The Scylla-Charybdis Heuristic: if more X is good, why not infinite X?

(Charybdis = care-ib-dis)

A Scott Alexander post really resonated with me, when he talked about one "development milestone" (#4): the ability to understand and speak in terms of tradeoffs, rather than stubbornly try to insist that there are no downsides to your preferred course of action. Such "development milestones" indicate a certain maturity of one's thought process, and greatly change how you discuss ideas.

When a Hacker News discussed Alexander's post, I remembered that I had since started checking for this milestone whenever I engaged with someone's advocacy. I named my spot-check the "Scylla-Charybdis Heuristic", from the metaphor of having to steer between two dangers, either of which have their downsides. There are several ways to phrase the core idea (beyond the one in the title):

Any model that implies X is too low should also be capable of detecting when X is too high.

Or, from the metaphor,

Don't steer further from Scylla unless you know where -- and how bad -- Charybdis is.

It is, in my opinion, a remarkably powerful challenge to whether you are thinking about an issue correctly: are you modeling the downsides of this course of action? Would you be capable of noticing them? Does your worldview have a method for weighing advantages against downsides? (Note: that's not just utilitarian cost/benefit analysis ups and downs, but relative moral weight of doing one bad thing vs another.) And it neatly extends to any issue:

- If raising the minimum wage to $15/hour is a good idea, why not $100?

- If lifting restrictions on immigration is good, why not allow the entire Chinese army to cross the border?

- If there's nothing wrong with ever-increased punishments for convicts, why not the death penalty for everything?

One indicator that you have not reached the "tradeoff milestone" is that you will focus on the absurdity of the counter-proposal, or how you didn't advocate for it: "Hey, no one's advocating that." "That's not what we're talking about." "Well, that just seems so extreme." (Extra penalty points for calling such a challenge a "straw man".)

On the other hand, if you have reached this milestone, then your response will look more like, "Well, any time you increase X, you also end up increasing Y. That Y has the effect/implication of Z. With enough Z, the supposed benefits of X disappear. I advocate that X be moved to 3.6 because it's enough to help with Q, but not so much that it forces the effects of Z." (I emphasize again that this method does not assume a material, utilitarian, "tally up the costs" approach; all of those "effects" can include "violates moral code" type effects that don't directly correspond to a material cost.)

I've been surprised to catch some very intelligent, respected speakers failing this on their core

What about you? Do you make it a habit to identify the tradeoffs of the decisions you make? Do you recognize the costs and downsides of the policies you advocate? Do you have a mechanism for weighing the ups and downs?

Liberty vs efficiency: The real conflict

Liberty: Being free of constraints

Efficiency: Raising the state of the world as high as possible on everyone's preference ranking (or some aggregate measure thereof)

You might have heard of Amartya Sen's Liberal paradox, which purports to show that the two necessarily conflict. Of course, as I said a while back, it does no such thing; it only shows a problem with preventing people from waiving their liberties when they find it preferable to do so.

However, there is a real sense in which those two conflict, and it becomes most apparent in discussions of taxation, and how to make it better.

The conventional economist's view is that "The ideal tax system is the one that hurts efficiency the least."

But there's another view, exemplified by the Murphy article that I linked in my last post: "The ideal tax system is the one that's easiest to opt out of."

Naturally, these really do conflict. Why? Because generally speaking, if you want to levy a tax that merely transfers purchasing power to the government without also forcing people to bear other hardships, you have to do it by taxing goods with inelastic demand, like energy, as people will not respond to the tax by buying less of the good, which would indicate a reduction in efficiency.

But the harder a tax is to avoid, the harder it is to "opt-out" of!

So if you think it's good for people to be able to legally reduce government revenues by abstaining from a product at relatively little cost to themselves, then "economically efficient taxes" are no longer an unvarnished good, as they come at the direct expense of the goal of making it easier for people to change their behavior in a way that routes around taxation.

This, I think, is the true conflict between efficiency and liberty, as it doesn't hinge on confusing rights and obligations.

Setting unilateral disarmament (obligations) straight

Apparently a Steve Landsburg post from a few months ago has been rediscovered and sparked a new blogosphere debate. The question: "If you favor higher taxes on a class of people that includes yourself, are you obligated, in the absence of the higher taxes, to make voluntary contributions to the government so as to push the world closer to your preferred one?"

The debate also considers (in greater depth) a weaker claim: "If you favor higher taxes on a class of people that includes yourself, you have a greater moral obligation to voluntarily pay (part of) such taxes regardless of whether they are enacted."

Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, and Bob Murphy, all libertarians, weigh in and agree with that weaker claim. (They are listed in approximate decreasing order of confidence in the claim.) Karl Smith, one of those who does want higher taxes, disagrees.

My take is that, despite superficial dissimilarities, the question reduces to that of unilateral disarmament (UD). That is, if everyone (else) would be better of for each person who (metaphorically) disarms, but you would be much worse off if only you disarmed, should you disarm? I say that, you do not have such an obligation, either morally, or for logical consistency, though it would certainly be a noble act. So, I think Karl Smith is basically right (about the implied obligation -- obviously, not about taxes!).

Just as in UD/public goods/free rider cases, the decision to UD will, for lack of a better term, "weed out the meme pool" of people like you, effectively rewarding those who favor opposite policies (which you, by stipulation, regard as pernicious).

It is for the same reason that you should not pay Coasean extortioners: though ostensibly, it works toward your goals, it undermines them by rewarding the wrong people.

I think Douglas Hofstadter made the point very well in his Tale of Happiton, which discusses this dynamic, but in the (less relevant, IMHO) context of nuclear disarmament. He's set up a public goods type situation in which "writing postcards" (i.e. to advocate nuclear disarmament) benefits everyone, but has its costs paid purely by whoever writes them. Watch how he subtly describes the dynamics of what happens when one person takes it upon himself or herself to do the postcard writing. (Here, it's a girl named Andrea.)

Andrea’s older sister’s boyfriend, Wayne, was a star halfback at Happiton High. One evening he was over and teased Andrea about her postcards. She asked him, “Why don’t you write any, Wayne?”.

“I’m out lifeguardin’ every day, and the rest of the time I got scrimmages – for the fall season.”

“But you could take some time out - just 15 minutes a day - and write a few postcards!” she argued. He just laughed and looked a little fidgety. “I don’t know, Andrea”, he said. “Anyway, me ‘n Ellen have got better things to do-huh, Ellen?” Ellen giggled and blushed a little. Then they ran out of the house and jumped into Wayne’s sports car to go bowling at the Happi-Bowl.

Naturally, Hofstadter wrote this piece to encourage people to UD ("write postcards") in such a situation. But I think he's just as well shown that, in the absence of a collective agreement, your decision to unilaterally disarm is, well, spitting in the wind.

(A version of this post was made as a comment on Bob Murphy's blog.)

Intellectual Property's Ungrateful Hitchhikers

I'm going to discuss an ethical and decision-theoretic intuition that underpins my support for intellectual property rights, and which seems to be absent, or unintuitive, among anti-IP libertarians. (See the discussion linked in yesterday's post for lots of good examples.)

But first let's consider a puzzle in decision theory. This one is known as Parfit's Hitchhiker and, as best I can tell, comes from Derek Parfit's book Reasons and Persons, though the term "hitchhiker" didn't come up in a search of the book.

It goes like this (well, my version does anyway): Assume you're lost in the desert, with nothing of value on you. You're approached by a superpowerful, superintelligent being we'll call Omega. It is willing to take you back to civilization and stabilize you -- but only if you will withdraw $5 from your bank account and give it to Omega once that's over with. (Yes, such a being might have reason to do this.) It has no enforcement mechanism for if you don't pay.

But here's the catch: Omega can scan you in detail and find out if you're really intending to give it the $5 when you're safe, rather than -- I don't know -- reasoning that, "Hey, I'm already safe, I've already got what I need and all, and you know, this Omega thing is powerful enough anyway, I think I'll just keep the $5." And if it finds that you wouldn't give it the money upon reaching safety (i.e. you don't have a decision theory that outputs "pay $5 to Omega" given that you are safe), then it just won't take you back and you can die in the desert.

At this point, a lot of you might be recoiling in horror: "What? Keep a measly five dollars when this thing saved my life? Are you ****in' nuts?" Yeah -- you're the people with the intuition I was referring to at the beginning -- the one that I have, and the anti-IP libertarians don't seem to. More about that in a minute.

Those of you who didn't recoil in horror may be thinking something like, "Whoa whoa whoa, I don't like dying. See, I would just make a contract -- or heck, even a simple promise -- that I will give Omega the $5. Since I feel honor-bound to abide by my promises, of course I would pay, and wouldn't have such diseased thoughts" as I referred to above. But I didn't make it that easy: note that Omega doesn't ask you anything and can't even receive your messages. Its decision is based entirely on what you would do, given that you know the details of the situation.

Here's the neat thing to notice: you will never find yourself in a position to be deciding whether to take that final step and give the Omega-like being $5 unless you adhere to a decision theory (or "ethic", "morals", etc.) that leads you to do things like "give Omega $5 for rescuing you at least in those cases where it rescued you conditional on expecting you to give it that $5" even when you already know what the Omega-like being has decided, and that decision is irreversible.

(I know, I know, I'm doubling up on the italics. Bear with me here.)

Conversely, all of the beings who come out alive have a decision theory (or ethic, etc.) which regards it as an optimal action (or an "action they should do", etc.) to pay the $5. Omega's already selected for them!

Now at this point, those of you who don't have the recoiling intuition I referred to, or are still worried I'll derive implications from it you don't like, may insist that this is a contrived scenario, with no application to real world -- you can't make your decisions based on what capricious, weird, superpowerful agents will do, so why change your decision theory on that reasoning?

And there is something to that belief: You don't want to become a "person who always jumps off the nearest cliff" just because there's some rare instance where it's a good idea.

But that's not what's going on here, is it? Omega makes its decision based upon what you would do, irrespective of what decision process led you to do it. So for purposes of this scenario, it simply doesn't matter whether you decide to pay that $5 because you:

- feel honor-bound to do so;
- feel so grateful to Omega that you think it deserves what it wanted from you;
- believe you would be punished with eternal hellfire if you didn't, and dislike hellfire;
- like to transfer money to Omega-like beings, just for the heck of it;
- or for any other reason.

So, then, is it normal for the world to decide how it treats you based on (a somewhat reliable assessment of) "what you would do"? Yes, it is, once you realize that we already have a term for "what you would do": it's called your "character" or "disposition" (or "decision theory" or "generating function").

Do people typically treat you differently based on estimations of your character? If you know where they don't, please let me know, so I can go there and let loose my sarcasm with impunity.

So, to wrap it up, what does Parfit's Hitchhiker have to do with intellectual property? Well:

- Omega represents the people who are deciding whether to produce difficult, satisfying intellectual works, conditional on whether we will respect certain exclusivity rights that have historically been promised them.

- The decision to rescue us is the decision to produce those intellectual works.

- The decision to pay the $5 represents the decision to continue to respect that exclusivity once it is produced "even though" they're "not scarce anymore", and we could choose otherwise.

The lesson: if you don't believe that the Omegas in your life "deserve", in an important sense, to be paid, you won't find yourself "rescued". We are where we are today because of our beliefs about what "hitchhikers" should do, and we miss out on rescues whenever we decide to become ungrateful hitchhikers. (Edit: that should probably be phrased as "... whenever we decide that it's right for hitchhikers to be ungrateful.")

(Note: this post was heavily influenced by Good and Real, Chapter 7, and by this article on Newcomb's problem.)

Setting externalities straight: the elephant in the room

A recent comment on Megan McArdle's blog gave me a chance to explain (again) what I think is wrong with "glibertarian" (glib libertarian) solutions to the problem of externalities.

Basically, I think that when people complain about negative externalities, what they are really complaining about is a negative externality that they also find morally objectionable, but for well-grounded, intuitive, practical reasons. To suggest that the victim of such shenanigans should have to pay off the wrongdoer, thus misses the point. That is exactly the reasoning I elaborate on in the comments section of that post.

So, to the discussion. Jim Glass said:

... *if* transaction costs were zero *then* "externality problems" like pollution would be bargained away in the market, but these problems aren't bargained away in the market, *thus* transaction costs are large -- and should get a lot more attention from economists and other social planners than they do.

So I responded:

Jim_Glass: actually, as I said above, I think the problem people intuitively have with this Coasean reasoning is that it's not true, even in the pure case of no transaction costs.

Think about it this way: what if while you were sleeping I came close to your window -- though still outside your property, and revved my motorcycle loud enough to keep you from sleeping. And let's say that, because of some technicality, there's no law or property right you can invoke to make me stop.

Would you seriously try to pay me to go away, thinking, "hey, problem solved!" Hopefully, you're not that stupid. Because then you just created the incentive for people to extort more money out of you. Yet economists would pat themselves on the back and say, "See? Because of property rights, this so-called 'problem' has an efficient solution."

But it's a load of crap.

Now, as an economist, you might admit that, okay, sure, you suffered a bit -- you lost some of your consumer surplus. But that "doesn't matter" because it's "just" a transfer payment. You lost, and I gained. Only when there are are *no* gainers do we see an "inefficiency" and therefore a problem. Here, there is no problem.

Hell yes there is! A system in which people can extort money this way is a system in which people just don't make as big investments in property [which results in less wealth for everyone], knowing that that will just make them a better target for extortion. It's a systematic weakening of property rights.

So no, Jim_Glass, the appropriate solution is not to "get transaction costs to approach zero, and let bargaining take over." The appropriate solution is to require those who try this extortion to pay up for it!

Deliberately annoying people should *not* be a path to wealth. People see this intuitively. And for the exact same reason, the victims of global warming should *not* be the ones that have to buy out the polluters, even if the transaction costs would be zero.

The thing is, in these internet debates, people who object to e.g. pollution, are doing so in a way perfectly consistent with the basis I laid out -- yet rarely do the participants get around to identifying these underlying assumptions! Instead, they just throw the same non-responsive points at each other, and ultimately miss identifying the optimal solutions -- both in the moral and economic senses. I seem to be the only being in the world capable of actually seeing what the dispute is ultimately about.

So, again I have to ask: is the world insane, or just me?

Well, I guess I don't count as a libertarian anymore

Yesterday I was kicked off the private LibertarianForum Google Group and mailing list. The reason was that I had the audacity to remind other libertarians of the responsibility side of liberty (with respect to global warming), and for pointing out flaws in really stupid arguments against intellectual property (and, conversely, explaining how an IP-free system is vulnerable to Mises's economic calculation critique). The proverbial last straw was a discussion sparked by someone linking this TokyoTom post about Bob Murphy finally admitting, after being dragged kicking and screaming, to admit he misled readers in his op-ed, though of course he's not going to actually say it where any victims of his deception are going to see it.

The head of the list claimed that he was deluged with requests from people who were asking me to be removed, and who apparently lacked the guts and the brains to actually explain where my points were in error. I'm not going to name any names.[1]

Naturally, people are going to claim that, oh, it wasn't what I said, but my rudeness. This is ridiculous -- it's standard practice on the LibertarianForum list to use the exact same tone I did, as even my detractors readily admitted. A more plausible claim would be that the people there didn't like being uncomfortably reminded of the implications of their stated (though certainly not actual!) beliefs.

So why the title of this post then? I believe, after all, everything I did before. But look at it this way: time and time again, I see people nominally also "libertarian" reveal themselves to have been coming from completely different premises. I never imagined that I would see, for example, Bob Murphy take the attitude of, "Oh, did I destroy your land with my CO2 emissions? I got it! Here's the solution! Fix it your own damn self!" (Yeah, way to preach responsibility and universal adherence to basic morality there...)

There's only so many times I can see cases like that before the self-appellation "libertarian" obscures more than it clarifies.

So what to call myself now? One good option is Birchian, after Paul Birch (a former Anti-State Forum contributor), since I've been seeing my views more and more resemble his, especially in terms of focusing on whether the victims of one's actions have been adequately compensated.

Alternatively, I could -- gasp! -- call myself a mutualist as per the philosophy of Kevin Carson, my former nemesis. (As recently as July of this year he quipped that I couldn't grasp an argument even with velcro-covered mittens!) The reason for that term would again be because of my focus on the extent to which nominally "libertarian"-favored activities are in fact predicated on the state stepping in an exempting certain groups from having to actually bear its true cost.

Before inferring too much from this post, I ask that you heed this caution: There is a big difference between "Problem X is often overstated in an attempt to give politicians more power" and "Problem X doesn't exist." I certainly sympathize with those who have seen so many phony environmentalist rationalizations for statist measures that are thinly-veiled attempts to shut down markets, that they hear about Problem X and immediately view it as the former. But ask yourselves: has the tide turned to the point where it's more common to see anti-environmentalist arguments as thinly veiled attempts to shove onto other people, costs that the arguer should be bearing?

[1] Since a lot of you might be sketchy on terminology, a so-called "name" is a label used to refer to a specific instance of a proper noun. An example of a name might be Brad Edmonds or Max Chiz.

The Bob Murphy and Gene Callahan problem

If you've read their post about banning me, you may have by now a one-sided view of the dispute. I will explain here why I make so many posts on their blog that they find annoying. (some links missing and I apologize)

1) I have called out Bob on his deception of readers. As Bob admits here, his shameful op-ed was written to convince the public that carbon caps are necessarily stupid, a position he rejects. Now, when you are so misleading -- basically trivializing the suffering of hundreds of millions of people to justify why your gas should be cheaper -- yes, it will make you livid when someone points this out in front of others, and Bob's desire to ban me is a predictable manifestation this effect.

2) I regularly call out Gene on his selective invocation of rules of civility. Hey: having a civilzed discussion is great. But here's how Gene defines "civility":

Acceptable behavior:
-Lying about what someone believes (geo-engineering thread)
-Lying about the economics and morality of tradeable pollution caps (the op-ed above)
-Assuming the worst possible interpretation of any argument someone makes. (The discussion on the iMac and the "He must own the place" thread)
-Personal attacks, when Gene or Bob is making them. (apple thread and recent posts resulting in the ban consideration)

Non-acceptable behavior:
-Personal attacks, when Silas makes them.
-Asking for clarification (iMac thread)
-Suggesting that someone did in fact read a blog post just before submitting a full essay on it (in the case of Bryan Caplan's challenge)
-Mentioning that someone should have known something, given his job. (geo-engineering thread)
-Mentioning that someone know about the philosophy of others, given his job. (same)

Note here: Bob and Gene have repeatedly claimed that even when I do have a valid point, they dislike my posts because of the "tone". Well, I'll admit it: I do use a harsh tone, and I should. Their mistakes go well beyond the point where I can attribute it to mere stupidity or ignorance. They reflect a corrupted philosophy, one that says, "Whoa, you thought libertarians supported principled, private property rights? Hell no! We support cheap oil, first and foremost, even and especially if it permanently floods the residences of hundreds of millions of people. The right to slightly increased profits OBVIOUSLY supercedes the right not to have your homesteaded land permanently submerged."

When you have whored out your ideology, and so cheaply at that, a constant reminder from some, some ... nobody will put you into overdrive. It will cost you sleep. It will want you to shut up that voice in any way you can. Hence, the discussion of whether to ban me, which is where we are today.

I am appalled at the way libertarians have reacted to the global warming issue. While libertarians like Bob may have made valid cases why right now carbon caps can't be justified, in doing so, many of them have tipped their hands as to what philosophy they were really following the whole time -- and it's not pretty. If you were confused as to why I've been so harsh, you no longer are. And it is instances like these that give serious substantiation to the claims of those like Kevin Carson who say that many libertarians are more interested in shoving costs onto others than in seriously establishing principled private property rights.

In Bob's defense, he has written a paper on how a private law system would handle the current global warming evidence we've faced. I find it unacceptable (as I do Gene Callan's attempt to solve the economic calculation problem with protests), but we can save that for when it's publicly available. For now, I just want you to note Bob's prioritization: first, ridicule all attempts to define clear rights in the atmosphere. Then, much later, if ever, try to sort out what the libertarian position on atmospheric rights actually is. Oh, and support atmospheric socialism until a serious problem comes up.

So why are libertarians such socialists about the atmosphere?

Why do libertarians seem to demand that there be private property, and well-defined, tradeable rights in each and every resource in existence ... except the atmosphere?

Sure, global warming alarmism could be complete B/S. Fine. But there could one day be an atmospheric global tort whose harm profile is isomorphic to that of greenhouse gas emission (as claimed by the climate science community). Shouldn't a consistent, coherent philosophy have a clear answer, directly implied from the principles its proponents claim to hold? So why does the only existing answer seem to be

NEVER, NEVER should there be private property in atmosphere, and I will do whatever it takes to rationalize why this resource should forever remain an abused, unowned tragedy.

I have the right, the inalienable right, to cheap oil, and if you thought libertarianism was supposed to be about principled, private property rights, you can just wake up from your goddamn fantasy and get with the program!

Of course, there is the the Pigou Club, whose attitude is only a bit less excusable:

Are you getting victimized by greenhouse gases? Aww, you poor thing! Hey! Polluters! Give me money! Oh, what you lookin' at me like that for? Better move to high land, bro, you ain't gettin' no bling.

EDIT: some goofs.

Overcoming bias can make you cynical

If you haven't already, start reading Eliezer Yudkowsky's series on intelligence, evolution, quantum physics, biases, morality, and whatever-else, now would be a good time to start.  The latest entries in this series on morality, though, may make you cynical, as he probes, among other weighty issues, the question of whether there's a difference between "I want this" and "It is right that I should get this."