cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
23d ago
America dodged a bullet when Trump dodged one.
Don't think any other event in my lifetime has been so close to setting off a civil war.
I know at least two men that are a combination of drunk, belligerent, massive Trump supporters, and in possession of enough firearms that they could have easily turned into a problem. The problem is that I don't know tons of country rednecks, maybe a dozen. So that is probably a bad sign of just how fucked things might have gotten.
Their goal wouldn't have been taking control of the government, it would have been shooting the politicians they didn't like.
At best it wouldn't have been a civil war, just a decade or two of people deciding it's ok to shoot politicians they don't like and all the impacts of that norm.
By comparison we are fine nowadays. There is always going to be a low background noise if violence and murder in a country this size. Certainly sucks when it's you or someone you know that is the victim. But as long as you are staying out of certain cities and areas you are unlikely to be that victim.
What sets off ugly civil wars is being forced to choose sides. "Help me find the rebels or I torture you until I'm satisfied you don't know" vs "Help me hide from the government or my friends come back and kill you and your family". It doesn't start that bad, just a case of ping ponging escalating consequences.
He also just released The Evidence That A Million Americans Died Of COVID.
I went and looked into the death rate a little more. Found this graph of the trend. Here is a fun game: spot when covid starts.
There has been a year over year increase in the death rate by about 1% starting in 2014 and hasn't started shrinking much until 2024. What the hell is going on?
I have a suspicion that old people have just been getting older. And that those old people are dying more during flu season. And that the excess death chart from 2018-2019 would line up pretty well with an excess death chart from 2020-2021. But that would probably take a lot of effort to figure out. I dont even know where to get month to month death numbers, tried asking some AI to help me find it, but sounds like its not publicly available.
edit: data i found is bad, nybbler has better data below.
cjet79
24d ago
I think the word choice of "serious" sucks. Most people would consider it to mean the opposite.
Like if a historian doesn't address all the claims of Holocaust deniers you'd say they aren't "serious" about history.
Whereas most people would say that engaging with them at all is a sign of not being serious.
I've been responding to you on mobile in my spare time. I don't have the article with me. Caplan talks about Emil Kierkegaard, and his disagreements on immigration. It's a blog post. I think from two or three years ago.
cjet79
25d ago
I'm nearly certain he is aware of these points, but there are certain topics he is unwilling to broach in public. He is still a professor at a public university, and tenure doesn't protect you much from student activists choosing to make your life hell.
Your descriptions of Caplan just don't ring true to me. I don't think you've really read much of his stuff. Which is fine by itself, I don't really read very widely of critics or even people on my own side. But I also don't make claims about those people or what they are saying.
And yes I do tend to nail down specific claims and hammer on them. Otherwise I face a gish gallop of arguments and none of them ever get resolved. I took your weakest argument and probed it to see how wedded you are to your ideas. Some responses might have indicated we could have a productive discussion. Not the ones you gave me. Next item would have been doing some research and finding out if caplan had actively written about the arguments you claim he had never heard of. I got ahead of myself and already looked. He has written about them, but I already got the sense of where the conversation would go from your earlier responses, you'd just pivot to different claims, or say he wasn't specific enough.
cjet79
25d ago
Are you "serious" about immigration?
Is anyone by your standards? Is Emil Kirkegaard serious?
I honestly don't even know what you mean by the word anymore other than "if they acknowledge my objections are correct and completely agree with me". Now that I know that is what you meant, I withdraw any objections to calling Caplan "not serious".
cjet79
25d ago
I'd acknowledge any of the people that caplan has debated with on immigration as "serious". I'd acknowledge anyone that has written a book or academic paper on the subject as "serious". Regardless of their viewpoints.
Are you "serious" about immigration? Is anyone by your standards?
cjet79
25d ago
I had a chance to go and get lunch with him one time. The spot he picked was inside an Asian grocery store at a food court with multiple different Asian restaurants. We were the only white people. He is also a passable Spanish speaker, his twin sons are fluent. So I don't think the experience would particularly bother him.
As Owlify points out, humans are tribal. So I don't think you are particularly unique or different in having that outlook. Its just that once tribes get big enough you have to choose where to draw your tribal lines. Race is a common thing to pick. Others pick based on country affiliation. Some pick on state or city. Some still stick to what is literally their tribe, like close family and or neighbors (this is how I pick). Some pick along ideological lines, like "all communists are my tribe". Others pick religion. Etc etc.
I don't think most people reason themselves into the tribal lines they choose, so they often can't be reasoned out of them either. I'm certainly that way.
cjet79
25d ago
He has published a regular book, a comic book, multiple blog posts, done multiple podcasts on the topic, been in multiple public debates, and has lectured on this topic in his University classes for two decades.
I think you just disagree with him so you want to call him non-serious.
cjet79
27d ago
I think Caplan's biggest miss is actually on theory of mind. He is a very conscientious and non-neurotic individual. The idea of mental illness seems basically incomprehensible to him. He accepts that these people exist, but his personal interactions with them are heavily minimized because he is good at cutting them out of his life.
He lives in immigrant heavy Northern Virginia. He is aware of and happy with many cultural changes that happen due to immigration. He can go in depth on crime statistics with people, and the take-away is that immigrants are relatively low-crime compared to native born Americans. They sometimes look high crime because young men are high crime, and immigrants also skew towards young men. Any objection you think you have about immigration that Caplan has not answered, he has certainly heard and answered.
One last thing I'd add, he is much more of a microeconomics professor than a macro one. I consider that a huge plus, because macro is voodoo stats BS.
Base voter preferences would still be mostly the same, and I think politicians mostly respond to voter desires.
There would end up being two types of politicians. The demagogues that flaunt the risk, and the timid that shy away from it. The demagogues would have even more power because there would be few to opposed them.
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