Businesses will generally be in favour of immigration. A business is not trying to increase GDP per capita. They will be happy with an increase in GDP, even at the cost of a decrease in GDP per capita, because this will increase their revenues and profits.
Businesses and their owners don't pay the external costs of immigration: more crime, disease, litter, car crashes, lower average IQ and therefore a lowering of the sophistication of the society (its ability to run complex systems like trains and power stations), and fewer inventions in the future. The business owners don't have to live near the newcomers.
And what about the people who just want to live near people like themselves? Diversity has a psychic cost, not paid by businesses.
Some immigrants are bad for society overall, but their costs and benefits fall on different people.
Friday, 1 March 2019
Identical twins commit murder
If one identical twin commits murder, but the police cannot prove which one, then legally both must go free. This is a mistake. The purpose of execution is to improve the gene pool. Frost and Harpending (2015) show that by executing "between 0.5 and 1.0% of all men of each generation... the homicide rate plummeted from the 14th century to the 20th."
The correct solution is to execute both brothers.
What about families? Immediate family share 50% of the murderer's genes. Should they be executed? If this is too small a connection, what should the threshold be. 100%? 75%?
(In reality, identical twins have different fingerprints and slightly different DNA.)
The correct solution is to execute both brothers.
What about families? Immediate family share 50% of the murderer's genes. Should they be executed? If this is too small a connection, what should the threshold be. 100%? 75%?
(In reality, identical twins have different fingerprints and slightly different DNA.)
Kant's categorical imperative
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
Kant's categorical imperative is wrong. There are plenty of things which it is acceptable to do, but which wouldn't work if everyone did it.
If I create a small bit of pollution, but I know that I am unusual and most people will not create the same type of pollution, then I can reasonably suppose that the total amount of that type of pollution will be below the amount that can be "absorbed by the earth".
A Catholic priest is celibate; does not have children. However, he would regard a world in which no one had children, to be sub-optimal. This does not show that he is behaving immorally by not having children. He can remain celibate because he knows that most people will not do so.
Kant's categorical imperative is wrong. There are plenty of things which it is acceptable to do, but which wouldn't work if everyone did it.
If I create a small bit of pollution, but I know that I am unusual and most people will not create the same type of pollution, then I can reasonably suppose that the total amount of that type of pollution will be below the amount that can be "absorbed by the earth".
A Catholic priest is celibate; does not have children. However, he would regard a world in which no one had children, to be sub-optimal. This does not show that he is behaving immorally by not having children. He can remain celibate because he knows that most people will not do so.
Travellers rely on sedentary people
People who travel around the world, whether working or on holiday, rely on people who never travel. I can go from place to place, renting rooms in buildings maintained by people who live in the area permanently. My life as a rootless cosmopolitan depends on sedentary people. This is another example of how I benefit from inequality. If everyone took up my lifestyle, it wouldn't work.
Military government
Military government solves the problem of how a sovcorp controls the military, by making them the same thing. Cryptographic weapons locks are unlikely to work.
Instead of shares being tradable, they are acquired by serving. Equivalently, one acquires citizenship and the vote, by serving in the military.
However, low-ranking soldiers should not be able to out-vote their superior officers, otherwise the military could not function. You could acquire more shares with rank and length of service, or perhaps a system could function where low-ranking soldiers appointed their officers, for a limited time with the threat of non-renewal, but then had to obey their orders.
Is there any reason why military government must lead to a non-liberal, sclerotic society like Perónist Argentina or Francoist Spain? Or a corrupt society where the military runs large companies, like China? These are certainly error modes. Military personnel do not typically understand liberal economics, so without tradable shares there is no guarantee that sovcorp managers will implement sensible policies. Perhaps 49% of the shares could be tradable.
With a literal military government, where the civil service and ministries are staffed solely by uniformed military, it will be more difficult to attract capable managers who are put off by military life. Or you could get a situation where managers enter the "military" and wear the uniform, but never serve in an actually military capacity.
Monday, 25 February 2019
An argument against deontology
Morality can pertain to states-of-affairs (states of affairs can be moral or immoral, or one can be more moral than another), but insofar as we can do anything about it, morality pertains to thoughts and actions.
Consequentialism ranks actions based on how they affect states of affairs. Deontology ranks the actions in themselves, without regard for how they affect states of affairs. That is, it deontology tries to create rules for judging actions. It tries to put actions into classes. It tries, in short, to abstract actions.
This is why deontology fails. Abstractions do not exist, they are mental tools (concepts). It is not possible to come up with perfect abstractions -- the map is not the territory. Exceptions to deontological claims can always be found, or examples of where deontological moral rules conflict.
Consequentialism does not have these problems.
Consequentialism ranks actions based on how they affect states of affairs. Deontology ranks the actions in themselves, without regard for how they affect states of affairs. That is, it deontology tries to create rules for judging actions. It tries to put actions into classes. It tries, in short, to abstract actions.
This is why deontology fails. Abstractions do not exist, they are mental tools (concepts). It is not possible to come up with perfect abstractions -- the map is not the territory. Exceptions to deontological claims can always be found, or examples of where deontological moral rules conflict.
Consequentialism does not have these problems.
Rawls
Rawls' "original position"/"veil of ignorance" doesn't work.
The idea is that, since you don't know before you are born what your position in a society will be, you should want an equal society, to make the worse-case scenario as palatable as possible.
There are various problems with this. One is that "maximin" is not necessarily the correct strategy. You might be willing to risk poverty if you improve your expected outcome. Another is that you are not in fact behind a veil of ignorance, you do know what your position in society is. It's not clear why the idea of a veil of ignorance is supposed to motivate you. Rawls called his idea "a theory of justice" but he does not try to show that equality is just and therefore self-motivating. (Moldbug remarked that Rawls just took the word "justice" and slapped it on his idea, ignoring that "justice" already had a perfectly good meaning: pacta sunt servanda.
The chief problem with Rawls is that his theory is not a dynamic theory; he does not consider time. There is no acknowledgement that changing the level of inequality in a society will have other effects. It is true that in the short run, you can improve the position of the poorest in society by magically redistributing wealth. But this would likely make them and everyone else worse off in the long run, because incentives matter. The historical record is clear that the poorest people under capitalist, somewhat redistributive states, are better off than those in fully-redistributive communist states. Ask somebody behind the veil of ignorance whether they would like to live in a society that had just endured a century of communism, or in a society after a hundred years of technological innovation driven by entrepreneurs motivated by wealth. The answer is obvious. Rawls might as well ask whether you would rather live in 1800 or 2000. Rawls' veil of ignorance does not add anything to traditional arguments about the effects of enforced equality.
But there is another, less well known idea in "A theory of justice". In addition to trying to justify full equality, not just of money but also of other "primary" goods like social status and beauty (good luck redistributing that), Rawls also attempts to justify liberalism.
He argues that people have different "life plans", and if one type of society is selected, most people's life plans will go unfulfilled. However, liberalism supposedly gives everyone the maximum chance to satisfy their life plan.
Firstly, again, just because someone would agree to liberalism before a veil of ignorance, there is no reason for them to continue to go along with it after the veil is lifted. It is difficult to see Stalin being persuaded by this argument.
More crucially, it is not true that liberalism allows all life plans to be satisfied. Life plans conflict all the time. Kaczynski's desire to live in quiet countryside conflicts with someone else's desire to build a motorway. Many life plans rely on living in a society where everyone else shares that life plan -- and not in a liberal democracy!
Only egalitarian individualists could agree to Rawls' arguments. Muslims, the Amish, hunter-gatherers such as Amazon tribesmen or American indians, Mongol horsemen, Aztec priests: all want something different. Ancient Greeks and Romans thought the purpose of the state was to promote glory, not equality or individual life plans. Anyone who values anything above the condition of the poor wants something better.
The idea is that, since you don't know before you are born what your position in a society will be, you should want an equal society, to make the worse-case scenario as palatable as possible.
There are various problems with this. One is that "maximin" is not necessarily the correct strategy. You might be willing to risk poverty if you improve your expected outcome. Another is that you are not in fact behind a veil of ignorance, you do know what your position in society is. It's not clear why the idea of a veil of ignorance is supposed to motivate you. Rawls called his idea "a theory of justice" but he does not try to show that equality is just and therefore self-motivating. (Moldbug remarked that Rawls just took the word "justice" and slapped it on his idea, ignoring that "justice" already had a perfectly good meaning: pacta sunt servanda.
The chief problem with Rawls is that his theory is not a dynamic theory; he does not consider time. There is no acknowledgement that changing the level of inequality in a society will have other effects. It is true that in the short run, you can improve the position of the poorest in society by magically redistributing wealth. But this would likely make them and everyone else worse off in the long run, because incentives matter. The historical record is clear that the poorest people under capitalist, somewhat redistributive states, are better off than those in fully-redistributive communist states. Ask somebody behind the veil of ignorance whether they would like to live in a society that had just endured a century of communism, or in a society after a hundred years of technological innovation driven by entrepreneurs motivated by wealth. The answer is obvious. Rawls might as well ask whether you would rather live in 1800 or 2000. Rawls' veil of ignorance does not add anything to traditional arguments about the effects of enforced equality.
But there is another, less well known idea in "A theory of justice". In addition to trying to justify full equality, not just of money but also of other "primary" goods like social status and beauty (good luck redistributing that), Rawls also attempts to justify liberalism.
He argues that people have different "life plans", and if one type of society is selected, most people's life plans will go unfulfilled. However, liberalism supposedly gives everyone the maximum chance to satisfy their life plan.
Firstly, again, just because someone would agree to liberalism before a veil of ignorance, there is no reason for them to continue to go along with it after the veil is lifted. It is difficult to see Stalin being persuaded by this argument.
More crucially, it is not true that liberalism allows all life plans to be satisfied. Life plans conflict all the time. Kaczynski's desire to live in quiet countryside conflicts with someone else's desire to build a motorway. Many life plans rely on living in a society where everyone else shares that life plan -- and not in a liberal democracy!
Only egalitarian individualists could agree to Rawls' arguments. Muslims, the Amish, hunter-gatherers such as Amazon tribesmen or American indians, Mongol horsemen, Aztec priests: all want something different. Ancient Greeks and Romans thought the purpose of the state was to promote glory, not equality or individual life plans. Anyone who values anything above the condition of the poor wants something better.
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