals keep throwing around, contemptuous towards the airs they put on, not knowing anything with certainty except that they feel hostile to elites and foreigners and don’t like how the world is changing. It’s not that Trump simply knows how to appeal to these instincts. He personifies them, which is fundamental to the bond between him and his fans - RH.

* Top five placing for Perse School in Oxbridge offers table.

* New Essay: Coping With a Court One Disagrees With.

* Equality Act 2010 - why it is stupid.

* SCHUMPETERIAN PROFITS IN THE AMERICAN ECONOMY: THEORY AND MEASUREMENT; Nordhaus.

* Market Forces vs. Discrimination: What We Learn from Illegal Immigration.

* Pervasive findings of directional selection realize the promise of ancient DNA to elucidate human adaptation.

* The Conservative Case for Abolishing the Electoral College.

* Missing Fixed Effects Don't Justify Segregation.

* Designing The Perfect Tax System.

* Holy shit these people are stupid.

* Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated.

* If Germany had stuck with nuclear power it would have saved €350 billion and cut emissions by 73% more since 2022 (Andrew Hammel).

Good news on photovoltaics, perhaps

Trump, because he was a clown, put tarifs on imports of photovoltaics. Biden, because he was also a clown, maintained and extended this. However I now read A White House proclamation released late yesterday increased the volume of silicon solar cells that can enter the US tariff-free from 5 gigawatts (GW) to 12.5 GW. The tariff is currently set at 14.25%. I read through about 3 pages of the proclamation's tedious legalese before getting bored before it got to the point, so I'm taking the summary on trust.

But this does seem to be something of an improvement: govt flailing around has now, ants-carrying-a-leaf-wise, managed to make a step in the right direction. Of course fucking off entirely would be even more helpful but that's too much to hope for.

August is always a bit of a slow month. Here is a pukel-marmotte; can you guess where I am?

Refs

* Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are preying on political ignorance.

Book review: A Heritage of Stars

A Heritage of Stars by Clifford D. Simak is a harmless lightweight piece of SF-fantasy "pastoral" fluff. There is no particular pretension to literary quality, just a story told as well as he knows how.

We skate over various improbabilities, most obviously how the motley cast of characters come to be assembled. We quietly ignore the improbability of anyone not attempting to recreate tech. We just about manage to believe that pretty well all tech all over the world would somehow simultaneously be destroyed with no hold-outs, bar obvs the one Our Heroes are heading for. I'm dubious that the various "talents" that his party shows wouldn't have been noticed and studied and learnt from, but the book calls on us to believe in a vitiated huan race, somewhat like Tolkein's elves, so maybe.

Oh dear. This was meant to be on "the other blog". Well, never mind, it isn't as if it is crowded here. FWIW the dig about "literary quality" was a fling at John Harrison's Light. Since I ended up putting it here, I could add: reading the wiki biog of Simak, he seems  a decent likeable chap.

Refs

* Pre-bumps assessment 2024.

* Book review: Engine Summer.

* ALL FOR THE WANT OF AN EAR.

* Book review: Time and Again.