HlynkaCG
old man yelling at clouds
2yr ago·Edited 2yr ago
I hadn't seen that bit from Caplan before. So thank you. My familiarity with him comes mostly from his stuff on government and open borders where his views seem to skew much closer to Singer's. One of his bug-bears in the Myth of the Rational Voter is the "irrational bias" against various global economic metrics in favor of localism. In essence, complaining about how people seem to care more about their jobs than the increase in net global utility GDP that could be achieved by outsourcing those jobs to China/India.
I don't harbor much love for Caplan nor do I agree a great deal with his proposals (and e.g. his debate with Scott wrt the economic incentive model of mental illnesses was... asinine). It is not clear how he resolves this issue. Probably he accepts the fundamental premise of increasing utility, particularly in the narrow sense of multiplying total material/financial wealth, the domain where this framework is most applicable; but as a libertarian (and not-wholly-insane-person) he balks at the generalized conclusion where even intentional murder becomes justified.
Alternatively, he may disapprove of Singer's remarkable openness on this topic.
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Notes -
I hadn't seen that bit from Caplan before. So thank you. My familiarity with him comes mostly from his stuff on government and open borders where his views seem to skew much closer to Singer's. One of his bug-bears in the Myth of the Rational Voter is the "irrational bias" against various global economic metrics in favor of localism. In essence, complaining about how people seem to care more about their jobs than the increase in
net global utilityGDP that could be achieved by outsourcing those jobs to China/India.As for the rest, consider it endorsed.
I don't harbor much love for Caplan nor do I agree a great deal with his proposals (and e.g. his debate with Scott wrt the economic incentive model of mental illnesses was... asinine). It is not clear how he resolves this issue. Probably he accepts the fundamental premise of increasing utility, particularly in the narrow sense of multiplying total material/financial wealth, the domain where this framework is most applicable; but as a libertarian (and not-wholly-insane-person) he balks at the generalized conclusion where even intentional murder becomes justified.
Alternatively, he may disapprove of Singer's remarkable openness on this topic.
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