Right. This is a standard argument for libertarianism. And the standard problem is when you face externalities, or a tragedy of the commons scenario.
A lot of the policies around COVID passes, masks and lockdowns can be traced back to not to any sort of actual medical reality but rather a desperate attempt to invent externalities and commons, because that's a necessary step to justify centralized state intervention - which for too many people working in public health appears to be an end rather than a means. So we get a-physical arguments like "my mask protects you, your mask protects me", demands for lockdowns when previously they were written off as bad ideas, or policies implying that the unvaccinated are putting the vaccinated at risk.
So what's the solution? Any effort to make progress here should focus on better ways to (a) rigorously and constitutionally encode a method for identifying externalities or commons and (b) promote less centralized ways to manage them when they do arise.
For example, in a world where there was a strong public consensus that governments had no business being involved with healthcare, COVID might have been managed very differently. At the start insurers would have all been looking at rapidly increasing premiums to cover the costs of quickfire training programmes, emergency hospital builds and so on. But they'd have simultaneously been vigorously testing the assumptions in the models to see if they really had to do that, because they'd have an incentive to keep prices low and scoop up customers once the public realized the threat had been over-egged. In fact, the threat probably wouldn't have been over-egged much at all, because the only epidemiologists that'd have jobs would work at insurance firms and be called health actuaries instead, and their employment would be tied to accuracy of their results.
People tend to feel that governments must have a role in healthcare because otherwise bad things would happen. Where's the libertarian argument against that idea? Libertarians mostly ignore politics so I don't see anyone full-throatedly arguing that departments of health shouldn't exist. For as long as nobody is making concrete policy proposals, centralized statists will continue to invent flimsy non-existent externalities like "the unvaccinated are hurting the vaccinated" in order to justify their totalitarian instincts. A rigorous, well put together argument that these externalities don't really exist, coupled with convincingly argued proof that governments should no more be involved in healthcare than they are with (e.g.) food or children's toys, could be powerful.
The externalities problem is a really big one, I agree. We humans and economists, presumably a subset, keep treating externalities as though they are unusual and something demanding lots of attention, whereas I think externalities are everywhere and usually something to be ignored. Ignored by policy at least, and everywhere else dealt with by social norms of politeness and other methods. I will get into more detail on that later; it is #8 on the greatest hits list.
Externalities being the only legitimate reason to control others' non-violent behavior has led the bossy among us to lean really hard on the concept as justification for their control. Of course doing any cost/benefit analysis on those externalities is out of the question, because it might not justify control.
I am not really sure what the answer there is, other than thousands of pages of cost benefit analysis of every bloody example. I do think it is useful to point out that once you e.g. institute government healthcare that everyone's behavior suddenly has large externalities on everyone else. "Free healthcare" is a MASSIVE Trojan Horse for control of every single aspect of our lives, so massive that "Horse" seems inadequate. Trojan Leviathan? Trojan Behemoth?
I think you are on the right track with the COVID idea as well. I expect we would know a lot more about how well vaccines prevent the spread (we know... nothing now, essentially) if insurance companies had a real interest in balancing off costs of illness with cost of prevention. Granted, a lot more might still be pretty close to zero, but I can't quite grasp how the estimates on how much vaccines prevent transmission apparently range from 0-50%. .... argh.... I gotta stop writing about that, it is just making me nuts :)
"Now, suddenly, I had better have an opinion on puddling furnaces because I have input into that process"
This is really helpful in helping me to crystallize my own obsession with *why the heck do we all now seem to feel some kind of pressure to have an opinion* on everything.
I'm also fascinated by the knowledge problem, but feel ill qualified to work through it myself (although I'm hoping to interview a philosophy prof I know, who writes about it).
But I think your line above helps to answer my question. Disappointingly I think it might just be because the internet gives all of us input into, well, every question, issue, problem under the sun.
Plus something about how we are wired. Because personally deciding that it's ok not to know stuff has thrown up an inner nagging voice reminding me that I *should* know stuff. And that I'd better choose the right experts to know the stuff I haven't time to investigate.
Which itself is a really annoying problem, as you attest.
Glad you made it over! Also glad you enjoy my writing... my style is/was a poor fit in academia, although it works really well for a class lecture it seems. I always worry that it's just me that finds it tolerable, and largely because I know what I mean to say so it is easier to follow :D
I think you are onto something about the internet: it rewards performative behavior, so we are often incentivized to perform. In person we converse back and forth and asking questions is considered both appealing and polite ("Tell me more about that, I don't know much about it" is always well received it seems), whereas online we tend to have to put up a wall of text saying what we know, a good exposition being appealing and gaining us attention. People who constantly ask questions online or ask to be told more about a subject are not rewarded the same way they are in person. So if you want attention online, you had better be able to ramble at length.
Yes, my ears are ringing as I write that :D
I think that in meat space the problem exists independently of the internet as well. I blame the schools. Well, maybe not them alone, but there is definitely a strong cultural norm of there being one answer that we know, and if you don't know it you are stupid. And since there is only one answer and it is knowable, smart people can know a lot of answers about a lot of entirely different fields because they are smart. If you want to be smart, you had better be able to come up with that right answer in any number of realms, and quick like. Far from humbly, and accurately, admitting that you don't know a lot about what is no doubt a complicated and tricky subject being seen as a mark of wisdom, it is seem as ignorance when right over there some gaping sphincter is expounding simplistic answers to the question.
Of course, that's what politics demands, simplistic answers to everything. Gods forbid the President of the United States should ever respond to a question about how to deal with any problem with "It's not my job to deal with that, why should I tell people what to do about it?"
But here I am writing a rough draft for another post :D
Right. This is a standard argument for libertarianism. And the standard problem is when you face externalities, or a tragedy of the commons scenario.
A lot of the policies around COVID passes, masks and lockdowns can be traced back to not to any sort of actual medical reality but rather a desperate attempt to invent externalities and commons, because that's a necessary step to justify centralized state intervention - which for too many people working in public health appears to be an end rather than a means. So we get a-physical arguments like "my mask protects you, your mask protects me", demands for lockdowns when previously they were written off as bad ideas, or policies implying that the unvaccinated are putting the vaccinated at risk.
So what's the solution? Any effort to make progress here should focus on better ways to (a) rigorously and constitutionally encode a method for identifying externalities or commons and (b) promote less centralized ways to manage them when they do arise.
For example, in a world where there was a strong public consensus that governments had no business being involved with healthcare, COVID might have been managed very differently. At the start insurers would have all been looking at rapidly increasing premiums to cover the costs of quickfire training programmes, emergency hospital builds and so on. But they'd have simultaneously been vigorously testing the assumptions in the models to see if they really had to do that, because they'd have an incentive to keep prices low and scoop up customers once the public realized the threat had been over-egged. In fact, the threat probably wouldn't have been over-egged much at all, because the only epidemiologists that'd have jobs would work at insurance firms and be called health actuaries instead, and their employment would be tied to accuracy of their results.
People tend to feel that governments must have a role in healthcare because otherwise bad things would happen. Where's the libertarian argument against that idea? Libertarians mostly ignore politics so I don't see anyone full-throatedly arguing that departments of health shouldn't exist. For as long as nobody is making concrete policy proposals, centralized statists will continue to invent flimsy non-existent externalities like "the unvaccinated are hurting the vaccinated" in order to justify their totalitarian instincts. A rigorous, well put together argument that these externalities don't really exist, coupled with convincingly argued proof that governments should no more be involved in healthcare than they are with (e.g.) food or children's toys, could be powerful.
The externalities problem is a really big one, I agree. We humans and economists, presumably a subset, keep treating externalities as though they are unusual and something demanding lots of attention, whereas I think externalities are everywhere and usually something to be ignored. Ignored by policy at least, and everywhere else dealt with by social norms of politeness and other methods. I will get into more detail on that later; it is #8 on the greatest hits list.
Externalities being the only legitimate reason to control others' non-violent behavior has led the bossy among us to lean really hard on the concept as justification for their control. Of course doing any cost/benefit analysis on those externalities is out of the question, because it might not justify control.
I am not really sure what the answer there is, other than thousands of pages of cost benefit analysis of every bloody example. I do think it is useful to point out that once you e.g. institute government healthcare that everyone's behavior suddenly has large externalities on everyone else. "Free healthcare" is a MASSIVE Trojan Horse for control of every single aspect of our lives, so massive that "Horse" seems inadequate. Trojan Leviathan? Trojan Behemoth?
I think you are on the right track with the COVID idea as well. I expect we would know a lot more about how well vaccines prevent the spread (we know... nothing now, essentially) if insurance companies had a real interest in balancing off costs of illness with cost of prevention. Granted, a lot more might still be pretty close to zero, but I can't quite grasp how the estimates on how much vaccines prevent transmission apparently range from 0-50%. .... argh.... I gotta stop writing about that, it is just making me nuts :)
"Now, suddenly, I had better have an opinion on puddling furnaces because I have input into that process"
This is really helpful in helping me to crystallize my own obsession with *why the heck do we all now seem to feel some kind of pressure to have an opinion* on everything.
I'm also fascinated by the knowledge problem, but feel ill qualified to work through it myself (although I'm hoping to interview a philosophy prof I know, who writes about it).
But I think your line above helps to answer my question. Disappointingly I think it might just be because the internet gives all of us input into, well, every question, issue, problem under the sun.
Plus something about how we are wired. Because personally deciding that it's ok not to know stuff has thrown up an inner nagging voice reminding me that I *should* know stuff. And that I'd better choose the right experts to know the stuff I haven't time to investigate.
Which itself is a really annoying problem, as you attest.
(Enjoying your writing btw)
Glad you made it over! Also glad you enjoy my writing... my style is/was a poor fit in academia, although it works really well for a class lecture it seems. I always worry that it's just me that finds it tolerable, and largely because I know what I mean to say so it is easier to follow :D
I think you are onto something about the internet: it rewards performative behavior, so we are often incentivized to perform. In person we converse back and forth and asking questions is considered both appealing and polite ("Tell me more about that, I don't know much about it" is always well received it seems), whereas online we tend to have to put up a wall of text saying what we know, a good exposition being appealing and gaining us attention. People who constantly ask questions online or ask to be told more about a subject are not rewarded the same way they are in person. So if you want attention online, you had better be able to ramble at length.
Yes, my ears are ringing as I write that :D
I think that in meat space the problem exists independently of the internet as well. I blame the schools. Well, maybe not them alone, but there is definitely a strong cultural norm of there being one answer that we know, and if you don't know it you are stupid. And since there is only one answer and it is knowable, smart people can know a lot of answers about a lot of entirely different fields because they are smart. If you want to be smart, you had better be able to come up with that right answer in any number of realms, and quick like. Far from humbly, and accurately, admitting that you don't know a lot about what is no doubt a complicated and tricky subject being seen as a mark of wisdom, it is seem as ignorance when right over there some gaping sphincter is expounding simplistic answers to the question.
Of course, that's what politics demands, simplistic answers to everything. Gods forbid the President of the United States should ever respond to a question about how to deal with any problem with "It's not my job to deal with that, why should I tell people what to do about it?"
But here I am writing a rough draft for another post :D