In the past decades violent means of grabbing power have been discredited and internationally regulated. Still, grabbing power is as desired as it has always been, and I’d like to introduce some new methods used today:
- Establish your base of power by achieving a critical mass (75%+) within a group with a high barrier to entry. Examples of barriers to entry: genetics (familiar ties, skin, eye color, hair type – takes 2+ generations to enter), religion (takes 2-10 years to enter), language (very hard to enter after the age of 10).
- Encourage your followers to have many children – because of common ethical concerns, other groups will help you bring them up.
- Control the system of indoctrination, such as religious schooling, government-based educational system, entertainment, popular culture – limiting the loss of children to out-group (only needed for non-genetic barriers to entry).
- Wait 18 years for your followers’ children to become eligible to vote.
- Win elections by popular vote – and have the option of abolishing democracy and instituting the rule by in-group.
Other tricks of the trade:
- Support economic and social policies that benefit the in-group disproportionally more than out-group.
- Supporting the immigration of people that can join the group, or evangelize your message to potential followers.
- Focus on out-group members in distress, as they appreciate help, become more willing to convert, and are more eager about in-group.
- Support emigration of out-group members.
Barriers to entry are an important factor that strengthens the internal cohesion of the group and helps maintain the base of power you’ve established.
This strategy has been and is being applied in numerous countries, and is a weaker form of genocide especially when the in-group is based on genetics.
Disclaimer: I do not endorse such (or any) power-grabbing strategies. I believe that being aware of such strategies is the first step to making the world a better place. I find that structuring research findings in the form of “How to”s and “5 Easy Steps” appealing to self-interest communicate information more efficiently than academic treatises in today’s conditions of information overload.
Bibliography: Jack Parsons (who sadly recently passed away) wrote a book, Population Competition for Security or Attack: A Study of the Perilous Pursuit of Power Through Weight of Numbers.” Nobody wanted to publish it, though, so Jack had to start his own publishing house.
What do you think?
[July 5, Stefano Bertolo points to Bryan Caplan's article on "liberty in the long term".]
Would the degree to which this strategy is explicit vs. implicit make a difference?
One factor I might guess might weaken the power-through-procreation strategy you describe is whether it creates a 'siege mentality' among members of the dominant order.
Since it's an admittedly pretty slow means of grabbing power, it leaves time for ethno-national 'competitors' to either enter into a procreation 'race' (may the most fecund group win!), or to use political means to address the threat (from outright disenfranchisement to subtle gerrymandering).
So, perhaps Rule 6 ought to be: 'Never mention you're trying to grab power'?
Lukas, I like your Rule 6, 'Never mention you're trying to grab power!' Yes, the sophisticated power-grabbers keep it implicit and often also indirect.
This strategy (indoctrination, fecundity and migration flows) would sound effective, yet impossible to manage on such a large scale and for such a long time (18 years at least).
I’d like some empirical evidence on if this creates a powerful class, or a powerless underclass?
Assume that there are two groups, lets call them the reds and the blues, in a nod to the two warring factions of many video games. In the fictional Mushroom Kingdom, the reds and the blues each control 50% of the kingdoms resources, and start with half the population. Each group passes their resources to members within the group, and no new resources are created (which happens with mineral rights, land, and other fixed natural resources). The population of the blues doubles with each generation; reds stay constant in population. After two generations, the per capita resources of the reds will be four times those of the blues. After three, per capita resources of eight times as much, and so on.
I fail to see this as being anything other than a poverty trap.
This power grab program has worked wonderfully in California. The in-group (Mexicans) are grabbing power from the out-group. Moreover the out-group has been forced (by the courts) to increase the fertility of the in-group.
In Mexico the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is 2.31, see here. According to California Counts, the TFR of foreign born Latinas (mostly Mexican for California) is nearly 4. See Fig. 3 here. Unless the Mexican women who emigrate to the U.S. are more fertile than average, it seems reasonable to ascribe the increased TFR to the court-mandated free medical and other services provided to both legal and illegal Mexican immigrants. In a generation the in-group gets a big increase in the voting population and political power.
Let's look at Maywood Califoria to see a dramatic example of changing demography.
1970: total foreign-born population less than 15%.
1980: total foreign-born population 50%.
2000: More than 50% foreign born with 97% Hispanic.
According to the 2008 Community Survey, California is now 36.6% Hispanic. The former out-group is now a minority in the state. These aggregates don't reflect the extreme concentration in some regions such as the Los Angeles area.
It's a poverty trap *unless* the underclass achieves the majority of power – which in a democracy reduces to the majority of votes.
In the examples I've seen, the previously powerful class often tries to maintain its power by force. In present history, this is seen as undemocratic by foreign powers who intervene in favor of the non-violent underclass.
The overclass either continues maintaining such a caste system indefinitely, or the underclass creates a revolution.
Revolution is a period of chaos, but if successful it establishes its own hierarchy within the previous in-group in a generation or two.
I'm with "anonymous," I think this strategy is tough to implement and has been very rare as a deliberate and successful strategy, if it has happened at all.
I used to wonder why the Catholic Church was opposed to condoms and The Pill. I can see being opposed to abortion, if you think a fertilized egg has an immortal soul and deserves a shot at life, but on what grounds could they oppose condoms? In college, a friend said "it's because they want as many children as possible, because they'll grow up to be Catholics and that increases the power of the church hierarchy." That made sense and was attractively cynical, and I was a callow youth, so I believed it. So for a few years I was pretty appalled at the Catholic Church (for what it's worth, I still am, but for different reasons), but at some point I was discussing this with a Catholic friend, and she asked if I really thought every Cardinal and every Pope who had ever lived was a cynic who would rather see innocent poor children die than have the Church rule over fewer subjects. Well, yeah, that's pretty much what I believed. She pointed out that there is another possibility that is at least worth considering, which is that these people truly believe their doctrine: interfering with procreation is interfering with God's plan, whereas when a poor child dies it is a tragedy but not an irredeemable one because the child ends up living forever in God's eternal light, or however that goes. Hmm. Upon reflection, it's possible that some people do believe that, yes. Maybe all of the higher-ups in the Church believe that. Maybe some have their doubts but keep them to themselves. Maybe some are completely cynical. In any case I do have to admit the possibility that the anti-birth-control stance is not _necessarily_ the product of a generation-spanning attempt to increase the population of Catholics.
Zarkov suggests that Hispanics, which he amusingly terms the "in-group" in California, are promoting government-subsidized pre- and post-natal care because it is a means of increasing their population. I suppose it's possible. But I think it's also possible that Hispanic leaders, and Democratic Party leaders, are promoting government-subsidized pre- and post-natal care because they don't like it when babies die unnecessarily. There doesn't need to be some secret plan, pursued over the course of generations.
Just about everywhere in the world, being relatively wealthy, well-educated, and being a woman with economic opportunities outside the home, are associated with lower rates of childbearing, and their opposites are associated with higher rates. Often, that means the outs are more fecund than the ins. There might be _some_ places in the world, or times in history, when this was deliberate on the part of the "outs" to gain power, but I don't think it's the case in most times and most places.
It also seems peculiar that the "multiply and conquer" strategy, if I may coin a phrase, would be restricted to the "out" group. Why can't the "in" group use it to retain power? I'm a member of the "in" group in the U.S., and yet, in the rare cases I am given the chance, I discourage other "ins" (and outs too) from having more children. In fact, I think it is close to immoral to have more than two children, a belief I sometimes fail to hide from my friends who are considering, or even having, a third. Maybe now that I'm making this attitude public, I'll get a midnight visit from one of the elite conspirators in charge of keeping us relatively wealthy white people on top, ordering me to start "my" people to have kids. But I doubt it.
I like this post since it highlights that yes by long term planning and proper migration and indoctrination one could conceivably democratically do away with democracy. It reminded me that a few years back I tried to come up with what I called for lack of a better word the democratic Coup Quotient or dCQ. It is the minimum percentage of the population acting in lockstep necessary to absolutely govern (or even abolish democracy). The notion was that in a single chamber legislature the minimum number of votes necessary for legislation is usually 50% plus 1 of the members of the legislature (ignoring fractional legislators!) or even less depending on quorum rules. But each of those members can be elected by 50% plus 1 of the voters in a given election. Therefore if I can get just over 25% of the voters (properly distributed) to act in lockstep I can pass laws in the teeth of the majority and there is nothing they can do And those voters are of course a subset of the the total population.
In the U.S. it gets complicated what with two chambers in the legislature (but the Senate excluding the 60 vote rule only needs the votes of Senators elected by the majority of the 26 least populous states) and the electoral college as well as the State Legislature's having some say in constitutional amendments.
I never did get to figure out what the precise present dCQ for the U.S. is, specifically the percentage of the population acting in lockstep which could legally revise the Constitution abolishing any given freedom for the rest of us.
I think there Mr Jakulin has several empirical observations that he turned into a model. This could have been benevolent except in cases where a cute model is generalised. In my country (Turkey) what I would call regressive political powers encourage fertility to decrease real wages so that the elite, not necessarily domestic, can invest in cheap labor. Whether that labor is for them or against them seems to me to be an afterthought that can be managed through structural violence which do not need a lot of brute strenght(if you are hungry, but not starving you would be more willing to work without social insurance and so on…) ofcourse all of the above are my opinions.
There was discussion back in the mid 1970s about having several dozen thousand marijuana legalization supporters move to, oh, say, Montana (i.e. low number of existing voters), establish residency and then use mail-in-ballots to change the laws in Montana to suit their purpose (without actually moving there permanently).
The reaction of the Montana powers-that-be was to change residency requirements from "show up and give us some sort of address" to "actually, really have to move here and stay here for at least 6 months".
The problem, as other comments have already pointed out, is that by talking about it you alert the powers-that-be who can then make you plans moot by changing the rules.
Phil, with 2 children one's strictly below replacement and shrinking, with 3 one's above replacement and expanding – there is no real middle ground.
One of the comments I've received was a link to the Gervais Principle.
Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1953:
After the uprising of the 17th June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Aleks,
The world population is expanding rapidly and is likely to exceed 11 billion people in my lifetime, so I'm not sure what you're saying about "shrinking." But even if shrinking were in the picture, that would be alright with me! If the population were to shrink to, say, 3 billion people in 2150, through people choosing to have fewer three children on average, I think that'd be good.
That Gervais Principle link is entertaining, but was there some specific part of it that makes it relevant here? (I didn't read the whole thing).
–Phil
Phil, population from somewhere else will fill in the gaps created by those who voluntarily limit their reproduction. Different people now live in villages once populated by Shakers, and who died out after adopting the religious rule of not procreating.
I am not sure what to think when people concerned about ecology, overpopulation, and unsustainability of development encourage others who share these concerns to passively eliminate themselves both from the gene pool as well as from the culture – instead of actively protecting the world.
Phil asks, "… but on what grounds could they oppose condoms?" How about Genesis 1:28 (King James Version).
In the Torah, God commands man to "be fruitful and multipy" five times. In Genesis 1:22, 1:28; 8:17; 9:1; 9:7
Like some Catholics, Orthodox Jews also tend to have large families, and 8 children is not at all unusual, at least among the Orthodox in Israel. Believe or not, some people really like children and want a lot of them. They think of each child as a blessing, not a strain on the bio-sphere.
How does one "multiply" with a condom (besides pushing buttons on your HP-15C)?
Aleks,
I guess I read something into your blog post that wasn't there: I thought you were indicating some disdain for the "multiply and conquer" strategy, but instead you're indicating disdain for _not_ pursuing it.
I don't think desire to protect the environment has a large genetic component. In fact I'm sure it doesn't.
I certainly don't approve of environmentalists "passively removing themselves from…the culture." Quite the opposite. I'm on the board of the Golden Gate Audubon Society, for example. We do a lot of "outreach," including things like docent programs in parks, free bird and nature walks, a popular speaker series, and our very successful Eco-Oakland program, recently expanded into Richmond, to try to get people who aren't necessarily environmentalists to shift that direction in their thinking and actions.
The approach of educating, persuading, and recruiting others to ones cause is a common way that groups try to increase their political power. Much more common, and more effective I think, than a multi-generational plan of trying to get one's followers to have more children.
Zarkov,
The earth's resources are finite. Mankind can't keep on multiplying forever, and, indeed, will not. The question is, by what mechanism will the population stop increasing.
A child is a blessing who is _also_ a strain on the biosphere. There's no contradiction there, any more than there is a contradiction in saying a child is a blessing who is also a strain on the family budget. Everyone who wants children should have a child or two. But please stop there, for the sake of everyone else.
My plan for world domination is to send an announcement of my son's birth to the local newspaper of a territorial island that belongs to the nation I want to take over. Then I'll just have to sit back and wait 45 years until my son is elected president of that nation.
It's foolproof, I tell you.
why population?
These are the very principles of mammon (earthly power); applicable to BUSINESS, RELIGION/CULTS, SECRET SOCIETIES, SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS.
take social class: born rich/connected, go to elite BUT expensive(key!) school, network with other similar cases, become "success", become convinced "success" was result of hard work (remember the sunday school lesson on: my flaws are inherited but my virtues are earned!) repeat.
take cults: they insist on a hazing type ritual short of bloodletting as an entry fee: barriers to entry.
take investment banking: long hours (most of day spent doing nothing, with bursts of activity AFTER hours to net crazy hours)
take medical school:….
all GROUPS are built this way.
Sorry, for the chain posting, but this is a very deep subject and after stewing for some time i realized:
THIS IS THE EXPLANATION for why poor countries have large populations, and this entrenches poverty with the elected "representatives" so population keeps expanding.
If you are poor. At least you can be the "founding father/mother" of a LARGE family with all the attendant benefits, even the hope of one break-through kid pulling the whole family out of poverty and into the "in-group". The population/excess birthing of children is a transferrance of natural human greed in another form.
yeah, i'm talking China and India, less so latin america.
but China had the princeling policy (limit to one child). But the reperucussion is so much unanticipated that rampaging murderers in China can do the most damage by attacking the princelings themselves!
When society support is weak, the poor grow their own social security. this is same theory as Parson's grab for power!
Phil, no disdain for either strategy here, just attempting to detach myself from it all, observe and extrapolate. Future will show what strategy will have had won.
Phil writes,
This plot at from the Wikipedia article on world population shows that 11 billion is the UN high estimate for world population at 2050. The medium estimate is 9 billion at 2050 and the UN low estimate shows a decreasing population after 2040. Thus I am puzzled as to why you think 11 billion is the "likely" world population.
Your narrative on population and resources is reminiscent of the dire predictions we got bombarded with in the late 1960s and 1970s. William Paddock published Famine 1975! in 1967. The Club of Rome published Limits To Growth in 1972. Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb in 1971 which made the the statement,
Needless to say none of these dire predictions ever materialized. Of course that does not prove that current gloom and doom predictions are not correct, but history should make us skeptical.
The three big population countries, China, India and the U.S. have 40% of the world's population. Only India (TFR= 2.65) has positive population growth with China declining (TFR= 1.54) and the U.S. stable (TFR= 2.06). Most every Western European country has negative population growth. If the U.S. curtailed or even eliminated immigration from high TFR countries it could easily force its TFR into negative territory. Ditto for Europe. I see no reason Americans or Europeans should seek to limit their family sizes. India and most of Third World is a different story.
Switching sides in the population debate, Johansen and Sornette claim world population growth growth exhibits super exponential growth. When growth is super exponential, the doubling time shrinks unlike exponential growth where its constant. With this kind of growth you get a finite-time singularity, which can be modeled with a power law. Sornette does this and estimates that world population will hit a singularity in 2050. If Sornette is correct, then the world's population can't keep going on the present trajectory and something will happen in the neighborhood of 2050. Here at least the mathematics is more interesting and the readers might enjoy the reference.
Aleks, disdain may be the wrong word for your view on poulation restriction, but you do seem to imply that environmentalists should have more than two kids apiece if we want "our side" to win. I hope you're wrong.
Zarkov, I don't want to get into a debate about future population, a topic I don't know much about (but I do think it's interesting that you accept expert prediction on this subject). My point is that some of earth's resources are finite, which means the human population of earth can never be infinite, which means it cannot keep growing forever, no matter what it says in the Torah or the Bible or any other book. I'm kinda surprised to hear that you disagree with that. Also, I don't know where you got the idea that I am predicting a Malthusian crisis. I am making what I believe to be a simple statement of fact: the earth's population must reach a maximum sometime.
Phil writes,
I quoted from Genesis in the King James version of the Christian bible, to show why the Catholic Church might take a position against condom use by Catholics. I quoted from the Torah to show why many Orthodox Jews in Israel have large families. In both cases, people are following what they believe are commands from God, and not any desire to increase their political power. I'm amazed that you might think I don't believe in a finite world. This indicates that you are not reading me carefully.
Your assertion that the size of the human population must always remain finite is of course true, but that's not very informative or interesting. We want to know how finite and when it might level off or decrease. Predicting future populations lies in the domain of demography and requires assumptions about future human fertility, mortality and other factors. The paper by Sornette presents an alternative non-demographic approach to population prediction using the methods of statistical physics. If (and that's a big if) the world's human population growth is super exponential and follows a power law, then it must experience some kind of phase change around 2050. I think that's both informative and interesting if true. Moreover Sornette's methods show us how to predict when bubbles break up. He successfully predicted when the U.S. and the U.K. housing bubbles would break, something that seems to have eluded more than 95% of the world's economists. Currently it looks like the price of gold in euros is growing super exponentially. Investors might want to know when a phase change will occur as this could tell us when the euro will crash. That too is informative and interesting.
Phil writes,
The earth's population need not have a maximum; it could simply approach some asymptote while remaining finite. For example the sigmoid function has this property and is frequently used in population growth models in ecology and demographics.
Zarkov,
It's true, I often have trouble figuring out exactly what you are saying, and sometimes I miss the mark completely. For some reason I have more trouble with you than with most other writers. I'll take some of the blame for not reading your stuff more carefully, but I also think you sometimes don't write clearly.
For example, I made what I thought was a simple and obvious assertion, "Mankind can't keep on multiplying forever, and, indeed, will not. The question is, by what mechanism will the population stop increasing." You responded by saying that my "narrative on population and resources is reminiscent of the dire predictions" and that we should be skeptical of claims like these. So…I dunno, even when I read it carefully, it looks like you're saying we should be skeptical of claims that there is a limit on human population. If that's not what you meant, fine, but I think you have to bear some of the blame for being misinterpreted.
And of course, we also had that little misunderstanding about what you meant when you said "I think Phil wants to spend other people's money", or whatever the quote was, which I interpreted as an accusation of hypocrisy but which you say was nothing of the kind. It still reads like that to me.
Tell you what, I'll try to read more carefully if you'll try to write more carefully. Deal?
And, finally: when I wrote the bit about the population reaching a maximum, I thought about the possibility of an asymptotic function, and even started to reword that sentence to refer to having a limit rather than having a maximum…but then I thought Nah, nobody would be so pedantic as to quibble about this. Shows what I know! But to be pedantic right back atcha: the lifetime of the earth, and the sun, is large, but finite. Ditto all the stars in the galaxy, and, it is thought, all the stars in the universe. The human population will indeed reach a maximum someday.
Phil,
1. You are the first person to ever tell me that I don't write clearly. I have written hundreds of reports and articles. I have made more than a thousand blog posts over the last five years. I used to edit reports to make them more readable, and never got a complaint. Quite the opposite.
2. The prophets of environmental doom who got a lot of publicity 1960s and 1970s usually started off with a "resources are finite argument." That's why I brought them up. They had about a 20 year time horizon, and I assumed yours was something like that because you wrote "in my lifetime." I don't see how finite resources necessarily implies a catastrophe within the next (say) 30 years. In my opinion, it was not a very good argument in 1970 and it's still not a good argument. The prophets of doom told us we would run out of everything, and as it turned out we ran out of nothing.
3. A maximum in population size strongly suggests a local peak, which would be characteristic of some kind of apocalypse in the future. On the other hand, asymptotic growth would mean a "soft landing" where the higher time derivatives go negative or vanish. This is a blog for technical people, so I don't it's pedantic to make important distinctions.
Finally I think you might enjoy Michael Creigton's talk about environmentalism as a religion. http://www.michaelcrichton.net/video-studentsandl…
Zarkov,
I'm sure it's just you and me left on this thread. I'm done with it after this comment, so you can have the last word.
I'm somewhat surprised you've never heard that it's sometimes hard to understand what you're saying. I enjoy the style of your writing but often find myself wishing you would be more clear.
Your item 2 is either entertaining or frustrating, or both. I never said population will peak "in my lifetime", I don't know where you got that. I also don't see why you assume I'll only live another 20 to 30 years; of course it's possible (I may not even live another 20 to 30 minutes!) but statistically I have more like 40. And I never said or implied there will be a population catastrophe.
You say "A maximum in population size strongly suggests a local peak, which would be characteristic of some kind of apocalypse in the future." I have read this sentence several times without being able to figure out what on earth you are saying. It's a good example of why I sometimes find your writing perplexing. What is a "local peak"— is there such thing as a non-local peak? And you're saying that if a function has a maximum it's almost certain to drop off catastrophically, which is, obviously, ridiculous. You obviously can't mean that. But then what do you mean? You say it right there, a maximum in population size implies "some kind of apocalypse." Huh?
I did not predict any particular shape of the population curve, all I was saying is that it will not keep increasing indefinitely. And you're saying that since I said it won't keep increasing indefinitely, I must think there will be an apocalypse, so you're comparing me with "prophets of doom" and saying you think I'm not making a good argument! Dude, I am not making any argument at all, all I am saying is that the human population will not keep increasing indefinitely, which is something that you CLAIM TO AGREE WITH! How can you think I am making a bad argument if you agree with it??!! For cryin' out loud!
Finally, I've seen some of Chrichton's (not Creighton's) stuff before, and feel no need to watch more of it. He had some good points, but a lot of his stuff is nonsense. Of course, a lot of everything is nonsense. I do thank that there is a "religious" aspect to environmentalism for a lot of people, and to anti- or non-environmentalism for a lot of other people.
And finally: I'm sick of being insulted, and I'm sick of having you ascribe beliefs to me that I do not hold. This has happened several times now, and it's not worth the time it takes me to respond. But once I've read your comments, I feel the need to respond to them for some reason. I think I have a solution to my problem, though: I'm going to try to never read any of your comments again. So, go ahead, claim that I believe something that I don't believe, then tell me I'm misguided or foolish for believing it…hopefully, I won't even know, and this really is a case of what I don't know won't hurt me.
Phil,
1. You left us to guess your time horizon. I don't know if you think the earth's population will start to decline in this century, or sometime in the next 1,000 years. That's why I took "in my lifetime" as establishing your time horizon as being in this century. Not knowing your exact age, I figured something in the 30-40 year range, or around mid century.
2. A non-local peak would be a very wide maximum, or a literal plateau.
3. I'm amazed that you feel "insulted." You must be very thin skinned to feel that way. It was certainly not my intention to do so. So in the future please ignore my comments. But I will comment for the sake of others. As I said I've written at least 1,000 posts and no one has felt personally insulted.
4. You don't like Michael Crichton's notion of environmentalism as a religion. That's ok, I'm not insulted.
5. I think we are in agreement that the current 1% annual growth in the world's population won't remain at that level forever. Eventually it will drop below 1%, perhaps to zero. It's that "eventually" that leads to our disagreement. Sornette calculates the changeover point at about 2050 because he thinks the current growth is super exponential. It seems like you don't want to say and prefer to leave it vague. If that's your position then I don't think you are giving us much or any information. If that insults you, then I'm sorry, but that's what I think.
6. In my opinion, Americans and Europeans need not limit their families to two children at least for the next 50 years. India and other Third World countries probably should.
First, a fascinating attempt at understanding an area of political science.
Second, please try to avoid the quick rush to the moral high ground, which I think will just distort and retard the best science. There's a space, between Steve Sailer and Steven Jay Gould types for actual best social science models to be constructed.
see Bryan Caplan on strategic fertility
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2010/05/liber…
Stefano, I see one or two of the other commenters had the same thought I did: Libertarians can only use strategic fertility as a strategy if somebody starts coming up with female Libertarians. I think he'll have more traction with the other ideas. It is interesting that strategic fertility is the one that attracted most of the comments.
Hopefully Anonymous, sorry, but I don't think having lots and lots of kids is morally neutral. I'm more than happy to entertain other discussions and thoughts, and maybe somebody can convince me that I'm wrong, but I don't think I should pretend not to see a moral component when in fact I do see one. But maybe you weren't talking about me. If you want to chastize _other_ commenters, chastize away!
zarkov, you are unclear.
"you are unclear."
About what? Your "unclear" is unclear.
Phil, I was addressing Prof. Gelman directly.
I think disclaimers like this "I believe that being aware of such strategies is the first step to making the world a better place." muddy the social epistemology. Leads to head-clunking, knowledge obscuring rushes for the moral high ground.
The comments are amusing, I'll say that. Just to clarify a couple of points in the discussion:
1. It was Aleks, not me, who wrote the above blog.
2. Regarding "environmentalism as religion" (or, for that matter, "religion as religion"), you can see my thoughts here.
3. Regarding fertility rates, I'll just say that what might seem like millions of individual decisions of parents to to have kids can also be viewed usefully, I think, as people responding to social trends. There are some times and some cultures where having kids is perceived as being cool, and other times/places where it's not so cool. Economic and political incentives are surely important here, but I think a lot of it is simply fashion.
Prof. Gelman,
Ah, that explains why the tone felt unusual normative in a space where I've felt you tended more towards the positivist.
Then again I suppose my high opinion of your recent positivist tendencies may also be based on mistaken identity. *shrug*
Hopefully Anonymous,
The author of each blog post is identified immediately below the title. Most posts are Andrew's — I'm going to guess it's about 90% — so he is indeed responsible for almost all of the overall tone.