tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45470042152441725562024-03-14T06:38:12.890+00:00Further or AlternativelyMiscellaneous thoughts on politics, culture, law and philosophy Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.comBlogger803125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-28898363730347911912024-02-26T14:15:00.003+00:002024-02-27T15:47:16.961+00:00What does the political Promised Land look like?There's a recent advertising campaign I've seen that I don't think is very good.The campaign features two identical photos of someone enjoying a fun activity: going on holiday, say, or eating out. The punchline is that we're told that one of them is getting the experience "on points" while the other isn't. The concept is that, if you have the right credit card, you can get these great experiencesFurther or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-2536856018951666022023-12-20T15:46:00.000+00:002023-12-20T15:46:08.090+00:00How rationalists can help conservativesI have seen the view expressed quite a few times recently that the rationalist movement is gradually rediscovering or reinventing conservative ideas. What I propose to do below is to give one example of what that might mean in practice. (Thoughts prompted by the ever-interesting Peter McLaughlin – thank you.) There is always a risk of this sort of thing of getting sidetracked Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-39301523900246030962023-11-06T17:04:00.001+00:002023-11-06T17:04:48.434+00:00Conservatives love to fight the last war - but what will the last war be?The Conservatives are going to lose the next election.- We have had conference season but that changed nothing. There were headlines (remember HS2? Suella Braverman's speech?), but none that will linger in the memory or sway the undecided. - Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire have fallen.- Starmer has declared that "a woman is an adult female, so let’s clear that one up", without the heavens Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-13281324845999885922023-09-28T17:23:00.002+01:002023-09-28T17:24:03.755+01:00Progress Prize!TxP, in partnership with Civic Future and New Statesman Spotlight, has launched an essay competition encouraging responses to the question: "Britain is stuck. How can we get it moving again?" I am not entering the competition, for a number of reasons: I think Britain is not especially stuck and seems to be moving pretty normally (8 years behind the USA, as usual); even if it were stuck then Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-84585404495257399892023-09-14T14:22:00.002+01:002023-09-14T14:22:44.308+01:00Why the Baby Boom happened - and one thing that might help repeat it The new edition of Works in Progress is out. It's got a few things that are worth a look (e.g., Samuel Hughes on architecture) but I just want to talk a little bit about this one, on the Baby Boom. (I recommend that you read it - it is well done and interesting - but you'll get the important bits from my summary below.)Long story short: today, as we all know, birth rates are collapsing and no Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-56127824741860522932023-09-12T10:18:00.000+01:002023-09-12T10:18:31.397+01:00Article in The Critic - by meLiving in London is not a human right, I say, which is true. What I am getting at in this piece - and I hope this comes through - is that people ought to consider what it is that they are really trying to achieve with their housing policies. Presumably no-one thinks that, say, Mayfair could or should be rendered readily affordable to people on, say, upper-quartile incomes. But some areas in Zone Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-29614288768397378212023-09-01T11:43:00.001+01:002023-09-01T11:43:15.620+01:00Why is Young Adult fiction so queer?I am not a reader of Young Adult (YA) fiction, but I happened to see a few YA blurbs recently and the question in I have set out above struck me. The first thing that might strike you, however, is a different question, namely - is YA fiction really so queer? I’ll answer that question first.The 2023 Bookseller YA Book Prize was recently awarded to When Our Worlds Collided by Danielle Jawando. ThisFurther or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-6675118834945649042023-08-07T21:00:00.006+01:002023-09-28T18:17:40.840+01:00Why I am (reasonably) bullish about Britain What a lot of doom and gloom there is about Britain at the moment! I'm here to cheer you up. You've probably recently read something that goes a bit like this: "the UK is a disaster zone, Brexit, nothing works any more, why won't someone put us out of our misery, Brexit, we can't build anything any more, the NHS, did I mention Brexit?, Poland is soon going to be richer than us" For example,Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-19705843388063915112023-08-01T10:43:00.003+01:002023-08-01T10:43:39.212+01:00Reincarnation, policy and the lawWhen I read about the “first American law to address the process of Buddhist reincarnation” (see below, from The Economist), I had to know more: does the US state really believe in reincarnation? This is what I found out. Although the Tibet Policy and Support Act of 2020 (TPSA) may be the first US law to address reincarnation, it is not the first time that American lawmakers have done so: as Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-63833587271973015582023-04-29T20:31:00.001+01:002023-04-29T20:31:43.666+01:00What happened to reactionaries?Janan
Ganesh, self-described citizen of nowhere, had a piece in the FT recently
asking: what happened to all the reactionaries? You can find it here or (subject
to paywall) here. I would not describe myself as a reactionary but I like to think that I have
enough insight into the mind of one to venture a speculative explanation for
the apparent disappearance of the species. Read on to Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-81022977020255763772023-04-08T16:56:00.001+01:002023-04-08T16:56:12.316+01:00Reflections on the Repugnant ConclusionThis post is about the Repugnant Conclusion, in particular why I don’t think it is useful to think much about it. If that sounds like your cup of tea then read on. If not, there are other cups out there. In either case, I hope you have a good Easter. It is common when thinking about ethical questions to use thought experiments. So, for example, you have no doubt heard various “trolley problems”: Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-88555332432165965622023-03-30T21:28:00.000+01:002023-03-30T21:28:27.093+01:00AI risksThis, from Tyler Cowen, has been doing the rounds: he tells us not to worry about artificial intelligence. Scott Alexander takes issue with it here, Noah Smith broadly agrees with it here (albeit, in typical Smith fashion, he disagrees with the most obviously correct bit of it), Zvi disagrees at really quite some length here and then Tyler replies to Scott here. No Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-2816323365808610662023-02-05T22:46:00.002+00:002023-06-08T10:48:31.641+01:00Why are small countries rich?In my post about Boosters and Doomsters, I pointed out that it's easy for small countries to be rich. Here's a pretty striking table making the point:You will see that the estimates can vary quite a lot from one guessing institution to the next (see Taiwan, for example). But it's pretty clear that many small places display economic performance well in excess of Germany's and even, in quite a few Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-7045712192393759592023-01-25T10:04:00.006+00:002023-05-04T09:31:30.032+01:00Hanania is right - and his point holds more widelyThis post from Richard Hanania has been getting a fair bit of coverage. What he says, at much greater length than I need, is this. While right-wingers in America might not like the US media, and while it's a bit crazy on a few hot topics (you can guess which ones), it's actually pretty good. Not only do the likes of The New York Times turn out large volumes of broadly accurate and interesting Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-25602258189723161402022-12-13T20:20:00.005+00:002023-10-06T10:58:14.834+01:00Come, muse, and sing of New Malden! There's a funny Fry and Laurie sketch in which an ordinary suburban father reveals to his ordinary suburban son that the son is, in fact, the Chosen One who must defeat the evil Pewnack the Destroyer with the aid of the multi-bladed knife Berwhale the Avenger. The son, who had always secretly suspected something of the sort, is then persuaded to move to yonder town of Saffron Walden to waitFurther or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-5352576287642197112022-12-01T09:45:00.005+00:002023-04-23T22:35:20.801+01:00High status beliefs: is Brexit the Britten of politics?The other day, I tentatively outlined a quantity theory of high status beliefs. Having re-read that sentence, I appreciate that it is rather niche. I'll put the rest below the break.Once upon a time, so the story goes, there were plenty of cultural high status beliefs and practices. It would be unthinkable to express the view that the latest music hall craze was equal in value to Richard Strauss'Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-85938255887852589852022-11-17T09:26:00.004+00:002022-11-17T13:05:17.516+00:00On Wren-Lewis on cutsSimon Wren-Lewis has written an interesting blog post essentially in support of the proposition that, as he puts it, “It makes no sense to keep shrinking the state when you don't change what the state does.” I disagree and hope to show why. My initial response was that “what the state does” is not a “given” in this way. Legal aid still exists but it is restricted in scope: has “what the Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-73546406235393289712022-11-16T12:56:00.004+00:002023-05-23T08:58:52.846+01:00Are the UK's cities poor because they are new? I apologise for presenting a rather inchoate theory, but I am sure I am onto something. Here goes.This graph, produced by the ever-interesting Tom Forth, has been doing the rounds. I don't know if you can see it properly but I hope you get the idea. London (the upper-most orange bar) is rich, but all of the UK's other cities are relatively poor by European standards: even the likes of WarsawFurther or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-66116266600119471592022-11-14T17:08:00.000+00:002022-11-14T17:08:39.291+00:00Ours is a High and Lonely Destiny: overcoming disingenuous cant from high priest of Effective AltruismAs I have said before, I have a great deal of respect for the ideals of Effective Altruism (EA). But this Twitter thread about EA from Will MacAskill is weak and pathetic.MacAskill is "known for being a leader, perhaps the intellectual leader, of the effective altruism movement", according to Tyler Cowen. He recently published a book called What We Owe the Future, which you may have seen Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-30173332458151025852022-11-09T16:02:00.000+00:002022-11-09T16:02:23.692+00:00Rare photo of Emperor Hirohito signing the Japanese unconditional surrenderI am indebted to Fergus Butler-Gallie for this photograph, which he captions as "the time the leader of WWII Japan and sometime God-Emperor, Hirohito, was loomed over threateningly by Mickey Mouse on a visit to Disneyland". My title is of course completely untrue.Or is it? Surely there is something of the humiliation of defeat on display here? It is not the done thing nowadays, at Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-83687931938604790512022-10-04T21:07:00.000+01:002022-10-04T21:07:14.227+01:00Political betting - thinking aloudAs we all know, I've had some decent wins on political bets and also - see the same link - some very good advice for Liz Truss. I'm sorry to say that Truss has ignored my advice, with consequences that we see on the news every day at the moment. That's a bit of a blow for the country, but can I make up for it by giving some good advice for future betting success? Why, yes I can!What we are Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-23943071867183864492022-09-29T19:23:00.006+01:002023-02-10T09:10:21.269+00:00Boosters, Doomsters and all that jazzThe Big Idea in politics currently galvanising our thinking classes is the idea that Britain needs a lot more growth. (Or, at least, that was the Big Idea prior to the mini-budget, but that's a story for another day.) So, for example, you might have seen Sam Bowman distinguishing the Boosters (who believe that the UK's dire economic condition can be remedied) from the Doomsters (who are Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-36627816092747529322022-09-13T14:40:00.006+01:002023-09-11T13:03:23.276+01:00Amia Srinivasan's contribution to conservative thoughtI ought to give you a couple of warnings about this post: it’s a long one, and it’s about political philosophy. If you’re still interested despite those warnings then please read on below the break.On The
Conservative Implications of “The Aptness of Anger”
I. INTRODUCTION
Amia Srinivasan’s essay “The Aptness of Anger” (The Journal of
Political Philosophy: Volume 26, Number 2, 2018, pp. 123–144)Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-70585799210412614032022-09-08T10:32:00.003+01:002022-09-08T10:34:41.884+01:00Liz Truss: yet more betting success, and how she can succeed tooHere we go again: Liz Truss' victory means yet another political betting success for me. Indeed, at 14/1, the Truss Triumph equals what was hitherto my best ever political win, the Macron Massacre.I'll level with you: Truss was not the only bet I placed last November. Macron was simply someone who seemed wrongly priced to me, but I had a different strategy for the PM. As I Further or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4547004215244172556.post-87560705511321820082022-09-02T20:25:00.001+01:002023-03-27T14:23:30.649+01:00Normal People by Sally Rooney - some thoughtsThis post is about Sally Rooney's book Normal People and it's in two parts. I'll start with a no-spoiler review, but after the break I will be setting out some longer thoughts arising out the book and in doing so I will give, if not exactly spoilers (it's a will-they, won't-they get together? book), then at least so much of the flavour of the book as might ruin it for people who haven'tFurther or Alternativelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08151721043499828263noreply@blogger.com0