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Assorted links
1. The value of the marginal kid
2. New Mideast edition of the FT
3. Does resource wealth lead to tyranny?
4. Virginia Postrel and Grant McCracken on plagiarism and Virginia again
5. Is the "Great Filter" ahead us or behind us: Nick Bostrom roots against life on Mars
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 29, 2008 at 06:12 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
Who wants to have marginal kids?
Posted by: Andrew at Apr 29, 2008 8:44:37 AM
I have always found the idea that resource wealth leads to tyranny very difficult to believe. I am glad that the idea is being challenged. In the desire to understand why tyranny exists it is imporant that we not just accept the first plausable idea but that we accept that we do not know until we have a good idea.
Posted by: Floccina at Apr 29, 2008 9:04:01 AM
I thought Nick Bostrom might be worried about environmental regulations.
Posted by: 8 at Apr 29, 2008 9:40:47 AM
The question isn't resource wealth per se, but whether that resource wealth generates enough money for the government so that it does not need to rely on its own people for taxes. If they don't need to rely on their citizens for tax money, then the trend to despotism is strenghtened. If there is not enough wealth, and the government needs to secure the approval of its people, then the trend to democracy is strengthened.
Oil is a perfect resource for despotism because if you have it, it's generally cheap to get and creates lots of wealth - especially if you nationalize it (so the government owns it) for "the people." Other resources aren't as good as oil to do this.
The question of who controls the purse strings is very important in determining how much freedom a society has. Anytime the government doesn't need to ask its own people for approval, the trend to despotism is strengthened. A country with strong democratic institutions, like Norway, can withstand that trend. A country with weak democratic institutions will probably become a dictatorship.
This is certainly not the only factor that determines despotism, but it's an important one. Of course, if the people don't have any wealth anyway, then the government never needs to seek their approval to use it. This is one reason why abysmally poor countries like Haiti tend to have dictators. From a dictator's point of view, it's best for the people to have just enough wealth to routinely pillage, but not enough wealth that the people are able to spend their wealth on resisting the next round of pillaging. That's generally how it works in countries like Burma which do not have a resource base to supply the regime with easy funds. Instead, it needs to keep shearing the sheep. Countries that continue to develop eventually get to the point where the middle class begins to demand an end to corruption, more say on governance, etc.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at Apr 29, 2008 12:35:06 PM
The Nick Bostrom article is certainly interesting — I think it would justify it's own post so folk could cohesively comment on it.
It reminded me of Jared Diamond's commentary about alien civilizations in his first popular book, The Third Chimpanzee. His observations centered on the stone age tribes in New Guinea and their "discovery" by an outside advanced civilization in the 1930's. The tribe members were severely depressed mentally by the encounter. Indeed, Guns, Germs and Steel was written to answer one of the tribe member's question, "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" where cargo is any manner of goods.
Diamond extrapolated this to any potential encounter with an outside, advanced race of aliens and concluded that it would be just as well if we didn't meet anyone.
Posted by: Peripatetic Entrepreneur at Apr 29, 2008 12:55:24 PM
I certainly sympathize with Postrel's complaint about plagiarism, this is odd:
But it's particularly galling that he changed the passage just enough to make it inaccurate. Whole Foods doesn't sell non-organic produce,
Actually, Whole Foods does sell non-organic produce, at least around here. Who's being inaccurate?
Posted by: bernard Yomtov at Apr 29, 2008 1:05:33 PM
Bernard, keep reading. There's a correction on Whole Foods.
Posted by: Virginia Postrel at Apr 29, 2008 2:05:04 PM
Virginia,
Sorry you have been plagiarized and bowdlerized on top of that, to boot.
This is a real scourge going on.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Apr 29, 2008 5:12:17 PM
What I don't get about plagiarists is how they can figure that they'll get away with it. I mean, especially with Google and Amazon Books Search.
UF should fire Twitchell immediately. Simon and Schuster's reaction is unacceptable and we should boycott them until they pull all his books.
Posted by: Paul N at Apr 29, 2008 11:37:22 PM
Re: Bostrom, perhaps Earth is a galactic North Sentinel Island.
But my personal theory is that sufficiently advanced civilizations develop an utter dependence on pervasive low-latency communications protocols, such that their members are more or less compelled to remain within a fraction of a light-second's distance from one another or face the equivalent of exile to a desert island; and we (Facebook, mobile phones, Internet, etc) are in the very early stages of transitioning to this.
Posted by: at Apr 30, 2008 2:59:24 PM
(and I forgot to add:) ... and their energy consumption needs (spent largely on computation) will be such that they are compelled to remain in the vicinity of a very large energy source, like a star.
Posted by: at May 1, 2008 12:55:36 AM
Regarding plagiarism, there is a flip side to this issue, rarely discussed, although it is not the
issue in this case being discussed here. This flip side involves false accusations of plagiarism.
These occur and can become really nasty situations. They often involve matters that cannot be
discussed publicly. So, I know of such situations, but, well, I cannot discuss them publicly,
but the perpetrators of these matters are just about as bad as those who actually plagiarize sometimes.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 1, 2008 4:13:52 PM
