Easy to say everyone should be non-anonymous when you don't make your living as corporate employee. You would have been cancelled and fired 10x over for the things written here if you worked at an average organization, so the policy you're requesting here would be a good way to ensure Notes remains bloggers responding to bloggers, forever.
That's commendable, but our system of mass democracy, at least in theory, is supposed to have free speech for everyone. The ideal is that everyone is able to speak and contribute to the "marketplace of ideas." The ideal is not that only a relatively small class of bloggers/journalists/etc. are allowed to speak. If you must be self-employed in order to participate in the "marketplace of ideas," that seems like it would call into question some fundamental assumptions behind our whole concept of mass democracy to begin with. It is obviously not possible for every person, or even a majority of us, to make our living as bloggers and columnists.
Many Victorians thought that employees should not be allowed to vote because being an employee is inconsistent with gentlemanly independence. I have avoided being an employee because I don’t want anyone to control 80 plus percent of my income.
But bear in mind that even if you're able to do that today, you may not be able to do so for the rest of your life, and the woke have long memories. I've had times in my life when I've been financially independent and self employed and have in fact stood up for unpopular principles under my own name. I've also had times when I've had to go get a job working for other people, and finally I've had times when I've been "cancelled" for beliefs that were actually pedestrian and normal, but which pissed off a handful of extremists who were able to pressure senior management.
As such, like 99.9% of the population I have to be careful with what I say because leftists will stop at nothing to destroy people they identify as ideological enemies, even decades later. By all means, exclude everyone who is anonymous. Like I said - it will result in you talking to a tiny echo chamber of Substack writers, and not even all of them (some of the best ones I follow are themselves anonymous).
What can I tell you? Life is full of risks. Nothing is guaranteed. If you believe in something, you’ll take risks for it. It’s not the job of society to practice affirmative action for conservative viewpoints because liberals care more. Not wanting to associate with conservatives is their own choice, and also part of freedom. Boycotts, etc are also fair play. If one side is less willing to act on its beliefs and is too selfish and short sighted, that’s its own fault. A billionaire GOP donor just gave a bunch of his money to Harvard. No liberals forced him to do that.
We would be fine if those people decided they didn't want to associate with "conservatives" and quit their job as a consequence (though not even conservative in this case, just normal guys doing normal jobs). Of course, they don't. They insist that they get to stay, use wildly abusive tactics to achieve that end and ensure that the normies get kicked out or silenced even if it wrecks the organization they're supposedly working for. Which is why they are so widely loathed by people who are not even explicitly conservative, and often even by those on the left.
I do get what you're saying. Fight for what you believe in, etc. But your judgement is wildly off here, it's like arguing that the PRC rules China because they care more about politics than other people. Wrong. They rule China because they got into a position where they could immediately crush any opposition via overwhelming abuse of power, regardless of how much those opponents care. If you ever move on and try and get a job outside of the realm of politics, you'll understand this, but by then it's probably too late.
Also, the ability of wokes to pressure management is heavily influenced by government policy, as Richard himself has documented in his earlier writings. Employers are often not siding with wokes because the wokes simply "care more" in some sort of actual free marketplace, but because they know who the government will side with if push really comes to shove. Wokes are literally allowed and encouraged by law to care more than conservatives (or anyone else).
One could say that this is also the result of wokes capturing the government by "caring more," which may have some degree of truth to it, but results in circular reasoning that defines away any possible abuse of power. The people in power have power because they care more, and the fact that they have power is proof that they care more. So if you are upset about any possible abuse that they might subject you to, the answer is that you just need to like, care harder, dude.
I also find it a bit ridiculous to use "well the other side just cares more than you do" to excuse abuse when what "caring more" usually translates to in this context is a greater capacity to engage in emotional histrionics and manipulative, dishonest behavior (such as pretending to be outrageously offended by a "micro-aggression").
It is like saying that a two year old who gets candy by wearing his parents down with non-stop tantrums has actually earned the candy through commendable dedication to his craft. Sure, in a sense it is true that his tantrums got him what he wanted, but to imply that this is good behavior which should be encouraged and rewarded is clearly absurd. And one would think Richard knows this as well given his "women's tears" essay.
I think it's both the case that they care more and the legal system is slanted in their favor. In part because they care enough to flock into the legal profession and dominate it.
Haven't you yourself written about how the current interpretation of civil rights law prohibits free association and requires clamping down on politically incorrect views?
The risk/reward calculus is different if you want to make a career as a right wing commentator.
If I had a real name twitter account that copied every Richard Hanania tweet I would have little engagement or “impact” but a large risk to my personal finances and future career.
Not a smart strategy for the minority of conservatives at high status institutions to go “mask off” on culture war issues. I’ve seen people fired for past tweets that could safely have been made from an anon.
Society in fact practices "affirmative action" for anti-rational and corrosive viewpoints. Its McCarthyist mania against sensible ones is not nearly as bad as what dissidents in real oppressive countries have faced, but your smug contempt for people who criticize this state of affairs or post pseudonymously in light of it is your worst quality. "If you want to be able to express an opinion on affirmative action, or on whether the state should castrate your son, you'd better quit your job and become a clout-reliant pundit" is an intellectually and morally deficient stance.
Many of your readers are people who have a strong sense of personal privacy. I don’t want people to google me and see things I’ve written. It’s hard to explain but it just embarrasses me. It’s not a matter of being canceled or wanting to be mean and get away with it. I’m always nice. Years ago, Amazon briefly forced reviewers to use their real names and it was a long time before I reviewed any product again. I didn’t want future employers or casual acquaintances knowing what books I read or my recent appliance purchases. Obviously people who choose a career like opinion journalism in the internet age are self-selected not to care about making an open book of themselves, at least in thst domain, but you can’t forget that other people are different from you for reasons that are not nefarious. Hence, my anonymous handle. Keep up the writing!
The world needs a marginal blogger less than it needs a marginal programmer. Hence why I blog pseudonymously even while I court less deliberate controversy than you (admittedly, that was less the case when I was younger & new to blogging).
Agreed. I fail to understand why some people think that an ad hominem attack is an effective reply to an argument with which they might disagree. Moreover, there are many things, such as toilet functions, that one would not do in public either because they pollute the commons or are embarassing given current behavior norms.
As a fellow anonymous screenname myself, obviously I sympathize, but I also understand Richard's basic desire to screen out malicious trolls. Unfortunately, the current state in which half of the entire political spectrum is effectively banished from polite society leaves us with no good options here. The ideal solution would be to claw back enough sanity in the culture that people once again feel safe posting normal, good-faith conservative opinions under their real names. This would leave only bad faith actors to have much incentive towards remaining anonymous, making them much easier to filter out.
Half of the country is not banished, you can hold most mainstream conservative views and nothing is likely to happen to you. People under real names in academia, etc have liked some of my most controversial tweets, 99% of the time nothing happens. Conservatives seem to be less tolerant of risk to speak out for their beliefs, but that’s their own flaw.
This contradicts your other comment where you pointed out that you have specifically set up your life in order to allow yourself free speech. You've written in the past that this is in fact one reason that you have avoided a career in academia. This is not consistent with the implication made here that you can openly contradict leftist dogma in academia with no repercussions.
Everyone could be braver than they are, and we could all engage in marginal charity https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/marginal-charityhtml But the difference between discussing controversial political topics under your own name vs pseudonymously is not marginal.
A tic I've noticed on the right is to kind of celebrate being victimised. I frequently write and say, in my real life, things 'you can't say any more' (albeit from a post-partisan position). Nothing happens, beyond some people not liking it.
Is the right inheriting the left's fondness for the sanctity of victimhood?
You might be able to hold main stream conservative views publicly without too many repercussions. On the other hand, you can, and are even encouraged to hold the most radical extremist progressive views publicly and be celebrated for it. Or if not celebrated, there's no way anything negative will happen to you either. Now try that with similarly radical conservative views.
"Mainstream" conservative? Um, like being pro-life? I'm generally pro-choice, and generally find your stuff intelligent and interesting (if not always correct), but you are not making much sense here. There is no Overton Window limitation on freedom of opinion, and, yes, people punishing you with their private actions is chilling free speech. "Mainstream" is a useless distinction.
To your park analogy there has to be some price of admission in order for visitors to value the environment.
Being identifiable on a political channel is a very real cost for many at least if they wish to comment. Say I run a coffee shop, I might lose half my customers if people decide I’m flying the wrong flag.
Maybe a future option would be public anonymity for paid subscribers?
Do those people in academia have tenure? Because the academics I'm aware of who expressed controversial opinions prior to getting tenure generally left academia.
The attention network design (gamification) for maximum ad revenue incentivizes reflexivity and reaction. It rewards impulsive and often obnoxious behavior. They'll never be able to fix that because it would ruin their revenue model and destroy their market caps. The only good solution it can offer is the block button. Anon is essential for privacy. Privacy is essential for liberty. That's not a "right wing" talking point. It was actually a "left wing" mantra for most people's lifetimes (political liberalism) until we arrived here at inversion clown world where everyone that is in favor of liberty, anonymity, and privacy, is a 'violent racist right winger white supremacist!' And nothing should ever be done for "safety" or "feelings". That will always be the road to maximize tyranny.
I agree that you should have the right to be anonymous online. The beauty of the Internet is that it allows for an effectively unlimited number of separate spaces in order to cater to nearly any sort of associations that one could possibly prefer. In that sense, I think it is entirely reasonable for people to want a space where they are speaking only to other "real" people and not to low effort trolls. This is completely different from saying that no anonymous spaces should exist online at all.
Agreed. Anonymity is sadly necessary these days if you are not in the conventional mainstream. It is not necessarily an obstacle to being sane or reasonable. If it were not permitted, many people simply could not participate in any public conversation, due to their personal and professional vulnerability to inevitable retaliation. So, eliminating anonymity would eliminate most of the people on the right who are still willing, even in a limited and concealed way, to participate in public conversations at all. And getting rid of people on the right who have something to lose would reduce the quality of non-regime-approved discussion even further. If it were not permitted, I would simply drop my last vestiges of public participation and restrict all my communications to private discussions. The possibility of being outed really does counsel doing that anyway. Not the end of the world if so, and I have been gravitating that way for years. Still, I was active in the Wild West of the Blogosphere 20 years ago, and it was fun. So ending my online presence entirely will be a sad day for me, though no one but me will know I'm gone.
I would say anonymity is necessary if you ARE in the conventional mainstream. It's easy to forget but the set of opinions being forced upon the world are radical and extreme. Most people don't agree with them, but go along to get along.
Perhaps terminological failure to mesh. By conventional mainstream, I meant "opinions which are permitted to be expressed without risk of harassment or worse." If you say those opinions are actually radical and extreme, I agree with you. But my point is that violating those norms can and will cause you serious grief. What most people think rarely matters. The people with the power to limit access and to punish nonconformity can control the public conversation to a large extent, and need not concern themselves with what most people (silently) think. Fortunately, such people do not yet have total control, though they are trying to get it. If you configured your life for decades without thinking about insulating yourself against cancellation and professional ruin late in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, you may have to exercise prudence these days, especially if you have a family relying on you continuing to generate an income.
Yes, the long tail of deranged people on the internet can latch onto views that are genuinely mainstream but constitute enough of a headache for an employer to find it easier to fire someone.
Accountability of conduct has to be a priority. Reddit is among the most toxic places due to everyone behaving as if there is no accountability. It's counterproductive when everyone has an NFT profile pic and gets to say whatever they like. I visit LinkedIn because there's at least some verifiable ID and tell-tale signs of fake accounts. I'm less likely to take an angry bird seriously, if you know what I mean? You can still have free speech with verified ID. No they are not mutually exclusive.
People use this "what will people at work say" argument, but you should be creating content you can be proud of, no matter how fringe it might be.
"the policy you're requesting here would be a good way to ensure Notes remains bloggers responding to bloggers, forever."
He views bloggers as an aristocratic elect, and desires this outcome. Why should normal people want, or get, to speak? Better reserve this right for smart, interesting paragons like Tim Miller.
"...but one thing I hope that Substack will consider is creating the option of not having to interact with anonymous accounts through a real verification system." Was a kid when "Islam is a threat" was written on bathroom walls, and therefore was emulsified from the digital womb and cannot see the creeping digital surveillance capitalism gulags everywhere that want ID systems in place just to participate in society. Hard pass Richard and not from a "right winger" whatever the hell that is anymore. Simple concept in political philosophy...No Privacy-No Liberty. No liberty for one, means it can be violated for all. My liberty, is your liberty. If you want your liberty, you should want the option of anonymity, online or off, for anyone who needs it, and it doesn't matter the reason. If you don't think someone is intellectually up to your high standard on notes, then simply use the block button.
The standard of living is inherently subjective. I wasn't alive in the '60s but I grew up in the '90s in Canada and my parents were poor; we were on one unskilled income. Despite this, we were able to buy a small townhouse and I would say that the social and economic environment was far superior (where I lived, at any rate) compared to the present conditions. I am not sure how many people who lived through the last few decades would say they prefer the present conditions. I've been working for my entire career trying to save for a home, and the result is that I'm far further behind than when I was born. And I feel nothing optimistic or hopeful about my culture, society, etc. compared to the past.
Improved technology or better video game graphics is not an excuse for all this. It doesn't make up for it, and it would've developed anyway.
I think it would be useful if people separated out different specific aspects to the whole "standard of living" assessment. "Standard of living" is an incredibly broad term that literally encompasses all of a person's experience in every area of life. One could reasonably say, for instance, that the standard of living for young men has improved with respect to entertainment--better video games, movies, and what have you--but worsened with respect to dating prospects.
In this sense, I think it is true that standard of living has gone way up in some important ways, but the biggest standouts to me are housing and education. I may be misinformed, but my understanding is that getting a higher education today is both far more expensive *and* far more important to one's job prospects than it was in the past. And it seems far more difficult to purchase a home today than it did in the past; this is kind of a big deal given that a home is the largest financial investment that many people are likely to make in their entire lives.
If the cost of food just kept going up, no-one would deny this constituted a worsening standard of living, but when the cost of shelter does the same, this is considered evidence of growing wealth because homes are counted as an asset not a thing you need to, like, live in. Incredibly, this idiotic sleight of hand is considered 'objective' evidence we are all getting better off.
What's more incredible, is that despite house price inflation being a straightforward consequence of central banks settings interest rates, mainstream 'libertarians' are so addicted to extolling the virtues of the market economy they imagine to exist that they willfully miss this vindication of free-market economics.
High housing prices are a result of restrictions on building, and their increase a vindication of arguments Henry George made back in the 19th century.
How so? Henry George argued in favor of land-use taxes (something we currently have) to prevent idle/unused land being held by private actors for speculative purposes, which in his (incorrect) estimate resulted in substantial rent and economic inefficiency being generated. Zoning/nimby regulation is not directly market-based but instead quasi-democratic unionism deliberately preventing outside market forces, to artificially drive up the market value of their own properties.
In any case, Hanania/Ygleias/etc are being absurd by boasting about cheaper household appliances while ignoring that adult children living with parents are at levels unseen in several decades, thanks to exorbitant housing prices. Almost certainly more responsible for declining childbirth than the usual porn-blaming from Hawley et al. Obviously the standard of living for the top quartile is amazing, and the second quartile probably about as good as ever, but that doesn't mean much for those with bad/no jobs.
Incidentally, I left the nest in my late 20's once I finished my PhD and could afford to; my first rental was the cheapest unit in a no-crime part of SoCal, $2000/mo, and because it was built in the early 70s it had neither central air conditioning nor a dishwasher. Contrary to the expectations of certain social writers, the absence of those two minor material conveniences did not remotely outweigh the benefits of living completely independently.
Money isn't 'printed' it is, mostly, created in the act of giving a loan. So price rises goes where the loans are, i.e. houses and stocks. It's theoretically true that with an sufficiently elastic system of housing construction you could have loose monetary policy without house price inflation, but the basic physical difficulty of building new homes makes it a natural target for a bubble. And, on top of that, restrictions on the ability of developers to build unsightly and/or dangerous buildings are good things and we shouldn't have to get rid of them just so we can have a loose monetary policy.
Absolutely. They don't mention that you're "building wealth" because I am working decades extra to buy the same house off you. Your "wealth" is me working for you for free. I've watched housing go up 500%, and a lot of that is my country's immigration policy even more so than central bank interest rate monkeying.
Most libertarians don't believe in central banks setting interest rates. It isn't a free-market thing. But libertarians barely matter, and where I live they matter even less.
I really have an issue with people invoking technological developments to justify evil political actions. Wide-scale political theft didn't cause technological (or social) developments. Like, sure I stole your entire life's work sometime after the 1970s, but women couldn't get their own driver's licenses back then so do you really want to go back there? What kind of non-sequitur nonsense is this.
my parents bought a 250k oceanfront house in 1990 working blue collar jobs netting them 70k a year combined right out of college. that house in a prime location back then is about 3.5x their annual income back then. now that same house is worth 1.2million. what jobs could a couple get today 2023 that would net them 350k a year right out of school. excluding a FAANG job and that’s pushing it, there really is none.
Purchasing power may have increased if u average all the goods. but things that really matter esp for family formation, like housing, education, and healthcare are undeniably way more expensive today
It's a partially but not entirely subjective question, I would say. Assessing whether Americans or, say, the Japanese have a higher standard of living, I can imagine being subjective based on the kinds of things one values or doesn't. However, if you want to argue that Americans have a lower standard of living than, say, the average Haitian or the average pre-contact Australian Aboriginal, I would say you're just objectively wrong.
The Unabomber might disagree regarding the Australian Aboriginals. Anyway, the subtext was that for the purposes of the topic at hand, there is significant subjectivity involved.
I know it's hard to believe, but some of us were born here--grew up here, have family here, have spouse's families here, have friends we've known since we were born here, went to school here, and so on. Hell, the entire country could be thoroughly unaffordable and under the boot of a dictator, but you're not allowed to complain as long as that dictator allows you to bugger off to Africa and buy a large house in Tanzania. If I break into your house, you can't complain because you can just go upstairs until I'm done whatever I need to do. Cheerio.
You are missing the point, which is that things are dramatically worse than they were in the past.
You're also trying to trivialize something nuclear, as if there's one little glowing spot where this is happening and if you can forego being super-trendy and step outside the circle, the country is the same as it was in 1995. The cost of housing everywhere in the entire province (including "just out of the city") has approximately tripled in 10 years, and it did so by political design. That's worse. The goal here isn't to seek life advice from a Yes Chad avatar who will tell me that I can move 4 hours away to a town that used to cost $100,000 but now costs $450,000, and that despite everything being worse and our families seeing the kids much less often and my life's savings being obviated, I can suck up the consequences because I'm an adult. Thanks for the revelatory insight; I never would've thought of that.
I don't *have* to move away at all--I could just stay here and accept a much worse quality of life than I would've otherwise had. But it's precisely that: much worse.
Things are going to get worse in Alberta too. It's just on a delay.
You've ignored the point again, which is that everything is worse. If you are arguing that things are not worse because you have the option of leaving everything and everyone you love to move 3500 km away to a colder place with sprawling rectangular buildings to buy a house for the same price... well, again, that's what "worse" is.
There are almost zero non-propertied people for whom "hard economic times" in 1995 would be worse than the present.
In Ontario, the cost of everywhere that would charitably described as "outside the city" has easily tripled--Hamilton, Guelph, Cambridge, Orangeville, Waterloo, Windsor, Barrie, St. Catharines, Peterborough... if you want to get pedantically aroused about "everywhere in the province" and point to Thunder Bay, that's your prerogative.
Apparently I have been extrapolating the word "obviate" to inappropriate contexts for my entire life. The correct meaning here would be "made obsolete." If you save for a very long time and the house increases in value by double what you saved, you are a lot worse off. It is not relevant that you can now preserve the value of your savings relative to the new (worse) standard of living.
> you’re addicted to living in a small corner of the country
Your efforts to change the subject and attack me personally suggest that you perceive this issue as a slight. If someone is willing to tolerate a 500% increase in house prices over 20 years and complain about it instead of moving next to you, maybe you feel like they're indirectly devaluing your own life choices and circumstances.
Not that I would even have to respond to this if you were correct--the prairies are priced lower because they're worse, and 30% of the country lives here because of network effects and liveability, which is the point; so saying "you're addicted to better things and you struggle to accept worse things" concedes the whole point--but I explained already that I live here because I was born here, my wife's family is here, my family is here, everyone I've known for my entire life is here, and indeed, my family here goes back 100 years. It is also highly significant for my kid to grow up among family, than to be removed from them all. Quality of life subsists far more strongly in human connections than it does in things like an extra 10°C, and the people who dismiss this are part of the reason there's a hollow shell where a country used to be. I think about moving to Calgary all the time--I'll do it if it's worth it. But the only reason that tradeoff even enters my mind is because everything is worse.
"more people on both sides of the political spectrum [seem] to believe that Americans have a lower standard of living than they did a generation or two ago".
I realize this is off-topic, but
1) Technically, as Yglesias says in the piece you link, we do "consume much more housing, cars, and college education [than we did 60 years ago]". The problem with myopically focusing on this is that only one of those items (cars) has unambiguously improved in quality over that period.
Housing's debatable - is a 3,000 sq ft house on a giant lot in a car-dependent exurb really an improvement over a 750 sq ft house in Levittown, given that the latter made for much more spontaneous neighborly interaction? - and college education has obviously declined in quality, whether it's measured by "subject matter learned" or "white-collar jobs that become available with a degree".
2. For a significant (yes, relatively low-IQ) portion of the population, their material standards *have* declined. People who would have worked a single factory job with consistent hours 60 years ago are either welfare-dependent or working multiple shifting-hour service jobs to make the same amount today.
3. Look at that meme with the text covered up. It doesn't depict a high standard of living, it depicts intact family and community life. People are nostalgic for that, even if they don't articulate it well (or downplay that their family life sucks because Mom didn't bother keeping her hypergamy in check).
I'm sympathetic to the view that life has gotten worse for many people (see the mental health crisis). But it's not due to declining material standards. Maybe people should value a simpler, less consumerist life (small house, minimal driving, family), but that's up to individuals, not the government. The government did its job and let the market make everyone rich.
If you're nostalgic for the 1950s life with a small house, no car, no iphone, no airplanes, little spending money, and a family, then go for it and stop blaming others!
I don't think the same work opportunities are available without a car or phone (I have actually had to replace smartphones to install authentication apps needed for work), and as noted in the "Two Income Trap" once every other family has two breadwinners the price of housing is driven up to the point where everyone else needs to do the same.
I do think eliminating zoning laws and creating more car friendly cities are things the government should do! (Though really that would just be eliminating laws and regulations rather than create new ones.) Housing is one of few areas holding back material prosperity, since extra income gains go into bidding wars for a limited housing supply.
A "small house" in the parts of the country with good economies and low crime starts at around $500k in Texas and around $1m in California. Endless QE for banks and local boomer-councils declaring that new construction is verboten is not the free market.
"Maybe people should value a simpler, less consumerist life (small house, minimal driving, family), but that's up to individuals, not the government. The government did its job and let the market make everyone rich."
What an absolutely mad ideology! It's the job of the government to make people rich, but not happy, fulfilled or in any other way better.
Yup, that's what I believe. Government shouldn't try to impose its values on people, that's how you get a theocracy like Iran. You believe family is the most important part of life without wanting the government to arrange your marriage.
Try making a polite, data-backed post about "race and IQ" or "gender and IQ" — at least one that doesn't flatter women or nonwhites — and we'll see how long you'll last in that office job.
There are social repercussions for speech that's way more restrained than "women are ugly" and you know it. Remember that New York guy who was fired a couple of months ago because he was going around the local shops complaining he wasn't finding anything worthwhile to buy?
Also, what if someone calls some woman ugly anyway? What's with you and women lately? You call conservatives dumb every other post, and call anyone you don't like low-status. Should everyone have to make his living as a freelance writer in order to afford saying such things?
It's slightly misleading to say that he was just 'complaining', since he designed this to be a viral video. But his observation - that bodegas suck - got him fired.
Yeah, now that I rewatched it, it does sound like more of a rant than a regular complaint. Still a huge overreaction to lose him his job and, presumably, make it much harder for him to find another one in the whole city. You're being rude to the locals? Apologize, quit being a punk, and let's move on with our lives.
Richard I really enjoy all your stuff - it's always thought-provoking, even if I don't agree with it. My question is this: I have been wrong about a lot of stuff the past couple years and as a consequence I have tried to develop a healthy dose of circumspection regarding predictions. You've been open about having been wrong about some stuff too. To what extent has that eroded confidence in your predictive capacity?
I’ve been very wrong on foreign affairs but basically right on American politics, before 2020 was even over I knew 2024 would be Trump v Biden. So I’m less confident about foreign affairs and more confident that I understand American politics.
Richard, do you propose IQ tests knowing that the average American liberal has a higher IQ than the average conservative? I believe you touched on this yourself in your “liberals read and conservatives watch TV” article. And as the Republican Party takes a much more populist turn while Democrats are being led by the highly-educated progressive activists, this IQ-drain will only intensify.
I'm not convinced that's necessarily bad for the right. Smart Republicans will be overrepresented in those spaces, and have more opportunities to influence others. I also think the average substacker is further right than the average twitter user.
I once proposed weighting votes by scores on a test of civics knowledge, and perhaps someone could implement a throttle where you can comment more and be shared more if you have more insight (although how to operationalize that outside the context of a betting market would be tricky).
Interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder why the media landscapes evolved as they did.
My guess is that liberals have a high-IQ core who care a lot, consuming a lot of media and going to protests. Then a lot of dumb prople who vote D in the general election but otherwise don't care about politics.
Conservatives have a slightly larger base of low-IQ supporters who watch Fox News and vote in midterms and primaries. The rest are moderate IQ but don't care about politics.
Obviously I'm shaping/contorting my theory to fit the data, so I'm not very confident it's correct. I wonder how Richard would explain this.
Thank you. I have typically seen the "liberals are just smarter" meme asserted with no evidence to support it, thus I have always been skeptical of whether or not it is actually true. I do have to point out that this study was done in 2014, pre-Trump and before the Great Awokening. The results may be different today, nearly 10 years later, as I do find it plausible that higher socio-economic classes may have shifted leftward in that time and vice versa.
The reason.com link seems to confirm this suspicion, but also finds that Trumpers stay ahead in IQ despite the gap having narrowed some. Saving it to spam at anyone who tries the "conservatives are low IQ" claim in the future.
I share your hopes for Substack Notes and I hope the "long form" nature of it will be enough to keep out the riff raff, but I can't agree with your suggestion that we all post under our confirmed full names.
That will not select for the best opinions, it will select for the opinions of people who either have no professional reputations to worry about (people with nothing to lose), or have made their online reputation *into* their professional reputation (professional opinion-havers like yourself).
I work in the public service, and my opinions, though quite reasonable, are sometimes out of step with the official messaging from HR and the heads of state for my jurisdiction. Sure, I am intellectually curious, and I love the life of the mind and "learning by arguing" by respectful exchanges from smart people I disagree with, but really, this is still just a hobby. When I weigh whatever improved quality there would be (if any) from engaging on a non-anonymous platform vs the anxiety incurred from the small chance of professional blowback if I argue for the Wrong Thing, it just wouldn't be worth it to participate.
I didn't read it as *posting* under our confirmed names but rather being *verified* as real people. That involves trusting both Substack the company and the administrator of the Substack in question (in this case, Richard. If you register to an individual Substack the owner knows your email and some of your other registration info, so caveat emptor.)
If you really believe in a world where speech is free, then calling women ugly shouldn’t get you fired — though you won’t get invited to the best woke parties.
Maybe not, but Richard's point is that a flood of people who do nothing but post insults is highly disruptive and makes it difficult or impossible to have any sort of worthwhile or genuine discussion. I sympathize. For instance, if it were impossible for me to discuss my conservative viewpoints anywhere without being drowned out by a flood of hard leftists calling me an -ist and a -phobe, I would probably feel that my "freeze peach" is being violated by that. Trolling is all well and good in some places, but it is reasonable to build spaces that are protected from it.
This really is not an issue of "free speech" absolutism though. If you and your friends have gathered in a pub to discuss politics, would you accept that you must allow any random person to join your group and do nothing but shout slurs at you, thus ruining the entire gathering, in the name of "free speech" absolutism? Obviously not. This is just some very basic freedom of association, and the slur-shouter in this example is violating said freedom of association.
You could argue that it's a bad idea for Richard to limit his comments only to people who post under their real names, and I'd even agree, but I don't think it is really a "free speech" issue.
I'm speaking from experience here as, while we probably imagine in this context that excluding anonymous posters mostly removes right-wing voices (an assessment that I think is correct), I've been in some spaces where this problem occurred in the opposite direction. I.e., I've been in spaces where right-wing (or simply non-woke) people wanted to gather privately to discuss politics free of woke censorship, and woke people purposely infiltrated and destroyed those spaces by coming into them and just flinging as much shit around as they possibly could until the endeavor became pointless.
I don't think that the woke trolls in this example had their "freedom of speech" violated by being excluded from spaces that were created specifically to be free of their antics. If anything it was clearly the opposite.
I don’t think we fundamentally disagree, and I could probably have made my point a little more elegantly, and a bit less pithily.
Your point about freedom of association is apropos. People should be free to assemble in *private* groups and exclude anyone they might wish to exclude, for any reason. I further believe that a private business owner should be able to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, even if we might find those reasons repugnant. S/he would, however, have to be willing to accept the public opprobrium that would result, and all the consequences thereof. Freedom of association doesn’t really mean much unless it also includes freedom to discriminate.
This is exactly the sort of low – temperature, polite discussion that one hopes substack notes can facilitate better than the festering cesspool that is Twitter.
No, TJ, they would not. Kinda my point. Social norms are often enough, if enforced. That’s not good enough for the woke crowd; only running someone’s life is enough for them.
Anonymity is the most under-appreciated of all treasures. If they can’t find you, they can’t fire you.
I sympathise with having to deal with a lot of garbage because of it but perhaps there are other solutions. One avenue would be to use AI to screen out offensive and plainly stupid responses. With some training it shouldn’t be difficult.
I'd actually be interested in the ability to quote comments, both comments in Notes and Newsletters to create new dialogues based on old conversations. While I like threads, they simply aren't searchable and followable by actual readers. Many readers (the few that I've seen on Notes) do their best work in comments, i.e. there is no incentive for them to even post on Notes.
Hoping RH is right about Notes. So far, so good. No Note has crossed my feed yet, displaying the modern leftish wearily ironic archetype nor (thank goodness) the modern right's celebration of FACTS and TRUTH in the form of some easily ascertained falsehood.
Easy to say everyone should be non-anonymous when you don't make your living as corporate employee. You would have been cancelled and fired 10x over for the things written here if you worked at an average organization, so the policy you're requesting here would be a good way to ensure Notes remains bloggers responding to bloggers, forever.
I set up my life this way exactly because I wanted the freedom to speak my mind. More people should do that if they have conviction in their beliefs.
That's commendable, but our system of mass democracy, at least in theory, is supposed to have free speech for everyone. The ideal is that everyone is able to speak and contribute to the "marketplace of ideas." The ideal is not that only a relatively small class of bloggers/journalists/etc. are allowed to speak. If you must be self-employed in order to participate in the "marketplace of ideas," that seems like it would call into question some fundamental assumptions behind our whole concept of mass democracy to begin with. It is obviously not possible for every person, or even a majority of us, to make our living as bloggers and columnists.
Many Victorians thought that employees should not be allowed to vote because being an employee is inconsistent with gentlemanly independence. I have avoided being an employee because I don’t want anyone to control 80 plus percent of my income.
But bear in mind that even if you're able to do that today, you may not be able to do so for the rest of your life, and the woke have long memories. I've had times in my life when I've been financially independent and self employed and have in fact stood up for unpopular principles under my own name. I've also had times when I've had to go get a job working for other people, and finally I've had times when I've been "cancelled" for beliefs that were actually pedestrian and normal, but which pissed off a handful of extremists who were able to pressure senior management.
As such, like 99.9% of the population I have to be careful with what I say because leftists will stop at nothing to destroy people they identify as ideological enemies, even decades later. By all means, exclude everyone who is anonymous. Like I said - it will result in you talking to a tiny echo chamber of Substack writers, and not even all of them (some of the best ones I follow are themselves anonymous).
What can I tell you? Life is full of risks. Nothing is guaranteed. If you believe in something, you’ll take risks for it. It’s not the job of society to practice affirmative action for conservative viewpoints because liberals care more. Not wanting to associate with conservatives is their own choice, and also part of freedom. Boycotts, etc are also fair play. If one side is less willing to act on its beliefs and is too selfish and short sighted, that’s its own fault. A billionaire GOP donor just gave a bunch of his money to Harvard. No liberals forced him to do that.
We would be fine if those people decided they didn't want to associate with "conservatives" and quit their job as a consequence (though not even conservative in this case, just normal guys doing normal jobs). Of course, they don't. They insist that they get to stay, use wildly abusive tactics to achieve that end and ensure that the normies get kicked out or silenced even if it wrecks the organization they're supposedly working for. Which is why they are so widely loathed by people who are not even explicitly conservative, and often even by those on the left.
I do get what you're saying. Fight for what you believe in, etc. But your judgement is wildly off here, it's like arguing that the PRC rules China because they care more about politics than other people. Wrong. They rule China because they got into a position where they could immediately crush any opposition via overwhelming abuse of power, regardless of how much those opponents care. If you ever move on and try and get a job outside of the realm of politics, you'll understand this, but by then it's probably too late.
Also, the ability of wokes to pressure management is heavily influenced by government policy, as Richard himself has documented in his earlier writings. Employers are often not siding with wokes because the wokes simply "care more" in some sort of actual free marketplace, but because they know who the government will side with if push really comes to shove. Wokes are literally allowed and encouraged by law to care more than conservatives (or anyone else).
One could say that this is also the result of wokes capturing the government by "caring more," which may have some degree of truth to it, but results in circular reasoning that defines away any possible abuse of power. The people in power have power because they care more, and the fact that they have power is proof that they care more. So if you are upset about any possible abuse that they might subject you to, the answer is that you just need to like, care harder, dude.
I also find it a bit ridiculous to use "well the other side just cares more than you do" to excuse abuse when what "caring more" usually translates to in this context is a greater capacity to engage in emotional histrionics and manipulative, dishonest behavior (such as pretending to be outrageously offended by a "micro-aggression").
It is like saying that a two year old who gets candy by wearing his parents down with non-stop tantrums has actually earned the candy through commendable dedication to his craft. Sure, in a sense it is true that his tantrums got him what he wanted, but to imply that this is good behavior which should be encouraged and rewarded is clearly absurd. And one would think Richard knows this as well given his "women's tears" essay.
I think it's both the case that they care more and the legal system is slanted in their favor. In part because they care enough to flock into the legal profession and dominate it.
Haven't you yourself written about how the current interpretation of civil rights law prohibits free association and requires clamping down on politically incorrect views?
The risk/reward calculus is different if you want to make a career as a right wing commentator.
If I had a real name twitter account that copied every Richard Hanania tweet I would have little engagement or “impact” but a large risk to my personal finances and future career.
Not a smart strategy for the minority of conservatives at high status institutions to go “mask off” on culture war issues. I’ve seen people fired for past tweets that could safely have been made from an anon.
Simply put, there's no upside to being a non-anonymous anti-woke if you're career is anything outside of anti-woke commentary.
Society in fact practices "affirmative action" for anti-rational and corrosive viewpoints. Its McCarthyist mania against sensible ones is not nearly as bad as what dissidents in real oppressive countries have faced, but your smug contempt for people who criticize this state of affairs or post pseudonymously in light of it is your worst quality. "If you want to be able to express an opinion on affirmative action, or on whether the state should castrate your son, you'd better quit your job and become a clout-reliant pundit" is an intellectually and morally deficient stance.
Many of your readers are people who have a strong sense of personal privacy. I don’t want people to google me and see things I’ve written. It’s hard to explain but it just embarrasses me. It’s not a matter of being canceled or wanting to be mean and get away with it. I’m always nice. Years ago, Amazon briefly forced reviewers to use their real names and it was a long time before I reviewed any product again. I didn’t want future employers or casual acquaintances knowing what books I read or my recent appliance purchases. Obviously people who choose a career like opinion journalism in the internet age are self-selected not to care about making an open book of themselves, at least in thst domain, but you can’t forget that other people are different from you for reasons that are not nefarious. Hence, my anonymous handle. Keep up the writing!
The world needs a marginal blogger less than it needs a marginal programmer. Hence why I blog pseudonymously even while I court less deliberate controversy than you (admittedly, that was less the case when I was younger & new to blogging).
Agreed. I fail to understand why some people think that an ad hominem attack is an effective reply to an argument with which they might disagree. Moreover, there are many things, such as toilet functions, that one would not do in public either because they pollute the commons or are embarassing given current behavior norms.
Richard Hanania is not immune. Consider his exchange exchange with Thomas Chatterton Williams.
Link?
As a fellow anonymous screenname myself, obviously I sympathize, but I also understand Richard's basic desire to screen out malicious trolls. Unfortunately, the current state in which half of the entire political spectrum is effectively banished from polite society leaves us with no good options here. The ideal solution would be to claw back enough sanity in the culture that people once again feel safe posting normal, good-faith conservative opinions under their real names. This would leave only bad faith actors to have much incentive towards remaining anonymous, making them much easier to filter out.
Half of the country is not banished, you can hold most mainstream conservative views and nothing is likely to happen to you. People under real names in academia, etc have liked some of my most controversial tweets, 99% of the time nothing happens. Conservatives seem to be less tolerant of risk to speak out for their beliefs, but that’s their own flaw.
This contradicts your other comment where you pointed out that you have specifically set up your life in order to allow yourself free speech. You've written in the past that this is in fact one reason that you have avoided a career in academia. This is not consistent with the implication made here that you can openly contradict leftist dogma in academia with no repercussions.
Freedom is a spectrum. I’m more free because of life choices, but people generally can be braver than they are.
Everyone could be braver than they are, and we could all engage in marginal charity https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/marginal-charityhtml But the difference between discussing controversial political topics under your own name vs pseudonymously is not marginal.
A tic I've noticed on the right is to kind of celebrate being victimised. I frequently write and say, in my real life, things 'you can't say any more' (albeit from a post-partisan position). Nothing happens, beyond some people not liking it.
Is the right inheriting the left's fondness for the sanctity of victimhood?
You might be able to hold main stream conservative views publicly without too many repercussions. On the other hand, you can, and are even encouraged to hold the most radical extremist progressive views publicly and be celebrated for it. Or if not celebrated, there's no way anything negative will happen to you either. Now try that with similarly radical conservative views.
"Mainstream" conservative? Um, like being pro-life? I'm generally pro-choice, and generally find your stuff intelligent and interesting (if not always correct), but you are not making much sense here. There is no Overton Window limitation on freedom of opinion, and, yes, people punishing you with their private actions is chilling free speech. "Mainstream" is a useless distinction.
To your park analogy there has to be some price of admission in order for visitors to value the environment.
Being identifiable on a political channel is a very real cost for many at least if they wish to comment. Say I run a coffee shop, I might lose half my customers if people decide I’m flying the wrong flag.
Maybe a future option would be public anonymity for paid subscribers?
Do those people in academia have tenure? Because the academics I'm aware of who expressed controversial opinions prior to getting tenure generally left academia.
The attention network design (gamification) for maximum ad revenue incentivizes reflexivity and reaction. It rewards impulsive and often obnoxious behavior. They'll never be able to fix that because it would ruin their revenue model and destroy their market caps. The only good solution it can offer is the block button. Anon is essential for privacy. Privacy is essential for liberty. That's not a "right wing" talking point. It was actually a "left wing" mantra for most people's lifetimes (political liberalism) until we arrived here at inversion clown world where everyone that is in favor of liberty, anonymity, and privacy, is a 'violent racist right winger white supremacist!' And nothing should ever be done for "safety" or "feelings". That will always be the road to maximize tyranny.
I agree that you should have the right to be anonymous online. The beauty of the Internet is that it allows for an effectively unlimited number of separate spaces in order to cater to nearly any sort of associations that one could possibly prefer. In that sense, I think it is entirely reasonable for people to want a space where they are speaking only to other "real" people and not to low effort trolls. This is completely different from saying that no anonymous spaces should exist online at all.
It was pretty funny when some woman on Twitter tried to report him for wrongthink to @CSPICenterOrg, not noticing he's president of it.
Agreed. Anonymity is sadly necessary these days if you are not in the conventional mainstream. It is not necessarily an obstacle to being sane or reasonable. If it were not permitted, many people simply could not participate in any public conversation, due to their personal and professional vulnerability to inevitable retaliation. So, eliminating anonymity would eliminate most of the people on the right who are still willing, even in a limited and concealed way, to participate in public conversations at all. And getting rid of people on the right who have something to lose would reduce the quality of non-regime-approved discussion even further. If it were not permitted, I would simply drop my last vestiges of public participation and restrict all my communications to private discussions. The possibility of being outed really does counsel doing that anyway. Not the end of the world if so, and I have been gravitating that way for years. Still, I was active in the Wild West of the Blogosphere 20 years ago, and it was fun. So ending my online presence entirely will be a sad day for me, though no one but me will know I'm gone.
I would say anonymity is necessary if you ARE in the conventional mainstream. It's easy to forget but the set of opinions being forced upon the world are radical and extreme. Most people don't agree with them, but go along to get along.
Perhaps terminological failure to mesh. By conventional mainstream, I meant "opinions which are permitted to be expressed without risk of harassment or worse." If you say those opinions are actually radical and extreme, I agree with you. But my point is that violating those norms can and will cause you serious grief. What most people think rarely matters. The people with the power to limit access and to punish nonconformity can control the public conversation to a large extent, and need not concern themselves with what most people (silently) think. Fortunately, such people do not yet have total control, though they are trying to get it. If you configured your life for decades without thinking about insulating yourself against cancellation and professional ruin late in the first quarter of the twenty-first century, you may have to exercise prudence these days, especially if you have a family relying on you continuing to generate an income.
Yes, the long tail of deranged people on the internet can latch onto views that are genuinely mainstream but constitute enough of a headache for an employer to find it easier to fire someone.
Accountability of conduct has to be a priority. Reddit is among the most toxic places due to everyone behaving as if there is no accountability. It's counterproductive when everyone has an NFT profile pic and gets to say whatever they like. I visit LinkedIn because there's at least some verifiable ID and tell-tale signs of fake accounts. I'm less likely to take an angry bird seriously, if you know what I mean? You can still have free speech with verified ID. No they are not mutually exclusive.
People use this "what will people at work say" argument, but you should be creating content you can be proud of, no matter how fringe it might be.
"the policy you're requesting here would be a good way to ensure Notes remains bloggers responding to bloggers, forever."
He views bloggers as an aristocratic elect, and desires this outcome. Why should normal people want, or get, to speak? Better reserve this right for smart, interesting paragons like Tim Miller.
"...but one thing I hope that Substack will consider is creating the option of not having to interact with anonymous accounts through a real verification system." Was a kid when "Islam is a threat" was written on bathroom walls, and therefore was emulsified from the digital womb and cannot see the creeping digital surveillance capitalism gulags everywhere that want ID systems in place just to participate in society. Hard pass Richard and not from a "right winger" whatever the hell that is anymore. Simple concept in political philosophy...No Privacy-No Liberty. No liberty for one, means it can be violated for all. My liberty, is your liberty. If you want your liberty, you should want the option of anonymity, online or off, for anyone who needs it, and it doesn't matter the reason. If you don't think someone is intellectually up to your high standard on notes, then simply use the block button.
"This is objectively false."
The standard of living is inherently subjective. I wasn't alive in the '60s but I grew up in the '90s in Canada and my parents were poor; we were on one unskilled income. Despite this, we were able to buy a small townhouse and I would say that the social and economic environment was far superior (where I lived, at any rate) compared to the present conditions. I am not sure how many people who lived through the last few decades would say they prefer the present conditions. I've been working for my entire career trying to save for a home, and the result is that I'm far further behind than when I was born. And I feel nothing optimistic or hopeful about my culture, society, etc. compared to the past.
Improved technology or better video game graphics is not an excuse for all this. It doesn't make up for it, and it would've developed anyway.
I think it would be useful if people separated out different specific aspects to the whole "standard of living" assessment. "Standard of living" is an incredibly broad term that literally encompasses all of a person's experience in every area of life. One could reasonably say, for instance, that the standard of living for young men has improved with respect to entertainment--better video games, movies, and what have you--but worsened with respect to dating prospects.
In this sense, I think it is true that standard of living has gone way up in some important ways, but the biggest standouts to me are housing and education. I may be misinformed, but my understanding is that getting a higher education today is both far more expensive *and* far more important to one's job prospects than it was in the past. And it seems far more difficult to purchase a home today than it did in the past; this is kind of a big deal given that a home is the largest financial investment that many people are likely to make in their entire lives.
If the cost of food just kept going up, no-one would deny this constituted a worsening standard of living, but when the cost of shelter does the same, this is considered evidence of growing wealth because homes are counted as an asset not a thing you need to, like, live in. Incredibly, this idiotic sleight of hand is considered 'objective' evidence we are all getting better off.
What's more incredible, is that despite house price inflation being a straightforward consequence of central banks settings interest rates, mainstream 'libertarians' are so addicted to extolling the virtues of the market economy they imagine to exist that they willfully miss this vindication of free-market economics.
High housing prices are a result of restrictions on building, and their increase a vindication of arguments Henry George made back in the 19th century.
How so? Henry George argued in favor of land-use taxes (something we currently have) to prevent idle/unused land being held by private actors for speculative purposes, which in his (incorrect) estimate resulted in substantial rent and economic inefficiency being generated. Zoning/nimby regulation is not directly market-based but instead quasi-democratic unionism deliberately preventing outside market forces, to artificially drive up the market value of their own properties.
In any case, Hanania/Ygleias/etc are being absurd by boasting about cheaper household appliances while ignoring that adult children living with parents are at levels unseen in several decades, thanks to exorbitant housing prices. Almost certainly more responsible for declining childbirth than the usual porn-blaming from Hawley et al. Obviously the standard of living for the top quartile is amazing, and the second quartile probably about as good as ever, but that doesn't mean much for those with bad/no jobs.
Incidentally, I left the nest in my late 20's once I finished my PhD and could afford to; my first rental was the cheapest unit in a no-crime part of SoCal, $2000/mo, and because it was built in the early 70s it had neither central air conditioning nor a dishwasher. Contrary to the expectations of certain social writers, the absence of those two minor material conveniences did not remotely outweigh the benefits of living completely independently.
Driving up the value of your property doesn't do you much good if the government taxes 100% of the unimproved value of land.
100% of the unimproved value per annum? Thanks, you just raised my annual property tax by about $200k/yr, I appreciate it.
Money printing raises all prices via devaluing the currency. Housing prices going up more than other prices is because housing supply is constrained.
Money isn't 'printed' it is, mostly, created in the act of giving a loan. So price rises goes where the loans are, i.e. houses and stocks. It's theoretically true that with an sufficiently elastic system of housing construction you could have loose monetary policy without house price inflation, but the basic physical difficulty of building new homes makes it a natural target for a bubble. And, on top of that, restrictions on the ability of developers to build unsightly and/or dangerous buildings are good things and we shouldn't have to get rid of them just so we can have a loose monetary policy.
Absolutely. They don't mention that you're "building wealth" because I am working decades extra to buy the same house off you. Your "wealth" is me working for you for free. I've watched housing go up 500%, and a lot of that is my country's immigration policy even more so than central bank interest rate monkeying.
Most libertarians don't believe in central banks setting interest rates. It isn't a free-market thing. But libertarians barely matter, and where I live they matter even less.
I really have an issue with people invoking technological developments to justify evil political actions. Wide-scale political theft didn't cause technological (or social) developments. Like, sure I stole your entire life's work sometime after the 1970s, but women couldn't get their own driver's licenses back then so do you really want to go back there? What kind of non-sequitur nonsense is this.
my parents bought a 250k oceanfront house in 1990 working blue collar jobs netting them 70k a year combined right out of college. that house in a prime location back then is about 3.5x their annual income back then. now that same house is worth 1.2million. what jobs could a couple get today 2023 that would net them 350k a year right out of school. excluding a FAANG job and that’s pushing it, there really is none.
Purchasing power may have increased if u average all the goods. but things that really matter esp for family formation, like housing, education, and healthcare are undeniably way more expensive today
It's a partially but not entirely subjective question, I would say. Assessing whether Americans or, say, the Japanese have a higher standard of living, I can imagine being subjective based on the kinds of things one values or doesn't. However, if you want to argue that Americans have a lower standard of living than, say, the average Haitian or the average pre-contact Australian Aboriginal, I would say you're just objectively wrong.
The Unabomber might disagree regarding the Australian Aboriginals. Anyway, the subtext was that for the purposes of the topic at hand, there is significant subjectivity involved.
I know it's hard to believe, but some of us were born here--grew up here, have family here, have spouse's families here, have friends we've known since we were born here, went to school here, and so on. Hell, the entire country could be thoroughly unaffordable and under the boot of a dictator, but you're not allowed to complain as long as that dictator allows you to bugger off to Africa and buy a large house in Tanzania. If I break into your house, you can't complain because you can just go upstairs until I'm done whatever I need to do. Cheerio.
You are missing the point, which is that things are dramatically worse than they were in the past.
You're also trying to trivialize something nuclear, as if there's one little glowing spot where this is happening and if you can forego being super-trendy and step outside the circle, the country is the same as it was in 1995. The cost of housing everywhere in the entire province (including "just out of the city") has approximately tripled in 10 years, and it did so by political design. That's worse. The goal here isn't to seek life advice from a Yes Chad avatar who will tell me that I can move 4 hours away to a town that used to cost $100,000 but now costs $450,000, and that despite everything being worse and our families seeing the kids much less often and my life's savings being obviated, I can suck up the consequences because I'm an adult. Thanks for the revelatory insight; I never would've thought of that.
I don't *have* to move away at all--I could just stay here and accept a much worse quality of life than I would've otherwise had. But it's precisely that: much worse.
Things are going to get worse in Alberta too. It's just on a delay.
You've ignored the point again, which is that everything is worse. If you are arguing that things are not worse because you have the option of leaving everything and everyone you love to move 3500 km away to a colder place with sprawling rectangular buildings to buy a house for the same price... well, again, that's what "worse" is.
There are almost zero non-propertied people for whom "hard economic times" in 1995 would be worse than the present.
In Ontario, the cost of everywhere that would charitably described as "outside the city" has easily tripled--Hamilton, Guelph, Cambridge, Orangeville, Waterloo, Windsor, Barrie, St. Catharines, Peterborough... if you want to get pedantically aroused about "everywhere in the province" and point to Thunder Bay, that's your prerogative.
Apparently I have been extrapolating the word "obviate" to inappropriate contexts for my entire life. The correct meaning here would be "made obsolete." If you save for a very long time and the house increases in value by double what you saved, you are a lot worse off. It is not relevant that you can now preserve the value of your savings relative to the new (worse) standard of living.
> you’re addicted to living in a small corner of the country
Your efforts to change the subject and attack me personally suggest that you perceive this issue as a slight. If someone is willing to tolerate a 500% increase in house prices over 20 years and complain about it instead of moving next to you, maybe you feel like they're indirectly devaluing your own life choices and circumstances.
Not that I would even have to respond to this if you were correct--the prairies are priced lower because they're worse, and 30% of the country lives here because of network effects and liveability, which is the point; so saying "you're addicted to better things and you struggle to accept worse things" concedes the whole point--but I explained already that I live here because I was born here, my wife's family is here, my family is here, everyone I've known for my entire life is here, and indeed, my family here goes back 100 years. It is also highly significant for my kid to grow up among family, than to be removed from them all. Quality of life subsists far more strongly in human connections than it does in things like an extra 10°C, and the people who dismiss this are part of the reason there's a hollow shell where a country used to be. I think about moving to Calgary all the time--I'll do it if it's worth it. But the only reason that tradeoff even enters my mind is because everything is worse.
"more people on both sides of the political spectrum [seem] to believe that Americans have a lower standard of living than they did a generation or two ago".
I realize this is off-topic, but
1) Technically, as Yglesias says in the piece you link, we do "consume much more housing, cars, and college education [than we did 60 years ago]". The problem with myopically focusing on this is that only one of those items (cars) has unambiguously improved in quality over that period.
Housing's debatable - is a 3,000 sq ft house on a giant lot in a car-dependent exurb really an improvement over a 750 sq ft house in Levittown, given that the latter made for much more spontaneous neighborly interaction? - and college education has obviously declined in quality, whether it's measured by "subject matter learned" or "white-collar jobs that become available with a degree".
2. For a significant (yes, relatively low-IQ) portion of the population, their material standards *have* declined. People who would have worked a single factory job with consistent hours 60 years ago are either welfare-dependent or working multiple shifting-hour service jobs to make the same amount today.
3. Look at that meme with the text covered up. It doesn't depict a high standard of living, it depicts intact family and community life. People are nostalgic for that, even if they don't articulate it well (or downplay that their family life sucks because Mom didn't bother keeping her hypergamy in check).
I'm sympathetic to the view that life has gotten worse for many people (see the mental health crisis). But it's not due to declining material standards. Maybe people should value a simpler, less consumerist life (small house, minimal driving, family), but that's up to individuals, not the government. The government did its job and let the market make everyone rich.
If you're nostalgic for the 1950s life with a small house, no car, no iphone, no airplanes, little spending money, and a family, then go for it and stop blaming others!
I don't think the same work opportunities are available without a car or phone (I have actually had to replace smartphones to install authentication apps needed for work), and as noted in the "Two Income Trap" once every other family has two breadwinners the price of housing is driven up to the point where everyone else needs to do the same.
I do think eliminating zoning laws and creating more car friendly cities are things the government should do! (Though really that would just be eliminating laws and regulations rather than create new ones.) Housing is one of few areas holding back material prosperity, since extra income gains go into bidding wars for a limited housing supply.
A "small house" in the parts of the country with good economies and low crime starts at around $500k in Texas and around $1m in California. Endless QE for banks and local boomer-councils declaring that new construction is verboten is not the free market.
"Maybe people should value a simpler, less consumerist life (small house, minimal driving, family), but that's up to individuals, not the government. The government did its job and let the market make everyone rich."
What an absolutely mad ideology! It's the job of the government to make people rich, but not happy, fulfilled or in any other way better.
Yup, that's what I believe. Government shouldn't try to impose its values on people, that's how you get a theocracy like Iran. You believe family is the most important part of life without wanting the government to arrange your marriage.
Notes, through restack, became a substack discovery feature to me. People who I already follow restack others who I haven't heard about.
A human recommendation algorithm.
If it only succeeds in this, it's already a good feature.
Try making a polite, data-backed post about "race and IQ" or "gender and IQ" — at least one that doesn't flatter women or nonwhites — and we'll see how long you'll last in that office job.
There are social repercussions for speech that's way more restrained than "women are ugly" and you know it. Remember that New York guy who was fired a couple of months ago because he was going around the local shops complaining he wasn't finding anything worthwhile to buy?
Also, what if someone calls some woman ugly anyway? What's with you and women lately? You call conservatives dumb every other post, and call anyone you don't like low-status. Should everyone have to make his living as a freelance writer in order to afford saying such things?
https://www.newsweek.com/bodega-bro-griffin-green-outreach-tiktok-dutch-grocery-stores-viral-fired-new-york-1720960
It's slightly misleading to say that he was just 'complaining', since he designed this to be a viral video. But his observation - that bodegas suck - got him fired.
Yeah, now that I rewatched it, it does sound like more of a rant than a regular complaint. Still a huge overreaction to lose him his job and, presumably, make it much harder for him to find another one in the whole city. You're being rude to the locals? Apologize, quit being a punk, and let's move on with our lives.
Ethno-narcissism is a hell of a drug.
Richard I really enjoy all your stuff - it's always thought-provoking, even if I don't agree with it. My question is this: I have been wrong about a lot of stuff the past couple years and as a consequence I have tried to develop a healthy dose of circumspection regarding predictions. You've been open about having been wrong about some stuff too. To what extent has that eroded confidence in your predictive capacity?
I’ve been very wrong on foreign affairs but basically right on American politics, before 2020 was even over I knew 2024 would be Trump v Biden. So I’m less confident about foreign affairs and more confident that I understand American politics.
I can’t wait for you to post how Socrates was an emphatic loser.
Richard "People Who Annoy Me Are Low-Status" Hanania
If we're being brutally honest, he would have been annoying as fuck to have around.
Richard, do you propose IQ tests knowing that the average American liberal has a higher IQ than the average conservative? I believe you touched on this yourself in your “liberals read and conservatives watch TV” article. And as the Republican Party takes a much more populist turn while Democrats are being led by the highly-educated progressive activists, this IQ-drain will only intensify.
I'm not convinced that's necessarily bad for the right. Smart Republicans will be overrepresented in those spaces, and have more opportunities to influence others. I also think the average substacker is further right than the average twitter user.
Same. Also, the difference is what, a 1/3 of an SD?
I once proposed weighting votes by scores on a test of civics knowledge, and perhaps someone could implement a throttle where you can comment more and be shared more if you have more insight (although how to operationalize that outside the context of a betting market would be tricky).
Link? Would be nice if there were evidence.
Interesting, I didn't know that. I wonder why the media landscapes evolved as they did.
My guess is that liberals have a high-IQ core who care a lot, consuming a lot of media and going to protests. Then a lot of dumb prople who vote D in the general election but otherwise don't care about politics.
Conservatives have a slightly larger base of low-IQ supporters who watch Fox News and vote in midterms and primaries. The rest are moderate IQ but don't care about politics.
Obviously I'm shaping/contorting my theory to fit the data, so I'm not very confident it's correct. I wonder how Richard would explain this.
Thank you. I have typically seen the "liberals are just smarter" meme asserted with no evidence to support it, thus I have always been skeptical of whether or not it is actually true. I do have to point out that this study was done in 2014, pre-Trump and before the Great Awokening. The results may be different today, nearly 10 years later, as I do find it plausible that higher socio-economic classes may have shifted leftward in that time and vice versa.
The reason.com link seems to confirm this suspicion, but also finds that Trumpers stay ahead in IQ despite the gap having narrowed some. Saving it to spam at anyone who tries the "conservatives are low IQ" claim in the future.
I share your hopes for Substack Notes and I hope the "long form" nature of it will be enough to keep out the riff raff, but I can't agree with your suggestion that we all post under our confirmed full names.
That will not select for the best opinions, it will select for the opinions of people who either have no professional reputations to worry about (people with nothing to lose), or have made their online reputation *into* their professional reputation (professional opinion-havers like yourself).
I work in the public service, and my opinions, though quite reasonable, are sometimes out of step with the official messaging from HR and the heads of state for my jurisdiction. Sure, I am intellectually curious, and I love the life of the mind and "learning by arguing" by respectful exchanges from smart people I disagree with, but really, this is still just a hobby. When I weigh whatever improved quality there would be (if any) from engaging on a non-anonymous platform vs the anxiety incurred from the small chance of professional blowback if I argue for the Wrong Thing, it just wouldn't be worth it to participate.
I didn't read it as *posting* under our confirmed names but rather being *verified* as real people. That involves trusting both Substack the company and the administrator of the Substack in question (in this case, Richard. If you register to an individual Substack the owner knows your email and some of your other registration info, so caveat emptor.)
If you really believe in a world where speech is free, then calling women ugly shouldn’t get you fired — though you won’t get invited to the best woke parties.
Maybe not, but Richard's point is that a flood of people who do nothing but post insults is highly disruptive and makes it difficult or impossible to have any sort of worthwhile or genuine discussion. I sympathize. For instance, if it were impossible for me to discuss my conservative viewpoints anywhere without being drowned out by a flood of hard leftists calling me an -ist and a -phobe, I would probably feel that my "freeze peach" is being violated by that. Trolling is all well and good in some places, but it is reasonable to build spaces that are protected from it.
Agreed. Hard to keep both baby and bathwater, though, which is why I tend towards free-speech absolutism. Reasonable people can disagree, of course.
This really is not an issue of "free speech" absolutism though. If you and your friends have gathered in a pub to discuss politics, would you accept that you must allow any random person to join your group and do nothing but shout slurs at you, thus ruining the entire gathering, in the name of "free speech" absolutism? Obviously not. This is just some very basic freedom of association, and the slur-shouter in this example is violating said freedom of association.
You could argue that it's a bad idea for Richard to limit his comments only to people who post under their real names, and I'd even agree, but I don't think it is really a "free speech" issue.
I'm speaking from experience here as, while we probably imagine in this context that excluding anonymous posters mostly removes right-wing voices (an assessment that I think is correct), I've been in some spaces where this problem occurred in the opposite direction. I.e., I've been in spaces where right-wing (or simply non-woke) people wanted to gather privately to discuss politics free of woke censorship, and woke people purposely infiltrated and destroyed those spaces by coming into them and just flinging as much shit around as they possibly could until the endeavor became pointless.
I don't think that the woke trolls in this example had their "freedom of speech" violated by being excluded from spaces that were created specifically to be free of their antics. If anything it was clearly the opposite.
I don’t think we fundamentally disagree, and I could probably have made my point a little more elegantly, and a bit less pithily.
Your point about freedom of association is apropos. People should be free to assemble in *private* groups and exclude anyone they might wish to exclude, for any reason. I further believe that a private business owner should be able to refuse service to anyone, for any reason, even if we might find those reasons repugnant. S/he would, however, have to be willing to accept the public opprobrium that would result, and all the consequences thereof. Freedom of association doesn’t really mean much unless it also includes freedom to discriminate.
This is exactly the sort of low – temperature, polite discussion that one hopes substack notes can facilitate better than the festering cesspool that is Twitter.
No, TJ, they would not. Kinda my point. Social norms are often enough, if enforced. That’s not good enough for the woke crowd; only running someone’s life is enough for them.
LoL -- Twitter as scribblings on bathroom walls. 👍😉🙂
Anonymity is the most under-appreciated of all treasures. If they can’t find you, they can’t fire you.
I sympathise with having to deal with a lot of garbage because of it but perhaps there are other solutions. One avenue would be to use AI to screen out offensive and plainly stupid responses. With some training it shouldn’t be difficult.
I'd actually be interested in the ability to quote comments, both comments in Notes and Newsletters to create new dialogues based on old conversations. While I like threads, they simply aren't searchable and followable by actual readers. Many readers (the few that I've seen on Notes) do their best work in comments, i.e. there is no incentive for them to even post on Notes.
Hoping RH is right about Notes. So far, so good. No Note has crossed my feed yet, displaying the modern leftish wearily ironic archetype nor (thank goodness) the modern right's celebration of FACTS and TRUTH in the form of some easily ascertained falsehood.
lol you ghoul, sounds like a challenge.