tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post6195747714390898368..comments2024-03-18T22:32:52.802-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: Thoughts on Will Wilkinson's post on citiesNoah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-43519842984665523002017-04-05T20:18:09.995-04:002017-04-05T20:18:09.995-04:00Let me see, just from memory early US culture was ...Let me see, just from memory early US culture was North American Indian (including Aleut, Athabascan, Eskimo (forget the more correct term), Mexican, French, Spanish, as well as English, German, some French, there must have been a Scandoonavian or two. Etc Etc. Etc. RLLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13850927095383579725noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-43253476415263455312017-04-03T00:04:25.731-04:002017-04-03T00:04:25.731-04:00Yep - one of the amusing things about USAnians for...Yep - one of the amusing things about USAnians for those from other immigrant societies (eg Canucks and Aussies) is the way "Hispanics" get distinguished from "Whites" even in official statistics. It really does show how "Whites" is a purely social construct based only on RECENT demographic change. derrida deriderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01188777386180390172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-88345329221091683132017-04-01T01:43:42.580-04:002017-04-01T01:43:42.580-04:00I'm struck by the fact that commenters haven&#...I'm struck by the fact that commenters haven't mentioned regionalisms in the U.S... evidence is obvious in all political objectives and methods. Race, ethnicity, & religious belief systems are all reflected regionally.<br /><br />Freedoms and rights and their interpretations differ regionally in the US and within sub-regions --- e.g. radically different in Coastal CA than in Central CA. The major difference being agricultural dependencies .. Coastal not so much, but Central Valley totally dependent on Agriculture.<br /><br />They're both governed by the same institutions and by the same evolution of those institutions. What differs is the two cultures which differ by their economic dependencies. If you look at the fundamental of agriculturally dependent regions they have lower areal densities by necessity.. land for agriculture can't house people or factories on it. Revenues from agricultural land accrue to a smaller subset of the rural population (land owners) upon which the majority of the remainder of the population in those regions are dependent. Politics will dictate the owners interests in those regions simply because the others depend on those owners supplying the economics for the region. The land owners are not interdependent on one another however so "individualism" dominates the foundations for agriculturally dependent economics. <br /><br />Quite the opposite occurs in non-agricultural regions.. business owners revenues depend on other business owners so they are mutually dependent.. one's growth benefits the other's in composite. Individualism weighs far less in the economics of non-agricultural regions. In non-agricultural regions output requires far more labor than in agriculture since modern (post industrial revolution) equipment became available... with output per areal area far more dense than in agricultural regions. Thus human densities far greater as a consequence, requiring far more cooperation for mutual benefits.<br /><br />In short, the cultural, ethnic, racial, and religious diversity and tolerance increase with increasing dependency on the mutually beneficial effect of cooperation in non-agricultural higher human density regions. <br /><br />Metropolitanism is an outgrowth of industrialization ... e.g. non-agricultural regions, or stated differently a reduction in the benefits of "individualism" with their "freedoms" and "rights" based on individualism.<br /><br />And fwiw, it's not institutions that make a difference.. it's who controls them and to what objectives that count. istitutions that institutions or Nd Longtoothhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08844066558431822440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-17197698700038058922017-03-23T21:27:49.425-04:002017-03-23T21:27:49.425-04:00OK, well, Acemoglu's work on institutions sure...OK, well, Acemoglu's work on institutions surely has a lot of holes in it, but what better work on the topic is out there?<br /><br />I agree that linguistic assimilation was rapid back then. But it's also rapid now. By the 3rd generation, <1% of Hispanics speak mostly Spanish. As for German-language press, it took a century to disappear.<br /><br /><i>Which brings me to a larger point. Your call to data is misguided since structure always comes before data. You need to think through the possible confounders before you look at any data at all. That's why looking at actual history is so important. Ideology does matter. Culture matters. Xenophobic pressures might be adaptive as they force outsiders into cultural mimicry socializing them into the mainstream in the process. How much it matters? No idea, but neither do you.</i><br /><br />I think we just don't know how to reliably measure culture, ideology, etc.<br /><br />I do think you see immigrants assimilate much less in Europe, East Asia, and elsewhere than in the U.S. I think there's a reason for that.<br /><br />I also think the experience of black ppl in the U.S. is a cautionary tale for what happens when a subpopulation doesn't integrate. Great music is nice, but I'd rather have black people be considered real Americans (and consider themselves real Americans).Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-47609607620110349002017-03-23T20:27:08.285-04:002017-03-23T20:27:08.285-04:00Mike, saying conservatives have always opposed civ...Mike, saying conservatives have always opposed civil liberties is just an ignorant and ridiculous statement, but back on topic and as short and sweet as I can: The ACLU "protecting" minorities or immigrants or whomever from the predominant religion of the land reduces the actions of the melting pot. The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-15585313445183599542017-03-23T20:02:16.962-04:002017-03-23T20:02:16.962-04:00Ok, fair enough. You want me to prove empirically ...Ok, fair enough. You want me to prove empirically that having consistent and clear definitions of dependent and independent variables is important? Just look at all the empirical literature in macro. <br /><br />Anyway, kidding aside, the point about homogeneity is that there are other variables than institutions, however broadly defined, which have explanatory power. If you want actual regressions, look here:<br />https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/wzbisi/spi2004202.html <br /><br />As to Acemoglu's work. He thinks he has an explanation, but at most he has a (interesting) description. He did manage to show that geography does not explain anything and limiting institutional cases, such as communism, do explain a lot. However, one just needed to look at a comparison between the Germanys or Koreas to have an inkling. Beyond that, he managed to show that corrupt exploitative societies are...exploitative and do not grow. For too long. Probably. <br /><br />As to evidence for the assimilation pressures, i'll give you one data point:the german language press was reduced by roughly 95% between 1900 and 1920.<br />Your own source, by the way, discusses the dangers of concentrated ethnic ghettos and, as you can imagine, language is a vector of ethnic identity.<br /><br />Which brings me to a larger point. Your call to data is misguided since structure always comes before data. You need to think through the possible confounders before you look at any data at all. That's why looking at actual history is so important. Ideology does matter. Culture matters. Xenophobic pressures might be adaptive as they force outsiders into cultural mimicry socializing them into the mainstream in the process. How much it matters? No idea, but neither do you.<br /><br />Speaking of racism and xenophobia, the greatest tragedy of the black community is that it had never become "white", but it retained its distinctiveness instead. At least we got a lot of great music in the bargain. Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-8670338191247555132017-03-23T12:48:53.026-04:002017-03-23T12:48:53.026-04:00Donk, you plainly misunderstand the point of the a...Donk, you plainly misunderstand the point of the article. "In other words, the law of the Second Amendment is not settled; no law, not even the Constitution, ever is." The point is that no particular position is "correct": the meaning is derived politically.<br /><br />The position that prohibition of endorsement of religion should apply to small as well as large things boils down to whether people feel oppressed by government. Big scale oppression such as a state religion and smaller scale such as state use of religious symbols and slogans differ primarily in how many people are offended (always a minority) and how seriously. But unless you can draw a bright line between them, you have no basis to oppose one and not the other. The bright line in the constitution is government versus private, and that is an easy line to understand and hold.<br /><br />Arguments such as "centuries of Christmas trees in public places being tolerated by our citizens and immigrants" just don't make something right: we also had centuries of slavery and disenfranchised women being tolerated.<br /><br />But it's not surprising that the ACLU is liberal/left-leaning: civil liberties have always been opposed by conservatives.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-33571978439221286152017-03-23T12:26:59.361-04:002017-03-23T12:26:59.361-04:00So black community has different level of trust be...<i>So black community has different level of trust because institutions are different? But they are hard to observe and define? Hey, lookie here, more curve fitting.<br />That's just useless. Define institutions as collections of explicit rules and call the residual culture or whatever name you like. Even that definition might be polluted by endogeneity.</i><br /><br />Krzys, I wish you held your own hypotheses and theories to the same standards you want to hold other people's to. I sent you links to books and articles backing up my view and explaining how people try to quantify institutions. What evidence have you sent me for your hypotheses about homogeneity and trust? What evidence have you sent me for your theories about assimilation pressures in America's past? None. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, man.<br /><br /><i>Either way, as it is well known social trust is higher in homogeneous societies, which is an orthogonal property to institutions however you want to define it. <br /><br />I'm not quite sure what time series of immigration flows tell you about history. The point is that social context (aka culture) matters and the enormous pressure to assimilate then was very different from today.</i><br /><br />Where's your evidence that trust is higher in homogeneous societies? I know of evidence that new groups of people moving into a neighborhood temporarily decreases trust. But where's the evidence that this persists over the long term? <br /><br />Homogeneity is endogenous, as people A) intermarry, and B) change their definitions of relevant ethnic groups (e.g. combining "German", "Irish", "Italian", "Jewish", "Polish", "Swedish", and "British" into "white").<br /><br />Look at data on trust surveys: <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/trust" rel="nofollow">https://ourworldindata.org/trust</a><br /><br />You'll notice very low trust in homogeneous East Europe. You'll notice higher trust in diverse America, Canada, Indonesia and India than in super-homogeneous Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Latvia, and Lithuania. <br /><br />And as for your stuff about past assimilation pressures, do you have any data on this at all? What's your source?Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-12952349910522232472017-03-23T06:56:09.443-04:002017-03-23T06:56:09.443-04:00Just got around to reading Mike Huben's source...Just got around to reading Mike Huben's source for "knowing the second amendment." I love love love that he utilizes an opinion piece, written in The New Yorker days after Sandy Hook as his gotcha source for understanding the 2nd Amendment. Why not a Michael Moore quote instead?<br /><br />Regardless of his/my views on the 2nd Amendment, Mike Huben actually helps make my point. He argues that a right leaning institution is influencing the courts' interpretation of the constitution; agreed. Now can we agree a left leaning institution (ACLU) is trying to influence the courts' interpretation of the constitution? I mean clearly we had centuries of Christmas trees in public places being tolerated by our citizens and immigrants before the ACLU convinced the Courts this was somehow prohibited in the constitution. It seems clear that immigrants had to tolerate some Christian values when coming to the US. Prayer in school, God invoked in our congress, during our speeches, and on our money? The expectation that immigrants learn english? The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-26127343358668159982017-03-23T06:35:16.248-04:002017-03-23T06:35:16.248-04:00If the most recent commenters want to look back to...If the most recent commenters want to look back to how this discussion of the ACLU started, it was with regard to America being a melting pot and how the liberal left is changing it. The ACLU is absolutely part of that. Regardless of your views, Christmas displays in public spaces, crosses erected in national parks, even the Ten Commandments in public places, were things tolerated for years. They are absolutely not an establishment of religion but you are kidding yourself if you pretend the nation wasn't founded with judeo-Christian principles. You're also kidding yourself if you believe the right...look at all the state constitutions enacted around that time. Look at the history of the amendment. No doubt the ACLU defends its own views though...my point was and still is that the ACLU is a strongly left leaning institution working against America's long standing tradition of being a "melting pot" through its selective defense of civil liberties, often in an intolerant way. The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-8779752619672373192017-03-23T01:46:42.429-04:002017-03-23T01:46:42.429-04:00So black community has different level of trust be...So black community has different level of trust because institutions are different? But they are hard to observe and define? Hey, lookie here, more curve fitting.<br />That's just useless. Define institutions as collections of explicit rules and call the residual culture or whatever name you like. Even that definition might be polluted by endogeneity. <br /><br />Either way, as it is well known social trust is higher in homogeneous societies, which is an orthogonal property to institutions however you want to define it. <br /><br />I'm not quite sure what time series of immigration flows tell you about history. The point is that social context (aka culture) matters and the enormous pressure to assimilate then was very different from today.Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-92119895042829013292017-03-23T00:37:00.297-04:002017-03-23T00:37:00.297-04:00The ACLU "attacks" displays of religious...<i>The ACLU "attacks" displays of religious iconography in public spaces where they could be viewed as a government endorsement of a particular religion. One may not interpret the first amendment as requiring this, but there is a reason the establishment clause was put into the constitution. One of the core, founding principles of this country is that we are not a theocracy. Attacks on government sanctioned religious displays are not an "attack on religion".</i><br /><br />Still, I don't like this. Putting a Christmas tree in a public building is not establishing a theocracy. Many cultural traditions are religiously derived; many others are not. Specifically forbidding the expression or celebration of the religiously derived ones by government organizations seems like bullshit to me. Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-75629683135129451022017-03-22T14:27:22.790-04:002017-03-22T14:27:22.790-04:00I've been a member of the ACLU for longer than...I've been a member of the ACLU for longer than our blog host has been on this planet (assuming he is as young as he looks). The organization's view on 2nd amendment rights is far more nuanced than The Donk would like us to believe: https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment The group sided with the Republicans in the recent House vote on sales of firearms to persons with mental disabilities (really nuanced!!): https://waysandmeans.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ACLU.pdfAlan Goldhammerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07409822556590754421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-82936626271994314372017-03-22T13:41:30.208-04:002017-03-22T13:41:30.208-04:00The ACLU "attacks" displays of religious...The ACLU "attacks" displays of religious iconography in public spaces where they could be viewed as a government endorsement of a particular religion. One may not interpret the first amendment as requiring this, but there is a reason the establishment clause was put into the constitution. One of the core, founding principles of this country is that we are not a theocracy. Attacks on government sanctioned religious displays are not an "attack on religion".<br /><br />The ACLU has actually defended "gun rights" in specific cases. They do not interpret the 2nd amendment as conferring individual rights but rather collective ones. You can disagree with their interpretation, but it is not radical. <br /><br />Clearing labor issues are not a major focus of the ACLU as they tend to focus on the protection of individual rights. But I'd like to see some evidence of their "refusal" to defend something.<br /><br />It sounds like the general critique is mostly that they are a threat to the American culture because they are not pursuing the exact legal and legislative priority list that's in your head.MaxUtilnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-83912830170920330322017-03-22T13:34:05.837-04:002017-03-22T13:34:05.837-04:00Mike's Rule: Anyone talking about rights proba...Mike's Rule: Anyone talking about rights <a href="http://critiques.us/index.php?title=What_Are_Rights%3F" rel="nofollow">probably doesn't know what they are.</a><br /><br />Legally defended rights are produced through political processes which specify a law and then later a more refined interpretation found through regulations and the courts. Groups such as the ACLU argue for particular interpretations that are important to them: other groups have alternative interpretations.<br /><br />Gun rights are a particularly good example: see <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment" rel="nofollow">So You Think You Know The Second Amendment?</a> Gun rights were settled law for decades until the NRA's interpretation was sold to the right wing.<br /><br />As for Christmas trees, the first amendment is kinda specific. Christmas trees are an establishment of religion. Very simply, you cannot have freedom of your religion (or none) if you cannot be free from the religion of others in our government. The ACLU has been successfully battling use of religious symbols by government for many decades now. Courts agree with them on this.<br /><br />I don't understand why the ACLU doesn't defend worker organization rights, but their outlook on pretty much everything else is agreeable to me.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-51594037340806431002017-03-22T09:21:06.669-04:002017-03-22T09:21:06.669-04:00I do like the ACLU a lot, but if they're attac...I do like the ACLU a lot, but if they're attacking Christmas trees, refusing to defend gun rights, and refusing to defend the right to organize for collective bargaininng, I think they need some changes in their outlook. Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-45089719048708987642017-03-22T09:19:43.489-04:002017-03-22T09:19:43.489-04:00Good institutions lead to high trust? How come it ...<i>Good institutions lead to high trust? How come it did not work in Latin America, which copied the US system in various guises?</i><br /><br />Read <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227" rel="nofollow">"Why Nations Fail"</a>. Latin America has crap institutions.<br /><br /><i>How come the black community is a low trust one even though it lives under the same institutions? Or is your definition of institutions simply a tautology?</i><br /><br />Black people live under the same institutions?? Police and courts treat black people differently than others. Black people also suffer a lot of housing discrimination. Those factors mean black people are often trapped in anarchic mini-societies. Not surprising those mini-societies would do worse.<br /><br />BUT, note that <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-01-18/the-right-and-left-misjudge-black-america" rel="nofollow">black people have been doing a lot better recently</a>, and I think the improvement of the way our society treats black people probably has a lot to do with that.<br /><br />Institutions aren't tautological, but they are difficult to define and observe. I recommend Acemoglu and Robinson's book about this.<br /><br /><i>US is the best example? You don't know the history of your own country. Just ask the Irish in 1880's or Germans in 1910's how much free mixing they enjoyed.</i><br /><br />Noah's Rule: Anyone saying "You don't know history" probably doesn't know history. <br /><br />Read Lyman Stone about the Irish and the Germans: <a href="https://medium.com/migration-issues/could-reducing-immigration-really-boost-immigrant-integration-b65c8b66dff9" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/migration-issues/could-reducing-immigration-really-boost-immigrant-integration-b65c8b66dff9</a>Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-75023513389280702342017-03-22T09:09:14.762-04:002017-03-22T09:09:14.762-04:00This reminds me that the telecoms company Colt def...This reminds me that the telecoms company Colt defines its preferred service area as "2.5km around the world's top 400 data centres". I remember immediately wondering what percentage of GDP was located in that archipelago.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17153530634675543954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-56081671616362615452017-03-21T21:16:51.960-04:002017-03-21T21:16:51.960-04:00Good institutions lead to high trust? How come it ...Good institutions lead to high trust? How come it did not work in Latin America, which copied the US system in various guises? How come the black community is a low trust one even though it lives under the same institutions? Or is your definition of institutions simply a tautology?<br /><br />US is the best example? You don't know the history of your own country. Just ask the Irish in 1880's or Germans in 1910's how much free mixing they enjoyed.Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-42652479155335458452017-03-21T20:19:33.189-04:002017-03-21T20:19:33.189-04:00Japan doesn't have the problem of Christian do...Japan doesn't have the problem of Christian dominionism (at the extreme) and intolerance by Christians that we do in the USA. They can afford to take it more lightly.<br /><br />A more conspicuous issue I have with the ACLU is that they do not seem to defend unionization and other workers rights very much. Perhaps they think the unions are big enough to protect themselves. But I have also read theories that they have been bought off with large corporate donations to defend other things.<br /><br />That said, there is no substitute for the ACLU in the USA, and I've always contributed to them.Mike Hubenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01371469964446567690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-88891188847006986062017-03-21T20:18:13.851-04:002017-03-21T20:18:13.851-04:00They pick and choose which liberties are important...They pick and choose which liberties are important and make up others as they go along. For example, they are strong supporters of the freedom of speech, strong supporters of freedom from religion (which isn't a liberty granted anywhere in the constitution), and offer no support for the 2nd amendment whatsoever. The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-45208428730437900592017-03-21T18:33:23.689-04:002017-03-21T18:33:23.689-04:00Huh. Didn't know that. Well, that's annoyi...Huh. Didn't know that. Well, that's annoying. I think ACLU is an invaluable defender of liberty in many areas, but that's just frigging' unnecessary. I mean, <i>Japanese</i> government buildings have Christmas trees. Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-24855879175646201622017-03-21T17:58:56.032-04:002017-03-21T17:58:56.032-04:00The ACLU champions itself as defender of civil lib...The ACLU champions itself as defender of civil liberties, but just so happens to defend the "liberties" of the liberal left far more often than not. As for their intolerance masked as tolerance, consider their campaign of scouring public buildings and national parks for any signs of religious expression and filing suit to remove as many vestigages of judeo-Christian values as they can regardless of any actual detriment or harmed party. <br /><br />That Christmas tree in the public square or that cross put up on public land (in the middle of nowhere) debate is equivalent to Monty Python's "violence inherent in the system." "You see him repressing me?!?"The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-3559186621286938222017-03-21T16:53:38.803-04:002017-03-21T16:53:38.803-04:00Not institutions, but social processes called cult...<i>Not institutions, but social processes called culture. You don't get a high trust society through good institutions, but exactly the other way round.</i><br /><br />I call bullshit. I say good institutions lead to high trust, not the other way around.<br /><br /><i>There's no examples of freely mixing multicultural societies succeeding as a political unit. The US is not one.</i><br /><br />Nope. You're completely wrong. The U.S. IS one. We are a successful example, we have succeeded before, and we will do so again.Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-34642071112621951542017-03-21T14:40:09.134-04:002017-03-21T14:40:09.134-04:00I'm not really saying the melting pot is gone;...<i>I'm not really saying the melting pot is gone; I'm saying the liberal left is doing its best to make it go away, partly by shaming Americans who still believe it's part of what has made America great.</i><br /><br />I do worry about this a little (https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-18/what-s-wrong-with-calling-the-u-s-a-melting-pot-), but I think that this will ultimately be totally ineffectual. The problem of cultural leftism is a chronic problem that we'll be dealing with for decades; the problem of a xenophobic backlash taking away America's key advantage (immigration) is real and immediate.<br /><br /><i>At the forefront of the assault against true tolerance and the melting pot is the ACLU.</i><br /><br />Really?? How so???Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.com