If I was a rich man

In Spain they are drawing for the world's biggest lottery. 3.2 billion dollars. That would put you in the top 400 richest people in the world, for a meagre outlay of $279.

If I had that kind of money, and was forced to spend it on myself, I would build a sweet as mansion, buy an awesome outfit, and enact vigilante justice.
I guess I just really want to be Batman.

But actually, I would hope that whoever does win it donates a substantial portion to charity. Greg Mankiw solicits some good advice on how to do that. Apparently one of the better charities out there is Deworm the World. Were I in a position to give advice, I would have advised not to name a charitable organisation directly after the slightly nausea-inducing health issue you want to remedy. Still, at least you aren't unsure of their purpose. And if you have some spare change, go ahead and donate.

Noam Chomsky

For someone generally enamoured with academics of all persuasions, for some reason I have always found it hard to warm to Noam Chomsky. Perhaps he's just unlucky - he frequently seems to be accused (maybe unfairly) of saying outrageous things in private correspondance, be it calling Christopher Hitchens a racist in a debate or suggesting to Robert Nozick that he was 'agnostic' about the Holocaust. However, although he denied saying the first (but not the second), his condescending response to Hitchens and his alleged assault of Nozick did him no favours in my view. His refutation of postmodernism suggests essentially that because he can't understand it, it must be meaningless. Note that in the same article he expresses scepticism of the whole project of moral philosophy, seemingly because one or two good books failed to persuade the whole of academia. Based on other writings of his (which I can't find at the moment), I suspect he hasn't actually read Rawls or Nozick either. But I could be wrong. He is also well known for apparently attempting to excuse Pol Pot. This is probably exaggeration, the worst you could say (from what I have been able to find) is that he was probably luke-warm towards the regime - here, for example.

The few critiques of Chomsky that I have read have been pretty pathetic, and often quite childish. By contrast, there are also some hilariously fawning interviews with him. It is perhaps no wonder that he might think he is pretty switched on. Add that, of course, to the fact that he is actually very intelligent and perceptive.

I recently read an article on Chomsky called Overrated. This basically sums up my opinion of Chomsky, although I do not endorse the article itself. I have no expertise in linguistics, and his expertise there may truly be awe-inspiring. I've also liked his political books that I have read. He is a good writer. We are fortunate enough to live in a world with plenty of good writers. In my opinion, Chomsky has more or less earned his place in that pack, but no more. The interview I linked, for example compares him to Plato. Plato wrote some of the enduring classics of Western Philosophy. Chomsky criticises US foreign policy. I have to say, I know which I rate as the more difficult intellectual achievement.

Metaphysical Poetry

Tom seems to be monopolising this blog with his silly little jibes at Malcolm Gladwell and the National party, but the rest of the flat is abuzz with literary activity. Sullen Uday and warm-hearted Ella recently combined to craft a fridge magnet poem which deserves serious recognition on the poetry circuit.

Also, by some bizarre act of serendipity, the poem also succintly captures the relationship between its authors. If that's not evidence for cosmic design, then I would struggle to know what is.

I secrete ennui and expunge temerity.
my Kafkaesque vicissitudes influenced
an opaque women that I follow.
she is a pedagogue like a vapid or obsequious faction to be rued.
this deft paragon with profligate zeal questioned
the limp fusillade in society and it was pithy.
a scholar always


That's where it is that its at.

Banning things, generally

I wrote before that I wasn't that persuaded by the case against banning incandescent lights, as Labour had wanted to do. Udayan criticsed me for a lack of analysis. This is my 'how do you like me now' post.
Here is a very simplified, non-paternalistic argument for banning certain things in the face of climate change.

People tend to operate with an implicit social discount rate. Although they may be aware that their actions are harming future generations, they tend to value their own economic security and well-being over that of future generations. Left to their own devices, most people won't radically adjust their behaviour until they are faced with tangible negative consequences. The nature of global warming may be such that by this point, it is irreversible (I have little idea as to whether this is true, but it doesn't seem outrageous). So we are essentially saving future generations from the excesses of modern ones, or stopping temporal externalities.
Whether or not we should place moral importance on future generations is an interesting question, and you may think that we should not. Here is a good intro to the topic.

But we can avoid this issue. There are many people in the world that have little in the way of a carbon footprint. They are for the most part destitutely poor. Yet the externalities from carbon emitting processes are global. So we are saving the poor from the emissions of the rich, so to speak.

If you're still reading, it should be clear that the case is not at all paternalistic, as many would have it. But you may still ask, why not just tax the externalities? Why ban the process completely?

Here we have to be case by case. We obviously can't ban things that have little in the way of feasible substitutes available in the short term, like cars. But as the philosopher Robert Nozick argues, it is frequently not morally acceptable to injure someone and then subsequently grant compensation. You can't rape someone and get out of prison simply by paying them off. Some acts actually should be prohibited. And if you think you can contribute to flooding and suffering in the third world and get off by chucking them some aid, you are wrong.


Disclaimer: I should note that I am not completely persuaded by the case I have just put forward. But I wanted to show that this is not a case of cut and dried paternalism, nor necessarily a case of Right vs. Left, although it may seem so on the surface.

I have a feeling many of my friends will disagree with me, I encourage you guys to say why.

National - xenophobic also

The National party have decided to block the sale of an ironsands business.

This is worse than when Labour blocked the airport sale, for two reasons.

1) We're now in a recession. The last thing we want to do is stop foreigners from investing in New Zealand. If you were a wealthy Asian businessman (say), why on earth would you consider investing in a country that may arbitrarily block your transaction? That's a whole lot of wasted time and effort. New Zealand is not an island. Economically speaking. We need this sort of capital investment if we are to have any hope of growth in the future. At least when we were still in the black we could have sucked it up a little bit.

2) It's an ironsands business! It's not even an airport, or a powerlines, or something that is a particularly 'strategic asset'. The idea of the Government tying up billions of dollars so we own all the cool stuff in the country is one that makes no sense to me. Perhaps this can be attributed to my personal inadequacies, however.
But to paraphrase Lincoln, if a business that sells sand is not a case for privately controlled ownership, nothing is.

Kim Jong-il all good

Kim Jong-il visits some people on computers, thus reassuring his faithful populace that he is still alive and well. As the article notes, the photos are undated.

Or perhaps it's that you can see the dates but only if you're good at your job. Oh that's right, now I see them. Don't you?

Different takes on ACC levies

ACC levies go up. Blame is dispersed.

Kiwiblog: Merry Christmas from Labour.
The Standard: Merry Christmas from National.

Well, at least both parties are wishing us a festive holiday season.

Random Links

A few random links.

Blagojevich and Nixon, boys. Obviously.

Awesome statues and ancient language in Sudan.

National withdraws ban on incandescent lights. Farrar loves it. I am less persuaded.

Nicer people (broadly defined) live longer. Guts, Ella.

New tax in New York: A little bit racist?

Philosophy: Where it's at

The New York Times reports that there is an increase in demand for philosophy courses. I liked this bit:
“My mother was like, what are you going to do with that?” said Ms. Onejeme, 22. “She wanted me to be a pharmacy major, but I persuaded her with my argumentative skills.”

Parabolic Tax

From the looks of it, a flat income tax in the USA would actually increase the tax on the top earners.

That's a bit messed up. I wonder if there's anywhere else in the world like that?

Moral Worth

David Brooks in the New York Times has an interesting review of Malcom Gladwell's new book Outliers. You might remember Gladwell as the author of the interesting but a little controversial Tipping Point.

The thesis of Outliers appears to be that individual success is heavily dependent on social conditions, rather than just innate brilliance.

What is interesting to me though is what Brooks claims as an obvious political conclusion from this argument. Gladwell may also claim it, it isn't mentioned in the review.

Brooks says
Gladwell’s social determinism is a useful corrective to the Homo economicus view of human nature. It’s also pleasantly egalitarian. The less successful are not less worthy, they’re just less lucky.
My emphasis.

I'm not sure how Gladwell's theory affects this. Would Brooks have us believe that although you are not to be held responsible for your upbringing, the genes you have been arbitrarily endowed with are key indicators of your moral worth and how much renumeration you ought to receive? This seems a logical consequence of his statement. I think variants of this intuition are very common, not just in public but in the merit-based distributional philosophies of David Hume or, some of the time, David Miller. But is it a reasonable one?

Perhaps if I said "ceterus paribus, smart, hard-working people ought to earn a bit more money than lazy people".
I think that this would be a less controversial thing to say in public, but it is essentially the same principle.

The question I am driving at is 'Do you think that we can justly claim credit for any aspects of our character?". The (hopefully) subtle question-begging I engaged in two paragraphs ago should give some hint as to what I think is the correct answer. I'm also interested in the political ramifications of that answer to that question; I can think of some widely varying possibilities.

This is why I don't want pets in my flat

We'll start with a not so serious story.

Ella bargained aggressively for a beehive outside our flat at one point. Uday and I were wise to rebuff her it seems, because as I have just learned, pets and flats are not a good mix.

A man has been taken to hospital in Dundee after a fire in the ground floor flat of a tenement in the Menzieshill area of the city.

It is understood the blaze broke out after his dog switched on the man's electric blanket as he slept at about 0200 GMT on Tuesday.

And that's a loveable dog. Imagine a hive of malicious stinging machines just metres away from where you sleep.

What does the name mean?

... To pre-emptively strike a question. It's adapted from the philosophical concept of reflective equilibrium, which is essentially a method of identifying your intuitions and adjusting for coherence, argued for (and named as reflective equilibrium) by John Rawls. I think it's cool, and some day I hope to write a post on it, but there are some awesome resources out there on the web (or even in books!) if you're interested.

Why defective? Read into it what you want. Perhaps we are toying with the idea of humans as imperfectly rational agents, unable to fully erase cognitive dissonance. Ella thought it might be a reference to market failure. Like most things these days, perhaps.

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