Thomas Sowell wrote a lot about culture and group differences, including a book proposing intriguing theory of the origin of Black culture in America. This is probably his most lasting scholarly contribution. Prior to the CRT craze, I sometimes wondered why was he so focused on this topic that was not at all central to the discussion for long periods. Sowell also wrote a very good book about late-talking children. I once came across Pinker marveling at the breadth of topics Sowell covered. Finally, like George Washington, Sowell said few things that are entirely unpalatable to your readers. This, too, helped push his score up.
Pleasantly surprised to see you agreeing with me on animal suffering being bad, eating insects depending on animal suffering. Nice that other conservative/libertarian people agree with this. I guess since you are autistic and rationalist-adjacent it shouldn't be *too* surprising.
Lol, imagine being convinced there is no God but also worried about the morality of eating insects. This is why "rationalists" are so frustrating. If you're so convinced of materialism why waste so many keystrokes on an pointless, invented morality? Like, you're going to die. The universe will die. Even if the hardcore transhumanists get their wish and "upload their consciousness to machines" (ironically, implying mind-body dualism) they'll still cease to function one day. Doesn't really matter if it's tomorrow or 22 billion years really. Dead is dead, a chasing after the wind.
But thank you for your contribution to fighting wokeness, our common enemy.
Fun stuff. My position is that people will always want government to do stuff, addicted to it like drugs. A party that promises stuff will always win. So libertarianism will never happen. Sorry. Your choice is between the party of no abortion or the party of chop your kid's dick off. Pretty easy choice for me.
Sad to see Abraham Lincoln so high. This man started a war that murderer hundreds of thousands of people. And he was very clear about the fact that he was not doing it to end slavery.
He's no Hitler, but I would have expected Hanania to have a large enough libertarian following to bring Lincoln's ratings down a bit.
>Your fourth favorite thing in the universe is apparently Thomas Sowell. I like him too, but does he really deserve to be that high, right before Adam Smith, who said many of the same things but 200 years earlier? Are you sure that you’re not practicing affirmative action in your hearts and souls, despite how supposedly anti-woke you are? If I were black, would you not rank me higher? Look into the mirror and ask yourselves the tough questions.
I love you, Richard, but you're underselling Sowell. He's the most relevant intellectual on that list today and probably the most ahead of his time. Maybe that's because he's allowed to write on topics because he's black.
> I’m an absolutist on this question. The right response to an employer mistreating you should be the same as the response to a friend or lover mistreating you: find someone else.
If someone is sexually harassing you, they should be fired. I agree with "innocent until proven guilty," even in private, non-court based affairs. But that obviously doesn't mean everyone is eternally innocent. When I think of sexual harassment, I include everything from groping someone's breasts without their consent - which should obviously mean legal punishments - and catcalling.
You could make the case that catcalling shouldn't be legally punishable even if it's a jerk thing to do and should get you fired (like cussing someone out). Fine. But there should obviously be laws against involuntary groping from bosses - or anyone for that matter. Being anti-sexual assault is being pro-freedom of association. Maybe you meant things like catcalling and people were thinking in broader terms like sexual assault and that's what skewed the data.
> Most of you believe that someone who rapes and murders a child should be treated humanely at taxpayer expense until natural death
The death penalty is more expensive as far as I am aware.
> When I’ve debated others on the death penalty, the first thing people bring up is usually the possibility of wrongful convictions. I always point out that’s a problem with life in prison too
Yes, but one is different than the other. Imagine you have two buttons and 100 convicted criminals in front of you where the court has decided that the death penalty would be sufficient punishment for them. They've been convicted of terrible crimes.
For some reason, you are given the choice of what to do with them. Of the two buttons in front of you, one button kills them all and the other puts them in jail for life. However, it is known that a few of them have been falsely convicted. No one knows who exactly, but it's probably somewhere from 2 to 5 of them.
Should you slaughter them all or send them to jail? It's fairly clear to me that they should be sent to jail. The innocent people probably want to live, and you should respect their wishes. You may argue that jail is worse; but regardless, you should respect the wishes of the innocent even if you would prefer to be killed yourself. Also, you have to suffer for ages on death row anyway awaiting your death. Further, you claim to be tough on crime, so if life in prison is worse, you should prefer that.
> Yes, you can go back and undo the damage of a life sentence in theory, but you might not! If the only thing you care about is reducing false positives and not punishing innocent people, you can’t have a criminal justice system at all.
The first sentence is a non-response. They might not be found innocent later, yes. That's why your opponents say "might." It's better that they have a chance.
Who said it's the only think we care about? It's a major thing we should care about, obviously. That's why we have an innocent until proven guilty system. It's worse to put an innocent person behind bars than to fail to convict a guilty person. That's how rights work. If someone is 51% likely to be guilty, you shouldn't imprison them.
> I’m also more anti-crime than my readers, favoring the death penalty, shooting fleeing felons
Shooting fleeing felons is absurd. Are they murderers who will likely murder if they "flee?" Then yeah, you could shoot them. Maybe you meant this, but that's hard to believe as I would expect you to know the difference. Any other person? That's obviously wrong. They should be given due process of law. It's called proportionate, retributive justice where innocence is presumed until guilt is established. I have no idea why aside from emotional reactions you would want this. You say you like it for aesthetic reasons, so I guess I can't expect you to think rationally about this.
Edit: there may be more to respond to here, but that's all I will do for now.
I’m surprised Bryan Caplan is so low on your reader rankings. I guess the normie objection to Caplan is his open borders policy but it’s really for me to find anything that I actually disagree with him on. Maybe too soft on criminals and drug users?
Even where I disagree with you, most of your views are self consistent - what I don't understand is how you can believe in racial group differences in IQ, and also Koch/Caplan style open borders. Doesn't add up for me
Surprised that Zionism and “my country should support Israel over the Palestinians” scored the same. I expected Zionism to score much higher. I thought the median Hanania reader would say that Israel is clearly better and contributes more to civilization, but that the US should go isolationist.
"I've seen people say 2020 vindicates Peter Turchin. I disagree. Here's his 2010 article that people cite. He doesn't tell you what the DV is, what kind of "violence" we'll see. The riots have killed a few dozen people, no noticeable uptick in murder."
But now we have data to say that there was a noticeable uptick in murder. Maybe Turchin had a point?
Thomas Sowell wrote a lot about culture and group differences, including a book proposing intriguing theory of the origin of Black culture in America. This is probably his most lasting scholarly contribution. Prior to the CRT craze, I sometimes wondered why was he so focused on this topic that was not at all central to the discussion for long periods. Sowell also wrote a very good book about late-talking children. I once came across Pinker marveling at the breadth of topics Sowell covered. Finally, like George Washington, Sowell said few things that are entirely unpalatable to your readers. This, too, helped push his score up.
Pleasantly surprised to see you agreeing with me on animal suffering being bad, eating insects depending on animal suffering. Nice that other conservative/libertarian people agree with this. I guess since you are autistic and rationalist-adjacent it shouldn't be *too* surprising.
Lol, imagine being convinced there is no God but also worried about the morality of eating insects. This is why "rationalists" are so frustrating. If you're so convinced of materialism why waste so many keystrokes on an pointless, invented morality? Like, you're going to die. The universe will die. Even if the hardcore transhumanists get their wish and "upload their consciousness to machines" (ironically, implying mind-body dualism) they'll still cease to function one day. Doesn't really matter if it's tomorrow or 22 billion years really. Dead is dead, a chasing after the wind.
But thank you for your contribution to fighting wokeness, our common enemy.
Fun stuff. My position is that people will always want government to do stuff, addicted to it like drugs. A party that promises stuff will always win. So libertarianism will never happen. Sorry. Your choice is between the party of no abortion or the party of chop your kid's dick off. Pretty easy choice for me.
Sad to see Abraham Lincoln so high. This man started a war that murderer hundreds of thousands of people. And he was very clear about the fact that he was not doing it to end slavery.
He's no Hitler, but I would have expected Hanania to have a large enough libertarian following to bring Lincoln's ratings down a bit.
>Your fourth favorite thing in the universe is apparently Thomas Sowell. I like him too, but does he really deserve to be that high, right before Adam Smith, who said many of the same things but 200 years earlier? Are you sure that you’re not practicing affirmative action in your hearts and souls, despite how supposedly anti-woke you are? If I were black, would you not rank me higher? Look into the mirror and ask yourselves the tough questions.
I love you, Richard, but you're underselling Sowell. He's the most relevant intellectual on that list today and probably the most ahead of his time. Maybe that's because he's allowed to write on topics because he's black.
Biggest surprise is Bryan Caplan all the way down at #25. Who doesn't like Bryan Caplan?
> I’m an absolutist on this question. The right response to an employer mistreating you should be the same as the response to a friend or lover mistreating you: find someone else.
If someone is sexually harassing you, they should be fired. I agree with "innocent until proven guilty," even in private, non-court based affairs. But that obviously doesn't mean everyone is eternally innocent. When I think of sexual harassment, I include everything from groping someone's breasts without their consent - which should obviously mean legal punishments - and catcalling.
You could make the case that catcalling shouldn't be legally punishable even if it's a jerk thing to do and should get you fired (like cussing someone out). Fine. But there should obviously be laws against involuntary groping from bosses - or anyone for that matter. Being anti-sexual assault is being pro-freedom of association. Maybe you meant things like catcalling and people were thinking in broader terms like sexual assault and that's what skewed the data.
> Most of you believe that someone who rapes and murders a child should be treated humanely at taxpayer expense until natural death
The death penalty is more expensive as far as I am aware.
> When I’ve debated others on the death penalty, the first thing people bring up is usually the possibility of wrongful convictions. I always point out that’s a problem with life in prison too
Yes, but one is different than the other. Imagine you have two buttons and 100 convicted criminals in front of you where the court has decided that the death penalty would be sufficient punishment for them. They've been convicted of terrible crimes.
For some reason, you are given the choice of what to do with them. Of the two buttons in front of you, one button kills them all and the other puts them in jail for life. However, it is known that a few of them have been falsely convicted. No one knows who exactly, but it's probably somewhere from 2 to 5 of them.
Should you slaughter them all or send them to jail? It's fairly clear to me that they should be sent to jail. The innocent people probably want to live, and you should respect their wishes. You may argue that jail is worse; but regardless, you should respect the wishes of the innocent even if you would prefer to be killed yourself. Also, you have to suffer for ages on death row anyway awaiting your death. Further, you claim to be tough on crime, so if life in prison is worse, you should prefer that.
> Yes, you can go back and undo the damage of a life sentence in theory, but you might not! If the only thing you care about is reducing false positives and not punishing innocent people, you can’t have a criminal justice system at all.
The first sentence is a non-response. They might not be found innocent later, yes. That's why your opponents say "might." It's better that they have a chance.
Who said it's the only think we care about? It's a major thing we should care about, obviously. That's why we have an innocent until proven guilty system. It's worse to put an innocent person behind bars than to fail to convict a guilty person. That's how rights work. If someone is 51% likely to be guilty, you shouldn't imprison them.
> I’m also more anti-crime than my readers, favoring the death penalty, shooting fleeing felons
Shooting fleeing felons is absurd. Are they murderers who will likely murder if they "flee?" Then yeah, you could shoot them. Maybe you meant this, but that's hard to believe as I would expect you to know the difference. Any other person? That's obviously wrong. They should be given due process of law. It's called proportionate, retributive justice where innocence is presumed until guilt is established. I have no idea why aside from emotional reactions you would want this. You say you like it for aesthetic reasons, so I guess I can't expect you to think rationally about this.
Edit: there may be more to respond to here, but that's all I will do for now.
I’m surprised Bryan Caplan is so low on your reader rankings. I guess the normie objection to Caplan is his open borders policy but it’s really for me to find anything that I actually disagree with him on. Maybe too soft on criminals and drug users?
Even where I disagree with you, most of your views are self consistent - what I don't understand is how you can believe in racial group differences in IQ, and also Koch/Caplan style open borders. Doesn't add up for me
Liking Adam Smith a lot is something of a blue-pilled libertarian thing. Once you read the Austrians his output on economics becomes less impressive.
Surprised that Zionism and “my country should support Israel over the Palestinians” scored the same. I expected Zionism to score much higher. I thought the median Hanania reader would say that Israel is clearly better and contributes more to civilization, but that the US should go isolationist.
You on June 17, 2020:
"I've seen people say 2020 vindicates Peter Turchin. I disagree. Here's his 2010 article that people cite. He doesn't tell you what the DV is, what kind of "violence" we'll see. The riots have killed a few dozen people, no noticeable uptick in murder."
But now we have data to say that there was a noticeable uptick in murder. Maybe Turchin had a point?
Frankly I was a little surprised you ranked so highly. There’s a lot of freaking people on that list and many of them founded our country.
Richard, do you believe in god?
Glenn Gaywald over Shinzo Abe... What a shame.