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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.
I wonder if he's ever ridden the Fairfax Connector buses and found himself the only English-speaking person there. I suppose he would not feel, as I do, like an outsider - an endangered species - in what was once my own country.
I guess I'm just a xenophobe by nature. Whether this qualifies as a mental illness, a personality defect, or just a neutral personality trait depends on your outlook. The Redditors of /r/nova would certainly consider it either of the first two.
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.
There's also the factor that I'm old enough to remember when Fairfax County was 98% native-English-speaking white, and I've always possessed the ingrained mindset that "the way things were as I first remember them, is the way they ought to be forever."
Maybe it's a form of autism; I don't know.
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Humans are tribalist by nature.
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Asserting he has heard and answered every critique on immigration is not accurate so long as he is not distinguishing between population groups within the US. Further than that, there's a good reason why he and those like him focus on immigration into the US and not immigration into the EU.
Contrary to the lies of convenience told by Caplan, there is plenty of high quality data in the EU on immigration that could certainly have made it into his many articles and book. It's only that the alleged immigration benefits do not live up to the hype and can only be maintained through statistical sleight of hand, like counting the children of immigrants as native and playing fast and loose with population groups. And even then there are OECD countries that post flat out negative numbers.
Caplan is not a serious person.
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.
And I think you just agree with him so you want to venerate him.
A serious person would contend with the obvious and hard objections to the proposed policy. Caplan has never done that. In fact, his advocacy is a perfect example of non-serious thinking. Divorced from reality and extrapolated from fiction. A fiction partially maintained by institutions that you allege lend Caplan credibility.
I mean, you're not going to debate anyone in a public setting that points out that, outside of East-Asia and Europe, almost every single immigrant population group that moves into EU countries is a net negative. That seems like kind of a big deal. But no, Caplan is a serious thinker who writes books, blogs, does podcasts, has lectured at a university for 20 years and never interacts with any of it. Just create a magic category called 'Immigrant' and compare it to a magic category called 'American Native' and voila.
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?
When people curtail their viewpoint diversity to be within the Overton Window and then ignore obvious blindspots to legitimate contradiction then no, they are not serious. Regardless of how much they work and waffle within those parameters.
There is an entire cottage industry of academics and media that exists for little other than venerating immigration. There can exist no serious thought within that sphere when alternatives are functionally verboten. The people who exist within this sphere without acknowledging just how ridiculous the entire thing is are not serious.
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".
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Quite revelant is his official position for mental illness. I don't even entirely disagree with it - I think some people definitely actually just prefer some really odd things - but as someone who does struggle with addictive behaviour somewhat, I think he is missing a large part of the picture. The mind imo should not be modelled as a singular thing, and just because one part of you wants to compel you to do specific things, that does not mean that the rest really wants that. For a trivial example, if you have some malfunction that makes your stomach constantly sent extreme, starving hunger signals, so that you can't think straight unless you eat constantly in a way that is very unhealthy, it is not at all unlike being forced to do someones bidding through painful beatings. Your consciousness is certainly very strongly influenced, but not identical, with your body and it turns out your own body can violate the NAP if it wants to.
On immigration, he is probably right in aggregate for the US, especially since you don't have such a generous welfare system. But the situation is quite different in the EU, and my experience is that furthermore there is often a pick and choose attitude for academics on immigration - it's easy for them to insulate themselves from negative externalities in a way that is not possible for the average citizen, while enjoying the benefits.
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