Arrogance and self-pity. You can temper arrogance with betting, which I try to do scrupulously. Self-pity is harder to defuse, though talking with sympathetic people is helpful.
You mentioned in of your interviews that the poor and the rich receive almost the same amount from government in the U.S. I wonder whether you included capital gains from real estate due to positive externalities of government investments, which presumably the rich receive in much greater amount than the poor.
None. If you mean "answered definitely," I don't think large-scale economic experiments lead to definitive answers either. The problem of external validity always looms.
If you were to write a second edition of Self Reasons to Have More Kids, what revisions would you make? Is there new research that has changed your opinions?
Richard Pipes, Arthur Jensen, Scott Alexander, Gaetano Mosca, Donald Wittman, Judith Harris, Robert Plomin, Phil Tetlock, Richard Posner, Gary Becker (borderline case), Robin Hanson (definitely not despite much overlap), Garett Jones, Paul Krugman pre-2000, Bill Dickens, more.
Why do you think have you failed to persuade close intellectual friends such as Hansen and Cowen on some important questions, even though they are very smart and reasonable human beings? What does that tell us about the difficulty of persuading those who are less so?
I've persuaded Robin of many things. He's on board with the main theses of ALL of my books. Most of our continuing disagreements stem, in my view, from (a) his reification of physics as "answering" questions it doesn't even address (like the existence of mental states like belief and pain), and (b) his early love of sci-fi.
Tyler, though only slightly less brilliant than Robin, is too contrarian to persuade about anything important. Even when he loses a bet, he says he was "really right" or that betting proves nothing. He does change his mind, but on his own timetable and for his own reasons. Lately, for example, he's declared that the Great Stagnation is over. Other than putting high weight on the latest news, I can't see why.
Why do you think the U.S. has become much less libertarian since the outbreak of WWI, in terms of immigration policy, level of taxation, and many other aspects? Do the factors behind such a shift make you pessimistic about the prospects of turning the U.S. into an anarcho-capitalist society?
A combination of shifting public opinion plus crises (a la Robert Higgs). Though of course it's more complicated, because there was a big move back to small government under Harding and Coolidge, then a huge leap under FDR, followed by further moves in the same direction, followed by a sizable move back to smaller government from Carter to Clinton, which was reversed again under GWB.
I'm definitely pessimistic about any sizable anarcho-capitalist society arising in the 21st century. You'd be crazy not to be! Though over the very long run, things look merely bleak. More here: https://www.betonit.ai/p/anarcho-capitalism-isnt-crazy-just
To what extent do you think female enfranchisement has to do with the decline of classically liberal polices in the U.S. in the past 100 years? What about the expansion of voting rights to poorer men in the U.K.?
To understand AI’s future societal impacts, how important is it in your opinion to understand the technical aspects, such as RLHF and capability overhang?
I'd imagine your well aware of the impact of both of those, without needing to know any of the technical side.
> RLHF (i.e. reinforcement learning from human feedback)
You don't need to know anything technical to think about the implications of human feedback pointing the models in particular directions (e.g. openai's tendency towards somewhat "woke" output)
> capability overhang
Just a fancy word for "can the model do things we haven't discovered it can do yet".
Are you pessimistic about the future of humanity if as technology advances, it gets easier and easier for small irrational actors to build a weapon of mass destruction, such as a super-virus? Why or why not?
OK, that's a wrap! Thanks for participating. ;-)
What do you think your biggest blind spots are? How are you trying to remedy them? How should one learn to discover one’s own blind spots?
Arrogance and self-pity. You can temper arrogance with betting, which I try to do scrupulously. Self-pity is harder to defuse, though talking with sympathetic people is helpful.
You mentioned in of your interviews that the poor and the rich receive almost the same amount from government in the U.S. I wonder whether you included capital gains from real estate due to positive externalities of government investments, which presumably the rich receive in much greater amount than the poor.
No, these are purely budgetary calculations. Though note that the rich also pay a lot more property taxes!
I assume you are not religious. Why do you think Pascal’s wager is not persuasive?
The existence of multiple incompatible religions aside, Pascal's Mugging! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_mugging
What obligations, if any, do you think adult children have to their parents? Why?
Complicated!
Do you think it’s morally permissible to steal from a totalitarian government? Is it morally equivalent to stealing from the people under its rule?
Normally, it's fine. Even commendable. But there are obvious exceptions, like stealing the food going to the Gulag inmates.
Do you have any podcast or newsletter recommendations?
Hanania!
What is the most important intellectual question you have changed your mind on in the past 8 years? Why?
Sorry, no good answer springs to mind.
What important economic questions do you think cannot be answered because we can’t perform large-scale experiments rigorously?
None. If you mean "answered definitely," I don't think large-scale economic experiments lead to definitive answers either. The problem of external validity always looms.
Do you think social science is less rigorous than natural science due to the limited ability to perform experiments?
What evidence would convince you that free will most likely does not exist?
If someone could actually predict my behavior in detail even though I knew they were trying to predict my behavior in detail.
If you were to write a second edition of Self Reasons to Have More Kids, what revisions would you make? Is there new research that has changed your opinions?
I'd probably add stuff on transnational adoption.
Who are your favorite non-libertarian intellectuals from the past 100 years?
Richard Pipes, Arthur Jensen, Scott Alexander, Gaetano Mosca, Donald Wittman, Judith Harris, Robert Plomin, Phil Tetlock, Richard Posner, Gary Becker (borderline case), Robin Hanson (definitely not despite much overlap), Garett Jones, Paul Krugman pre-2000, Bill Dickens, more.
Why do you think have you failed to persuade close intellectual friends such as Hansen and Cowen on some important questions, even though they are very smart and reasonable human beings? What does that tell us about the difficulty of persuading those who are less so?
I've persuaded Robin of many things. He's on board with the main theses of ALL of my books. Most of our continuing disagreements stem, in my view, from (a) his reification of physics as "answering" questions it doesn't even address (like the existence of mental states like belief and pain), and (b) his early love of sci-fi.
Tyler, though only slightly less brilliant than Robin, is too contrarian to persuade about anything important. Even when he loses a bet, he says he was "really right" or that betting proves nothing. He does change his mind, but on his own timetable and for his own reasons. Lately, for example, he's declared that the Great Stagnation is over. Other than putting high weight on the latest news, I can't see why.
Why do you think the U.S. has become much less libertarian since the outbreak of WWI, in terms of immigration policy, level of taxation, and many other aspects? Do the factors behind such a shift make you pessimistic about the prospects of turning the U.S. into an anarcho-capitalist society?
A combination of shifting public opinion plus crises (a la Robert Higgs). Though of course it's more complicated, because there was a big move back to small government under Harding and Coolidge, then a huge leap under FDR, followed by further moves in the same direction, followed by a sizable move back to smaller government from Carter to Clinton, which was reversed again under GWB.
I'm definitely pessimistic about any sizable anarcho-capitalist society arising in the 21st century. You'd be crazy not to be! Though over the very long run, things look merely bleak. More here: https://www.betonit.ai/p/anarcho-capitalism-isnt-crazy-just
To what extent do you think female enfranchisement has to do with the decline of classically liberal polices in the U.S. in the past 100 years? What about the expansion of voting rights to poorer men in the U.K.?
To understand AI’s future societal impacts, how important is it in your opinion to understand the technical aspects, such as RLHF and capability overhang?
Since I don't know either of those things, yet think I understand AI's future societal impacts, not too important. ;-)
I'd imagine your well aware of the impact of both of those, without needing to know any of the technical side.
> RLHF (i.e. reinforcement learning from human feedback)
You don't need to know anything technical to think about the implications of human feedback pointing the models in particular directions (e.g. openai's tendency towards somewhat "woke" output)
> capability overhang
Just a fancy word for "can the model do things we haven't discovered it can do yet".
Are you pessimistic about the future of humanity if as technology advances, it gets easier and easier for small irrational actors to build a weapon of mass destruction, such as a super-virus? Why or why not?
Barely, because I think the difficulty of these things is multi-causal, so even if one factor gets really easy, the rest stays very hard.
I see. Can I ask whether you worry about existential risks? Do you think the likelihood of humanity destroying itself is rising, falling, or stable?