6 Cultural Biases - Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values and the Meaning of Life by Steven E. Landsburg

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 

6 Cultural BiasesRead more at location 781

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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

Note: UN MONDO MIRACOLOSO Edit

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

Note: ATTI DI FEDE OVUNQUE Edit

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

Note: OGNI CULTURA HA DEGLI ASSUNTI. CULTURAL BIAS: ASSUNTI NN ESAMINATI Edit

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

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Reforming the tax system is an ambitious and honorable undertaking;Read more at location 820

Note: PERCHÈ IL FURTO INDIVIDUALE È ACCETTATO MENTRE IL FURTO DI MASSA NO? CULTURAL BIAS Edit

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

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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

Note: FARSI GIUSTIZIA DA SÈ Edit

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

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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

Note: GIUSTO PROTEGGERE DALL ESTINZIONE IL BATTERIO DELLA PESTE Edit

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

Note: SAFE SEX E SAFE CRIME Edit

(“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

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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

Note: IL LAVORO È UN DIRITTO. E LA FIDANZATA? Edit

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

Note: ANTIABORTISTI E BIMBI ABBANDONATI. ANTI PENA DI MORTE E CRIMINALI SOPRAVVISSUTI Edit

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?

5 What Life Has to Offer - Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values and the Meaning of Life by Steven E. Landsburg

5 What Life Has to Offer - Fair Play: What Your Child Can Teach You About Economics, Values and the Meaning of Life by Steven E. Landsburg - #ricchezzaopportunità #preferenzerivelate #unitàdimisurauniversale #demonedellinvidia

5 What Life Has to OfferRead more at location 593

Note: Invidia e tassazione progressiva Costi opportunità: la vita ha tanto da offrire, le ns scelte dipendono dalle opportunità Insegnamento: ogni cosa che ci piace è il fruto di un genio che ha individuato un nuovo bisogno e lo ha soddisfatto in modo creativo In cortile in 3 Sei + arrabbiato o affaticato? La confrontabilità delle preferenze Edit

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What I do believe—and this is an observation grounded in economics—is that the most valuable thing I can do for my daughter is to give her a sense of life’s possibilities, or (in the ugly jargon of my profession) of her opportunity set.Read more at location 635

Note: RICCHEZZA = OPPORTUNITÀ Edit

I want her to know that the strategy for success in life is to identify a need and invent a way to fill it. No artist or inventor or entrepreneur ever achieved greatness by performing an old task in the old way.Read more at location 643

Note: L INNOVAZIONE Edit

That lesson is not obvious to children; it needs to be taught. To an adolescent who got his summer job by filling out an application and having the good fortune to get selected from a large pool of essentially identical applicants, there is a temptation to overgeneralize and presume that the chairman of the General Motors Corporation got his job essentially the same way. It’s a parent’s job to combat that false impression and explain that corporate success, like success in general, comes to those who distinguish themselves from the crowd through the force of their creative vision.Read more at location 646

Note: DISTINGUERSI DALLA MASSA Edit

It’s the rarity of their skills that allows executives to earn as much as they do; if their skills were common, competition would bid their wages down.Read more at location 664

Note: ABILITÀ RARE Edit

I want my daughter to understand all that, and more generally to know that, by and large, the way she’ll know when she’s doing something socially useful is that people will be willing to pay her to do it. Social usefulness is not the only appropriate goal in life, but it’s nice to have a way to recogize how you’re doing in that dimension.Read more at location 666

Note: ESSERE DISPOSTI A PAGARE Edit

Cayley understands too, as, incredibly, many adults do not, that the reason there are homeless people is that—for whatever reason—some people prefer not to acquire homes.1 She scoffed when she heard a television commentator suggest that the problem is a “shortage” of housing; she’s old enough to understand that when people offer to buy houses other people will offer to build them.Read more at location 686

Note: I POVERI SONO TALI XCHÈ HANNO POCO DA OFFRIRE Edit

We took a walk in the woods together years ago, Cayley aged four, and her dad, and her friend Jessica, also four. Jessica discovered a beautiful feather, and Cayley discovered envy.Read more at location 700

Note: INVIDIA Edit

Cayley—whose envy had been of the wistful, not the bitter, variety—knew already that when your friend finds a feather and you don’t, it’s better to be happy for your friend than sorry for yourself. But she was surprised when I told her this was a lesson many adults have yet to learn. She had never considered the possibility of taking Jessica’s feather by force, and was accordingly shocked when I told her about the progressive income tax.Read more at location 702

Note: COME FRONTEGGIARE L INVIDIA. NN CON LA FORZA. OVVERO CON LE TASSE. Edit

Whenever three of them meet on the playground, one ends up feeling left out. Cayley’s been through her share of those crises, and I’ve been through my share of vicarious heartache.Read more at location 707

Note: EMARGINATA Edit

Sometimes two other kids want to play with each other and not with you, and sometimes all you can do is learn to deal with it; learn to cope. You can’t force them to play with you, and even if you could it would be a bad idea.Read more at location 710

Note: TRIANGOLI Edit

Hunger and fatigue had caught up with me one night, and my complaints led Cayley to ask whether I was more hungry or more tired. My initial reaction was to explain that the question made no sense, because hunger and fatigue are measured in entirely different, and incomparable, units. There is no common scaleRead more at location 727

Note: AFFATICATO O STANCO? Edit

But then I paused to reflect that in fact adults ask each other questions like this all the time,Read more at location 731

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So we must have some innate instinct for converting our fundamental needs to a single one-dimensional scale.Read more at location 732

Note: UTILITÀ Edit

Unthoughtful adults have been known to insist that you can’t put a dollar value on love, or on the environment, or on human life—whichRead more at location 735

Note: INCOMMENSURABILE? Edit

Deciding whether you’d rather preserve a rare species of monkey or have an extra $50 in your bank account is easy compared to deciding whether you’re more hungry or more tired.Read more at location 737

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One listens carefully to one’s opponents not in order to win them over, but to see what one can learn from them.Read more at location 747

Note: IL DIALOGO