Comments on: Some Big (and small) Questions

By: Noumenon

Noumenon — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:17:48 +0000

Quite fascinated by the implied story behind your “don’t rely on plastic chain” answer…

By: Scott Wood

Scott Wood — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:09:23 +0000

Why would you want to eliminate scarcity when scarcity is a function of human imagination?

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:11:56 +0000

The term for corner turning is “dog ear”.

By: James Miller

James Miller — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:48:36 +0000

I’m a member of cryonics provider Alcor. I think that free market economists such as ourselves should be especially receptive to cryonics because (a) we are used to supporting things (such as legalized prostitution and sweatshops) that many others find repulsive, and (b) we tend to think that markets will do a fantastic job of promoting innovation in the future which should increase our belief that within a reasonable time period someone will have the technology to revive the cryogenically frozen.

I have considered writing to Gary Becker to urge him to sign up. If he did I imagine it would go along way to reduce the “I think you are insane tax” that cryonics enthusiasts now must pay.

I think that besides the insanity tax the main reason so few people have signed up is that because so few people have signed up it’s reasonable for most people to assume that cryonics really is crazy or else far more people would have signed-up.

By: ryan yin

ryan yin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:18:12 +0000

I’d clone people at random, raise the offspring in entirely different ways, and settle some of these “Nature versus Nurture” questions once for all.

Hasn’t twin adoption studies already done this? Or, is it not truly random?

One problem is that twin studies can have a lot of measurement error. Another is that they may not literally have the same “nature” in that twins do vary by birthweight, etc. And then there’s the problem with the (not adopted) twin studies — if identical twins are raised together but have different outcomes, where is the variation coming from? E.g., they use examples of twins who get different levels of education to back out the return to education without ability bias, but wait a second, why are they getting different amounts of education? Maybe they’re not truly identical after all …

To be honest, I can’t see how economists can get involved in nature vs nurture arguments. What if people have different preferences? Shouldn’t that predict different outcomes? A non-economist might say preferences come from nature or nuture, but in economics they’re necessarily a primitive. (Certainly no one who talks about nature vs nurture as if there’s nothing else can then talk about optimal allocations or anything along those lines — “maximizing utility” makes no sense if the utility function is a choice variable.)

By: zombie ideas « Thought du Jour

zombie ideas « Thought du Jour — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:58:33 +0000

[...] are ideas that refuse to die, no matter how often they are refuted. I was delighted to learn from Steven Landsburg that a word exists to describe those who cling to them. The word is mumpsimus. The dictionary I [...]

By: Steve Landsburg

Steve Landsburg — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:52:47 +0000

James Miller: I haven’t signed up, but as my friends can tell you, I keep asking the same question about why it’s not more popular—and learning more about it is near the top of my agenda. And you?

By: James Miller

James Miller — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:45:40 +0000

So, have you signed up for cryonics?

Given that we might indeed cure death in the next century the expected benefits of cryonics seems huge even if the probability of it working is small. But given the possible advances humanity is likely to make over the next century, it does seem highly likely that if we don’t destroy civilization, someone frozen today stands a good chance of being revived within a century.

I find it very puzzling that only about 1,400 people worldwide have signed-up for cryonics. As an economist, I think that signing up for cryonics is consistent with a lot more than 1,400 peoples’ revealed preferences.

By: Ron

Ron — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:59:25 +0000

I don’t use a bookmark because I need one; I use it because
it’s *fast*. You can’t reliably turn to the page you left as
fast as a bookmark will take you there.
It’s the same logic as bookmarking web sites even though you
know the URL. There are some web sites where I just type in the
URL anyway, because it’s at least as fast as using the bookmark,
but most of them, I do use the shortcut.
BTW: In my case, there’s no doubt involved. My parents told
me that my first word was “more”.

By: Tim Moseid

Tim Moseid — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:48:33 +0000

Of course there’s another candidate. Like it or not the most important book ever written has to be the Bible.