links to some of my work

[Logan Chipkin]

Five Lessons from the Trial of Socrates - https://areomagazine.com/2019/03/01/five-lessons-from-the-trial-of-socrates/comment-page-1/

Open Ideas - https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/open-ideas/

Testing the Hypothesis of Black Lives Matter - http://thedailycougar.com/2017/10/06/testing-hypothesis-black-lives-matter/

Do not Fear Innovation and Automation - https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/not-fear-innovation-automation/

Book Review of The Ape that Understood the Universe - https://areomagazine.com/2019/02/11/the-ape-that-understood-the-universe-book-review/

[anonymous FI]

On Mar 6, 2019, at 3:49 PM, Logan Chipkin <chipki...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Testing the Hypothesis of Black Lives Matter -
> http://thedailycougar.com/2017/10/06/testing-hypothesis-black-lives-matter/

Hi. Nice to see another writer here.

Not sure what kind of replies you're looking for (people here are
usually super critical, because finding mistakes is a part of improving
things). I read this article and I didn't think it'd be very convincing
to people who disagree (even though I agree with you). From the article:

> One assertion of Black Lives Matter, per the movement’s website, is
> that “Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for
> demise.” No evidence is provided to support this massive claim.

I agree. Then:

> One prediction of the above statement is that, all else being equal, a
> black individual is more likely to be killed by police than a
> non-black individual.
>
> A study from Harvard University found that, once contextual factors
> are taken into account, no racial differences emerged in the data on
> lethal shootings. As the author notes, “In the end, however, without
> randomly assigning race, we have no definitive proof of
> discrimination”.

I don't think one quote from an unnamed study, and a statement of the
conclusion, without a citation, is convincing enough. It's not
presenting them with a bunch of counter evidence.

So I thought the article hyped up data but then didn't have a lot. Too
much setting the stage and conclusions, and too little of what I thought
would be the main course or meat of the article, IMO.

[Logan Chipkin]

Hi, fellow writer! My name's Logan Chipkin :). 

Thanks for the feedback. You're right that I overemphasized the data. My point was more that they indeed have such a hypothesis, and that they never corroborate it.

As for the other articles, I just thought it might provide some fodder for discussion. In particular, the 'Open Ideas' and 'Five Lessons from the Trial of Socrates'.

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[anonymous FI]

On Mar 6, 2019, at 3:49 PM, Logan Chipkin <chipki...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Open Ideas - https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/open-ideas/

I'm a fan of free speech too. BTW this is a forum which welcomes
dissent, unlike most. And posts aren't even moderated. Here are some
thoughts loosely related to the article:

Free speech is an important American cultural value, not just a right. I
agree the right of free speech is limited: I can freely speak on my
website or in publications I own, but not freely speak using other
people's property. We also have public spaces in this country and lots
of protection of people being able to speak their mind to the town
square, assemble, protest, etc., which I think is good (I mean it's good
if you have public spaces, I can imagine a potential world which doesn't
have government-owned spaces and is even better, but we're no where near
that and it isn't a priority reform.)

The issue is confused because platforms like Facebook and Twitter are
partially working with the government to get special privileges. And
they're partially allied with "cultural elites" and related
institutions, like the media, which themselves get special government
privileges and support. So there isn't a free market to compete with
Twitter. So I wouldn't agree with the view, "Twitter can censor
conservatives all the want, and if you don't like it then get on Gab or
start your own platform." Gab has been falsely smeared by the media and
has had trouble finding banks to work with, BTW, which has made it much
harder to compete with Twitter. Similar things are happening to
conservative alternatives to Patreon. And conservatives organizations
and platforms, like Jihad Watch, are under attack not only by things
like YouTube censorship but also by being denied access to banking and
online payment services (and banking and payments are super regulated
and government controlled, not a free market).

Furthermore, Twitter and Facebook lie to both the public and the
government (there were senate hearings) about their policies. This
*fraud* makes it harder to compete with them. If they openly advertised
themselves as a censored, leftist platform, then it'd be much easier to
compete with them. But their false advertising – lying to users
– is making competition harder and is the kind of thing the kind of
thing even a minarchist government should do something about.

Similarly, we don't have a free market in universities. There are
government schools which certainly ought to be neutral and free about
speech. And the "private" schools are heavily involved with the
government, e.g. the government funnels tons of taxpayer money into them
via "student loans" which enable them to raise tuition prices and price
discriminate. I don't think private schools which take in tons of
taxpayer dollars should be permitted to say "we are a private company,
we have no responsibility to be neutral, we can ban conservatives and
their speech on our property if we want to". And, as with twitter, they
don't admit what they are doing, they fraudulently lie about it. That
is, among other things, false advertising to their customers, which
should be (and I think is) illegal.

Quoting the article:

> To be sure, there is a difference between debating in real time and
> exploring the Truth on one’s own. Given that time is a scarce
> resource, one can only spend so much of it arguing with someone else.
> Thus, one must have a criterion for deciding when discourse ought to
> end. This will vary from person to person, but broadly speaking, one
> will cease to engage when the time spent outweighs the benefits gained
> from the discussion.

I agree this is an important issue. I think lots of people screw it up.
They shut down lots of discourse they should have, and avoid criticism.
Elliot has a proposal related to this which I think is a great idea:
people should write down their discussion rules (or if there are written
ones they agree with and want to use as their own, they can link to
those). Write down the criteria they use for when and why to end
discussions. They should have transparency about those decisions, and
their policies should be stated in advance instead of made up ad hoc to
get out of particular discussions. Otherwise people often end or avoid
discussion in really biased ways and it's hard to point out what they're
doing. And if you think you know a mistake an intellectual made, in
general right now there's no way to tell them, and even if there was
some way to get their attention, it's really unclear what the criteria
for getting their attention are so if you try to do it you might do the
wrong things. See:

http://curi.us/2186-improving-the-world-with-written-discussion-rules



PS regarding discussion fodder, FYI here are some things you might want
to comment on. People here would be very interested in criticism,
questions, suggestions, improvements, etc.

https://freeliberalism.com/liberalism

http://fallibleideas.com

[Logan Chipkin]

Thanks for the excellent and detailed post! I will look into those links and comment eventually (hopefully soon)! Cheers.I'm on twitter, too, at chipkinlogan.

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[Justin Mallone]

On Mar 6, 2019, at 7:41:18 PM, anonymous FI <anonymousfa...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mar 6, 2019, at 3:49 PM, Logan Chipkin <chipki...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Open Ideas - https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/open-ideas/
>
> I'm a fan of free speech too. BTW this is a forum which welcomes dissent, unlike most. And posts aren't even moderated. Here are some thoughts loosely related to the article:
>
> Free speech is an important American cultural value, not just a right. I agree the right of free speech is limited: I can freely speak on my website or in publications I own, but not freely speak using other people's property. We also have public spaces in this country and lots of protection of people being able to speak their mind to the town square, assemble, protest, etc., which I think is good (I mean it's good if you have public spaces, I can imagine a potential world which doesn't have government-owned spaces and is even better, but we're no where near that and it isn't a priority reform.)
>
> The issue is confused because platforms like Facebook and Twitter are partially working with the government to get special privileges. And they're partially allied with "cultural elites" and related institutions, like the media, which themselves get special government privileges and support. So there isn't a free market to compete with Twitter. So I wouldn't agree with the view, "Twitter can censor conservatives all the want, and if you don't like it then get on Gab or start your own platform." Gab has been falsely smeared by the media and has had trouble finding banks to work with, BTW, which has made it much harder to compete with Twitter. Similar things are happening to conservative alternatives to Patreon. And conservatives organizations and platforms, like Jihad Watch, are under attack not only by things like YouTube censorship but also by being denied access to banking and online payment services (and banking and payments are super regulated and government controlled, not a free market).

The banks are the easiest case for me to analyze as not being free market.

You (practically) can’t just “start your own bank, bro” cuz of govt regulation.

it sucks though. like, we’re not going to get rid of govt regulations of banks anytime soon. we’re probably more likely to nationalize the banks than deregulate them … so we just have to operate on the premise of living in a world where banks are highly regulated.

so then, how do you figure out what the appropriate scope of govt regulations are?

and to what extend does govt power/control in one area justify extending govt control into another area? and isn’t that dangerous? like, the typical way of govt expanding is “oh well we messed X up and it had big consequences, so now we have to control Y and Z too” and on and on.

i really worry about this in terms of analyzing stuff like FB/Twitter being partially allied with media institutions. Like, i agree they are “partially allied", but “partially allied” seems like such a squishy basis on which to base govt regulations.

And then there’s the risk of any power to regulate you give the govt being interpreted dishonestly by left wing judges and used dishonestly by leftie politicians.


big picture, on the one hand, i don’t want to lose liberty and free speech just cuz lefties have figured out the #OneWeirdTrick of making the direct instrument of oppression technically a private company (in the context of a mixed economy sliding towards more and more govt control). kinda like how Islam is exploiting #OneWeirdTrick of religious tolerance...

OTOH i worry about 1) previous govt interventions justifying more govt interventions in spiral downward to hell 2) how to decide what govt regulations of stuff are appropriate in a principled way 3) the potential for abuse of expanded govt regulatory authority by our enemies.

> Furthermore, Twitter and Facebook lie to both the public and the government (there were senate hearings) about their policies. This *fraud* makes it harder to compete with them. If they openly advertised themselves as a censored, leftist platform, then it'd be much easier to compete with them. But their false advertising – lying to users – is making competition harder and is the kind of thing the kind of thing even a minarchist government should do something about.

ya that’s a good point.

> Similarly, we don't have a free market in universities. There are government schools which certainly ought to be neutral and free about speech. And the "private" schools are heavily involved with the government, e.g. the government funnels tons of taxpayer money into them via "student loans" which enable them to raise tuition prices and price discriminate. I don't think private schools which take in tons of taxpayer dollars should be permitted to say "we are a private company, we have no responsibility to be neutral, we can ban conservatives and their speech on our property if we want to". And, as with twitter, they don't admit what they are doing, they fraudulently lie about it. That is, among other things, false advertising to their customers, which should be (and I think is) illegal.

also gp.

-JM