Pascal Boyer looks like the winner

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You thought it was a contest between Hazony and Lukianoff-Haidt for which book I would read next. And by the time this post goes up, Fukuyama’s book will be out. For that matter, security guru Bruce Schneier’s provocatively-titled Click Here to Kill Everybody was on my radar even before a commenter mentioned it.

But then, fairly deep among Amazon’s recommendations, I find Minds Make Societies, by Pascal Boyer.

1. The introduction didn’t cause me to want to raise objections.

2. I have already told you that I think very highly of the concept of evolution as an interpretive framework.

So Boyer wins. That’s what I’m reading now. [UPDATE: Finished the book. A couple of the chapters did not succeed with me, but overall I found the book very stimulating and insightful. It will easily make my list of best books of the year.]

Here is a taste:

people find the authors of descriptive texts, for example, about a computer program or a hiking trip, more competent and knowledgeable if the texts include threat-related information.

The mechanism is this: We have evolved to detect threats. We have evolved to learn about threats from other people. Therefore, we have evolved to ascribe expertise to people who describe threats.

Hence, rumors and conspiracy theories. And of course, some small fraction of those will prove to be true, so we can’t completely throw away our evolutionary programming.

It occurs to me that this explains how Henny-Penny could make “The sky is falling!” go viral. Instead, if she had said, “I just saw a gorgeous rainbow with polka-dots,” no one would have believed her. The threatening story is taken as credible, and the benign story isn’t.

I used to think of Henny-Penny as a stupid bird with stupid friends, like Turkey-Lurkey. But after reading Boyer about the way we build coalitions on top of our evolutionary program for threat detection, I would say that Henny-Penny is an astute coalition builder. She shows aptitude as a journalist or politician, while Turkey-Lurkey displays an aptitude for signaling his value as a reliable follower.

Yoram Hazony: my preliminary criticism

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So far, I have only finished the introduction to The Virtue of Nationalism. I think he fails Bryan Caplan’s ideological Turing Test. He says that the opposite of nationalism is imperialism. I don’t think his opponents would accept the imperialist label. It is like telling a secular leftist that your religion is leftism. Such analysis might have a grain of truth, but it is not a good approach for engaging in dialogue.

I think there are two versions of internationalism in the U.S.: the neocon version; and the Western Guilt version. They are usually opposed to one another.

The neocon version could plausibly viewed as imperialist. They see America as the indispensable nation, supporting the peace and prosperity of the world. The term Pax Americana is positive in the neocon view. (Although they are not card-carrying neocons, Findlay and O’Rourke in Power and Plenty, if I recall correctly, make a case that periods of trade expansion, peace, and prosperity historically have coincided with strong hegemonic power.)

The Western Guilt version sees America as the nation that needs to be cut down to size. Instead of telling other people how to behave, Americans ought to learn from other cultures. The neocons disparage this view, as when they refer to “Obama’s apology tours.” But whether you love or loathe the Western Guilt proponents, they would not recognize themselves as imperialists.

Indeed, the way that Hazony describes imperialism, almost any transnational proposal becomes an imperialist project. A libertarian idea for open borders. An environmentalist proposal to fight climate change. While there is plenty of room to argue that these ideas could only be implemented in the context of a global empire with a single ruler, establishing such an empire is not the objective of these specific initiatives.

In any case, I am not ready to accept Hazony’s either/or distinction between imperialism and nationalism. I would say that there are questions of jurisdiction. You know how when two businesses sign a contract, there might be a provision saying that any dispute will be decided in a particular state? If contracting were costless, every interaction between people could have such a provision. To put it another way, one can imagine in theory a world in which the jurisdiction for every interaction is chosen voluntarily. As it happens, but that is not possible in practice.

In the real world, for most interactions there is a presumption that jurisdiction is based on location. So within the U.S., you presume that if you go to court it will be an American court, not a French court. As I see it from this jurisdictional perspective, although nationalism is not something that was dreamed up by libertarians, it can be treated as a “libertarian realist” outcome.

Part of “libertarian realism” is my belief that the ultimate arbiter of jurisdictional disputes is force. As another illustration, think of crime families. If you’re in the Corleone family territory, the Godfather has jurisdiction.

There are a lot of cross-border interactions nowadays. So how do we settle ultimate jurisdictional disputes? It could be an international body–an international Supreme Court, if you will. Or it could be ultimately the strongest country interested in the dispute.

To be cynical, I can see why an Israeli, with the Palestinian conflict in mind, would not be an advocate of deferring to an international body. To be equally cynical, I can see why a professional Weberian bureaucrat or diplomat might advocate increased deference to international organizations. I would be surprised if one can make an over-arching, overwhelming theoretical argument in favor of one model over the other.

But that is all preliminary to reading the book.

The source of entry barriers on the Internet

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A commenter writes,

it is remarkable that internet markets with low barriers of entry often settle on monopoly/ologopoly models so quickly and easily.

Note: I am going to pick on this statement, which is one small part of a comment that otherwise makes good points.

I think that there is a significant barrier to entry on the Internet that is rather subtle. Incumbent firms know a lot more than potential new entrants, and the Internet enables them to exploit this advantage quickly and at low risk.

Suppose I am managing the incumbent firm X, and you want to enter the market with firm Y. In textbook economics, Y just has to copy what X does. But that does not work in the Internet context. Most people say that is because of network effects and lock-in, but I think there is a more important reason.

The problem with your copying me is that by the time you finish copying the current version, I will be two or three versions ahead of you. The thing is, at any point in time, I have a better idea than you do about what is sub-optimal about the current version of X. So I know which features I am going to drop, which features I am going to tweak, and which features I am going to add in my next version. You may have some guesses about all that, but you don’t have the experience that I have.

The knowledge that managers accumulate while operating a business becomes a big entry barrier. When I was the “chief scientist” of an Internet-based business in the 1990s, we were periodically spooked by VC-backed competitors who had enough capital to bury us–if they had our experience. But time after time they squandered their money trying stuff that we already knew didn’t work. One of my partners described it as like being the villain in a cartoon car race. We are the lead car and out the window we’re tossing obstacles for the other cars: nails, oil, what have you. We were engaged in “move fast and break things” before that slogan was invented.

In traditional businesses, followers tend to be more agile than leaders. In today’s Internet environment, it can be the other way around. And there is nothing that fends off competition as rudely as a market leader that is able to move faster than a follower.

Don’t try to fix our housing finance system

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Congressman Jeb Hensarling writes,

The compromise plan would permanently repeal the Fannie and Freddie charters, ending the monopoly model. In its place it proposes using Ginnie Mae, the government corporation that explicitly backs the payment of principal and interest to investors in Federal Housing Administration and other government-insured loans. The proposal would direct the corporation to guarantee qualified privately insured mortgage-backed securities.

Loan originators would have to acquire coverage from an approved “credit enhancer,” or private mortgage credit guarantor, to use the Ginnie Mae system. That would function as a private capital buffer on the loan, which could then be securitized by any of Ginnie Mae’s more than 400 approved issuers with an explicit, full government guarantee of mortgage-backed securities.

To protect taxpayers from new risks, the credit enhancer’s guarantee would be market-priced and backed by the strength of its balance sheet, which requires bank-like capital. Credit enhancers also would have to use risk transfers to disperse credit risk horizontally and participate in a rainy-day fund to protect against unexpected financial downturns.

The thing that most people don’t realize is that the way that Freddie and Fannie operate right now achieves most of the objectives of this restructuring proposal. That is, the agencies transfer a lot of the credit risk on their securities to private entities.

There are ways I would like to see the current system tweaked: consolidate the loan purchasing functions of Freddie, Fannie, and FHA into a single unit, so they do not create opportunities to take advantage of whichever one offers the most generous terms; eliminate all government support for loans with a purpose other than owner-occupied house purchase or rate-and-term refinances–get rid of support for second mortgages, investor loans, loans for second homes, and cash-out refinances; keep loan limits low, and perhaps lower them from where they are now.

If you wanted to try to steer Americans away from the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, then you could be more aggressive with reforms. But that is not a fight I can imagine politicians wanting to start.

My guess is that anything Congress initiates to try to improve our current housing finance system will in fact make it more fragile.
It may be brave of me to say this, but I would describe the current state of housing finance in America as, “It ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Charles Chu on Vaclav Smil

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Chu writes,

Another interesting thing about Smil is that he has principles. In particular, you can tell he that he values intellectual honesty far more than he values fame or material wealth.

. . .the danger of getting paid for your ideas: It’s easy to sell out or self-censor because you’re afraid of (a) financial or (b) status pushback.

The essay covers several interesting issues. I think that every public intellectual has to have second thoughts about writing things that challenge the views of his or her audience. But it is important to be willing to do that. I think that this is one of Tyler Cowen’s strengths.

The American right wing

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A foreign correspondent asked me about it, I presume because he found the Wikipedia entry that is based on a blog post that I wrote when I was, without realizing it, quite confused. So at this point I would say that I do not know what the term “neoreaction” means, and if I don’t, who does?

Now, I think that the central issue in American right-wing politics is nationalism. (Note, I may be overly influenced by recent exposure to Yoram Hazony.) I will get to that shortly. But a few preliminary comments.

1. I think that many Americans reject the aggressive forms of progressivism. Even many left-of-center Democrats believe that conservative speakers on college campuses are entitled to be heard. They think that people with religious faiths should have room to follow their beliefs, as long as they do not harm others. They think that the private sector is not perfect but that government is not perfect either.

2. I think that there is a set of Americans who make a big deal about what they perceive as threats to the white race, but this set is really, really tiny.

3. Progressives would like to believe that all of their opponents belong to (2). They do not want to concede that many of their opponents are respectable exponents of (1).

4. The issue of nationalism vs. transnationalism is what is most important to understand. In America, there is a long tradition of opposition to transnationalism. Many Americans are suspicious of rules made by international bodies. They are skeptical of sending American aid or American soldiers to deal with foreign problems.

5. Since World War II, American elites have been much more transnationalist than ordinary Americans. Elites on the left like international bodies that make rules and sanction military interventions. Elites on the right believe that American involvement in other countries is necessary in order to protect our national interests. For a recent statement of the elite-right view, see Robert Kagan in Saturday’s WSJ.

6. Populists on the left have taken the opposite point of view. On the Democratic side, the slogan “Come home, America” emerged durng the Vietnam War. On the Republican side, from Robert Taft through Patrick Buchanan through Donald Trump, opposition to internationalism has always had a spokesman. When George W. Bush ran for President in 2000, he used nationalist rhetoric. He ended up governing as an internationalist, especially after 9/11.

7. Mr. Trump is the first nationalist to win the Presidency since World War II. Conservative intellectuals who are in the internationalist camp are “never-Trumpers.” Conservative intellectuals who are nationalists are inclined to be Trump supporters. But Trump’s populist rhetoric turns off conservative intellectuals of all stripes.

8. Libertarians like the non-interventionist aspect of nationalism, but we hate the anti-trade, anti-immigrant aspect of nationalism. Overall, libertarians do not approve of Mr. Trump. We differ on how we think he compares with his opponents.

Russ Roberts and Yoram Hazony

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I found this one of the most interesting econtalk podcasts. Let me pick one nit. Trying to argue that nationalism is not inherently war-generating, Hazony says,

universal wars are devoted to some kind of an ideology of world domination. I the case of the 30-Years’ War, it was the theory of the universal Catholic order. In the case of the Nepolonic Wars, the theory of the new universal French liberalism. And, in the two World Wars, an attempt by two German emperors in effect to try to, uh, make Germany Lord of the Earth.

My nit is with taking the view that World War I was an attempt to create a world order. Let’s even stipulate that Germany was the most war-seeking nation in 1914. My reading of the history is that Germany did not have a goal of world domination. I buy the argument that Germany started the first World War out of fear that if it did not fight then, it would at some point have to fight on more adverse terms. It saw Russia getting stronger every decade. Its ally, Austria-Hungary, had obvious weaknesses.

After World War I, many people saw the war as a case of nationalism run amok. I still think that is an appropriate way to look at it.

Now that The Virtue of Nationalism is available, I expect I will be giving it more attention going forward.

Tyler Cowen and Robin Hanson on how the truth can hurt

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Sounding a bit like Martin Gurri, Tyler Cowen writes,

An informed populace, however, can also be a cynical populace, and a cynical populace is willing to tolerate or maybe even support cynical leaders. The world might be better off with more of that naïve “moonshot” optimism of the 1960s.

Carrying the idea to extremes, Robin Hanson writes,

These two facts, better tech for reading feelings and widespread hypocrisy, seem to me to be on a collision course. As a result, within a few decades, we may see something of a “hypocrisy apocalypse”, or “hypocralypse”, wherein familiar ways to manage hypocrisy become no longer feasible, and collide with common norms, rules, and laws.

I don’t think David Brin ever thought it through this way.

Lukianoff and Haidt compete for my reading time

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Their latest, The Coddling of the American Mind, was released the same day as Yoram Hazony’s book. Coddling is getting plenty of media buzz. This half-hour podcast is probably worth your time.

I might have thought that I would be more inclined to resist Hazony’s defense of nationalism and to defend L-H’s resistance to political correctness on campus. But it might turn out differently after I read the two books. Lukianoff and Haidt (L-H) write,

many parents, K-12 teachers, professors, and university administrators have been unknowingly teaching a generation of students to engage in the mental habits commonly seen in people who suffer from anxiety and depression.

I think that college administrators could make a difference. My fantasy of a courageous college administrator would be one who says:

1. If you don’t want to get up in the morning regretting the sex you had last night, then stay sober and say “no.” I would be surprised to find forcible rape on campus, but if you don’t feel safe, carry pepper spray.

2. If you engage in rioting, assault, or vandalism, then you deserve to be arrested and dealt with by the criminal justice system.

3. If you don’t like what someone says, then write an essay explaining what is wrong with it, and try to get other people interested in your essay.

I am not sure I will buy the L-H story. They want to draw an equivalence between right and left, and that is fair if you are talking about the propensity to be uncharitable to those who disagree. But my sense is that the depression/anxiety parallel to political demeanor is a better fit for the left than for the right.

Another problem I have with the psychological emphasis is that it might lead someone to think that if the parents, teachers, and professors could just realize that coddling has adverse psychological consequences, then they would take a different approach. Instead, I think that problem is more deep-seated. I see parents, teachers, and professors as having intellectual weaknesses (such as a lack of appreciation for evolution as a characteristic of markets and an influence on human behavior patterns) and character flaws (such as a lack of courage to talk to students as I would like) that are much harder to correct.

But this is all preliminary to reading the book. I need to give L-H a chance to change my mind.

Kling on George Gilder’s Google prophecy

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One brief excerpt from my essay on Life After Google.

I also think that decentralization is important for liberty. I once hoped that a decentralized Internet would enhance freedom. Now, I am inclined to see lack of appreciation for liberty as a fundamentally human problem, not a technological one. Decentralized computer architecture solves some problems, but it creates others.

Elsewhere, David Henderson offers extensive comments on the recent WSJ interview with Gilder.