The Signaling Arms Race

It may be rational to be ignorant, and it might even be rational to be irrational! This is quite prevalent in our highly polarized and tribalized current political landscape. In fact, it is what gives politics its newfound religious flavor. In education it exists where we move everyone forward the same amount, no one has moved relative to each other, and it is considered progress. 

Bryan Caplan is an economist and a Professor of Economics at George Mason University. He is also an author whose latest book is titled Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality, and it is a collection of his very best essays published originally over the years on EconLog.

Bryan and Greg discuss politics and voting. They discuss the value of voting in this democracy. They also talk about Bryan’s book and get into different instances of voter irrationality. Bryan discusses his political views, and they both ponder the question of how much educational investment is socially wasteful. Finally, they talk about parenting and schools and how to an economist, everything has an associated price.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On deciding your family size

52:03: I think that most people decide their family size based upon current exhaustion rather than weighing, "How many kids do I want now? How many kids do I want in 40 years?" But the main thing I tell people is that first, fix your parenting style to get in line with the facts, because it's just not true that your kid's future is in your hands. And then, secondly, once you do that, once you have relaxed to this level, that is when it makes sense to rethink the number of kids you want to have.

Rational rationality gives politics its religious flavor

11:21: The same incentives that give you very little reason to acquire information also give you very little reason to be intellectually honest and exert normal intellectual self-discipline. And those latter things are what I call rational irrationality. And this is really what gives politics its religious flavor.

How do you know if you’re making rationally ignorant decisions?

10:04: Rationally ignorance is something that has been talked about in social science for a long time. It's just the idea that when time is money, it is often not worthwhile to get information. And so you can rationally make a decision to be ignorant.

Thinking beyond normal data sets can change your kids' outcomes

49:59: If you want to change your kids' long-run outcomes, you have to do something weird. You have to do something that is literally off the chart, something that is rare enough that we don't see it happening in normal data sets.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less
• Immigration vs. Social Desirability Bias
• The Case Against the Sexual Revolution

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at George Mason University
• Professional Profile on Cato Institute
• Bryan Caplan’s Website
• Bryan Caplan on Twitter
• Bryan Caplan on Substack

His Work:

• Bryan Caplan on Google Scholar
• Articles on The Library of Economics and Liberty
• The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
• Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality
• Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration 
• The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money 
• Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work and More Fun Than You Think
• Don't Be a Feminist: Essays on Genuine Justice
• How Evil Are Politicians?: Essays on Demagoguery
• Labor Econ Versus the World: Essays on the World's Greatest Market

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