Veil of Ignorance

If you do not know where you have been, the present is a single data point.--Me

A lot of sports this weekend. The Penn State and the LSU games were the real shockers. Donald is just a monster. Cook from the Vikings was impressive.
 

A beer company with the charming name of Tactical Ops Brewing in Fresno has produced limited-edition beer cans with the message  ‘2019/11/06 EPSTEIN DIDN’T KILL HIMSELF’ on them.

Clashes broke out after Hong Kong police shot and critically injured a protester as the city’s start-of-week commute was disrupted by demonstrators trying to block roads and delay trains.

Shadyside in WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-historic-millionaires-row-in-pittsburghs-east-end-11573148167?mod=hp_listc_pos4

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff has rejected GOP calls for the so-called whistleblower to testify in the sham impeachment hearings. What a surprise.

Estonia is doing an interesting experiment. When they stop a speeder, they don't fine him, they detain him on the side of the road and delay him, depending on how fast he was going.

The gigantic deficit that the current Medicare system already faces is projected to total $44 trillion over the next 30 years — plus an additional $28 trillion in resulting interest costs — that will need to be financed with general revenues. This is before any of the new nonsense like Bernie or Warren.

In a Fox News poll released on Sunday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they would definitely vote for former first lady Michelle Obama if she entered the race. Twenty-seven percent said the same about Hillary Clinton, and just 6 percent said that about Michael Bloomberg. 57 percent of respondents who said they do not support the impeachment of President Trump said: “nothing would cause [them] to support impeachment.” However, 34 percent said that “new evidence could make [them] support impeachment.”

WSJ summary of streaming:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-streaming-battle-is-here-no-one-is-safe-11573272000

If you go back a few years ago, there was a value chain in music — started with the musician, worked for the record label. The records went to the record distributor. They went to the retailer, who sold the record to the consumer. At that point, everybody in that chain had a vested interest in a healthy music ecosystem in which people enjoyed songs. The more people enjoyed songs, the better business was for everybody. That chain has been broken now. Apple would give away songs for free to sell devices. They don’t care about the viability of the music sub-economy. For them, it could be a loss leader. Google doesn’t care about music. They would give music away for free to sell ads. In fact, they do that on YouTube.The fundamental change here is, you now have a distribution system for music in which some of the players do not have a vested interest in the broader musical experience and ecosystem. This is tremendously dangerous, and that’s the real reason why I fear the growth of streaming, is because the people involved in streaming don’t like music.--Gioia

Democratic groups threw at least $54 million at the Virginia elections—an unprecedented sum in an election that didn’t feature a single federal office—outspending Republicans by some $12 million. Outside groups accounted for at least $22 million of the Democratic effort, nearly four times what they spent in 2015. Three billionaires—Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and George Soros—and their organizations spent more than all outside Republican contributors combined.

Facebook continues to take a hands-off approach toward political ads by refusing to regulate or fact-check them. Unfortunately for CEO Mark Zuckerburg, most voters — 59 percent — “somewhat” or “strongly” oppose the idea of social media platforms choosing not to remove advertisements that include lies, according to a recent Morning Consult poll. In fact, 77 percent of voters — including 81 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans — said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” support a law that ensures advertisements on social media (including political ads) are factual.

On this day, the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, the Great War ended.

                    Veil of Ignorance

The "veil of ignorance" is a method of determining the morality of issues. It asks a decision-maker to make a choice about a social or moral issue and assumes that they have enough information to know the consequences of their possible decisions for everyone but would not know, or would not take into account, which person they are. Sort of "do unto others" after being run through a think tank weekend discussion group. The theory contends that not knowing one's ultimate position in society would lead to the creation of a just system, as the decision-maker would not want to make decisions that benefit a certain group at the expense of another, because the decision-maker could theoretically end up in either group. The idea has been present in moral philosophy at least since the eighteenth century. The veil of ignorance is part of a long tradition of thinking in terms of a social contract that includes the writings of Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Thomas Jefferson. Prominent modern names attached to it are John Harsanyi and John Rawls. So the idea is to render obsolete those personal considerations that are morally irrelevant to the justice or injustice of principles meant to allocate the benefits of social cooperation. Sort of turning morality into a self-interest debate. (from wiki)

Here is a segment of an interview with McCloskey about the ambition of individuals in an economic system that is accurate, if unexpectedly harsh about the downside of freedom:

"We need to get people to understand they have a choice. You could have everyone do the same job tomorrow that they’re doing today. Then everyone would have a job forever.

This will be a completely stagnant society whose income is not increasing and everyone is safe. But then you ask yourself, which society do you want to live in? It’s the philosophical point that the Rawls made, which is that, behind a veil of ignorance, which society would you choose? The society in which enterprises made decisions and people had to move to North Dakota to have a job in the oil industry temporarily? Or a society in which they stay in Youngstown, Ohio, forever?

The French used to have a shipbuilding industry that eventually got outcompeted. So, being the French, they subsidized the ship makers in northwestern France to stay there, playing boule and drinking aperitifs. This is not the kind of society a free person wants to be in.

Look, being free is scary." 

This is probably too long but the point is, is the French decision defendable? One can argue that they will eventually fail as a system because one can not just subsidize a failed product forever. That's what happened to the U.S. steel industry. So the long-range result will be bad. But what about the short term? What about charming men sitting around in the café doing nothing but whistling at the passing American girls? Or smoking dope all day? Or living on welfare all day? The long term is bad, but the short term is probably not what we are really like. It's like putting an Australian Shepherd in an apartment; regular feedings and the occasional walk will not be enough.

At least I hope not.