Thanks, Helen, much appreciated, but especially so as I've been enjoying your work for some time. You provide an important voice as a thoughtful classical liberal who understands the common law legal tradition and who regularly integrates its insights into broader debates.
As someone who came to classical liberalism through economics, and then later added philosophy, when I finally got to the classical liberal legal tradition I found that it offered a sophisticated foundation that is rarely understood by non-specialists. Often economically and philosophically oriented libertarians alienate people with generalizations (e.g. simplifications of "consent") which have been thoroughly addressed in common law by a nuanced literature based on centuries of precedents. In a truly efficient market in ideas, mountains of argument between libertarian and lefty economists and philosophers would also be informed by legal scholars who would add considerable nuance and pragmatism to the debate.
The first half of your piece reminded me strongly of the thought-processes I went through as an undergraduate in the (odd, but effective) Australian system for training young lawyers. All my law subjects were fine, not a hint of politics, and I have to say I benefited greatly from my legal education, both economically & professionally. I’ve paid mountains of taxes in my life so HMGov & AusGov have also done pretty well out of me.
However the amount of sheer unadulterated nonsense I was taught in various humanities and social science subjects still annoys me 30+ years on. I still resent having to lie in assessment to get good results. Much of what I was taught was simply false, in exactly the way you describe.
I remember making most of the arguments outlined in the piece linked below (especially the first couple) in tutorials, against brain-dead academics who would genuinely misspell “cat” and forget their times tables—and I made them as a 17-and-18 year-old.
"However the amount of sheer unadulterated nonsense I was taught in various humanities and social science subjects still annoys me 30+ years on. I still resent having to lie in assessment to get good results. Much of what I was taught was simply false"
The fact that these falsehoods continue decade after decade is inexcusable. The University of Austin is a start, but we need to change the incentive structure of knowledge production if we want to stop the madness. The latest such example is Wendy Brown, by all conventional measures an illustrious Stanford professor with a long list of accolades who wrote the introduction to the new translation of Marx. She is an unreconstructed Marxist in 2024, yet at the pinnacle of academic prestige,
This is like teaching phlogiston or geocentrism or creationism or the evidentiary incapacity of non-monotheists in STEM or law.
The problem in the universities is far more serious than disclosed thanks to the currently popular complaints about wokery. Entire disciplines are so riddled with falsehoods they are beyond worthless—they’re actual wastes of everyone’s time & money.
I'm also a strong supporter of Betting Markets, but I'm extremely pessimistic about their chances of success in America.
Most moral Americans are opposed to gambling in principle, even as our country increasingly legalizes and expands sports betting
I was arguing with a friend yesterday about a social issue & I offeredy my standard $1 wager & he freaked out. My wife's also instinctively opposed to gambling.
Even if they'd admit the value of putting their wallet where their mouth is, they'll oppose betting.
Even when I point out that most of active investing is just glorified betting, they won't change their minds.
Active investing or hedging is similar to gifting & other deliberately ambiguous social institutions that cover the naked facts with obscuring fig leaves to make people more comfortable.
So -- how much of this is a problem with the word 'bet'? Do you think we could get them onboard if we talked about wagers? 'Wage' is already overloaded as 'salary' and in expressions such as 'to wage war'? What if we called them 'quantitative predictions' or 'quantitative speculation'? Or 'epistemic markets'? Can we lift a page from the insurance business and start asking that academics _underwrite_ their opinions?
On some level, choosing alternative descriptions is about optics, spin, & marketing so as long as the average person doesn't think of 'Quantitative Markets' as betting, you're ahead.
Of course creating a distinct jargon risks making evaluating 'Quantitative Markets' into such a specialized skill/job (like active investing) that the average person doesn't think of it as just betting on whether your prediction is true.
Kalshi's legalization makes me optimistic. With all of these things, it is likely to be three steps forward, two steps back. But I've been watching prediction markets for twenty years, and while we would all like to see more rapid progress, they have moved from the esoteric margin to a fairly mainstream thing, at least among rationalist intellectuals.
This is a fascinating and insightful piece. Thank-you (sent here via Arnold Kling).
Thanks, Helen, much appreciated, but especially so as I've been enjoying your work for some time. You provide an important voice as a thoughtful classical liberal who understands the common law legal tradition and who regularly integrates its insights into broader debates.
As someone who came to classical liberalism through economics, and then later added philosophy, when I finally got to the classical liberal legal tradition I found that it offered a sophisticated foundation that is rarely understood by non-specialists. Often economically and philosophically oriented libertarians alienate people with generalizations (e.g. simplifications of "consent") which have been thoroughly addressed in common law by a nuanced literature based on centuries of precedents. In a truly efficient market in ideas, mountains of argument between libertarian and lefty economists and philosophers would also be informed by legal scholars who would add considerable nuance and pragmatism to the debate.
The first half of your piece reminded me strongly of the thought-processes I went through as an undergraduate in the (odd, but effective) Australian system for training young lawyers. All my law subjects were fine, not a hint of politics, and I have to say I benefited greatly from my legal education, both economically & professionally. I’ve paid mountains of taxes in my life so HMGov & AusGov have also done pretty well out of me.
However the amount of sheer unadulterated nonsense I was taught in various humanities and social science subjects still annoys me 30+ years on. I still resent having to lie in assessment to get good results. Much of what I was taught was simply false, in exactly the way you describe.
I remember making most of the arguments outlined in the piece linked below (especially the first couple) in tutorials, against brain-dead academics who would genuinely misspell “cat” and forget their times tables—and I made them as a 17-and-18 year-old.
https://josephheath.substack.com/p/key-stages-in-the-decline-of-academic
"However the amount of sheer unadulterated nonsense I was taught in various humanities and social science subjects still annoys me 30+ years on. I still resent having to lie in assessment to get good results. Much of what I was taught was simply false"
The fact that these falsehoods continue decade after decade is inexcusable. The University of Austin is a start, but we need to change the incentive structure of knowledge production if we want to stop the madness. The latest such example is Wendy Brown, by all conventional measures an illustrious Stanford professor with a long list of accolades who wrote the introduction to the new translation of Marx. She is an unreconstructed Marxist in 2024, yet at the pinnacle of academic prestige,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Brown
Not coincidentally I suppose, her spouse is Judith Butler.
This is like teaching phlogiston or geocentrism or creationism or the evidentiary incapacity of non-monotheists in STEM or law.
The problem in the universities is far more serious than disclosed thanks to the currently popular complaints about wokery. Entire disciplines are so riddled with falsehoods they are beyond worthless—they’re actual wastes of everyone’s time & money.
You had me at “Richard Cantillon!” All of the thinkers you mentioned deserve a read, ESPECIALLY Cantillon!
I'm also a strong supporter of Betting Markets, but I'm extremely pessimistic about their chances of success in America.
Most moral Americans are opposed to gambling in principle, even as our country increasingly legalizes and expands sports betting
I was arguing with a friend yesterday about a social issue & I offeredy my standard $1 wager & he freaked out. My wife's also instinctively opposed to gambling.
Even if they'd admit the value of putting their wallet where their mouth is, they'll oppose betting.
Even when I point out that most of active investing is just glorified betting, they won't change their minds.
Active investing or hedging is similar to gifting & other deliberately ambiguous social institutions that cover the naked facts with obscuring fig leaves to make people more comfortable.
So -- how much of this is a problem with the word 'bet'? Do you think we could get them onboard if we talked about wagers? 'Wage' is already overloaded as 'salary' and in expressions such as 'to wage war'? What if we called them 'quantitative predictions' or 'quantitative speculation'? Or 'epistemic markets'? Can we lift a page from the insurance business and start asking that academics _underwrite_ their opinions?
On some level, choosing alternative descriptions is about optics, spin, & marketing so as long as the average person doesn't think of 'Quantitative Markets' as betting, you're ahead.
Of course creating a distinct jargon risks making evaluating 'Quantitative Markets' into such a specialized skill/job (like active investing) that the average person doesn't think of it as just betting on whether your prediction is true.
Kalshi's legalization makes me optimistic. With all of these things, it is likely to be three steps forward, two steps back. But I've been watching prediction markets for twenty years, and while we would all like to see more rapid progress, they have moved from the esoteric margin to a fairly mainstream thing, at least among rationalist intellectuals.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/12/business/kalshi-political-betting-prediction-market/index.html
They track compliance, indicate knowledge, and say nothing of understanding. Credentials are not the way.