Good Entropy

Socialism and Human Nature. Critics of socialism claim that because… | by Ben Burgis | Arc Digital

This certainly sounds like Marx sees the butcher, the brewer, and the baker — or, rather, the self-managed workers at the collectivized slaughterhouses, breweries, and bakeries of the socialist future — being motivated in the “duration and intensity” of their work by the hope of material rewards. Of course, he envisioned this changing as socialism evolved into its next phase, but this too is easily misunderstood by those who are reading the line quoted by Pinker out of context.

This “next phase stuff” is carrying too much weight. 

I would argue that we can have socialism and incentives. It’s unlikely that workers in a democratic economy would feel the need to incentivize anyone by paying them 287 times what others were paid — the average pay differential between workers and CEOs last year in the United States — but this doesn’t mean they’d settle on completely flat pay scales either. If anything, they might reverse some of the inequalities we’re accustomed to under capitalism.

But the cart is in front of the horse. You pay for what is produced, not pay and reap all that is produced. This is in the vein of central economic planning as talked about by Hayek.

Maintaining Eye Contact While Talking Overwhelms the Brain

Research indicates that eye contact, while powerful, is quite taxing on our brains.

Are We Living in Crazytown? – Reason.com

In response to the tensions within Vox, senior foreign editor Jennifer Williams tweeted, “The Harper’s letter is revealing a deeper issue: Do we judge opinions/arguments on their merits or on who makes them? Does signing a letter mean you endorse the letter? Yes. Does it mean you also endorse the opinions of those who also choose to sign it? That’s the question here.”

A Letter on Justice and Open Debate | Harper’s Magazine

The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.

Coronavirus & Panic Buying: There Is No Such Thing As Price Gouging | National Review

Denying that a thing is worth what another person is willing to pay for it is like denying gravity.

The Art of Dying | The New Yorker

His charisma bleached the identities of his five children.

She was, and remains, a constant reader without a trace of intellectual curiosity.

Still, people I know will roll their eyes—same old Peter!—at how little of their deserved shrift they’re receiving from me here as, alone, I linger again with my lifelong lover: you, reader.

Advice to aspiring youth: in New York, the years that you spend as a nobody are painful but golden, because no one bothers to lie to you. The moment you’re a somebody, you have heard your last truth.

What Is Third-Wave Antiracism? – The Atlantic

Add in the tendency to let pass certain wrinkles in the fabric as “complex”—the new religion, as a matter of faith, entails that one suspends disbelief at certain points out of respect to the larger narrative. Beyond a certain point, one must not press too hard when asking a priest why God allows bad things to happen to good people. In the same way, one must not ask, “If black people are strong survivors, then why do they disallow the utterance of the N-word even in referring to it rather than using it?” And if one does dare to ask, the answer is inevitably heavier on rhetoric than reasoning. Antiracism requires one to treat the word as taboo—blasphemous—in all its manifestations and go in peace, as it were.

Students Selling Notes, Part 2 – Econlib

the argument from the important book, Markets Without Limits (2015), by Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski. They claim that if something is moral when you do it for free, that same thing cannot be immoral if you do it for money.  In other words, if there is no moral problem with the thing itself, then no moral problem is introduced by market exchange.

The Deadly Boredom of ‘A Meaningless Life’ – Quillette

This is one reason why so many people now feel unmoored. As Canadian science fiction writer Donald Kingsbury eloquently put it in his novel Courtship Rite, “Tradition is a set of solutions for which we have forgotten the problems. Throw away the solution and you get the problem back.”

Is Hayek’s Moral Vision Compatible with Democracy? – Quillette

He contends that free trade and modern Capitalism emerged in the 18th century only after such virtues were superseded by self-interest. This explains, he says, why Capitalism is maligned by ill-informed people who wrongly insist that it’s vital for a well governed society to actively promote policies that insure fairness, equity, and social justice.