Results for “jonathan haidt”

30 found

The Righteous Mind: Why People are Divided by Religion and Politics.

Due out Tuesday.  I haven’t read it yet, but I have pre-ordered a copy for my Kindle while traveling.  Haidt is one of the most important social scientists of our time, here are two relevant links.

For the pointer I thank Arnold Kling.

Here is Haidt on Twitter.

1. “When Lee Jae-hye goes to the United States, she’s 30. When she’s back in South Korea, she’s 32.” (NYT)

2. Review essay on social media and political dysfunction.

3. The deadly accordion wars of Lesotho.

4. Ivanchuk Reviews His Game Against Carlsen, Ignores Air Raid Alert.

5. Jonathan Haidt Lunch with the FT.

6. Interview/podcast/YouTube with Thomas Uhm of Jane Street.  Crypto and NFTs too, some unique perspectives, in part a non-crazy person explaining the potential to the doubting Sallies.

Here is the audio and transcript.  Yes we talked a great deal about Ezra’s new book on polarization, but much more too:

Tyler posed these questions to Ezra and more, including thoughts on Silicon Valley’s intellectual culture, his disagreement with Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory, the limits of telecommuting, how becoming a father made him less conservative, his post-kid production function, why Manhattan is overrated, the “cosmic embarrassment” of California’s governance, why he loved Marriage Story, the future of the BBC and PBS, what he learned in Pakistan, and more.

Here is one bit:

COWEN: We would agree that what is called affective negative polarization is way up — professing a dislike of the other side, not wanting your Republican kid to marry a Democratic wife, and so on. But in terms of actual policy polarization, what if someone says, “Well, that’s down,” and they say this: “Well, the main issue in foreign policy today is China.” That’s actually fairly bipartisan. Or if people don’t agree, they don’t disagree by party.

Domestic spending, Social Security, Medicare — no one wants to cut those. That’s actually consensus. The other main issue is how we deal with or regulate tech. America has its own system. It’s happened through the regulators. It’s not really that partisan. One may or may not like it, but again, disagreement about it doesn’t fall along normal party lines.

So the main foreign policy issue, the main substantive social issue — we’re less polarized. And then, domestic spending, it seems, we all mostly agree. Why is that wrong?

KLEIN: I’m not sure it is wrong. Two things I would say about it. One, the word main is doing a lot of work in that argument. The question is, how do you decide what are the main issues? I wouldn’t say domestic regulation of tech is a main issue, for instance. I think it’s important, but compared to things like immigration and healthcare, at least in the way people experience that and think about that — or if you ask them what are their main issues, domestic regulation of tech doesn’t crack the top 10.

And:

COWEN: But again, at any point in time, if positions are shifting rapidly — as they are, say, on trade — if you took all of GDP, even healthcare — that’s what, maybe 18 percent of GDP? But a lot of the system, a lot of people in both parties agree on, even if they disagree on Obamacare. Obamacare is part of that 18 percent. Over what percent of GDP are we more polarized than we used to be, as compared to less polarized? What’s your estimate?

KLEIN: I like that question. Let me try to think about this. I don’t think I have a GDP answer for you, but let me try to give you more of what I think of as a mechanism.

I think a useful heuristic here — people don’t have nearly as strong views on policy qua policy as certainly people like you and I tend to assume they do. The way that Washington, DC, talks about politics is incredibly projection oriented. We talk about politics as if everybody is a political junkie with highly distinct ideologies.

Political scientists have done a lot of polling on this, going all the way back to the 1960s, and it seems something like 20 to 30 percent of the population has what we would think of as a coherent policy-oriented ideology, where things fit together, and they have everything lined up. Most people don’t hold policy positions all that strongly.

What happens is that they do hold — to the extent they’re involved in politics — identity strongly, political affiliations quite strongly. They know who is on their side and who isn’t.

The pattern that I see here, again and again, is that when things are out of the spotlight, when they are not being argued about, when they are not the thing that the parties are disagreeing about, they’re actually quite nonpolarized. You’ll sit there in rooms of experts. There’ll be a panel here, George Mason, whatever it might be, and everybody will have some good ideas about how you can make the system better for everyone.

Then what will happen is, the Eye of Sauron of the American political system will turn towards whatever the policy issue is. Maybe it’s Obamacare, maybe it’s climate change. Remember, climate change was not that polarized 15–20 years ago. John McCain had a big cap-and-trade plan in his 2008 platform —

And:

COWEN: If you could engineer your own political temperament, would you change it from how it is? Mostly, we’re stuck with what we’ve got, I would say, but if you could press the button — more passionate, less passionate, something else? Goldilocks?

KLEIN: I think I like my political temperament. Probably for the era of politics we’re moving into, and for my job, it would almost be better to be of a more conflict-oriented temperament than I am. I think that we are moving into something that, at least in the short term, is rewarding or is going to reward those who really like getting in fights all the time, and I don’t like that.

I’m more consensus oriented. I like hearing people out. I probably have a little bit more of a moderate temperament in that way. But I wouldn’t really change that about myself. I think it’s a shame that so much of politics happens on Twitter now, but that’s the way it is. I wouldn’t change me to operate to that.

Recommended, and again here is Ezra’s new book on polarization.

1. Jonathan Haidt is down on social media.  And Renee DiResta on radicalization through Facebook.  And from 2010, but Gentzkow and Shapiro on ideological segregation on-line are still worth reading.

2. Scott Alexander on immigration.

3. Who owns a chess move?

4. Why the leaders of Bangladesh might have favored Trump.

5. It seems Finland will abolish all school subjects.

In response to my post on transgender issues, I was sent this in an email, by a very good economist, it is lengthy so I am putting most of it under the fold, but do please read the whole thing.

First of all, I would like to thank you for contributing to this debate and for consistently sticking up for trans people and LGBT people more generally. We need more people like you who can engage in good, reasoned debate.

I would like to make a few observations in order to summarize this debate, and to use this summary to push for a fourth alternative–a sort of Hayekian alternative, which involves building upon the spontaneous order that we already have. This is assuming that there will always be a legal definition (or several overlapping definitions) of gender, ruling out option 1. Option 2 (overlapping definitions) is already a reality, which we can use to build on. Seen in that light, option 3 (the current debate) seems like a step backward, driven by emotions rather than reason.

A little background about me: I am one of three (to my knowledge) “out” trans* economists, and one of two “out” trans women. As such, I have followed the debate about trans* people since I was young, since this debate is about my very survival. In addition, I think that it is useful to look at this debate through the lens of economics and moral philosophy, since that lens helps us to see some of our blind spots.

The facts are as follows. Trans people have been going to the bathroom or using changing rooms since there have been trans people, which has been basically all of human history. This has led to a kind of tacit order in which people use bathrooms according to the binary gender nearest their own gender presentation, and this has led to no problems for the majority of the cis (i.e. not trans) population. In my own experience, the problems that trans people have faced using the bathroom are in direct proportion to the degree that one is read as trans. In my case, I tend to get read as “German lady,” and I have never had a problem using the women’s room or locker room. I know people who have had problems–this is especially a problem for trans men, butch women, and very androgynous-looking people. This has become more of an issue as people with non-binary gender identities and presentations have started to become more visible.

However, the increased visibility of trans people, the success of the LGB part of the LGBT movement, and a sense that trans people are scary deviants have led to some of the backlash that we see. This backlash is strongest among people who are just learning about our existence, or among those who think of us as sex objects–objects of desire but also of danger to their sense of masculinity or to their sense of the natural order of things. My own guess is that these people are projecting some of their own hang-ups on to us. Importantly, this backlash has been coordinated in the background by some anti-trans groups–look at the same, clunky language featured in each of these bathroom bills–and this backlash has aimed to drive trans people entirely from public spaces. I would argue that this backlash is motivated by fear and disgust, and these emotions can’t be reasoned with. However, they can be reasoned around.

To see what’s gone wrong, let’s start by looking through the lens of Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations theory, which is a bit like a modern-day version of virtue ethics. Haidt identifies six moral foundations, which closely map on to the classical virtues: (1) care/harm, (2) fairness/cheating, (3) loyalty/betrayal, (4) authority/transgression, (5) sanctity/degradation, and (6) liberty/oppression. Each of these moral foundations has implications for the debate surrounding the rights of trans people to exist and to be seen in public. Furthermore, these foundations motivate a lot of the, um, motivated reasoning that we see. Let’s focus on the main motivations for the backlash, which have to do with (4) and (5). Basically, they think that we’re disgusting, disordered perverts.

To understand (4), let’s turn to the language of all of these bills. These bills cite three separate definitions of sex or gender, none of which necessarily lines up with any other. These definitions are gender assigned at birth, the gender on one’s birth certificate (which can sometimes, but not always, be revised), and one’s chromosomal makeup (which is not usually observed at birth). All of these definitions are based on the idea that trans people transgress some kind of divine or natural authority, and that we need to bring them back into line. These definitions do not allow for people to medically transition–trans women with vaginas would have to use the men’s room and trans men with penises would have to use the women’s room–instead they amount to an admonition of, “man up, faggot.” Not surprisingly, some of the leading of these advocates of these bills have been evangelical organizations and advocates of “reparative therapy” (i.e. imprisonment and/or torture) for LGBT people.

To understand (5), let’s turn to the other main justification given by the (mostly male) supporters of these bills: to protect their wives and daughters (not so much sons, I wonder why) against using the same restrooms as us. This is because they see trans women in particular–even those with vaginas–as filthy deviants whose presence is inherently degrading, while they see trans men as an amusing curiosity, if they see trans men at all. Think of the main ways in which trans women have been depicted over the past 30 years in film–as cannibal serial killers, as something to throw up at, as sexual predators, and as dead bodies found in dumpsters. Literally as trash. The current backlash feeds into a lot of these tropes, particularly the sexual predator one, while if anything, trans women have a lot more to fear from straight men, and straight men have a lot more to fear from high-school wrestling coaches turned Republican politicians.

(Meanwhile, the model response I’ve received from other women has been, “so what?”)

These are the two “moral foundations” generally used to oppose letting trans* people use the restroom. While the anti-trans movement also sometimes uses the language of care (saving us from ourselves, which has been discredited since the work of Harry Benjamin in the 1960s) and liberty/oppression (seeing themselves as the aggrieved victims of political correctness or axe-grinding about “World War T”, particularly on the alt-right), their hearts are not really in it.

So, how should the law respond to recognize the genders of trans people, while also dealing with those marginal cases of women with penises or men with vaginas using the locker room, and at the same time trying to defuse some of the violent hatred faced by trans people? Let’s start by recognizing that this is all complicated, and that the law is a blunt, often violent instrument. No single legal definition of gender can cover all relevant cases. Instead, we can build on what we already have, and we can maybe even make things a little bit easier. Furthermore, the best thing that we can do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let our emotions cool down a bit. High emotions make bad decisions.

To start, we currently have a tangle of federal, state, local, and extralegal definitions of gender. For the federal government, the genders on one’s social security card, passport, selective service registration, etc., may all differ from each other. Add to that state drivers’ licenses, state IDs, voter IDs, original and/or revised birth certificates, university documents, tax records, and whichever gender someone reads me as while showing me to the restroom. For some people this even varies over the course of the day. Some states allow for a change of legal gender (such as California), while other states deny that legal gender is really a thing (such as Illinois). On the governmental side, this setup is inconsistent and a bit Kafkaesque, although I personally have had enough resources and luck to successfully navigate that system.

Most countries get around this by having a centralized personal registry (Germany’s Personenstandregister, for instance, which is simple but difficult to change, or the Danish version, which is easier to change). For Americans, setting up a centralized registry and/or national ID would represent a significant intrusion in personal liberty, and it would further complicate our patchwork system.

However, there are things that can be done, like making it possible to leave one’s gender on an ID or passport blank (or a third option ‘X’), as Australia and India have done. And, at the state and local level, a lot can be done to remove hurdles to getting proper documentation. Here would be where a Personenstandregister would make sense, with full faith and credit applied for all federal documents. People would be able to change their register entry by affidavit, as in Ireland or Denmark. However, there would likely be some civil rights issues in the ways that certain states would apply this idea.

The idea here is to remove bureaucratic hurdles and especially not to involve the police, which can be very dangerous for trans women in particular–particularly those who are black, Latina, disabled, involved in sex work, or poor. Current practice in many jurisdictions is to arrest visibly trans women on sight and charge them with “manifesting prostitution,” or to charge _them_ with a crime when they call the police for help, as in the case of a black trans woman in Minnesota who defended herself from an attack by a drunk Nazi. Or there are cases where the police fail to prosecute murder or attempted murder against trans women, and in fact, they sometimes collaborate with murderers. We need to do more to actively combat this type of bias and to reduce the amount of contact that trans people have with a biased legal system.

All of this can be done while realizing that our binary gender system is just a shorthand model that people use to navigate a more complex world. Since this world is complex, day-to-day decisions are best made at a low level, which is why Gov. Daugaard vetoed South Dakota’s bathroom bill. A good motto for this would be, “Get the government out of our bathrooms.” This approach is Hayekian at its heart, and it can even appeal to a large number of right-thinking conservatives.

For instance, my conservative Republican father managed a trans woman employee a few years ago, well before I “came out”. This woman had to use the bathroom and locker room at work. To make this work out, the company called a meeting of all of the female employees, and they led a respectful conversation about what was going on. This effort resulted in the other women accepting the trans woman as one of their own; she got to use the locker room; and nobody felt threatened or disgusted. It was a win-win for everyone involved, and it also sent a positive message.

We need more, not less, of this kind of virtuous approach.

Very well put.  From elsewhere, here is a very good Jacqueline Rose piece on trans issues.  One of the best pieces I have read this year.  And here is a very good update on where various public disputes stand.

1. Economist Peter Navarro endorses Trump.

2. Olivier Blanchard is worried about Japan.

3. “Dallas, with the highest concentration of [Craigslist] missed connections, has an impressive spread from Monday to Friday, with its inhabitants posting throughout the workday and late into the evening.”  For the country as a whole, the most lovelorn days seem to be Mondays.

4. Is Hillary likely to be prosecuted?  I’ve tried to avoid this topic, but I found this article both realistic and full of actual information.

5. Jonathan Haidt responds to critics.  And one interpretation of the new Chetty results.

1. “The Russian navy had to lease and purchase eight commercial transports in order to deliver supplies for the operation at the level of up to 50 sorties a day (which means one sortie per aircraft).” Link here.  And: “Over the last three years I have found that the best way of learning what is really happening in the war is to visit military hospitals.”

2. Ted Gioia praises John Fowles.

3. This could pass as satire.  (That link was taken down but it is still posted here.)  Don’t neglect the subtitle of the publication itself.  In fact you could have convinced me it was a bad right-wing satire of something that doesn’t happen, but I’ve seen it so many times in my Twitter feed I think it must be true.

4. Jonathan Haidt talk on how Ethical Systems Design could reduce inequality.

5. “…just 6% of Africans qualify as middle class, which it defines as those earning $10-$20 a day. On this measure the number of middle-income earners in Africa barely changed in the decade to 2011.”

6. JEP piece on how the Fed plans to raise interest rates and how monetary policy works today.  Boring, but a very good explainer.

7. Maryland real estate, an interior, no grain in sight.