My Beautiful Bubble

I’m not an American, but I also scored between 0 and 4 on the Bubble test.

And I share most of your feelings toward society (although I’d say I’m more antisocial than you: other than my wife, I’ve no close friends at all). No professional sports for me, either.

I watch plenty of movies and TV shows, but I get all of them on bittorrent, so no ads for me. My music comes from iTunes, and I spend most of my free time reading books on my Kindle, fiddling with iPad/iPhone, coding or playing with my PS3 or Xbox360.

And just like you, sometimes I’ve to get out and interact with the broader society which surrounds me. But I’m always eager to leave, and glad when I return to my bubble. Quite a useful metaphor.

I would have to say that this is one of the more judgmental and arrogant posts I have encountered. I don’t usually react to this type of entry, but if this is what comprises an “elite”, then I am certainly glad not to be among that cloistered group. The superior attitude exhibited here is disgusting.

I can 100% relate. I took it to the next level, I moved to Singapore.

When you act so condescending about it, is it really so surprising that people won’t listen?

With an attitude like that, something tells me the rest of America is probably happier with you in your bubble, also.

As your examples demonstrate, you actually live in several intersecting bubbles. Gary Gygax was not a libertarian economist.

One more thing:

Indeed, I’ve wanted to live in a Bubble for as long as I can remember. Since childhood, I’ve struggled to psychologically and socially wall myself off from “my” society. At 40, I can fairly say, “Mission accomplished.”

Okay, so you’ve had a strong urge all your life to segregate yourself from people unlike you. Reconcile this with your support for unfettered immigration. I don’t see it.

As a highly educated person with a generous endowment of social capital, you can achieve your own self-segregation relatively easily: working at a University, buying a house in a neighborhood those insufferable proles can’t afford to live in, etc.

Other people are not so lucky, but may have the same urge to self segregate that you do. I’d imagine this urge is quite common in all hominid species. In light of this, is it so awful that other people might choose to band together and use the apparatus of government to achieve the same goals of creating their own little bubbles? I know, I know, government is coercion, and therefore you can pat yourself on the back because you’ve created your little Caplan Compound without resorting to force unlike those unenlightened masses of nincompoops who never read For a New Liberty.

Spare me. If the rest of humanity is so dreary, wicked, and blah blah blah, why give a hoot whether some of them choose to build a fence somewhere and stop others from passing it? If you have no egalitarian impulses, as you claim, then what difference does it make to you that some Haitians or Mexicans or whoever are denied the opportunity to drive a cab or wash dishes in Miami or wherever? Why does it trouble you in the slightest? Why not just say “yeah, that’s too bad; they probably should let people migrate freely to take advantage of better economic and social opportunities, but oh well” and then find something more interesting to blog about, like what Robin Hanson said at lunch today or something?

Bryan, This is why I think you should be highly suspicious of your own ability to talk about “our” moral intuitions about this or that. Someone in a bubble, influenced at an early age by Ayn Rand, is likely to have different intuitive reactions to all sorts of particular moral situations than people with an integrated and socialized upbringing/outlook.

@Jeff:

“Other people are not so lucky, but may have the same urge to self segregate that you do. I’d imagine this urge is quite common in all hominid species. In light of this, is it so awful that other people might choose to band together and use the apparatus of government to achieve the same goals of creating their own little bubbles?”

Yes. If I invite someone in my house or decide to engage in a mutually beneficial exchange with them, it is thoroughly unacceptable for you to interpose yourself (whether personally or using the force of government) in that private transaction and they and I would be well within our rights to defend ourselves from your violent aggression. The fact that the other person was born in a place far away changes nothing.

@PrometheeFeu

Nonsense. The constitution gives the right to decide on who is a citizen or immigrant to existing citizens. The fact that you wish to override this lawful consensus is no different from radicals who want to override property rights on the grounds that it was illegitimately stolen from Indians and on the utilitarian grounds that a lot of poor people would be better off if more of your goods were given away.

Caplan similarly wants to pick and choose which property rights of the social contract he likes and which he can choose to ignore. It is not a surprise that this aspergery attitude among libertarians allows their pockets to be metaphorically picked by socially savvy leftists policy makers.

“Do you worry that your complete disconnect from how most people live and make decisions makes your study of economics somewhat ungrounded?”

I’m not Bryan, but I am an economist, and I will happily confess to being ignorant of how most people live. That, however, doesn’t differentiate me from other people—I would guess that very nearly everyone is ignorant of how at least 80% of the people now alive live, and more than 95% of those who have ever lived. Despite which, human beings, across time and space, have enough features in common to make it possible to construct useful theories about them, including economics. And apply those theories to help us understand things about people very different from ourselves.

Would you argue, similarly, that Newton’s theories are obviously irrelevant to the movement of the planets, since they are many millions of miles away and he never got even a mile off of Earth’s surface?

Hey fine. Go ahead and change the laws, but enforce them at the moment. Yet that standard is never applied to illegal immigrants whom Caplan routinely approves of.

And frankly none of his utilitarian arguments about the benefits of immigration or the “small” harms to citizens are different from those of redistributionists for property takings. They always claim larger “moral” benefits.

Societies are always about finding compromises for competing, incompatible moral claims. It’s a mistake to think live and let live is possible in certain realms.

So yes, his attitude is repugnant. And no, he CAN’T claim he doesn’t “pester” other people because he does.

I’m reminded of a quote from a professional video gamer:

Whenever someone tells me that I should get out and see the world, I tap my head and tell them that there is a whole universe in here.

If there were no public choice issues, then living in a bubble wouldnt matter. But there are. And the ignorance of the masses that the elites that hold or influence the levers of power thus has understandably negative consequences for those outside the bubble.

In other words, as someone who presents himself as a public intellectual, frequently proposing sweeping changes, you should be embarrassed to admit abject ignorance on the subject for which you claim expertise-the public.

Note, I understand how nice and comfortable a bubble can be, but for a person engaged in public policy, living in a tight bubble greatly reduces your practical knowledge of your field of theoretical expertise.

That’s exactly what I thought when I read Murray’s book: I live in a bubble and I like it. I will be choosing a wife from people who are similarly educated as me. Should I feel bad about it? I like classical music; people I am playing with are medical doctors, teachers, lawyers, engineers… (we are on a semi-professional level) Should I feel bad about spending a huge amount of time with these people? I’m doing some extreme sports; the people I am in contact with are a lawyer, a physicist, several programmers…should I feel bad about it?
I spend my time with interesting, educated, nice people doing some things that people ‘outside of my bubble’ won’t even understand. It allowed me to experience things that would be impossible without making a ‘bubble’; it’s extremely easy to spoil a group, if you let in the wrong people.

Time is expensive. Spending time with people outside-of-my-bubble means I will be spending less time doing things that I love. I don’t think it is immoral nor arrogant; it’s just a choice. It’s my time, my life; I think it’s arrogant if anyone wants me to give up on these things just – well, just because he thinks I shouldn’t live in a bubble.

NASCAR is an elite sport. Although there are many non-elite people who watch it, one must be elite to participate in it. One must be somewhat elite to participate in any of the motorsports that lead up to being able to participate in NASCAR. Anyone who can afford an economically useless machine that costs 5 figures to buy is elite in world standards. Compare this to the cost of playing basket ball in a neighborhood court. There, all you need is a ball.

@ajb:
“Hey fine. Go ahead and change the laws, but enforce them at the moment. Yet that standard is never applied to illegal immigrants whom Caplan routinely approves of.

And frankly none of his utilitarian arguments about the benefits of immigration or the “small” harms to citizens are different from those of redistributionists for property takings. They always claim larger “moral” benefits.”

Except Bryan’s central point about immigration is not utilitarian. It’s moral/ethical/principled. His point it that it is wrong to prevent peaceful people from crossing political boundaries at will. Enforcing unjust laws is an ethical failing while violating them is not. Sure, mildly unjust laws should be enforced until they are changed in order to maintain the rule of law as long as it seems likely that the law will change, but consider the application of this doctrine. For instance, according to your doctrine, when slavery was legal, the right thing to do was to capture escaped slaves and return them to their owner. On a much different level, nowadays, the right thing to do is to raid stores that happen to sell unpasteurized milk. When your friend runs out of their pain pills, you should be arrested for distribution of a controlled substance if you give him a pill from your prescription which you never finished. The right thing to do is to arrest and fine parents who don’t want to let the TSA molest their children… And the list goes on and on… Are you really prepare to claim these acts of enforcing the law as it stands to be the right thing to do?

And Bryan’s utilitarian points are nothing but arguments he gives to those who say something along the lines of: “Well, you’re right, but we can’t afford it.” It is a response to utilitarians on their own terms, not the crux of his argument.

But I’m not trying to push my lifestyle on others.

I support Bryan’s right to live in a bubble. I also support his right to push his preferred policies onto others by simple persuasion (I do as well).

However, I find it a little hard to reconcile the sentiment expressed above with the “economists opinions should carry more weight” and the anti-democratic paradigms that play steadily through his posts.

Bryan is explicitly willing to use authority rather than simple presentation of his views to try to pop the bubble of the majority of Americans.

At that point, I feel he has lost the moral authority to ask others not to ‘pop his bubble’.

I don’t understand the hostility towards Bryan’s post. He doesn’t like much of America society and culture. I share some of that (but I do like basketball). What is the big deal? Yes, he used some strong words to criticize it — perhaps they were a bit strong — but so what.

It seems obvious to me that everybody constructs a bubble to some degree, or at least would like to if circumstances permitted. Bryan is hardly unique in this regard. Perhaps what is unique is the thickness of his bubble, assuming he paints an accurate picture.

There are two ways to look at a person who takes careful steps to insulate themselves from interaction with people unlike them:

1. People unlike that person are all boring, wicked, insipid, or whatever other adjectives you care to throw in, and so insulating one’s self from these people is rational in order to avoid the unpleasant physical or emotional responses that might be triggered by the behavior of these others.

2. This person simply lacks the necessary social agility or skillset to comfortably interact with people different from himself.

Bryan is flattering himself that his behavior is all #1. Has he even considered #2?

The whiff of hypocrisy isn’t doing him any favors, either. He posted his “me at my most convincing” essay on immigration not long ago, in which he supposed (lamely, I thought) that you can tell diversity is great because property values are higher in Los Angeles than in, say, Seattle. Now he brags about how his social/professional circle is made up almost solely of libertarians with Ph.D.s in economics, and how wonderful it is that he’s able to avoid everyone else. Well, now.

Someone here is full of crap, and it’s either the Bryan Caplan of two weeks ago or the Bryan Caplan of today.

So avoiding bad beer is considered a shortcoming? Having worked white and blue collar I can say one thing for sure: that “quiz” does not pass the the sniff test.

@Jacob:

First, Bryan has pointed out on multiple occasions that the specific fear you mention is unfounded. Bubble or no bubble, the vast majority of us will be made better off by freer immigration. Why don’t you listen to Bryan’s interview with Russ Roberts where Bryan points out that your fears are unfounded and even if they aren’t, there are more humane and appropriate ways to provide you with relief than keeping/kicking people out of the country. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2010/10/caplan_on_immig.html

Also, your use of language is confusing you. It is not “your country” in the same way that the car you own is “your car” or that the house you own is “your house.” It is “your country” in the same way that the person you spend time with is “your friend” or that the place your were born in is “your hometown” or that a song you enjoy with your wife is “your song”. It is a thing to which you are related in a particular way. That does not grant you any legitimate power to exclude others from it.

Why put so much distance between myself and the outside world? Because despite my legendary optimism, I find my society unacceptable. It is dreary, insipid, ugly, boring, wrong, and wicked.

And yet, the outside world is arguably the best it’s ever been.

I scored a 3, and all three were just coincidences. One of them was that I rode on Trailways (“The Sleasiet Travel on Earth”) and Greyhound (“Running Late”) one summer close to 40 years ago.

My guess (I’m too lazy to look it up) would be that the year that the number of passenger-miles peaked on Trailways and Greyhound would probably be somewhere between the late 1950s and mid-1960s. And the thing is, both buslines were *segregated* during that time. So it’s not like the days when Trailways and Greyhound were important means of travel are the “good ol’ days”…except through foggy memories.

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Bryan’s commentaries on immigration are of about the same value as if he wrote sports commentaries saying, “I never pay attention to basketball, but I think the Knicks should trade Jason Lin right now while his novelty value is high and get the ball back into the hands of Carmelo Anthony. Trust me, I have a doctorate in economics, so I know more about basketball than people who pay attention to basketball do.”

When I waited tables in high school and college, I was “scared straight” into building my bubble. I didn’t want to wind up like the folks I worked with.

However, I often think we rely too much on our bubbles and aren’t apt to give proper credit for the influences folks outside our bubbles have on us.

Remember when he said “My heart does bleed for people born in poor countries who come here to better their condition with hard work.”

He can think that if he likes; it certainly is not an ignoble sentiment. Quite the opposite. I just want to see him square it with statements he made above like:

I find my society unacceptable. It is dreary, insipid, ugly, boring, wrong, and wicked.

America’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

In other words, he thinks very little of American society and most Americans, but he has a great deal of sympathy for those who want to become a part of the society he despises. Or, alternatively, he cares greatly for the plight of immigrants, but the children of those immigrants, on the other hand, born and raised here as native citizens, to hell with them. They just become more of those ugly Americans he dislikes so much and tries desperately to avoid. See the contradiction here? If he actively dislikes most Americans and their society/culture, why is he so obsessed with the ability of non-Americans to move here and become a part of it?

I guess in Bryan’s defense he could tell a story about subjective value. “Well, I think it sucks, but other people seem to think it’s pretty cool, so they should be able to partake if they want to.” That’s fair enough, but it still doesn’t explain his heart “bleeding” for those that are denied the opportunity. Again, why does it matter so much to him? I understand he’s a dogmatic libertarian, so perhaps he reflexively feels some measure of sympathy for people who have some core liberty denied to them, but he should consider that in all likelihood, the Cubans, Asians, Eastern Europeans, etc, that are trying to get here probably aren’t going to remind him of the late Murray Rothbard, and if the shoe were on the other foot, with millions of Americans trying to make their way to Havana or Shanghai or wherever, governments in those places would likely put up the same roadblocks that the U.S. has, and with popular consent, too.

I think the criticism of Bryan and his view is entirely unjustified, from my point of view. Of course I would since I view “American society” in much the same way– I find “American society” alien, repugnant and repulsive.

I see a nationalist strain to this discussion (as in “American” society). Although I was born an American, and currently live here, I fail to see why I should have any deeper connection with “Americans” than with any other people. I have lived in other countries and did not feel part of their “society”– I was merely a visitor or outsider no matter how long I lived there– and I feel no different here.

What exactly is it about “Americans” that should make me feel inherently closer to them than say, Canadians or Brits? Language– no, millions of Americans don’t even speak passable English. Race or ethnicity–absolutely not. Religion– I’m an atheist while most Americans stridently are not. I love sports yet my favorite by far is football (or as my “fellow Americans” would say “soccer”). My interests are not “mainstream” and a lot of what passes as “mainstream” American culture I find off putting or unappealing.

So, in the end, the only thing that makes me an “American” is that I am currently a tax-slave of the American Imperial Government. That may change.

I thought one of the major draws of an urban conglomerate (such as the one Bryan and I share, Washington DC) is that one can more likely find individuals with similar intellectual interests and still maintain perfect anonymity and isolation from those you wish not to interact with. It’s not because I (and I assume Bryan) can not interact with people who don’t share similar values, interests, or ability (and who would want to?) but that we do have the ability to effortlessly and costlessly avoid those in favor of others who do share our values, interests, and ability.

@Evan: “I think Bryan has made it abundantly clear that his prime motivation is compassion for the innocent victims of immigration restriction.”

I think you mean to say “Bryan has repeatedly CLAIMED that his prime motivation is compassion for the innocent victims of immigration restriction.”

Given his admitted disgust with most other people, I see no reason we should believe him.

Gary Gygax wrote a game where players had to cooperate to survive, as none of the character classes were able to effectively rob the dungeon on their own. He did so by heavy-handedly making several rules that didn’t fit traditional sword-and-sorcery fantasy (fire-and-forget magic, all healing magic coming from priests)…as well as lots of rules that didn’t actually make any sense. The Dungeon Master was expected to carefully calibrate challenges to the abilities of the players in order to keep things interesting.

I’d say D&D was an example of Byzantine Big Government…and it spawned the multimillion-dollar industry that is the MMORPG, and influenced nerd culture heavily.

So while fondness for the works of Mr. Gygax may be common among the geek set, I don’t think his work truly argues for libertarianism. 😉

So I looked up George Mason University, and lo and behold it is a public university. That means those dreary Americans are supporting this author, who I understand is a professor at said institution, not vice versa.

And somehow I think that the guys who contribute to our ability to pretty much kick anyone’s butt around the world do a lot more to enable our (deficit) consumption of Chinese made electronics and Saudi produced oil than taxpayer funded academics.

Sounds like the utopian bubble that was Galt’s Gulch in “Atlas Shugged” or perhaps even Superman’s Fortress of Solitude 🙂 Everybody needs the sanctuary of escapism.

Bryan’s entitled to create a bubble. No problem there. We all do to an extent.

The problems with this post are
1. It reveals Bryan to be misanthropic.

2. As others have noted, it’s a taxpayer-funded bubble, paid for by the unwashed masses that give Bryan the shivers. This seems, at best, a case of ingratitude, or at worst, cynical exploitation.

3. Since he is admitting to hostility to American culture, it’s causing many readers to wonder if that hostility is, in part, motivating other stances that are supposedly based on impasssionate, logical reasoning. For instance, they’re wondering is he subconsciously discounting utility for Americans of immigration policy compared to utility for immigrants, because he doesn’t like Americans.