Crises, however, are not fables. They do not exist to teach us lessons or help us learn to mend our ways. The forces at work are utterly indifferent to the narratives we attach to them. Like everything else, they are simply a chain of events. One damned thing after another. Our task is to understand how this chain is likely to unfold and uncover what, if anything, we can do to mitigate the damage.
To which I replied:
Again, love you and your work. But you are artificially narrowing the scope of inquiry to suit your biases and calling it truth rather than preference.
A longer time preference would argue for different policies, lower fragility, and better individual planning. You have a shorter time preference which suits your bias toward redistribution and allowing increasing birth rates among the lower classes.
The average European as a lower IQ than in 1850 for a reason. You are the reason. Actually women are — but you’re a product of that thinking. (Ashkenazim have remained constant from the medieval average, while Europeans have declined.) There are hard conceptual barriers at 105, 122 and 140. And the composition of a population determines its possible norms.
Ideas have consequences. In particular, your ideas have consequences.