32 Comments

Somehow we have got to do many things differently, do them much more ably,and do all of them simultaneously, collaboratively and fast. Ready or not,like it or not, we are presented with a planetary emergency.This is the timefor making necessary behavioral changes by thinking globally and actinglocally. Science and common sense will give us direction. What we cannot dois sit on the sidelines. No, we cannot afford to sit this one out. All handsare needed on the deck at this critical moment in the history of ourplanetary home. Our generation is simply not stepping up to the challengesbefore us. The consequences of our failures appear colossal and profoundwith regard to the prospects for future human well being and environmentalhealth. The very last thing a responsible person is to do in suchcircumstances is consciously and deliberately choose to remain silent, Ibelieve. Are we not participants in and witnesses to yet anotherpreposterous failure of nerve? When are the leaders going to speak out in anintellectually honest way and act with a sense of moral courage? Howterrible are things going to have to become on Earth beforethe-powers-that-be begin to talk about and do the right things, according tothe lights and best available knowledge they possess? Whatsoever is real andtrue must be acknowledged if we are to respond ably to climatedestabilization, pollution, biodiversity loss, resource dissipation,environmental degradation and overpopulation,but the manufactured ‘nothingis wrong’ reality is well-established and those who speak truth to powerare consistently marginalized and ignored. It is difficult even to imaginehow much can be done in such unfavorable circumstances. Still our effortsare vital because the-powers-that-be are living in a fool’s paradise, andthe stakes are such that the things that are not being acknowledged willlikely destroy life as we know it on Earth. We know how to stopoverpopulation humanely.The gravity of this and other looming human-drivenglobal threats are understood and could be confronted with a long overduedetermination to do what is necessary. All of the world’s human resources,including overrated intelligence and technology, need to be deployed inorder to overcome the emerging and converging wicked problems loomingominously on the horizon.The-powers-that-be could save the world if theyacted with the intellectual honesty, moral courage and power they possess tosound alarm bells, forcefully warn the world, and call out loudly andclearly for changes toward sustainable lifestyles and right-sized corporateenterprises. But most of the necessary changes are unlikely to happen,The-powers-that-be want to maintain the status quo, come what may. They lackthe moral courage and the imagination to save the world we are blessed toinhabit as a fit place for habitation by children everywhere and cominggenerations.

Expand full comment

"If we were willing to admit the students who would benefit most by objective criteria like income or career success, we could use prediction markets. The complete lack of interest in this suggests that isn’t really the agenda."

...or that it's never seriously been considered. I'd guess that admitting the students who could benefit most from college is at least a factor that goes in to a typical admissions officers' decisionmaking.

Expand full comment

It turns out my hunch was correct: Yglesias wrote this http://www.slate.com/blogs/...

Expand full comment

IQ does correlate with various success metrics, at least around and below the average (there is probably not much difference in terms of actual performances between IQ 120 and IQ 140, while the difference between IQ 80 and IQ 60 is extreme).

Very high IQ people may perhaps be more likely to have atypical minds which are "overfitted" to these kind of tests and might perform properly in real life scenarios.

Since these people are rare, when designing an admission test you might just ignore the fact that they exist, or you might tune your test to penalize people with ADHD or Asperger disorder. However, given a sufficient large population, any test will generate false positives and false negatives.

It seems to me that most state funded universities over the world use exams as their main admission criterion. Overly complicated and vague admission criteria which leave lots of wiggle room are typical of elite American colleges.

Expand full comment

I think it more plausible flexibility is necessary to cope with uncertainty. We have no way to anticipate all future possibilities or conditions that may arise, so we set about establishing principles to guide us but we know they will conflict but are unsure how, or even how that conflict should be resolved without experiencing the results.

Expand full comment

There are tons of reasons for people, even those who care a great deal about economic inequality and social mobility, to be against it:

1) in the days of slavery most white and Asian people were dirt poor or even basically slaves themselves (serfdom), their families did not profit from slavery, most people living today are descendants of these poor families

2) reparations would be paid by the government, meaning taxes, meaning the brunt would be born by the middle class who are descendants of poor families that had nothing to do with slavery

3) reparations would mostly shift money around inside the working and middle classes instead of reducing current economic inequality

4) there are better ways to help descendants of slaves that also help remedy current economic inequality and social mobility (for example the way European countries ensure affordable access to quality education for all children, wasting no taxpayer money on elite institutions that can set their own tuition, so there doesn't have to be a fight over racial quotas)

Expand full comment

Sure. I'd consider that shrugging to be evidence either that people don't care about the objectives of reparations, or else don't see reparations as an effective way of achieving the objectives.

Expand full comment

I agree that the Legal Realists, the natural candidates for judicial empowerers, aren't plausibly seen as such. In fact, Legal Realism arose against the entrenchment judges, in support of the New Deal, against natural law and the conservative Supreme Court.

The issue of judicial entrenchment arises expressly in today's jurisprudence around the interpretation of statutes. The (usually conservative) textualists claim to speak against judicial entrenchment. I've maintained that textualism is more entrenching than the practices of those who look to legislative history. ( http://tinyurl.com/d8pos9 )

Whose entrenchment? If ambiguity plays a significant role in allowing the entrenchment of interests, it probably isn't the interests of judges. I don't think judges enjoy their discretion. Their great fear is reversal on appeal--as is appropriate--and they prefer less risky guidelines. The entrenchment would be of interests who want to rely on judges "class instincts," so to speak.

If this kind of motivated ambiguity exists, it probably is most expressed in the criminal law. Consider the now notorious "stand your ground" laws many jurisdictions have adopted. They are more explicit than common-law self-defense. If Hanson's approach applies anywhere, it would seem to apply here: opposition to stand your ground serves some entrenchment because it eliminates an ambiguity in self-defense law. Whose entrenchment?

Expand full comment

I think a quick walk through Hart's "No vehicles in the park" example is sufficient to at least make the non-conspiracy theory plausible. There is infinite factual complexity to the world, and language is ambiguous so it is difficult to formulate clear rules that can be applied to every circumstance in a satisfactory way. The legal realists can be seen as intending to empower judges; another interpretation is that they were simply unmasking an ambiguity that was always there but not acknowledged.

Expand full comment

"A standardized exam which measures a combination of IQ and relevant technical knowledge and skills seems to be the obvious choice."

But it's not the right choice: IQ is maleable by education, high IQ individuals often have trouble performing because they cannot focus well on a single topic and have poor study habits, relevant skills and knowledge are often not available at the high school level and there are far more people who could get a degree from an elite college than there are places at elite colleges (which is why foreigners from far less prestiguous, state funded universities often perform just as well in the real world). Think outside the box, ask yourself if the problem you were trying to solve makes any sense itself, or at least look over the border, would be my advice.

Expand full comment

To expand on my remark about cultural attitudes: people cheat when they perceive "the system" to be unfair, but that doesn't mean they don't want meritocracy, on the contrary. You can go to Afghanistan and look how half the population is a hired gun, smuggler, poppy grower or corrupt official, but had those people been raised in Norway most of them had been hardworking law-abiding citizens. You can't just assume people view the existence of elite colleges as perfectly compatible with meritocracy and then eliminate the existence of elite colleges from the equation when in reality in most countries people (and even governments) have resisted the establishment of American-style elite colleges precisely because they believed it reduced meritocracy.

Expand full comment

I think part of Yglesias's suggestion simply means spending 10k on an inner city high school will do more than spending 10k on a single, already privileged, university student. Society as a whole would probably benefit more from the investment in the inner city school. Similarly turning 10 ghetto kids from uneducated welfare receivers into average computer programmers would do a whole lot more for society than giving someone who would easily be an average programmer without financial help turn into an average programmer with an MIT degree on his CV.

Expand full comment

"Why don’t we express and follow clear principles on what sort of inequality is how bad? Last week I suggested that we want the flexibility to use inequality as an excuse to grab resources when grabbing is easy, but don’t want to obligate ourselves to grab when grabbing is hard."

So you're saying "well, last yar the cops couldn't catch every shoplifter and people didn't riot in the streets over it, so let's be consistent and legalize murder"?

"It seems we prefer similar flexibility on who are the “best” students to admit to elite colleges in the first place. Not only do inside views of the admission process seem to show careful efforts to avoid clarity on criteria, ordinary people seem to support such flexibility"

You seem to forget that in most countries "ordinary people" oppose the very existence of elite colleges. You should correct for American cultural attitudes.

"If we were willing to admit the students who would benefit most by objective criteria like income or career success, we could use prediction markets. The complete lack of interest in this suggests that isn’t really the agenda."

Seriously? So because they don't believe your idea is the best solution they must not be serious about solving the problem? (Btw, how realistic is a prediction market on the future success of individual18 year olds, not to mention the privacy issues?)

Expand full comment

Yglesias is not an economist, he's a journalist with a background in philosophy.

Expand full comment

I actually can't recall any denunciation of slavery reparations. It tends to be shrugged off, perhaps analogous to legalization of marijuana (legalizing harder drugs is denounced).

Expand full comment

Yet we excoriate the PRC for behaving as you suggest. They are completely transparent and mostly rational about the path to the outcomes and the logic of selection. But since this upsets our delusions of individual merit (the Robinson Crusoe Model) we buy our ink by the barrel to write about their crimes.

Expand full comment