Potpourri
Note, when I travel I end up saving multiple web pages in my phone’s browser. So I decided on my last trip that I need to clean these out when I’m back at a computer. That’s why some of the links below are pretty old.
==> I think two episodes of Contra Krugman have posted since I last updated you folks. In Ep. 152, Tom and I push back on Krugman’s praise for Nancy Pelosi. (Incidentally, I referred to Pelosi’s infamous “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it” remark. She did in fact say that, but a defender would argue that in context, it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.) In Ep. 153, I was on the road so Tom brought Peter Klein and Gene Epstein on, to discuss Elizabeth Warren’s proposal to make large corporations more socially accountable.
==> Alex Tabarrok explains how Airbnb is moving towards “smart property.”
==> Regarding the utterly over-the-top tributes to John McCain, check out this essay by Tom Woods. It’s one of the best things (word for word) I’ve seen from Tom.
==> Steve Landsburg has the best “hey this is unique” take on Sarah Jeong I’ve seen. He is exactly right. Jeong’s infamous “Are white people genetically disposed to burn faster in the sun, thus logically being only fit to live underground like groveling goblins?” tweet is not at all analogous to the Andrew Sullivan piece she was criticizing. In fact, if you were going to make something analogous, it would go like this: “Yes, white people are genetically disposed to burn faster in the sun, but–OF COURSE–this doesn’t mean they should be treated as lesser members of society. However, it would be counterproductive to try to deny this scientific fact about their skin, giving ammunition to people who wanted to treat them differently because of biology.” Of course, if Jeong had tweeted that, nobody would have called it racist against white people (since it wouldn’t have been).
==> Back in April, Steve Horwitz laid out the basics of Leland Yeager’s “monetary disequilibrium” framework.
==> John Cochrane has a very simple thought experiment to show that the conventional wisdom on stock buybacks is wrong. Yes, when a company buys outstanding shares of its own stock, there is one force that pushes up the stock price. But there is another force that pushes down the stock price–namely, the company’s available cash goes down. In the simplest analysis, those two effects should exactly cancel out. Since in practice it seems that the practice pushes up stock prices, it must be for a more subtle reason.
==> Don Boudreaux points out the absurdity of (one of) Nancy MacLean’s criticisms of Buchanan.
==> An interesting thought experiment from Nick Rowe that makes you think through your intuitions on immigration and wages.
==> Greg Mankiw back in December followed up with Krugman’s (and DeLong’s) continued claims that he and others had made a basic math mistake. No, he hadn’t; even the expert that Krugman/DeLong relied on, admitted Mankiw hadn’t done so.
==> Back in January, Scott Sumner said we should focus on building “unaffordable” housing. Even on his own terms, I disagree with his post. Does anybody care about this issue enough to want me to write it up?
==> David R. Henderson, commenting on Bryan Caplan’s wager against Tyler Cowen, points out something really basic that I had somehow never considered before: You can use arbitrage to rule out predictable movements in prices only in certain contexts. In particular, it’s not a violation of the EMH to say, “I predict that oil prices will fall substantially over the next few years.” The reason is that time only flows one-way. (To be clear, I myself have endorsed analyses about prices falling over time, but when I read Tyler challenging Julian Simon-esque logic using the EMH, the point David made didn’t immediately come to my mind.)
==> More attempts by Establishment Economists (TM) to make the official narrative that the financial crisis was due to timidity by the Federal Reserve.
==> In his own respectable, plausible-deniability sort of way, Tyler Cowen gives the blueprint for the decline and fall of the American empire.
My Thoughts on Jordan Peterson’s Take on the Bible
Rory writes (and gives permission for me to quote):
I did want to ask though, what your opinion on Jordan Peterson is in regards to Biblical literalism. From your writings and your appearance on Steve Patterson’s podcast it would seem you believe in Biblical literalism. You have also seemingly spoken approvingly about not only Jordan Peterson, but his biblical interpretations, yet as I understand him he appears to be at the very least agnostic as to the literal truth of the Bible. The message I get from him is not only is the Bible what might be called thematically, morally, and/or metaphorically true (the stories it contains reflect greater metaphysical truths about our reality without the stories themselves being historically accurate), but that the Bible being literally true is completely unimportant compared to it being metaphorically true. I may very well be mistaken in one or more of the statements above.What I don’t mean to say in all this is that you are being inconsistent. This does though seem like a foundational issue in faith, and I’m simply interested – if and when your schedule permits – in how you view JP on this issue.
This is a great question. I’m still working through JP’s 12 Rules and so my understanding of his position may be incomplete. However, I’ve listened to all of his (posted at his podcast) audio lectures on the Bible, so I think I have a pretty good idea of where JP is coming from.
My personal position is that I think the Bible is the Word of God. That is, I think God inspired certain people to write down what was eventually compiled into the thing we call the Bible. So if you ask me, “Is the Bible true?” then I would say yes, it contains the most important truths ever penned.
In particular, I think there really was a historical man “Jesus” who walked around giving amazing sermons and healing people miraculously of their sickness. I think this man was executed on a cross, and that he was medically dead, and then came back to life. I don’t think these are metaphors or exaggerations; I think these events literally happened. As I explained when quoting Paul to rebut the claim of a skeptic, my faith rests upon the historical fact of the Resurrection. If Jesus were just some nice man who taught people wise precepts and spun memorable tales, then Christianity collapses.
Notwithstanding all of the above, I am open to apologists who reconcile apparent contradictions in the gospel accounts by saying they were sincere eyewitness testimonies, and sometimes even in modern times sincere eyewitness testimonies contradict each other in minor details. Also, if the book of Jonah says the reluctant prophet was swallowed by a “huge fish,” while Jesus says it was a whale (in the King James translation, at least), I am fine in saying that the ancient writer might not have been versed in our modern biological taxonomy.
Now when it comes to the opening lines of Genesis, I am much more flexible. It’s because whoever wrote the book (let’s say it was Moses, seeing a vision from the Holy Spirit) obviously wasn’t there to witness it directly. (Even Adam wasn’t created until after everything else.) So my faith in the accuracy of the Bible doesn’t rest on the material universe being created in six 24-hour days. If some secular scientists at Adler Planetarium made a video to showcase the origin of the universe and life on earth, and then showed it to Moses and asked him to write down what he saw, he wouldn’t be talking about dark energy and he wouldn’t comprehend what the narrator of the documentary meant by the timescales.
Switching now to Jordan Peterson: He thinks the good life rests on the proper balance between order and chaos. We need to pay proper respect to the social hierarchies and other institutions we inherit from our ancestors, because they evolved into their current form for a reason. On the other hand, we can’t be utterly subservient to tradition.
Regarding the Bible, Peterson is in awe of the wisdom it contains. He can spend 2 hours dwelling on the significance of Cain killing his brother Abel out of envy and spite. Peterson thinks you can learn a lot about human nature from studying this tale. (John Steinbeck did too, by the way, which is why he wrote the amazing novel East of Eden.)
In JP’s worldview, if the Bible stories were merely fanciful tales (like the story of Paul Bunyan), then they wouldn’t be so popular and enduring. Also, if they were merely the opiate of the masses, designed to keep the people docile while they were being fleeced by the ruling class, then you’d expect them to be cheerier. (Consider the character Moses in Animal Farm and the simplistic promises he gives the other animals who are suffering, first under the humans and then under the pigs.)
So it’s true that JP doesn’t think the literal accuracy of the Bible stories is important. On that account, I disagree, especially when it comes to the crucial questions of Jesus’ identity and accomplishments. However, JP himself (especially in interviews) I believe–and someone correct me if you think I’m misremembering his statements–says stuff along the lines of, “Jesus was probably a historical man, who came as close as possible to fulfilling human potential in pursuing the highest end with singleminded discipline. If you want to know just how much better your life could be, and how much you could accomplish if you put your heart and soul into the pursuit of The Good as you define it, then Jesus is your role model.” (Again, this isn’t even me trying to quote him, I’m just paraphrasing and lumping together a bunch of statements I think I heard him say when people ask him about Jesus.)
I have also learned a great deal about early Bible stories from listening to JP. Even though this is incredibly obvious in retrospect, it had never occurred to me before that sacrifice is simply a bargain with time. So although the notion of sacrificing animals in order to appease the gods strikes us as barbaric and unscientific, the idea of reducing consumption today in order to expand consumption in the future is pretty basic economics. If there were a God trying to teach His chosen people how to achieve success on earth, then getting them to appreciate sacrificing even choice possessions in pursuit of something higher is a pretty good lesson.
Finally, the supreme benefit of JP in this realm is that he gives permission to intellectuals to study the Bible. I know of one person who came to Jesus partly through listening to JP’s lectures on the Bible. It’s not that JP himself gave an altar call, of course, but rather that listening to a brilliant academic like JP spend so much time analyzing the Bible showed that the normal prohibition–“You can safely disregard this irrational book of myths that has done nothing historically except justify oppression”–was wrong. Once someone is willing to consider the Bible without that veto threat hanging overhead, the invitations from genuine Christian believers are more palatable.
The Power of Faith
I am sure I’ve commented on this before, but I recently read the following with my son and wanted to share. This is from the beginning Mark 6:
6 He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. 2 And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? 3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. 4 And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” 5 And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. 6 And he marveled because of their unbelief.
This is an amazing passage, particularly when we couple it with all the examples of Jesus performing a miracle and then saying, “Your faith has healed you.”
Now on the one hand, I don’t want to draw too sweeping a conclusion from this. God created the universe de novo, and Jesus rescued us even when we were dead to sin, so I don’t want to say, “God literally can’t help you if you don’t work with Him.”
Even so, I think the above excerpt teaches us much about how the world works. Even in a purely secular context, can’t you identify with this? I bet the hardest crowd for a rock star or professional magician would be the people they went to high school with.
Potpourri
==> The latest Lara-Murphy Show is on stumbling blocks Carlos and I encountered when learning IBC.
==> Tom and I debate Bitcoin (is it fiat?) at the end of this episode.
==> Glenn Greenwald documents how MSNBC is an arm of the Democratic establishment.
==> I haven’t had a chance to read, but David Andolfatto on heterodox vs. orthodox monetary theorists.
==> At IER, I tried to come up with an analogy to show what’s wrong with the claims about how much a carbon-tax-and-dividend program would “benefit” typical households:
Warren Buffett and the Milkshake Tax
Just to make sure my basic point goes through, let me use an even more exaggerated analogy: Suppose in an effort to crack down on obesity, the federal government levied a $325 million tax on milkshakes, to be enforced with draconian severity. Clearly, just about nobody in America would drink milkshakes anymore. However, suppose that every year, Warren Buffett (perhaps as part of a publicity stunt, or just to be funny) bought and drank one single milkshake on national television, and paid the huge “milkshake tax” afterwards. The government would then take the milkshake tax revenue, and send an equal dividend check of $1 to all 325 million Americans.
Now in this exaggerated example, defenders of the tax could truthfully say: “The average family of four will gain $4 every year from the milkshake tax.” This is because they wouldn’t pay any of the tax (since they would buy 0 milkshakes), and each person in the household would get $1 from Warren Buffett’s annual contribution.
But clearly, most Americans would not be happy with this scheme. In exchange for “gaining” $1 per year, they would never again get to enjoy a milkshake.
Was Jesus Just a Myth?
I meant to post this Sunday but I am traveling…
In a recent potpourri post, Scott Alexander says:
Gwern reviews On The Historicity Of Jesus. Short version: the prose is annoying, but the case that Jesus was completely mythical (as opposed to a real teacher whose deeds were exaggerated) is more plausible than generally supposed. Please read the review before commenting about this topic.
I was all excited to sink my teeth into an articulate, well-researched challenge to my worldview. But see for yourself. Literally the only actual claim in the review that I can even evaluate was this one involving Paul:
Combined with the old observations about the extensive euhemerism of mystery cult figures (along with more documented recent examples of religions emerging & retroactively historicizing their ‘founders’), complete with detailed sober historical biographies of demigods we know never existed in any way, the almost total absence of any mention of Gospel events inside Paul’s (heavily-edited) letters despite extensive opportunities for allusions while instead talking about Jesus and his martyrdom by demonic “archons” in ways highly suspiciously consistent with a celestial Jesus (with the best mention being the very vague “brother of the lord” which would be good if Christianity hadn’t made a fetish of family tropes and titles and used those sorts of terms quite indiscriminately)…
(In the quotation above, I’ve included the beginning of the sentence just to give a flavor of the review.)
So like I said, that was literally the one claim that I could even parse, and understand how it was a challenge to the historicity of Jesus. The only problem is, Paul says stuff like this (from 1 Corinthians 15):
Now I would remind you, brothers,[a] of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
The Resurrection of the Dead
12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope[b] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
So I think it’s fair to say that Paul does the exact opposite of what the book reviewer claims. He refers to gospel events, and in fact bases the Christian faith itself on the historical fact that Jesus died and rose again.
I realize I have a dog in this fight, but I am astonished that Scott Alexander pointed his readers to such a nonsensical book review on a rather important topic. I am happy to hear pushback on this.
Kick the Tires
Hey kids, I had somebody fix some of the obvious problems with the website, such as the Category Search function (on the left). Does anybody notice anything that he might have “broken”?
(BTW check out the category I used for this blog post. Oh I’m such a clever cat.)
Potpourri
==> In the latest Contra Krugman, I finally tell Tom he is officially an economist.
==> I don’t think I did anything with it at the time, but Scott Horton refers me to a leftist who blew up Paul Krugman’s whitewashing of U.S. empire.
==> The world of Trump is so upside down, that the NYT publishes Walter Block–and I mean a piece by him, not a hit piece on him.
==> Steve Patterson, fresh from overturning mathematics, turns his attention to the (alleged) abuse of a priorism in economics. I think a lot of his post at best just nitpicks some economists who might be sloppy in their presentation, but eventually he got to (what I think) is a pretty solid point when he argues:
Imagine that the following were true:
“When the minimum wage increases, it changes the self-image of employees. They view themselves as being higher-quality workers and raise their productivity levels accordingly.”
If that were true, then an increase in the minimum wage could, in fact, increase employment. The increased productivity of workers could make their employers more money, which means the employers could afford to hire more people.
Notice that this is not a ceteris paribus scenario. The minimum wage would change, causing another variable to change: the ideas of employees.
So the question is this: do we live in a world where increasing the minimum wage changes the ideas of workers so that they are more productive?
It’s an empirical question.
Now, I personally don’t think we live in such a world. (Or if we do, the gains in productivity are not sufficient enough to offset the additional costs of employment.) However, I didn’t arrive at those conclusions through a series of logical deductions. I’ve observed the world, and I don’t think that’s the one we live in.
“God in the Hands of Angry Sinners”
I thought that was an amazing phrase. I have not listened to this particular sermon, but I wanted to post this as I am heading out of town. However, I heard him (perhaps in another sermon; someone else was playing it on her computer) preaching on these points, and I thought it was a very interesting perspective. For example, in the one I overheard, he challenged the view you will often get from conventional preachers, where it comes off as if God the Father is getting ready to send everyone to hell but then Jesus gets His angry Dad to calm down. Kruger argues that this view is at odds with the Trinity.
Of course, if some of you think he is misstating Scripture, feel free to challenge him in the comments.
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