In a podcast with Richard Hanania, Marc Andreessen says,

I think there’s a real argument, and this is the most uncomfortable form of argument, there is a real argument that there are just a certain number of super-elite people. There are a certain number of people who are going to be really good scientists and it’s just not going to be that many. It’s some magical combination of intelligence, honesty, industriousness, integrity, the ability to recruit and build a team. In some ways being a top researcher is like being an entrepreneur, you have to actually pull all these different kinds of dilemmas together. And there’s only a certain number of people who can do that.

And then of course, the implication of that from a societal standpoint is that we’ve really got to know who those people are and we’ve really got to give them room to run. We’ve really got to make sure they have room to run and are not driven out. If someone’s truly a member of the elite, are able to generate elite-level results, if you wanted to demotivate them and draw them out of the field, what would you do? You would surround them with mediocrity and drown them in [baloney sandwich].

Sometimes it seems to me that the whole purpose of the woke religion is to keep true elites down.

Anyway, I recommend the whole interview. It comes with a transcript.

In the New Yorker, Joshua Rothman writes,

The realities of rationality are humbling. Know things; want things; use what you know to get what you want. It sounds like a simple formula. But, in truth, it maps out a series of escalating challenges. In search of facts, we must make do with probabilities. Unable to know it all for ourselves, we must rely on others who care enough to know. We must act while we are still uncertain, and we must act in time—sometimes individually, but often together. For all this to happen, rationality is necessary, but not sufficient. Thinking straight is just part of the work.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that it is not a hit piece. He discusses Julia Galef, Steven Pinker, and Tyler Cowen. He quotes from one of my blog posts.

J. D. Vance said,

Why have we let the Democrat Party become controlled by people who don’t have children? And why is this just a normal fact of American life? That the leaders of our country should be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring, via their own children and grandchildren?

…The Democrats are talking about giving the vote to sixteen-year olds. But let’s do this instead: let’s give votes to all children in this country, but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country, as a parent, you should have more power. You should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic than people who don’t have kids. Let’s face the consequences and the reality. If you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.

I share Vance’s sentiments. I think that old-fashioned two-parent households with children tend to exhibit less political insanity.

But his electoral reform proposal does not strike me as well worked out. What if parents disagree on politics? Which parent gets to vote on behalf of the children? In a divorce, who gets custody of the votes? etc.

Perhaps what matters most is not political power but cultural power. In the 1950s, the cultural hegemony was with the Ozzie and Harriett families. Today, it is with LBGTQ. Have a nice day, J.D.

Haidt is in a podcast with Bridget Phetasy. He says that things on Twitter are a thousand times smaller than they seem. But people don’t realize that. The whole podcast is recommended (but speed it up).

Also about minute 54, he says that young people tend to be cut off from history. They are very much into the present. I find I have the urge to give history lessons.

Around minute 60 he starts talking about stoics and how to use challenges to make yourself stronger.

Around minute 76 he goes on a rant against unions, noting that his parents were union organizers. Around minute 80 he credits taking LSD for helping to put him on the path to writing The Righteous Mind.

Noah Smith reposts,

the Shouting Class is a tiny minority of society that dominates much of our political discourse, thanks in part to the bullhorn created by the technology of social media.

…the greater energy, zeal, and time commitment of the Shouting Class, combined with the bullhorn of social media, tips the balance of social media’s emotional effect dramatically toward the negative.

People who are chronically angry and bitter are unpleasant to be around. In the real world, most of us try to avoid such people. But Twitter draws such people like flies. As does combative politics.

For normal people with normal families, Twitter politics is like war. We’re not interested in it. Unfortunately, it is interested in us.

Mathis Bitton writes,

Gone is the appreciation for diversity, disagreement, and proceduralism. Enters an insatiable thirst for public morality, purpose, and collective attachment.

What a succinct summary of the contrast between the values the Jonathan Rauch wishes to keep and the values of what Wesley Yang calls the Successor Regime.

Incidentally, if you missed it, Jonathan Rauch had a good conversation with Russ Roberts.

For future reference.

First, William Galston writes,

Critical race theory is an explicitly left-wing movement inspired by the thinking of an Italian neo-Marxist, Antonio Gramsci. Against classic Marxism, for which material conditions are primary, Gramsci (1891-1937) focused on “hegemony”—the system of beliefs that “reinforces existing social arrangements and convinces the dominated classes that the existing order is inevitable,” as Ms. Crenshaw puts it.

Noteworthy because Galston is center-left. He is burning some bridges here.

Helen Pluckrose writes,

Rather than quibbling over whether what critics are criticising is really the theories that emerged in legal studies from the 1970s, let’s address the reality of what critical theories of race look like right now and how they are impacting real people of all races.

In much of the essay, Pluckrose really gets into the theoretical weeds, even though she points out that a different CRT has been popularized than what was created in academia. This reminds me of Keynesian economics in grad school, where there were all sorts of esoteric discussions of what Keynes really meant and what Keynesian economics ought to be. Meanwhile, what took hold in the press and in public policy is what I call “folk” Keynesianism, which is nothing more than “spending creates jobs, and jobs create spending.” The academic arguments matter only to the academics.

Similarly, I expect that academic discussions of critical race theory no longer affect “folk” critical race theory, or FCRT, if you will. FCRT is what K-12 teachers and journalists carry with them. I think it includes a belief in the moral inferiority of white males. It includes a belief that “privilege” is a very important concept. I think it includes some Puritan sensibilities, particularly an unforgiving stance regarding heretics. But these are tentative thoughts about FCRT. I do not feel confident that I have it pinned down yet.

James M. Patterson writes,

If wokeness becomes a legally recognized religion in the United States, efforts by adherents to secure state patronage and enlist public entities in their struggle would violate constitutionally protected natural rights.

Having wokeness recognized legally as a religion would solve many problems.

If you watch John McWhorter on Firing Line, you will hear views that have influenced my own.