Consulting by RPM || Free Advice Blog

A Bit of Silliness

Something is really screwy with all of this cryptocurrency discussion. I feel as if a bunch of academics are “proving” that spaceflight is impossible.

To take but one example, Tyler Cowen has a long post saying that Bitcoin will collapse in price, where his argument seems to rely on one (or both) of the following premises:

(A) People would rather work for quarters than dollar bills, because you get more quarters per hour of labor.

(B) Somebody would sell me something for $400 knowing that it would be guaranteed to quickly rise (within a day or two) to $500.

I’m not saying Tyler is dumb. On the contrary, it would take someone really really sharp to write a long post resting on one (or both) of the above premises.

Last thing: I am NOT a cheerleader for Bitcoin. I am merely acting as a defense attorney, batting back what seem to me to be specious objections. (Plus Krugman says Bitcoin is evil, so there ya go.)

Paul Krugman Wants to Make Sense of Humor the Criterion

As Seinfeld would say, “I’m offended as a comedian.” Krugman now writes:

Matt O’Brien makes a funny about BitCoin — and the faithful are furious.

But then, they do seem to be a humor-impaired bunch. I’ve been getting rage-filled missives about the title of my last post on the subject. Folks, there’s this concept you may not have heard about, called a “joke.”

And it’s not just BitCoin. When I think about the various debates I’ve been engaged in over the past five years, what’s striking is how furious and huffy the other side gets when people like me use picturesque language to get a point across — “confidence fairy”, “zombie idea”, and so on. As in other matters, this is not symmetric. I get called a lot of names, but so what? The argument’s the thing.

Or maybe not, for some people. As the old lawyer’s line says, if the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if the law is on your side, pound the law; if neither are on your side, pound the table. I’d add: and demand “civility.”

In other words, I think that when one side in a debate lacks all sense of humor, and gets deeply offended when the other side cracks a joke, it’s an indicator of intellectual insecurity.

Now I could make this all about me, and bring up the time Krugman referred to my sushi article as having “puerile insults.” (???!!? Do you know how hard it is to pull off a joke about Cobb-Douglas production functions?!)

Or, I could bring up the time Krugman publicly refused to debate me, because apparently my shirtless Mike Myers impression was just a “public circus.” Noooo, when it’s Paul Krugman who’s the object of humor, then all of a sudden “the public interest isn’t served by turning this into entertainment TV,” and we need to settle debates over economic policy “on the issues.”

But that would just look like self-serving whining. The ultimate demonstration of Krugman’s hypocrisy on this point–where he has the gall to say “the other side” can’t take a joke and this proves intellectual insecurity–is this episode:

Is UPS Just as Bad as Healthcare.gov?

My latest at Mises Canada. An excerpt:

Paul Krugman is no stranger to silly statements that come back to haunt him, but it has been particularly amusing to watch him twist and turn with the debacles of Healthcare.gov, the website devoted to “ObamaCare.” Krugman’s latest analogy is nothing short of hilarious, but first let’s review the backstory.
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Since Krugman asked so nicely, I’ll explain to him why the UPS/Amazon debacle is not remotely analogous to Healthcare.gov…

I included a link to the following gem for the Canadian audience, but since so many of you had never seen the Internet prediction, let me shine a spotlight on it here:

A Brief Note on Christians and Homosexuality

[UPDATE: I edited some of the below to clarify my own position, separating it from some of the Christians whom I am criticizing.]

Especially with a certain television show’s antics, there have been recent flare-ups again in the culture wars, with some atheists (and unfortunately, some Christians) saying that Jesus wants His followers to use violence against gay people. Let’s put aside the question of whether Jesus views homosexuality as a sin, not because this is irrelevant to the broader culture war, but because it’s irrelevant to the very specific issue I am discussing.

The most obvious evidence is Jesus declining to cast stones at an adulteress, despite the Mosaic Law. Yet some people argue that this never happened, and was added later to the Bible.

OK what about the entire ministry of Jesus, in which He allowed a woman of dubious moral standing in the community to wash His feet (and then He forgave her of her sins), He ate with tax collectors, and when hearing the scandalized “upstanding” members of the community remark on His company, He replied, “They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” And finally, Jesus welcomes the repentant thief on the cross into paradise. This guy was a convicted criminal and admitted his guilt. Does that mean Jesus is OK with theft?

What’s particularly ironic to me in this culture war is that there are many Bible-believing Christian who think homosexuality is a (perverse) choice caused by difficult life events, and acting on this worldview they wag their fingers at gay people and say, “You are violating God’s laws, you’re going to hell.” But this is absurd, since according to their own perspective this will just make things worse, by amplifying feelings of guilt, shame, and fear of social condemnation.

No, the proper thing to do is point out that all of us are violating God’s laws; there is nothing special about gay people in this respect. We are all in desperate need of a Savior, who loves us just as we are and can offer us peace and feelings of acceptance and self-worth that no group of peers or neighbors can possibly provide.

Yes Virginia, the God of the Christian Bible Is Omniscient

In the comments of my last religious post, some people stated matter-of-factly that the Bible provides different views of God, and that anyone claiming God is omniscient is ignoring the text in favor of a preconceived philosophical notion of God.

No, that’s not correct. If you want to say, “God does some crazy sick stuff in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament,” OK fair enough; I’ve already admitted point-blank that some of those passages are the hardest things for me to understand about my faith. Or, if you want to say, “Give me a break, this stuff is physically impossible, why are we taking seriously a book written in different languages over thousands of years ago?” again I totally understand that. But, if you say matter-of-factly that the Bible doesn’t provide textual support for God’s omniscience (or another popular atheist claim, that Jesus “never said he was God”), then no, that’s just not true.

In the present post I’ll provide just a sampling, going through the Bible (using the King James translation):

==> First of all there are the prophecies, such as God’s promises to Abraham in Genesis and of course the entire Book of Revelation describing the end times. Thus from start to finish, the Bible shows that God has knowledge of exquisite details of the far-distant future. These aren’t generic statements like, “Energy will be conserved in the year 2834.” No, He is giving very specific descriptions of events. How can He do this if He’s not omniscient? It’s as if He’s the Alpha and Omega; oh yes, that’s exactly how He Himself describes it.

==> Job 42:2: “I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.”

==> Psalm 44:21: “Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.”

==> Proverbs 15:3: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.”

==> Jeremiah 1:5: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”

==> Luke 12:6-7: “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

==> John 21:17: “He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.”

==> Ephesians 1:4-5: “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will…”

==> Let me admit that there are certain passages in the Bible where–if you didn’t have the above to go on–you might think that God is fallible. But many of them are of the form of God asking questions. Yet clearly there are cases where He obviously knows the answer. For example, when God asks Cain where Abel is (whom he has murdered) and Cain infamously retorts, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” does anybody really think that in this story, God didn’t know the answer before He asked?

==> In case someone doubts me on the Cain exchange, try this one from John 18:4: “Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, “Whom are you seeking?”” (That’s the New King James translation.)

So how do we interpret that? One way is to say that the Bible is so contradictory, it can’t even stay on track within a single sentence. Another way is to say that Jesus sometimes asks questions of others even though He already knows the answer. Note that this isn’t some desperate attempt to salvage my position; normal parents and teachers use this technique all the time. Since the God of the Bible is depicted as our Father and Teacher, it shouldn’t be so problematic that He would ask questions even though He already knows the answers.

Introduction to the TPP

My cousin has been asking me if I’m up to speed on the dangers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I explained to him that Paul Krugman had just declared that the TPP was no big deal, so I assumed it must be awful, but no–I didn’t really know much about it. After reading some of the information he sent my way, I am glad he alerted me to this important issue; I can see why Dean Baker chastised Krugman for his nonchalance, though Baker and I are worried about (slightly) different aspects of it. In this post, I just want to “introduce” Free Advice readers to the TPP, to make sure you know why more and more people are warning about it.

Here’s Wikipedia’s opening description:

Since 2010, negotiations have been taking place[9] for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposal for a significantly expanded version of TPSEP. The TPP is a proposed trade agreement under negotiation by (as of August 2013) Australia, Brunei, Chile, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.[10]

The TPP is intended to be a “high-standard” agreement aimed at emerging trade issues in the 21st century.[11] On November 13, 2013, a complete draft of the treaty’s Intellectual Property Rights chapter was published by WikiLeaks.[12][13] This and other leaks have drawn criticism and protest of the negotiations from global health experts, internet freedom activists, environmentalists, organized labor, advocacy groups and elected officials, in large part due to the secrecy of the negotiations, the expansive scope of the agreement, and controversial clauses in the drafts leaked to the public.

The website The New American has a lot of good coverage of the TPP, but this essay from August 2013 is the single best one that gets one up to speed on some of the essential concerns. Here are some key excerpts (bold is mine):

The USTR [U.S. Trade Representative] “Fact Sheet” cites as evidence of its transparency efforts the number of consultations it has held with its selected trade advisory committees and privileged “Civil Society stakeholders.” It states, for instance:

Over the course of the TPP negotiations, USTR has conducted more than 147 meetings with the trade advisory committees. Since June 11, 2010, USTR has posted 110 TPP documents to a website for cleared trade advisors to review and provide comments.

This transparency boast actually exposes a dangerous feature of the TPP process: The TPP documents are not available to the average American citizen, only to “cleared trade advisors.” And who are the “cleared trade advisors”? According to the USTR, these are “representatives from industry, agriculture, services, labor, state and local governments, and public interest groups.” But, apparently, that does not include elected representatives of the American people, since members of Congress have been forced to plead, and threaten in order to get a peep at the secret TPP texts.

For instance, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, requested copies of the TPP draft documents but was stonewalled by the USTR. When Senator Wyden threatened to propose a measure in the Senate that would force transparency on the proc­ess, the USTR agreed to grant the senator a peek at the documents, though his staff was not permitted to see them. This type of secretive process has no legitimate place in our system of government, and it obviously puts Congress at a distinct disadvantage in the TPP process, since the real work of examining the detailed legal texts normally falls to congressional staff members who are often experts in particular areas of domestic and foreign policy.

Wyden spokeswoman Jennifer Hoelzer…pointed out, “An advisor at Halliburton or the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] is given a password that allows him or her to go on the USTR website and view the TPP agreement anytime he or she wants.”
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As just one example of the enormous dangers that are lurking in the hundreds (or thousands) of pages of still-secret texts, consider the leaked TPP draft text on intellectual property that would threaten Internet freedom — as well as American sovereignty — with new TPP surveillance requirements. As The New American reported last year, the leaked document would mandate that TPP member nations enact regulations that require Internet service providers (ISPs) to privately enforce copyright protection laws. “Current U.S. law,” noted The New American’s Joe Wolverton, “specifically the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), would be supplanted by TPP Article 16.3. This provision in the TPP draft document paves the way for a new copyright enforcement scheme that extends far beyond the limits currently imposed by DMCA.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out the TPP threat to Internet freedom:

Private ISP enforcement of copyright poses a serious threat to free speech on the Internet, because it makes offering open platforms for user-generated content economically untenable. For example, on an ad-supported site, the costs of reviewing each post will generally exceed the pennies of revenue one might get from ads. Even obvious fair uses could become too risky to host, leading to an Internet with only cautious and conservative content.

The net effect would be to squeeze out the smaller, independent ISPs, further cartelizing our communications and news media, and eventually wiping out the burgeoning alternative Internet-based news media.

I’ll be returning to this topic in the future, but I wanted to at least make my readers aware of the controversy. The Obama Administration is seeking to restore “fast-track approval” powers on this, which would allow an up-or-down vote on the whole TPP without discussion of its individual components.

As a final point in this introductory post, let me say this: The problem with these “free trade” agreements is that some critics rely on centuries-old protectionist fallacies; they are afraid of “cheap imports.” Anyone familiar with Bastiat understands why such worries are misplaced.

However, those of us who believe in genuine free trade shouldn’t trust government officials when they title something a “free trade” agreement. It doesn’t take years of backroom negotiations to reduce tariff rates. No, something is really fishy with this TPP and other such deals.

God’s Character

On the Sunday posts lately there has been a lot of sarcastic commentary about the supposedly awful character of God. Among other things, He is accused of murder, since (after all) if human rulers did some of the things He does, they would be murderers.

I have said this before, and don’t recall anyone even trying to answer the point, let alone refute it: If the God described in the Christian Bible exists, then every moment of existence is in perfect accordance with His will. He doesn’t “intervene” in order to wipe out the Egyptian firstborn children, then hang back in the shadows and let Nature take its course for everybody else. No, every person who has ever lived will die exactly when and how God dictates. So if He’s a murderer vis-a-vis the Pharaoh’s oldest kid, then He’s also a murderer vis-a-vis His own Son and someone who dies in his sleep at age 103 in the rest home.

The nature of God (as depicted in the Christian Bible) is so radically different from ours, that it’s difficult to evaluate His actions from our framework. For example, we have a common saying that one shouldn’t “play God.” What does that mean? It means humans shouldn’t be meddling in things that are the domain of God. It’s OK for God to play God, but it’s not OK for humans. Now you can disagree with the specific areas of action for which this saying has been deployed; presumably someone at some point said taking aspirin was “playing God.” But I’m pointing out the nature of the expression itself.

But you know what? If Christianity is true, then we do know exactly what God would act like, if He were one of us. That person is Jesus Christ, and even few atheists will complain about His character. They can say He’s a myth or that the gospel accounts contradict each other, but few people deny the exquisite excellence of His moral fiber.

Merry Christmas as we celebrate the greatest gift of all time.

The Greatest Challenge to Pacifism

It’s not anything involving US foreign policy, since it’s easy to come up with plausible objections/alternatives to mass bombing, regardless of the horrors allegedly being rectified. Nope, for me the greatest challenge comes from something like this:

I certainly don’t want my son thinking that the way to deal with bullies is to beat the crap out of them, but nonetheless I’m rooting for Ralphie.