6 Cultural Biases - Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values and the Meaning of Life by Steven E. Landsburg - #fedeovunque #furtosingoloedimassa #abortoepenadimorte #schiavitùetassaprogressiva #ilbatteriodellapeste #safesexsafecrime #dirittolavorodirittofidanzate
We flip a switch and confidently expect light to flood the room, never stopping to wonder why or how. We fly through the air, cook in microwave ovens, and surf the Web, all with little understanding—and often with even less interest—in the technology that makes it all possible.Read more at location 783
Take a twig. Break it in half. Now put the pieces back together. Now let go. Why isn’t the twig back in one piece? All the parts are still there, just as they were before you came along. Now that you’ve put the pieces back together, it appears that all the parts are in the same relative positions they were in before you came along. They had no problem sticking together then. Why won’t they stick together now? What held them together before and why has it stopped working? Either you can answer those questions or you can’t. If you can’t, then your confidence in the basic properties of twigs is a pure act of faith.Read more at location 797
Every age is the age of faith; every life is a series of unexamined assumptions. The sum of our unexamined assumptions is roughly what we call our culture. An unwillingness to question those assumptions is called cultural bias.Read more at location 804
Cultural beliefs are passed to the next generation through education. My daughter learns in school that one-on-one stealing is wrong, but she doesn’t learn that confiscatory taxation is wrong. The lingering effect of that indoctrination is powerful; I am certain that Cayley will never vote to legalize direct theft, but I can’t be certain that she will never vote to raise other people’s taxes.1Read more at location 816
Reforming the tax system is an ambitious and honorable undertaking;Read more at location 820
Success in that endeavor would require a revolution in cultural beliefs, ultimately sustaining itself through the elementary school curriculum. That’s what happened with slavery, which was abolished through the force of arms in the short run, but rendered unthinkable through the force of moral argument in the long run.Read more at location 821
The battle against progressive taxation will never be won by timorous politicians who argue—no matter how correctly—that high marginal tax rates retard economic growth and limit opportunities for the poor and the middle class. It will be won, if at all, as the long-run battle against slavery was won—by men and women with the insight and the courage to declare in public that progressive taxation is wrong.Read more at location 823
Note: SCHIAVITÙ: SRADICATA CON LE ARMI., OGGI IMPENSABILE. ALIQUOTE PROGR.: FORSE OCCORRONO LE ARMI ANCHE LÌ Edit
It is therefore a matter of concern to me when my daughter is taught on Monday that it is a vice to “take the law into your own hands” and then on Tuesday that it is a virtue to pick up trash from the schoolyard. Isn’t picking up trash an instance of taking the law into your own hands? We have laws against litter and proper authorities to enforce them. But at my daughter’s school, fourth grade vigilantes usurp those authorities, arm themselves with litter bags, and summarily police the playground.Read more at location 831
Of course, the vigilantes are a force for good, Monday’s lesson notwithstanding. In fact, taking the law into your own hands is almost always admirable, provided the law in question is a good one. If there’s a law you want enforced, why would you object to people gratuitously enforcing it for you?Read more at location 835
Cayley has been taught that all endangered species should be preserved, but she’s also been taught that the AIDS virus should be eradicated. When Cayley’s third grade teacher required her to write a report on the endangered species of her choice, I encouraged her to choose the AIDS virus. (I was unsuccessful.) The AIDS virus is probably only one of many species that are not yet as endangered as they ought to be.Read more at location 845
Next year, Cayley will be admonished that adolescent sex is a bad thing, but she will also be trained in how to avoid its consequences by practicing “safe sex.” She is also admonished that adolescent crime is a bad thing, but her school does not offer training in “safe crime.”Read more at location 857
(“Of course, crime is a bad idea—but if you do choose to rob people, be sure to wear a mask, and never use unnecessary violence that might escalate a misdemeanor to a felony”)Read more at location 859
Most people have instinctive sympathy for the man who says “I tried for months to get a job and nobody would hire me. Only in desperation did I turn to theft.” The same people have only scorn for the man who says “I tried for months to get a date and nobody would go out with me. Only in desperation did I turn to rape.”Read more at location 869
I have frequently heard it said that those who oppose legalized abortion thereby become obligated to adopt and support unwanted children. I have never heard it said that those who oppose capital punishment thereby become obligated to house convicted murderers for the duration of their life sentences. Why is the double standard not only accepted, but so complacently accepted that it’s not even remarked upon?Read more at location 874
I’ve read that we should subsidize colleges on the grounds that college graduates earn higher incomes than high school graduates, and higher incomes mean more tax revenue. Of course it’s also true that employed people earn higher incomes than unemployed people, so I guess the same logic requires us to subsidize every business that has at least one employee. But the logic never seems to get carried that far.Read more at location 883
Note: PERCHÈ SUSSIDIARE I COLLEGE CHE GARANTISCONO ALTI REDDITI E NN LE AZIENDE CHE FANNO ALTRETTANTO?
