Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thomas Sowell interview

city-journal.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 457 posts

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#311

Post by deiznof »

vadansky wrote: post #306
deiznof wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people can't figure out how the 2008 crash connects to black people defaulting on loans and bankruptcy, they are not worth an edit.

Nah, you switched arguments mid stream without any reason or warning, besides that the crisis argument was easier to prove wrong than the parent's. CRA was introduced 43 years ago, the 2008 crisis was 12 years ago, there is no reason to link them today.

My entire point the whole way through was about Sowell being wrong about the CRA, and it literally doesn't matter when it was introduced. It was an example of anti discrimination legislation regarding loans that Sowell has directly commented on, what other example should I use?

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#312

Post by monocasa »

missedthecue wrote: post #268
monocasa wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that he's a professor, it's that he has a PhD in economics. The field of economics itself has given the stamp of approval that he both understands the field and has contributed in novel ways to it.

Kurt Wise has a PhD in paleontology from Harvard and is a young earth creationist. Again, just because someone has something on their resume does not therefore mean that they are correct.

The op isn't using the fact Wolff has a PhD in Economics as a argument that he's correct in everything he says, only that the claim that he "doesn't understand how markets work" is absurd on it's face.

Similarly, saying that Kurt Wise doesn't understand geology and paleontology when he has a PhD in the field and has contributed good science is pretty absurd.

Dismissing their claims lie in other arguments.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#313

Post by setgree »

mc32 wrote: post #51
kypro wrote: post #37

Thomas Sowell has had a huge impact on me and my views on economics. I'm from a poor working-class background and am often irritated by the needless language barriers of academics. > “Too many academics write as if plain English is beneath their dignity,” Sowell once said, “and some seem to regard logic as an unconstitutional infringement of their freedom of speech.” Sowell is unique in this respect. He's book, "Basi…

I wish other writers would take this to heart. Reading The New Yorker it’s as if their language is a shibboleth and if they didn’t use it, it would alienate their audience for using average language, yet they are the same people who pontificate and pretend they advocate for the lower classes.

I personally find much of the prose in the New Yorker clear, even inspiring. Especially w.r.t. its travel writing, I don't think any publication better captures the magic and the essence of the experience. [0] [1]

I also think Emily Nussbaum is a wonderful TV critic and more or less deserves credit for elevating TV criticism to equal status with art & movie reviews.

Having said that, I quite take your point and I am always pleased when a researcher takes the time to write clearly. It's a skill that needs to be practiced and developed, but unfortunately, for most academics, investing in that skill isn't obviously a good career choice.

[0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/how-prosperity...

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/the-enduring-r...

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#314

Post by _fq4v »

tptacek wrote: post #302
_fq4v wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> support for Donald Trump in 2016 (and after) Um no.. Sowell endorsed Ted Cruz in the primaries and wrote quite the scathing critique of Donald Trump: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/16/traged... In Sowell's own words: > Some seem to think that Donald Trump's lead in the polls and in the New Hampshire primary make him the most electable candidate, even if he often acts like an overgrown spoiled br…

He opposed Trump in the primaries, like many conservatives, and supported him in the general, like most conservatives. Supporting Trump isn't some weird mark of shame or anything; it's not my point that he's worth dismissing because he tolerates Donald Trump. Rather: he's worth dismissing because he has practically no interesting perspectives. He's a US-style right wing conservative in the most conventional possible…

> He opposed Trump in the primaries, like many conservatives, and supported him in the general, like most conservatives.

I feel using the final election to say someone 'supports' a particular candidate is not really a good metric in the American voting system. Primaries are better since there is more policy choice.

Obviously, Sowell would support Trump over Hillary even if he didn't like Trump as a candidate, or even if he thought Trump was not the best candidate. Sowell is very conservative, and believes in school choice, free market healthcare, deregulation, etc. Clinton didn't want any of that. Like many people, Sowell's 'support' of Trump (I don't believe he ever even endorsed him specifically) in 2016 (and likely in 2020) is a vote against the other candidate.

> but it does make him a weird topic for an HN discussion.

Why?

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#315

Post by vadansky »

deiznof wrote: post #311
vadansky wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, you switched arguments mid stream without any reason or warning, besides that the crisis argument was easier to prove wrong than the parent's. CRA was introduced 43 years ago, the 2008 crisis was 12 years ago, there is no reason to link them today.

My entire point the whole way through was about Sowell being wrong about the CRA, and it literally doesn't matter when it was introduced. It was an example of anti discrimination legislation regarding loans that Sowell has directly commented on, what other example should I use?

Parent's argument can still be correct even though the CRA did not cause the housing crisis.

Those are unrelated. The first argument might be correct and the CRA increases defaults by giving loans to people who can't afford them, and still there was a regulatory failure with firms rubber stamping bad debts as AAA and packaging them up in 2008.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#316

Post by Barrin92 »

rukittenme wrote: post #216
Barrin92 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He has a wikipedia. Try your best to read it. Sowell has published over thirty books, but I can find virtually no actual academic research. One of the last papers dates to the 60s, where he debates Marxism, but I think this is actually just a sort of philosophical treatise. He's repeatedly rejected modelling, mathematics and virtually every other econonmic tool, so to call him an economist is kind of a misnomer. And…

[flagged]

I'm not a neo-nazi, I'm personally not even conservative. But Schmitt is probably one of the most influential conservatives of the 20th century. He's not only influenced conservative thought but people ranging from Arendt, to Habermas, Strauss even Derrida among others. His writing on the state of exception or the friend-foe distinction had wide reach from theory to policy-making.

Meanwhile in US Conservatism you have people ranting about taxation being theft, I mean if that's the intellectual elite I don't know what's going on exactly.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#317

Post by [deleted] »

deiznof wrote: post #17

His economics are sound, but I often find that his takes on social issues are extremely reductionist. His social views a lot of the time are just standard conservative views (and wrong IMO), I wish he wasn't being praised for that. One example being his view on systemic racism, which he described as: “It does remind me of the propaganda tactics of Joseph Goebbels in the age of the Nazis, in which he was supposed to h…

[deleted]

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#318

Post by tptacek »

_fq4v wrote: post #314
tptacek wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He opposed Trump in the primaries, like many conservatives, and supported him in the general, like most conservatives. Supporting Trump isn't some weird mark of shame or anything; it's not my point that he's worth dismissing because he tolerates Donald Trump. Rather: he's worth dismissing because he has practically no interesting perspectives. He's a US-style right wing conservative in the most conventional possible…

> He opposed Trump in the primaries, like many conservatives, and supported him in the general, like most conservatives. I feel using the final election to say someone 'supports' a particular candidate is not really a good metric in the American voting system. Primaries are better since there is more policy choice. Obviously, Sowell would support Trump over Hillary even if he didn't like Trump as a candidate, or even…

Because they're same positions every mainstream conservative shares. They're the essence of what the guidelines refer to when they say "Off topic: most stories about politics".

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#319

Post by brightball »

jsonne wrote: post #139
brightball wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the book description on Amazon, I don't associate Constrained or Unconstrained with Conservative and Progressive respectively.

It's a great book and one you should truly read before passing judgement on. It's helped me rationalize the various current political and social issues in the US a lot as I've read it.

I'll definitely add it to my list. I've generally found that a healthy study of psychology and economics, along with a deep dive into US history has given me a fairly clear picture of where things are today, how we got there and noticeable forces at work in public messaging/trends.

Re: Thomas Sowell interview

#320

Post by willcipriano »

mancerayder wrote: post #276
nordsieck wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

A researcher having the tools to exclude a particular type of income that throws off a statistic is a different matter than that researcher having the knowledge of those tools or the lack of ideological bias required to use them.
Post reply on HN