To paraphrase my good friend: Robin Hanson and I, good friends who sometimes blog-spar, will tape a bloggingheads TV show this Monday. What would folks like us to talk about?
Here are the answers from Robin’s readers.
Cowen-Hanson Bloggingheads topics
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The Singularity, and whether you agree with Robin Hanson’s predictions (and his methodology of extrapolating growth curves) that we’re due for it sometime soon.
Also, a question I’ve been thinking about: Do I have a moral responsibilty to account for the externalities I cause? Should I act as if pigou taxes exist even if they don’t?
Ideology versus rent-seeking / public choice reasons, for what drives the political landscape the most. This may also involve the power of the voters (if the politicians are more driven by the latter, and voters the former).
Can the momentum be changed?
Why he puts up with Eliezer on his website. That guy is a moron and makes Hanson look bad by association.
Population ethics.
Looking back at yourself 10 years ago, where were you the most wrong?
Comparative Cuisine
Each of your opinions of reductionism as the best (only) tool for furthering understanding of the world.
Talk about whether a market for law-providing super-heroes will ever emerge. What are the conditions for this to thrive?
Will corporations begin to take existential threats more seriously?
Questions for Robin:
With his background in physics, does Robin have a view of economics more akin to a physical system or a biological system? When he says “health-care spending could be cut in half” how does he see this accomplished, through a bottom-up process or a top-down one?
Questions for Tyler:
You once said that government too can be considered as the result of an emergent spontaneous process. However, there are different types of emergent orders and intuitively, it seems to me, markets arise through a much different process than governments. Could you reflect on these issues?
Improving ways of aggregating social preferences FOR POLITICS. (E.g., can either of you come up with anything better–more acceptable/reliable–than one-man-one-vote.)
Staving off Idiocracy. If poor and/or dumb people have more kids, how do we make sure we are not ruled by idiots? Alternatively, does taking evolutionary psychology seriously mean embracing some form of constrained eugenics?
Will we soon live in a post-American world? What will this mean?
What’s the best-governed place in the world? How much does governance matter for quality of life?
Are there “forces of history” which move the world in a particular direction? Or is everything contingent/unpredictable?
Which, if either, of the following things are we headed for: universal drug use (for enhancement, etc.) or widespread, immersive Virtual reality?
The variety of suggestions here and at the parallel thread at Overcoming Bias is daunting.
At some point you should consider dropping the bloggingheads split-screen trappings (there have been technical issues in most of the ones I’ve watched) and just lug a camcorder to one of the Mason mafia’s lunches and have a free-for-all.
It’s always entertaining reading you, Hanson, and Caplan call each other out, but the charges often go unanswered, at least in public.
You all have the makings for a fascinating regular pod cast.
Imagine Econtalk if Roberts regularly invited people he disagreed with.
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