Trolley Problem
Dr. Newmark points us (in an e-mail, not on his blog yet) to the Trolley Problem.
My initial position chooses to flip the switch and kill the one instead of the many.
The mad scientist is responsible for the deaths of the many if I do nothing, so the guilt is on him.
If I flip the switch, […]
What is Marriage?
More evidence that subscribing to newspapers is best left to people who already have jobs and tenure:
Jeff Proctor alerted me to it first, but I left the first comment on Kids Prefer Cheese.
My marriage certificate is merely a discount coupon I use on taxes, etc.
My marriage sacrament is an expression of the claim my wife […]
An Essential Exercise
Are humans only rational? Or are we egalitarian? Might it be rational to be egalitarian?
Ken Watts at the Daily Mull recounts:
The experiment was performed by Arthur Kennelly and Edmund Fantino:
Individuals were given a choice:
A. You are given 5 dollars and another person is given 3 dollars. or,
B. You are given […]
A Dollar in NY
What would you do if you found a dollar in the gutter in NYC? Probably just leave it there. It would be too risky to bend over and pick it up. You might get run over by a pedestrian, or splashed with muck by a passing taxi cab.
The solution? Throw a […]
Path Dependence Everywhere?
Once students are introduced to the concept of path dependence, they tend to find examples of it everywhere, like tootsie rolls.
In the wake of American Writer’s Guild Strikes, Canadians are producing some new great shows.
Wait… Canadians? TV? It’s not hockey?
Right.
Why don’t we see more TV from Canada, or anywhere else abroad? Tyler […]
Bettina Bien Greaves at UNC
Bettina Greaves was a senior staff member and resident scholar at FEE for more than four decades. She has written or edited several books, among them the Free Market Reader, and Mises Made Easier. She is an Austrian Economist in her own right. I met her last fall at the Mises’ Institute’s Austrian Scholar’s Conference. […]
Why Doesn’t Egalitarianism Work Like This?
An older discussion, but relevant to my current studies, Right Wing News (I was linked to this, I’m not a subscriber!) has an interview with Thomas Sowell.:
John Hawkins: One thing you’ve said that I found intriguing was that,”if you gave every poor person enough money to stop being poor, that would cost a fraction of […]
Employment Turnover = Velocity???
Maybe it’s just the sorts of groups my wife has as clients, but she claims close to 50% of her business falls off the books after 1 year due to employees switching jobs and not transferring their benefits.
Could this be true?
Her clients are mostly small to mid sized firms, no really big ones, […]
Innovation, Trade, and Growth
Dani Rodrick is my hero. (Some Austrians faint.) He links to a lovely graph which shows new products (innovation) account for the majority of differences among exports. It’s more complicated than that, and I’m a novice, but I’m going to keep my eye on what’s going on with this line of research.
The first […]
This has Kindled my Enthusiasm
Just heard about Amazon’s new reading device, the Kindle. Click on the Kindle Video in the top left corner of the page.
I just spent $55 on books last weekend at the Wake County Public Library book sale. I got 4 boxes of books for that price, and some of those books were real […]