My next book

Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World

New Blog

I'm now blogging here:

Singularity Notes

I hope that this doesn't work, (see the top right of my blog to find out why) but given the huge cost of textbooks I suspect it will because a professor who assigned a free textbook would gain a lot of student goodwill.

Capitalism, failure and Sitemeter

Bloggers hated the changes that SiteMeter made to its website and so within 24 hour SiteMeter rolled back these changes. Fear of failure is a fantastic motivator for private companies.

If SiteMeter had been a government run program (with a government granted monopoly) it would have taken at least a 1,000 times a long for it to respond to customers' desires.

Mr. Palin vs. Hillary

From the NYT "Mr. Palin juggles his involvement in his wife’s administration with his two-week shifts as an oil production operator on the North Slope. In the summers, he also works as a commercial salmon fisherman, using a set-net on the shore of the Nushagak River near Bristol Bay."

I bet if Hillary did part time blue-collar work while she was first lady, she would now be her party's nominee.

McCain is not lying about Obama's health care plan

McCain has claimed that Obama's health care plan would "force families into a government-run health care system."

A NYT article that repeatedly accuses McCain of lying concludes with: "Jonathan B. Oberlander, who teaches health policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that Mr. Obama’s plan would not force families into a government-run system. 'I would say [McCain's claim] is an inaccurate and false characterization of the Obama plan,' he said. “I don’t use those words lightly.'"

But Obama's website has the following information about his health plan: "The Obama plan will create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan...The Exchange will require that all the plans offered are at least as generous as the new public plan and have the same standards for quality and efficiency."

So, Obama would create a government health insurance plan then tell private insurers that their health care plan must be "at least as generous " as the government plan, meaning that if the government's plan offers a provision all private plans must offer this provision as well. This really does mean that Obama's plan would force everyone into a government-run system.

By the logic of this jury verdict it would be legal for me to bulldoze Al Gore's house.

Why Libertarians should vote for McCain

From Mother Jones: "If McCain wins, he'll face a Democratic congress that's beyond furious. Losing is one thing, but after eight years of George Bush and Karl Rove, losing a vicious campaign like this one will cause Dems to go berserk. They won't even return McCain's phone calls, let alone work with him on legislation. It'll be four years of all-out war."

So if McCain wins we get four years of no new government programs. I guess Alex Tabarrok was wrong when he wrote that libertarians should support Obama.

McCain is now the favorite

According to the betting market intrade.com the chance of McCain winning is 50.7%

"Sarah is every feminist's nightmare - Sarah has done everything the feminists have been whining about for 40 years but, horrors, Sarah is a Republican!!"

"My Muslim Faith" and Why Palin Isn't talking to the Press

Sarah Palin seems to be hiding from the political press. The above YouTube video provides some hint as to why.

Around 1 minute 20 seconds into the video Obama uses the phrase "My Muslim Faith." The interviewer then corrects Obama. Obama made a funny mistake that almost certainly won't do him a significant amount of harm. If, however, Palin had done something similar the traditional press would have used the mistake to endlessly discuss whether she is too stupid to be president.

Lots of people who hate Palin would love to use any gaffe of hers to define her as an idiot, so Palin's best strategy is to minimize the chance of her making a gaff which means minimizing her exposure to news journalists. If, however, Palin could expect the media to treat a gaffe of hers the way it treats Obama's gaffs then she would probably be far more willing to grant interviews.

Update: She is going to do an interview.

"You have to sit by the side of a river a very long time before a roast duck will fly into your mouth" - Guy Kawasaki

It strikes me that this elegant quote holds false in a welfare state.

Why Assistant Professors Should Earn More Than the Tenured

My article in Inside Higher Ed.

BabyGate - Palin's supposed "fake" pregnancy

Some are speculating that Palin's "son" Trig is really the child of Palin's daughter Bristol. These speculators think that perhaps Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to protect her daughter. The evidence supporting babygate consists of photos of Sarah taken just before Trig was born in which Sarah doesn't seem pregnant, and Sarah's busy schedule just before Trig was born which doesn't seem consistent with the limited stamina of a woman about to give birth.

But because Trig has Down Syndrome probability analysis indicates that the baby is almost certainly Sarah's. As a 44 year old there was a 1 in 52 chance that Sarah Palin would have a baby with Down Syndrome. In contrast, as a 17 year old Bristol had only a 1 in 1654 chance of having a Down Syndrome baby.

Let's do some Bayesian math. Imagine a strange lottery takes place. 90% of the time under this lottery Sarah will have a baby and raise it herself. The other 10% of the time Bristol will have a child and Sarah will pretend that the child is hers. So given just this information there is a 10% chance that the baby is Bristol's. But now pretend that someone tells you the baby has Down Syndrome. If I have done my Bayesian calculations correctly then the chances of the baby being Bristol's falls to .35%.

So this means that if we initially assume there is a 10% chance that the baby is Bristol's (which is surely much, much too high) the chance of the baby being Bristol's drops to .35% after we learn that the baby has Down Syndrome.

The above analysis is not complete because it ignores some information such as the relative probabilities of Bristol and Sarah having a baby and the chance that Sarah would agree to be McCain's running mate given that she is hiding the fact that Trig is not hers.

If, however, Trig really is Sarah's grandson, then Sarah becomes an even BETTER running mate for McCain because the hypothetical deception hurt no one but shows Sarah's devotion to her children.

Fixing McCain's Housing Problem

McCain got in trouble when he said he didn't know how many homes he owned. Here is how he should respond:

"More than 6 million Americans own a second home. The Democrats think this is too many, I think it's not enough."

Palin and Down Syndrome

While she was pregnant Sarah Palin knew her baby had Down syndrome and decided not to have an abortion. This fact is going to be a huge plus for her with many voters.

In this YouTube video the host says he was impressed with the way Palin dealt with her Down syndrome baby and thanked her as a father of a special needs child. I suspect Palin is going to get a lot of support from such parents.

Second, of course, her Down syndrome child is going to win Palin votes from pro-life citizens tired of politicians just pretending to be pro-life to get elected.

Feminism and Palin

"Now Obama, who has spent two years preventing a woman from being president, will spend two months preventing one from becoming vice president – and hopes to do so with women votes."


Obama is going to pay the price for his party's identity politics. Feminism might just cost Obama, the most left wing member of the Senate, the presidency.

Alaska's Senate Seat

The Dems were likely to pick up Republican Ted Stevens' Alaskan Senate seat. But now the Republicans can argue that a VP Sarah Palin would need help from Ted Stevens, and so the seat is probably safe for Republicans. It just got a lot harder for the Dems to get a filibuster proof majority in the Senate.

Racism and the tragedy of the commons

From the Chicago Boyz:

"Incidents like this really reinforce the long held belief by non-leftist that leftist have long since stopped caring about racism and instead just reflexively use it as a thoughtless bludgeon to attack anyone who disagree with them. Watching the Clinton’s and their supporters being savaged as racist was darkly amusing as schadenfreude but given their track record as solid leftist it really just shows that few on the left actually care about real victims of racism. If they did, they wouldn’t trivialize the accusation of racism in this manner.

Years ago, I use to stammer and make denials when someone called me a racist. Now I don’t even blink. I’ve come to accept the accusation as merely part of conversation with leftist."

The tragedy of the commons has eroded the shaming power of the word racist. The word racist used to have lots of power, so it was an effective word to deploy. But every time it was used, it lost a little meaning because the more activities and people that are defined as racist the less stigma attaches to the word.

The natural equilibrium for the word is probably one in which many people "come to accept the accusation as merely part of conversation with leftist." For if this was not so then the benefit of using the word racist would be high, meaning more people would use it, meaning the power of the word would soon decline.

Rewarding students who graduate early from high school

The Mayor of Chester, CT has proposed giving community college scholarships to high school students who graduate a year early.

This is a brilliant idea. The average U.S. public school spends over $8,000 per year per student. States should give students who graduate a year early from high school, say, $5000. This would reduce state expenditures and motivate students to do extra work in high school so they can graduate early.

Commercials in Congress

From the New York Post "[Michael Moore] seethes about movie theaters' showing endless ads before features. 'Why stop at just showing ads before movies? How about Pepsi commercials each day as Congress is called to order? '"


Excellent idea! To increase political transparency there should be giant electronic billboards in both the House and Senate chambers. Each day the billboards would run commercials for, say, the ten individuals or organizations that contributed the most to Congressional politicians over the past week.

Presidential Debate Option Value

Obama wants to have a lot fewer head-to-head debates than McCain does. When Obama was ahead he probably wanted to avoid debates in part because they add volatility to a race.

But now that McCain has pulled even in the polls why does Obama still resist having many debates? Obama has a media reputation of being far more charismatic, articulate and intelligent than McCain, traits that would help Obama in a debate. If Obama believed he would benefit from having many debates you think he would accept McCain's proposal for having lots of them.

Perhaps Obama is trying to preserve his debate option value. If Obama stays even or starts losing in the polls then he could accept McCain's offer of having many debates. But if he again pulls ahead then Obama can keep the status quo of having just a few debates.

McCain should eliminate Obama's debate option value by placing a time limit on his willingness to agree to have new debates. This way if McCain takes, say, a 10% lead in the polls he could avoid agreeing to new debates and still not look like a flip-flopper.

College, Sex and Boredom

Going to college significantly increases one's lifetime income. So why don't more people do it? Caplan speculates that it's because many students find school boring, and they are not willing to pay the boredom cost of college even if it means a high lifetime income.

On a related note to college, Newmark's Door links to a post arguing that the high female / male ratio at some colleges is making the dating / hookup environment a lot more fun for men, and this trend is likely to continue as the percentage of female students at colleges keeps going up.

So if the number of men who go to college keeps falling won't Caplan's thesis be falsified?

Hate speech and Halo 3

I played Halo 3 a bit too much this summer. In many games Halo 3 matches you up with numerous other players. Before a game starts you can hear what others are saying.

I'm very far from being politically correct, but I was shocked by the language many players used. In at least one-third of the games someone made a negative comment about homosexuals. In many games I heard someone use the "N" word. (And most of the time I don't think the speaker was black.) Hate speech in online video games would make a great paper topic for many disciplines.

Once I thought I had the perfect line to stop other players from attacking homosexuals. I said "why are so many Halo 3 players obsessed with homosexuality?" Alas, another player came up with a brilliant retort. He said "Why are so many Halo 3 players 40-year-old virgins?" I'm 41.

Against Strict Liability for Police Raids

The Buffalo police battered there way into the wrong house. They had a proper warrent to raid one home, but went to another by mistake. Instapundit advocates "strict liability and no official immunity" in these cases. This could be dangerous.

Let's say some police officers batter into the wrong home, do lots of damage and realize that they could all lose their own homes in a future lawsuit. These police would have strong incentives to justify what they had done by, for example, claiming that on their way to the correct home they saw someone going into the other home carrying drugs and guns so the police were justified in immediately raiding the "wrong" home. To backup their story the police would probably have to plant evidence.

You never want to put the police in a situation where their choices are to (a) be honest but suffer a huge financial penalty or (b) be dishonest, lose nothing but put innocent people in jail.