On Tuesday I wrote: [Caplan says] humans are less rational as voters than as consumers, causing us to support government policies that pursue illusions instead of giving us what we really want. Since educated folks seem to be more rational … and yet do not vote on substantially differing values, Caplan suggests we weigh educated votes more, or at least stop trying to get out the vote, and that we reduce the scope of government policy. … While reviewers seem to grant Caplan’s basic claims, they offer only these lame counter-arguments:
But my solution to the is-ought problem is that universe ought to be optimized to maximize my personal odds of persistence (MMPOOP) as a subjective, conscious entity. From my solipstic perspective, anything else would be absurd. Apparently empiricism and other contributing elements of the scientific method are the best currently available way to figure out how to optimize the universe to MMPOOP.
Jim,It may also be important to explore the possibility that there are no moral truths to be gotten from the voting trance (or that can't be gotten more efficiently through other means). I suspect this is a view Robin is partial to, and frankly I am as well. But it's a question that possibly can be answered empirically.
Very true, my proposals deal with the trance itself and not the moral truths. I don't know how it is possible to deal with the truths in another modern institution besides the voting theater, but feel it is easy to replicate a harmless version of the theater.
Jim Outen,Potentially great ideas and good brainstorming, even if they don't address Ramone's claims directly. I think thinking about "methods by which the mystical benefits of democracy could be separated from the wealth reducing realities often associated with democracy" is important, particularly if perpetuating the "mystical benefits of democracy" in some way creates material benefits which haven't yet been rigorously empirically demonstrated.
Jim, Ramone was claiming we need the voting trance to gain the moral insight that helps us make good choices, not just on symbolic choices, but also on choices that have big effects.
A few quick ideas concerning Ramone's argument that we need democracy to fulfill religious-like functions, yet at the same time we as a society (presumably) wish to avoid wealth-destroying policies:
1. Marketize more aspects of life and make democracy more "expressive" via increased symbolic voting. I think of recent symbolic votes by Democrats as an example of behavior (non-binding resolutions against the war).
2. Create less meaningful legislation; pass actual legislation which does essentially nothing. The public recognizes that the Congress has "done something" by voting and deliberating.
3. Pass legislation that satisfies public concerns, but simply fail to enforce the potentially wealth-reducing legislation.
I can't think through all the game-theoretic implications of these proposals (does the public value the process of democracy or the results? will "learning" occur and greater feats of governmental theater be required to provide the religious benefits of democracy?) and therefore I suspect my proposals may be shortsighted. However, these could be methods by which the mystical benefits of democracy could be separated from the wealth reducing realities often associated with democracy.
Caplan believes in objective moral truth? That's news to me although I know about him mostly from recent posts to overcomingbias. Links, as well as a brief rundown of what he believes are objective moral truths would be greatly appreciated.
It's really too bad that despite rejecting Objectivism Caplan still believes in objective moral truth. He asserts that people are likely to be irrational about morality as well as economics when they vote (as Huemer, his ethical inspiration, sort of does here). Caplan can give lots of evidence that voters are ignorant/irrational about objective economic/political facts (size of the budget, growth of the economy as a whole or in various sectors). As Hume's is-ought distinction showed, it is impossible to show any normative proposition to be correct or incorrect in such a manner. This leads me to believe in emotivism, but I would hope that the majority of those who do not (itself a very large majority) would still find Ramone's emulation of the drugged up crazy shaman to be laughable.
I thought of Kurzweils alter-ego before Tylers.Is Ramone by any chance related to Ramona?
Plinus: I am going to suggest "your vote is important" as a bias instilled by C (from my comment on the previous post). It's factual non-sense, but it still influences people with a higher IQ more than people with a lower IQ. The sort of people who instill their vote with mythical powers are pretty much a selection from the IQ 120 crowd. As intelligence falls the effects of crude propaganda tend to do so as well, so you get party-line voting in complete ignorance at IQ 100 and non-voting at IQ 80. What we would like to do is to keep your deeply deluded friend as deluded and informed as he is today while lowering the strength of the propaganda on the less "intelligent" (by which, in this case we mean the less gullible, sort-of) to the point where they act on their natural inclinations, which also coincide with their rational interests. So far as both groups are being hit by the same propaganda this will be difficult, but surely we could start by emphasizing a civic responsibility not to vote but rather to be an informed voter.
Plinius, I care less about people indulging in irrationality because it's cheap, then people not being competent to make rational decisions being allowed to do so. The reason some 16 year old males drive recklessly isn't because it's cheap for them to do so, but rather probably because a combination of inexperience and hormone balance puts them below the threshhold competency to drive with effective safety. I think it's reasonable to expect a basic competency from people who vote.
Deariene, sounds like good ideas. Although I'm particularly interested in comparing the effectiveness of jury system vs. expert systems. There must be a large body of literature on this already, as they are the two major forms of determining facts and liability in legal disputes in the developed world. I would think that expert systems are at the least equally effective to jury systems plus significantly more efficient (because to be equally effective, I'd think jury systems would be constantly correcting incompetent jury decision by presiding and appellate judges, which would be less efficient). I'm curious where the studies are, because I think they'd be damning to the jury system.
Also, existing jury competency requirements could be a model for voter competency requirements.
I copy this comment I left on the Econlog blog. Arnold Kling seems to agree with it, but I didn't get a response from Caplan:
"There is something that I don't understand in Caplan's argument. So people indulge in irrationality because it is cheap, and it is cheap because votes are very rarely decisive. But that's not what people believe: people are under the impression that their vote is crucial, in fact they often speak as if their one meager vote has mythical powers, e.g. "I'm going to vote Republican in the Senate, but Democrat in the House so has to have a split congress which ultimately will bring about the right kind of Republicans, etc...."So if biased beliefs are what matters, and people are under the impression that irrationality is costly, why aren't people more careful in their opinions?"
In fact let me add: if people really thought that their vote didn't count they wouldn't vote at all. Maybe, one way to salvage Caplan's argument is to say that the voice of people who don't vote is heard anyways through opinion polls and other media.
HA, may I suggest a way to study juries? You could look at the jury majority requirements and how they correlate with outcomes. For example, in Scotland an 8 vs 7 majority is enough (they have 15-man juries there), in England they settle for 10-2 if unanimity isn't reached, and I assume that in most of the US they still have the archaic English requirement of 12-0. Presumably the rest of the ex-British world has its own rules. You could also look at the qualifications required to be a juror. For instance, a property qualification was required in Britain until about 40 years ago.
It occurs to me that better governance theories could be tested by creating internet communities, giving them the same goal (such as grow to 1,000 active members within 6 months, or raise $500 for charity X within 6 months) but giving them different governance structures (all eligible can vote, vs. threshhold competent voting) and see how it affects their performance. Wouldn't be perfect, but could be instructive.
TGGP, I did write "possibly" ;-)
But my solution to the is-ought problem is that universe ought to be optimized to maximize my personal odds of persistence (MMPOOP) as a subjective, conscious entity. From my solipstic perspective, anything else would be absurd. Apparently empiricism and other contributing elements of the scientific method are the best currently available way to figure out how to optimize the universe to MMPOOP.
Hopefully Anonymous, how do we discover moral truths empirically? Have you solved the is-ought problem?
Jim,It may also be important to explore the possibility that there are no moral truths to be gotten from the voting trance (or that can't be gotten more efficiently through other means). I suspect this is a view Robin is partial to, and frankly I am as well. But it's a question that possibly can be answered empirically.
Robin,
Very true, my proposals deal with the trance itself and not the moral truths. I don't know how it is possible to deal with the truths in another modern institution besides the voting theater, but feel it is easy to replicate a harmless version of the theater.
Jim Outen,Potentially great ideas and good brainstorming, even if they don't address Ramone's claims directly. I think thinking about "methods by which the mystical benefits of democracy could be separated from the wealth reducing realities often associated with democracy" is important, particularly if perpetuating the "mystical benefits of democracy" in some way creates material benefits which haven't yet been rigorously empirically demonstrated.
Jim, Ramone was claiming we need the voting trance to gain the moral insight that helps us make good choices, not just on symbolic choices, but also on choices that have big effects.
A few quick ideas concerning Ramone's argument that we need democracy to fulfill religious-like functions, yet at the same time we as a society (presumably) wish to avoid wealth-destroying policies:
1. Marketize more aspects of life and make democracy more "expressive" via increased symbolic voting. I think of recent symbolic votes by Democrats as an example of behavior (non-binding resolutions against the war).
2. Create less meaningful legislation; pass actual legislation which does essentially nothing. The public recognizes that the Congress has "done something" by voting and deliberating.
3. Pass legislation that satisfies public concerns, but simply fail to enforce the potentially wealth-reducing legislation.
I can't think through all the game-theoretic implications of these proposals (does the public value the process of democracy or the results? will "learning" occur and greater feats of governmental theater be required to provide the religious benefits of democracy?) and therefore I suspect my proposals may be shortsighted. However, these could be methods by which the mystical benefits of democracy could be separated from the wealth reducing realities often associated with democracy.
Caplan's writings on philosophy can be found here. A pertinent piece, as you might guess from my previous post, is "The Is-Ought Problem".
Caplan believes in objective moral truth? That's news to me although I know about him mostly from recent posts to overcomingbias. Links, as well as a brief rundown of what he believes are objective moral truths would be greatly appreciated.
It's really too bad that despite rejecting Objectivism Caplan still believes in objective moral truth. He asserts that people are likely to be irrational about morality as well as economics when they vote (as Huemer, his ethical inspiration, sort of does here). Caplan can give lots of evidence that voters are ignorant/irrational about objective economic/political facts (size of the budget, growth of the economy as a whole or in various sectors). As Hume's is-ought distinction showed, it is impossible to show any normative proposition to be correct or incorrect in such a manner. This leads me to believe in emotivism, but I would hope that the majority of those who do not (itself a very large majority) would still find Ramone's emulation of the drugged up crazy shaman to be laughable.
Don't you mean "if the world assimilates Caplan's evidence Robin? Any guess as to how long that will take?
I would also see brute preference as a plausible response.
I thought of Kurzweils alter-ego before Tylers.Is Ramone by any chance related to Ramona?
Plinus: I am going to suggest "your vote is important" as a bias instilled by C (from my comment on the previous post). It's factual non-sense, but it still influences people with a higher IQ more than people with a lower IQ. The sort of people who instill their vote with mythical powers are pretty much a selection from the IQ 120 crowd. As intelligence falls the effects of crude propaganda tend to do so as well, so you get party-line voting in complete ignorance at IQ 100 and non-voting at IQ 80. What we would like to do is to keep your deeply deluded friend as deluded and informed as he is today while lowering the strength of the propaganda on the less "intelligent" (by which, in this case we mean the less gullible, sort-of) to the point where they act on their natural inclinations, which also coincide with their rational interests. So far as both groups are being hit by the same propaganda this will be difficult, but surely we could start by emphasizing a civic responsibility not to vote but rather to be an informed voter.
Plinius, I care less about people indulging in irrationality because it's cheap, then people not being competent to make rational decisions being allowed to do so. The reason some 16 year old males drive recklessly isn't because it's cheap for them to do so, but rather probably because a combination of inexperience and hormone balance puts them below the threshhold competency to drive with effective safety. I think it's reasonable to expect a basic competency from people who vote.
Deariene, sounds like good ideas. Although I'm particularly interested in comparing the effectiveness of jury system vs. expert systems. There must be a large body of literature on this already, as they are the two major forms of determining facts and liability in legal disputes in the developed world. I would think that expert systems are at the least equally effective to jury systems plus significantly more efficient (because to be equally effective, I'd think jury systems would be constantly correcting incompetent jury decision by presiding and appellate judges, which would be less efficient). I'm curious where the studies are, because I think they'd be damning to the jury system.
Also, existing jury competency requirements could be a model for voter competency requirements.
I copy this comment I left on the Econlog blog. Arnold Kling seems to agree with it, but I didn't get a response from Caplan:
"There is something that I don't understand in Caplan's argument. So people indulge in irrationality because it is cheap, and it is cheap because votes are very rarely decisive. But that's not what people believe: people are under the impression that their vote is crucial, in fact they often speak as if their one meager vote has mythical powers, e.g. "I'm going to vote Republican in the Senate, but Democrat in the House so has to have a split congress which ultimately will bring about the right kind of Republicans, etc...."So if biased beliefs are what matters, and people are under the impression that irrationality is costly, why aren't people more careful in their opinions?"
In fact let me add: if people really thought that their vote didn't count they wouldn't vote at all. Maybe, one way to salvage Caplan's argument is to say that the voice of people who don't vote is heard anyways through opinion polls and other media.
HA, may I suggest a way to study juries? You could look at the jury majority requirements and how they correlate with outcomes. For example, in Scotland an 8 vs 7 majority is enough (they have 15-man juries there), in England they settle for 10-2 if unanimity isn't reached, and I assume that in most of the US they still have the archaic English requirement of 12-0. Presumably the rest of the ex-British world has its own rules. You could also look at the qualifications required to be a juror. For instance, a property qualification was required in Britain until about 40 years ago.
It occurs to me that better governance theories could be tested by creating internet communities, giving them the same goal (such as grow to 1,000 active members within 6 months, or raise $500 for charity X within 6 months) but giving them different governance structures (all eligible can vote, vs. threshhold competent voting) and see how it affects their performance. Wouldn't be perfect, but could be instructive.