How do international examples fit into your idea that woke is civil rights law. Countries like Canada and Australia seem as or more woke than America. Do you think US laws influence Canadian and Australian laws, and then their legal systems impact culture and corporations? Or is that American culture is so globally dominant and alluring that woke is exported and implemented in these other countries despite a weaker legal underpinning?
What are your thoughts on artificially raising IQ through genetic engineering or embryo selection? Should this be something that governments should promote? Will it ever become mainstream?
Absent some very substantial political concessions in the West Bank, this is just “mowing the grass.” The political concessions will be hard to sell with the Israeli public and it is not obvious the Palestinians will actually buy them anyways. Even then, you need a long term commitment from both sides which, again, is not obvious will materialize.
I didn’t really like Hanania’s essay on the Gaza siege, but I’ve come to think that forcing the displacement of Gaza Palestinians is probably the solution most likely to stick.
I’d like to add that, as far as I understand it, Israel tried concessions in Gaza (settlement withdrawal), it didn’t solve the issue quickly enough, and the inevitable incident made them turn the screws back on. So they went back to an unstable “mowing the grass” equilibrium that is just tolerable enough to not force a solution, until it’s not.
That’s the thing with the political solutions, they require long term commitment that is very scarce when both sides have a finger on the trigger. As I said, normal counter-terrorism policy is what brought the issue to this point. Zack’s ideas without the political settlement are nothing new.
Israel/Gaza highlights a western or maybe human problem. We don’t like things that just are what they are. There is no solution to this problem. Gaza will continue as an open air prison, breeding desperate radicals & Israel will continue invading every 5-10 years to wipe them out and restart the cycle. Egypt, Jordan, Israel, SA all want Gaza to go away. The only group beyond Gazans that want them is Iran and Iran wants them as cannon fodder. Second choice is what? Massive deportations (and who is taking these people), brutal physical occupation, or what? There is no other option. It just sucks and we can’t come to terms with that.
I also disagree with the Vox piece. Israel will never make the West Bank fully independent. It’s too close to Tel Aviv. The country isn’t defendable with a strong West Bank. It’ll all just keep going like it is because 2nd choice is worse.
Splitting 2 million people in between the West, Egypt, and a Gulf monarchy or two doesn’t seem impossible to me. Azerbaijan went for ethnic cleansing in Karabakh and nobody raised substantial opposition. I am pretty sure Israel has a better lobbying operation than Azerbaijan does.
What is your writing process? Do you have any idea how many hours you spend per article on average? Do you ever change the intended trajectory/goal post of an article because you're not sure how to conclude it?
In your case for aid to the Ukrainian war effort, you argued for it on the grounds that it upholds international norms about not unilaterally annexing sovereign states’ territory by force. At what point should we conclude that we’ve done what is feasible towards that end and admit that there’s not much more to do? It seems nearly impossible for the Ukrainians to dislodge the Russians militarily given the extent of the fortifications, attrition rates, artillery quantities, and the inability for control of the air. Under what conditions should we say that we’ve upheld norms by making the cost of breaking them so high even if some territory is annexed? The US decided after 8 years to abandon the South Vietnamese and provided them enough aid to continue the fight independently for two years but ultimately pulled the plug on aid after deciding its credibility had already been proven by the long commitment. Do you foresee any conditions under which it can be said that the credibility of international norms has been upheld and concessions can be accepted?
What would US foreign policy look like if it was completely dictated by Richard Hanania? Would you withdraw all US bases? Would there be military aid given to anyone? Would you leave the UN? Would you try to abolish UNRWA and move it to UNHCR (see Wilf and Schwarz). Would you leave NATO? Who would you sell weapons to? Who would you give weapons to?
However, the JPost article doesn't link the actual study. Whether or not they accurately describe it, another Lebanese public opinion poll seemingly found somewhat less extreme results.
>ب. حماس هي التي بدأت الحرب واستهدفت المدنيين وبالتالي يحق لاسرائيل الرد بالطرق التي تراها مناسبة"
>74.0% عارضوا ان "حماس هي التي بدأت الحرب واستهدفت المدنيين وبالتالي يحق لاسرائيل الرد بالطرق التي تراها مناسبة" مقابل 24.0% ايدوا هذه العبارة.
> B. Hamas started the war and targeted civilians, and therefore Israel has the right to respond in the ways it deems appropriate."
>74.0% of respondents disagreed that "Hamas started the war and targeted civilians and therefore Israel has the right to respond in the ways it deems appropriate" compared to 24.0% who supported the statement.
If I'm reading the table correctly, those who supported the statement, included 0% of Druze (sample size apparently 12), 6.7% of Shia, 25.4% of Sunnis, and 42% of Christians.
Presumably those who think Israel has a right to respond however it sees fit are a subset of the those who oppose the attacks, and would constitute significantly more than 24% of Lebanese people, which would be less surprising than the results of the poll you cited.
Can anyone critique https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/089533002760278686? The interpretation in the paper is that IQ contributes minimal explanatory power to the tendency for kids of high income or wealth people to have a high income or wealth. (I’m not sure whether they mean income or wealth.)
Thank you for turning me on to Mansour. You said, if I remember correctly, that you and he would probably disagree about the causes of the prevalence of bad ideas in the Middle East. Can you say more about why that is?
Has your view of low-skill immigration been impacted at all from talking with Garett Jones? I find his argument in Hive Mind that low IQ migrants produce negative externalities (less cooperation, less savings, more socialist voting patterns) to be pretty convincing.
What are your thoughts on mental illness? Do you think the rise of it in recent decades can be attributed mostly to environmental factors (i.e. social media) or is it mainly a result of over-medicalizing feelings and behavior that we didn't used to treat? To what extent does genetics predict how likely a person is to be mentally ill? Finally, how does your own experience with anxiety and depression influence your views?
Following the October 7th attack in Israel, there have been numerous protests calling for a ceasefire in cities around the world. In countries like the UK, Germany, and Australia, these protests seem to be made up mostly of Muslims, and a lot of the protests tend to be antisemitic in some way, whether by comparing Israel to the Nazis or by calling for more violence against Israel (the twitter account Harry's place, https://twitter.com/hurryupharry, documents such cases in the UK). Also, a poll described by Zach Goldberg seems to show more consistent support for anti-Israeli violence among Muslims in Gaza than among Christians in Gaza (https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1723126815554703850). This has led some commenters, eg. Douglas Murray, to argue that Western countries need to accept much less Muslim immigrants and to actively deport those engaging in pro-Hamas protests (https://twitter.com/triggerpod/status/1720903283902910725).
My question is: if you accept my framing (and you may not!), do you think it provides evidence against your writing on diversity and immigration? Should, for example, Western countries be much less willing to accept immigrants who are Muslim while still be open to non-Muslim immigrants? Or is this an issue that can be dealt with by political institutions in said Western countries pro-actively policing Muslim immigrants while still accepting them?
Not a question per se, but given your interest in the dynamics of populism, you might want to look into the case of Pieter Omtzigt.
Omtzigt is a Dutch politician, who broke with the centrist christian democrat CDA, to found his new, centrist christan democrat NSC. He is fundamentally decent, a bit awkward (refuses to go on quick-paced talkshows or multi-people debate, saying it's uncomfortable for him), an autistic econometrician who makes long-winded speeches on the particularities of incentive misdesigns in the welfare state, and error ranges in policy-relevant pollution models or purchasing power estimates, and argues for political caution, slow and diligent policy review, etc.
Yet, he is massively popular with "the people", taking many votes from the populist left and right, being seen as a hero of the common man, channeling populist energies into a centrist technocratic reform movement, without using populist antics.
He is leading the polls and is likely to become the Netherland's new prime minister.
It puzzles many to see the "riff-raff" be enamored with a geeky, provincial , stiff introvert. The guy is no show, all earnestness. However, the one thing that he shares with more typical anti-establishment politicians is a deep-rooted distrust, sometimes on bordering on paranoia. He always wants to see "all the files", requests tons of internal government documents. Bitterly complains if he doesn't get it, or get its too late or with parts being kept confidential. He gets ministers to commit to tight timelines, then scolds them when they don't make it. He lets them publicly agree on very high standards for transparency, then scolds them when they breach those.
His reinforces the notion that "There Is Something Fundamentally Wrong With The Way This Country Is Governed", but doesn't put the blame at "The Elites" or any particular demography, but keeps his focus on "The Hague", on particular processes of governance and decision-making. It's a style of politics that smart and educated people can buy in to. He has created an aura of moral impermeability and intellectual superiority. Left-wing media don't know how to handle it, they snivel about his "messias complex". They really don't like losing the moral and intellectual highground.
It seems to me these are bad times for libertarians; i.e., Republicans have largely abandoned the free market, Democrats seem less interested in civil liberties and peace. Have you noticed any encouraging developments for those of us who lean libertarian?
How do international examples fit into your idea that woke is civil rights law. Countries like Canada and Australia seem as or more woke than America. Do you think US laws influence Canadian and Australian laws, and then their legal systems impact culture and corporations? Or is that American culture is so globally dominant and alluring that woke is exported and implemented in these other countries despite a weaker legal underpinning?
Not Australia according to https://lawliberty.org/australia-says-no/.
US voters reject wokism too whenever it’s put to them. Californians famously voted down affirmative action in two referenda.
What are your thoughts on artificially raising IQ through genetic engineering or embryo selection? Should this be something that governments should promote? Will it ever become mainstream?
What do you think of Beauchamp's piece here, advocating constructive solutions to what Israel should do? You've worried that smart liberals have been failing to provide solutions to Israel's problem other than the status quo--but Beauchamp has a solution that he argues for at length. https://www.vox.com/2023/10/20/23919946/israel-hamas-war-gaza-palestine-ground-invasion-strategy
Absent some very substantial political concessions in the West Bank, this is just “mowing the grass.” The political concessions will be hard to sell with the Israeli public and it is not obvious the Palestinians will actually buy them anyways. Even then, you need a long term commitment from both sides which, again, is not obvious will materialize.
I didn’t really like Hanania’s essay on the Gaza siege, but I’ve come to think that forcing the displacement of Gaza Palestinians is probably the solution most likely to stick.
I’d like to add that, as far as I understand it, Israel tried concessions in Gaza (settlement withdrawal), it didn’t solve the issue quickly enough, and the inevitable incident made them turn the screws back on. So they went back to an unstable “mowing the grass” equilibrium that is just tolerable enough to not force a solution, until it’s not.
That’s the thing with the political solutions, they require long term commitment that is very scarce when both sides have a finger on the trigger. As I said, normal counter-terrorism policy is what brought the issue to this point. Zack’s ideas without the political settlement are nothing new.
Israel/Gaza highlights a western or maybe human problem. We don’t like things that just are what they are. There is no solution to this problem. Gaza will continue as an open air prison, breeding desperate radicals & Israel will continue invading every 5-10 years to wipe them out and restart the cycle. Egypt, Jordan, Israel, SA all want Gaza to go away. The only group beyond Gazans that want them is Iran and Iran wants them as cannon fodder. Second choice is what? Massive deportations (and who is taking these people), brutal physical occupation, or what? There is no other option. It just sucks and we can’t come to terms with that.
I also disagree with the Vox piece. Israel will never make the West Bank fully independent. It’s too close to Tel Aviv. The country isn’t defendable with a strong West Bank. It’ll all just keep going like it is because 2nd choice is worse.
Splitting 2 million people in between the West, Egypt, and a Gulf monarchy or two doesn’t seem impossible to me. Azerbaijan went for ethnic cleansing in Karabakh and nobody raised substantial opposition. I am pretty sure Israel has a better lobbying operation than Azerbaijan does.
What is your writing process? Do you have any idea how many hours you spend per article on average? Do you ever change the intended trajectory/goal post of an article because you're not sure how to conclude it?
I noticed a Nintendo Switch in the background of one of the CSPI videos – much to my surprise. What do you play for games?
In your case for aid to the Ukrainian war effort, you argued for it on the grounds that it upholds international norms about not unilaterally annexing sovereign states’ territory by force. At what point should we conclude that we’ve done what is feasible towards that end and admit that there’s not much more to do? It seems nearly impossible for the Ukrainians to dislodge the Russians militarily given the extent of the fortifications, attrition rates, artillery quantities, and the inability for control of the air. Under what conditions should we say that we’ve upheld norms by making the cost of breaking them so high even if some territory is annexed? The US decided after 8 years to abandon the South Vietnamese and provided them enough aid to continue the fight independently for two years but ultimately pulled the plug on aid after deciding its credibility had already been proven by the long commitment. Do you foresee any conditions under which it can be said that the credibility of international norms has been upheld and concessions can be accepted?
What would US foreign policy look like if it was completely dictated by Richard Hanania? Would you withdraw all US bases? Would there be military aid given to anyone? Would you leave the UN? Would you try to abolish UNRWA and move it to UNHCR (see Wilf and Schwarz). Would you leave NATO? Who would you sell weapons to? Who would you give weapons to?
Hey Richard, I hope this is an appropriate place for this: you linked (https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1719455484699431017) a Lebanese public opinion poll (https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-770959) showing extremely widespread support for the October 7 attack.
However, the JPost article doesn't link the actual study. Whether or not they accurately describe it, another Lebanese public opinion poll seemingly found somewhat less extreme results.
The latter poll, which is found here: https://www.lebanonfiles.com/articles/%d8%ae%d8%a7%d8%b5/%d8%a5%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%b7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%b9-%d9%84%d9%84%d8%b1%d8%a3%d9%8a-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%a7%d9%85-%d8%ad%d9%88%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b1%d8%a8-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%ba%d8%b2%d8%a9-%d9%88%d9%85/
Found among other things that:
>ب. حماس هي التي بدأت الحرب واستهدفت المدنيين وبالتالي يحق لاسرائيل الرد بالطرق التي تراها مناسبة"
>74.0% عارضوا ان "حماس هي التي بدأت الحرب واستهدفت المدنيين وبالتالي يحق لاسرائيل الرد بالطرق التي تراها مناسبة" مقابل 24.0% ايدوا هذه العبارة.
> B. Hamas started the war and targeted civilians, and therefore Israel has the right to respond in the ways it deems appropriate."
>74.0% of respondents disagreed that "Hamas started the war and targeted civilians and therefore Israel has the right to respond in the ways it deems appropriate" compared to 24.0% who supported the statement.
If I'm reading the table correctly, those who supported the statement, included 0% of Druze (sample size apparently 12), 6.7% of Shia, 25.4% of Sunnis, and 42% of Christians.
Presumably those who think Israel has a right to respond however it sees fit are a subset of the those who oppose the attacks, and would constitute significantly more than 24% of Lebanese people, which would be less surprising than the results of the poll you cited.
You might’ve inverted the responses. If only 24%agreed with that statement, the % who support Israeli reaction is likely <24%
Nice to see 42% of Lebanese Christians say that.
Can anyone critique https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/089533002760278686? The interpretation in the paper is that IQ contributes minimal explanatory power to the tendency for kids of high income or wealth people to have a high income or wealth. (I’m not sure whether they mean income or wealth.)
Thank you for turning me on to Mansour. You said, if I remember correctly, that you and he would probably disagree about the causes of the prevalence of bad ideas in the Middle East. Can you say more about why that is?
Has your view of low-skill immigration been impacted at all from talking with Garett Jones? I find his argument in Hive Mind that low IQ migrants produce negative externalities (less cooperation, less savings, more socialist voting patterns) to be pretty convincing.
What are your thoughts on mental illness? Do you think the rise of it in recent decades can be attributed mostly to environmental factors (i.e. social media) or is it mainly a result of over-medicalizing feelings and behavior that we didn't used to treat? To what extent does genetics predict how likely a person is to be mentally ill? Finally, how does your own experience with anxiety and depression influence your views?
Thanks.
Following the October 7th attack in Israel, there have been numerous protests calling for a ceasefire in cities around the world. In countries like the UK, Germany, and Australia, these protests seem to be made up mostly of Muslims, and a lot of the protests tend to be antisemitic in some way, whether by comparing Israel to the Nazis or by calling for more violence against Israel (the twitter account Harry's place, https://twitter.com/hurryupharry, documents such cases in the UK). Also, a poll described by Zach Goldberg seems to show more consistent support for anti-Israeli violence among Muslims in Gaza than among Christians in Gaza (https://twitter.com/ZachG932/status/1723126815554703850). This has led some commenters, eg. Douglas Murray, to argue that Western countries need to accept much less Muslim immigrants and to actively deport those engaging in pro-Hamas protests (https://twitter.com/triggerpod/status/1720903283902910725).
My question is: if you accept my framing (and you may not!), do you think it provides evidence against your writing on diversity and immigration? Should, for example, Western countries be much less willing to accept immigrants who are Muslim while still be open to non-Muslim immigrants? Or is this an issue that can be dealt with by political institutions in said Western countries pro-actively policing Muslim immigrants while still accepting them?
Thank you in advance!
Hi Richard,
Not a question per se, but given your interest in the dynamics of populism, you might want to look into the case of Pieter Omtzigt.
Omtzigt is a Dutch politician, who broke with the centrist christian democrat CDA, to found his new, centrist christan democrat NSC. He is fundamentally decent, a bit awkward (refuses to go on quick-paced talkshows or multi-people debate, saying it's uncomfortable for him), an autistic econometrician who makes long-winded speeches on the particularities of incentive misdesigns in the welfare state, and error ranges in policy-relevant pollution models or purchasing power estimates, and argues for political caution, slow and diligent policy review, etc.
Yet, he is massively popular with "the people", taking many votes from the populist left and right, being seen as a hero of the common man, channeling populist energies into a centrist technocratic reform movement, without using populist antics.
He is leading the polls and is likely to become the Netherland's new prime minister.
It puzzles many to see the "riff-raff" be enamored with a geeky, provincial , stiff introvert. The guy is no show, all earnestness. However, the one thing that he shares with more typical anti-establishment politicians is a deep-rooted distrust, sometimes on bordering on paranoia. He always wants to see "all the files", requests tons of internal government documents. Bitterly complains if he doesn't get it, or get its too late or with parts being kept confidential. He gets ministers to commit to tight timelines, then scolds them when they don't make it. He lets them publicly agree on very high standards for transparency, then scolds them when they breach those.
His reinforces the notion that "There Is Something Fundamentally Wrong With The Way This Country Is Governed", but doesn't put the blame at "The Elites" or any particular demography, but keeps his focus on "The Hague", on particular processes of governance and decision-making. It's a style of politics that smart and educated people can buy in to. He has created an aura of moral impermeability and intellectual superiority. Left-wing media don't know how to handle it, they snivel about his "messias complex". They really don't like losing the moral and intellectual highground.
It seems to me these are bad times for libertarians; i.e., Republicans have largely abandoned the free market, Democrats seem less interested in civil liberties and peace. Have you noticed any encouraging developments for those of us who lean libertarian?
How reliable are international IQ comparison studies? How does national IQ influence economics, politics and geopolitics?