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Thomas Sowell interview

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Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#271

Post by hajile »

tshaddox wrote: post #221
rayiner wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ask a liberal or a saltwater economist, “What would somebody on the other side of this divide say here? What would their version of it be?” A liberal can do that. A liberal can talk coherently about what the conservative view is because people like me actually do listen. We don’t think it’s right, but we pay enough attention to see what the other person is trying to get at. The reverse is not true. You try t…

> many conservatives were once liberals, while the reverse is typically not true. Is there any data to support that claim? It’s the opposite of my own personal anecdata.

Most young people of "political age" (over 16 or so) in the 60s, 70s, an 80s were to the left. Today, those older demographics tend to swing to the right. I suppose you could make the case that Democrats die earlier than Republicans, but I doubt that is what's happening here.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#272

Post by deiznof »

vadansky wrote: post #264
deiznof wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OH MY GOD... The OP brought up that Sowell said that anti discrimination legislation increased defaulting and bankruptcy. Thomas Sowell literally wrote an entire article blaming CRA about 10 years ago. I brought up how Sowell is wrong because studies show that he is wrong.

So even though you quoted one argument, you posted a document to prove a whole other argument wrong, never bothering to bring up that the other argument you just proved wrong. I still don't know what other argument you proved wrong, did Sowell go on record saying the CRA caused the 2008 housing crisis?

Yes, as I said he literally wrote an article about it. I literally cannot understand how you can't connect Sowell's claim that anti-discrimination legislation (like CRA) is bad to my argument.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#273

Post by jkhdigital »

sradman wrote: post #15
z9e wrote: post #2

I’ve been reading a lot of his books lately, I cannot recommend enough. He does take a conservative approach to a lot of topics but the way he breaks things down helps you understand why. His book Basic Economics taught me more than any economics classes did in school.

> He does take a conservative approach to a lot of topics... Sowell's book A Conflict of Visions: Idealogical Origins of Political Struggles [1] is, ironically, a very good starting point in understanding what makes Sowell "conservative" (the Constrained Vision) vs "progressive" (the Unconstrained Vision). I think this is the work that impressed Steven Pinker. The categories get really messy, for example when he desc…

Bryan Caplan also wrote a widely-circulated critical essay about A Conflict of Visions: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/sowell

I agree with some of the criticisms, but in general I think the dichotomy of the two visions is appropriate for explaining why two individuals may irreconcilably disagree on a particular issue at a given point in time.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#274

Post by vadansky »

deiznof wrote: post #272
vadansky wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So even though you quoted one argument, you posted a document to prove a whole other argument wrong, never bothering to bring up that the other argument you just proved wrong. I still don't know what other argument you proved wrong, did Sowell go on record saying the CRA caused the 2008 housing crisis?

Yes, as I said he literally wrote an article about it. I literally cannot understand how you can't connect Sowell's claim that anti-discrimination legislation (like CRA) is bad to my argument.

Can you post a link? I'm honestly under the suspicious you just posted a PDF you did not read, or knowingly knew did not back up your arguments but hoped no one would read the 25 pages to find out.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#275

Post by auganov »

djrobstep wrote: post #245
auganov wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't even say that much. It simply ridicules proponents of wealth redistribution for sometimes calling those opposed "greedy", while they themselves are being "greedy" in going after other people's money. Whether taxes are okay isn't discussed.

It's not "other people's money" in the first place, that's the point. Packed into that notion is the idea it rightfully or originally belongs to the rich. It doesn't. It rightfully belongs to the poor who need food and healthcare.

Well, if you believe that all money one might have control over belongs to the poor (or somebody else) then I guess that's fair. But that's a pretty uncommon belief.

In that way there's nothing special about the quote because most people generally recognize private ownership in everyday speech.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#276

Post by mancerayder »

nordsieck wrote: post #163
chmod600 wrote: post #145

One important impact he had on my thinking is that he rejects groupings of people based on snapshots in time. For instance, it is very common to use income as a proxy for your economic success, and then to group people into quintiles, calling the bottom quintile "the poor". It seems reasonable, but it's wrong enough to lead to very wrong conclusions. A college student living on their own will appear to be a "poor hou…

> A college student living on their own will appear to be a "poor household", even though many are likely to be in the top quintile later on in their life. A great example from the other side of the spectrum is house sales: Anyone who needs to move and owns a house typically sells their house and buys a new one. During that year, they'll sometimes show up as having extremely high income. Depending on how often they m…

I don't know if that's true. A house sale goes on a Schedule D, which gets pulled into Gross Income. I don't think Gross Income is what's used in those income calculations in the stats being discussed here?

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#277

Post by Corazoor »

alexarnesen wrote: post #117
wry_discontent wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For this community? Das Kapital. For something less rigorous and more accessible, probably something by Richard Wolff, but I'm not familiar enough w/ his writings to recommend anything specific.

I see you recommended the heavy work, not just the propaganda pamphlet - good. I haven't read Das Kapital and I should. However... My question: an oft repeated refrain, when Marx is touted as a reasonable alternative, is that any time anyone tried his ideas out, it was a total disaster (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez). I have watched some Wolff on Youtube, as well as other lectures on Marxism, because I'm interested an…

As others have already stated, "Das Kapital" itself is a study and criticism of capitalism, and does not present much in terms of alternatives or "solutions".

It is worth noting that both Marx and Engels were in favour of democracy, even going as far as saying that the actual means of production should be democratized. Both would probably be appalled by what became of their theories under Stalin and Mao...

Also, as Marx got older he got less and less political active, there is even a letter where he refused to be seen as a leading figure of the communist movement. Das Kapital is from this later period of his life, and subsequently very scant on noneconomic politics...

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#278

Post by deiznof »

tengbretson wrote: post #192
SantalBlush wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically is he right about? Why do we require evidence when someone says he is wrong, but we do not require evidence for the numerous times in this thread where people say his book is “required reading”? First, everyone here who likes Sowell can put forth specific, concrete examples where he is right, instead of making vague statements about how brilliant he is and then demanding evidence only when someone d…

> First, everyone here who likes Sowell can put forth specific, concrete examples where he is right, instead of making vague statements about how brilliant he is and then demanding evidence only when someone disagrees. Why? The positive argument already exists. It's Sowell's writing. What are you asking for a cliff's notes? The disagreement you're talking about must obviously stem from something in the source materia…

It exists for economics exclusively, he has never proven himself in regards to social issues to be anymore than a common twitter conservative.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#279

Post by harshreality »

SantalBlush wrote: post #129
pjc50 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well exactly - it's a phrase that seems to cover so many different situations it's meaningless without further qualification.

I think it’s a formula for poisoning the well. First, make vague complaints about conformism and “cancel culture.” Then, anyone who disagrees with you from that point must clearly be a conformist who approves of cancel culture.

Vague?

First of all, we can omit anything dealing with real sexual harassment, abuse, or obvious discrimination by people in power; although I think the social witch hunt phenomenon of things like #metoo is problematic, I'm not going to defend any of the people caught up in that kind of thing. So I think it's fair to exclude people like Lawrence Krauss, Louis CK, and definitely people like Harvey Weinstein.

That leaves us with people cancelled for ideological reasons because of things they've said or written, because that ideology is felt to have a chilling effect on anyone interacting with them.

James Watson: cancelled

Tim Hunt: cancelled for sexist joke

Lawrence Summers: cancelled

Bret Weinstein: cancelled (from Evergreen, at least)

Erika Christakis: quasi-cancelled (left Yale voluntarily a year after the Halloween incident).

J. K. Rowling: ongoing attempted cancellation[1] due to being a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF), despite the fact that she didn't seem to be exclusionary at all, and definitely nothing at all like Camille Paglia who is more definitively a TERF.

Among numerous others. Including that PR rep who was fired within the span of her plane trip to Africa after making a racial joke about HIV on her personal twitter account.

That's to say nothing of people who would be cancelled if today's culture were transported back in time. Starting with William Shockley, and extending to a large number of notable historical figures.

[1] For some tweets and later elaborated on in a blog post, all detailed here: https://www.glamour.com/story/a-complete-breakdown-of-the-jk... . Basically, her crime seems to be an attempt to frame her experience and sexuality around her biological gender.

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