Potpourri
==> When researchers point out all of the uncertainties in our current models guiding us on climate change policy, are they the good guys or the bad guys? It depends what year it is, as I explain in my latest IER article.
==> My latest Mises.org article on Austrian vs. mainstream Law & Econ on product safety.
==> A very interesting article from Dan Sanchez on the Joker and Jordan Peterson.
BMS ep. 67: Walter Block and Bill Barnett Critique the Hayekian Triangle
Here is the standard audio, and I’m now experimenting with releasing select episodes on my YouTube channel:
The Mindset of a Pharisee
Check out this interviewer trying to nail Jordan Peterson. When JP explains how his work has helped countless young men escape drug addiction and suicide, the guy doesn’t bat an eye (or challenge JP to see if he’s exaggerating). He just moves on to the next rhetorical trap.
(And no, just because I’m saying this is how the Pharisees behaved, I’m not saying “Jordan Peterson is Jesus.”)
God the Teacher
I was looking at the reaction on Facebook to Bernie Sanders’ hospitalization. Someone wrote, “I hope he dies and burns in hell” (or something like that).
It really struck me: I do not at all think God operates in such a crude fashion. I am happy for people to post Bible verses that apparently endorse this conception of the afterlife; I’ve seen very good rebuttals to the ones I knew about.
(BTW here’s a book challenging the idea that the writers of the Bible think of Hell the way we do.)
Try it this way: Start by imagining your ideal 3rd grade teacher. Can you possibly imagine if her reaction after an altercation between students would be to inflict physical punishment on the one in the wrong? (Or both, if they were both in the wrong.) And furthermore, can you possibly imagine if what she did to the “bad student” was WAY WAY WORSE than what he had done? Because in the conventional interpretation, Hell is the worst thing imaginable. So if God sends you to Hell, then He (by construction) is giving a punishment worse than the crime.
Now if you are with me so far, do this: Think through why you answered the way you did, in the paragraph above. Does it involve things like: The teacher is much stronger than the 3rd graders, she is much smarter, she is much wiser, more mature…?
Finally, notice that for each of the reasons you cited, that is also true of God vis-a-vis us, by times infinity.
Does it really sound plausible that because some guy advocated socialism, that God is going to torture him for eternity? That makes no sense at all.
Why Johnny Depp Was the Good Guy, and Morgan Freeman the Bad Guy, in the 2014 *Transcendence*
My latest episode on the Bob Murphy Show.
Deep Thoughts on Capital Theory
In the latest Bob Murphy Show I talk to Nicolas Cachanosky about his work (often with Peter Lewin)…
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