EconLog
Last substantive revision: 2015-01-20
Belief: possible
I really like EconLog a lot (mostly the posts on there by Bryan Caplan). Here I’ll maintain a list of posts I especially like on the blog1. Note that I don’t necessarily agree with what’s said in the posts below.
Family and natalism
- obviously his book, selfish reasons to have more kids.
- The Weird Reason to Have More Kids
- An Economist’s Guide to Happier Parenting
Information hygiene
Nerds
- Shy Male Nerds and the Bubble Strategy and Shy Male Nerds and the Bubble Strategy: Reply to Scott Alexander
Treating others (moral lessons)
aka caplan’s moral lessions, imparted unto the young!!
- My Life of Appeasement
The Futility of Quarreling When There Is No Surplus to Divide
what can you give your kids? quote about “treating your kids with love and respect”. judith rich harris quote that goes something like “you can’t really affect the life outcome of your wife either; so do you beat her or do you treat her with the kindness and respect she deserves?”
In Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, Caplan quotes Judith Rich Harris in her The Nurture Assumption:
People sometimes ask me, “So you mean it doesn’t matter how I treat my child?” They never ask, “So you mean it doesn’t matter how I treat my husband or wife?” and yet the situation is similar. I don’t expect that the way I act toward my husband is going to determine what kind of person he will be ten or twenty years from now. I do expect, however, that it will affect how happy he is to live with me and whether we will still be good friends in ten or twenty years.
Caplan’s advice?
Raise your children with love, control your temper, and enjoy family time. They’ll appreciate it when they’re children and fondly remember their happy home when they grow up.
And again:
Raise your children with kindness and respect. “I’m your parent, not you’re friend” is a reason to treat your kids better than their peers do, not worse.
charitability; protestant vs catholic
How I Raised My Social Intelligence, which has some great quotes:
In a useful conversation, […] there is a double coincidence of wants. You have to be interested in what I have to say; I have to be interested in what you have to say. This is an important reason why people with conventional interests seem more socially intelligent. Even if they don’t check whether their audience cares, it probably does.
Keeping friends is more important than getting your way. You should think twice before asking anyone for help. If you still think it’s a good idea, try to make your request easy to refuse. “How would you feel about…” is much better than “Please, please just do me this one favor!” In the short-run, of course, the pushy approach is often effective. But life is a repeated game, pushing leads to resentment, and your relationships are more valuable than almost any specific victory.
- Against Winning
How great America is (lol)
Amusing ethics of Caplan
Where Are the Pro-Life Utilitarians? is Caplan’s take on abortion. Well, actually he doesn’t really say if he believes the argument or not; it’s more of his “refutation” of utilitarianism.
“Parenthood as the Trump of All Past Regret”. The post begins: “I don’t regret anything in my life prior to the conception of my sons.”
Education
- his 2017 book: the case against education.
- In a Perfect World, I’d Call Myself a Sociologist
- Demagoguery Explained
Death and aging
Miscellaneous
I actually keep finding more and more articles from the Econlog archive that I like, so maybe I’ll have to group things by category.
Most of the posts here are also referenced in other parts of this site.↩
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