Grand Openin', Grand Closin'
Bryan Caplan on Howard Hughes and mental illness.#
I am a big fan of psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (pronounced like the statistical program SAS). Szasz is notorious for his view that "mental illness is a myth" - which of course does not mean that self-destructive and anti-social behavior does not exist, but that "diagnoses" of mental illness are covert ethical judgments rather than scientific diagnoses.
[...]
Can we change a person's behavior purely by changing their incentives? If we can, it follows that the person's was able to act differently all along, but preferred not to; their condition is a matter of preference, not constraint. I will refer to this as the "Gun-to-the-Head Test." If suddenly pointing a gun at alcoholics induces them stop drinking, then evidently sober behavior was in their choice set all along.
He links his paper The Economics of Szasz (DOC), which I've just read and enjoyed immensely.
The Ultimate Israeli Wedding Guide#
15. The wedding night is a myth. Nobody has the energy.
Russell Roberts on liberalism and the importance of things other than the economy.#
Alex Tabarrok quotes from Choice: The Best of Reason on how government "protection" is more often discrimination against the poor, who don't have the same options for "misbehaviour".#
Faré writes about LISP syntax.#
In the end, when people attack the syntax of Lisp, it is most usually but a rationalization without any technical merit regarding the syntax itself. This rationalization serves to cover up a defense mechanism against a foreign culture. It's a protective reflex against the cost of having to actually learn something new and different. The problem about Lisp here is not directly related to technical factors, but only to the fact that Lisp culture is not mainstream.
I do not want to deny that there are some technical factors that do influence the way that cultures gain, keep or lose influence. My point is that technical factors play no direct role in the measured reaction of aversion to Lisp syntax. It's just like people used to an alphabet, be it roman, cyrillic, arabic, hebrew, thai, or whatever, who will feel at unease when reading texts in a different alphabet that they are not fluent with (and then there are non-alphabetic writing systems such as Chinese characters). This unease doesn't imply any great truth about the relative superiority or inferiority of any writing system and the languages that use it, as compared to other alternatives; this doesn't preclude any such superiority or inferiority either, in any of infinitely many possible distinct relevant comparison scales.
Dave Winer inspires me to suggest that Google is the new Church and Sergey is the Pope.#
I am Jack's Imaginary Tiger Friend#
Tyler Cowen on the lack of many conservative economics students.#
Congrats Gina Smith! Gina is the author of The Genomics Age, a great book.#
Tom Palmer explains his tattoos.#
Sheldon Richman links to Roderick Long's paper Anti-Psychologism in Economics: Wittgenstein and Mises.#
The paper centers on the question: Is illogical thought impossible?
The answer it promotes is: Certainly, if we defined "thought" as "that which is logical." A quote from Wittgenstein is revealing:
What is the difference between inferring wrong and not inferring? Between adding wrong and not adding?
This is, of course, applied to economics as a way of finding a logical basis for the applicability of the a priori laws of praxeology.
Long makes this comment when discussing money and what constitutes money -- i.e. not everything round and metallic or green and rectangular is money.
(After all, not all exchanges count as buying and selling; if I hand you an insulting note, and you respond by slapping my face, the note was not money that I was using to purchase the service of a slap—though a Martian anthropologist might not be certain.)
Bryan Caplan writes in Atlas Shrugged and Public Choice: The Obvious Parallels (DOC) on how Ayn Rand advances social science.#
Deroy Murdock on Libertarian Citizenship, his speech from Cato University 2004 (Summer.)#
Murray N. Rothbard: The Anatomy of the State#
Andrew Moroz reports on the stupidity of Russians:#
Excerpts of an article from The Australian about the new Russian fascination with Stalin, including quotes from a man in Moscow:
"Look, everyone makes mistakes."
"Stalin wasn't a saint, but he was a great man..."
"A man like Stalin is what Russia needs now."
A recent poll found that 50per cent of Russians consider Stalin a "wise leader", while one in four say they would vote for him if he were standing for office today.
Joey deVilla covers the insane Apple Motion Sensor hacking. I love it.#
I was thinking the same thing. I'd like to see one about "X-Gate."#
Dave Pollard: Creating a Post-Civilization Culture#
This link is not a joke.
You know you want to see two models demo an autonomous racing vehicle (MPG) from Axion Racing. Link via Lemonodor.#
Dave Winer announces something. I thought it was a joke.#
Paul Graham: How to Start a Startup#
Also, Viaweb's Last Press Release.