Technology is a beautiful thing…

A friend sent this to me, and I thought it was worth sharing…

I thought I should pull together a list of my popular (meaning non-refereed… not necessarily meaning that it’s popular) writing, especially my recent op-eds, so that I wouldn’t loose track of what I’ve done. This doesn’t include the economic reports I wrote for CIE, my booklets for CIS or proper refereed articles written for the Policy Journal.

In short, I have been published in The Australian, The Age, Canberra Times, Australian Financial Review, Business Spectator, Online Opinion, Open Forum, Korea Herald, IPA Review, Quadrant, Policy Magazine and Economic Analysis & Policy.

The full list is below…

For 2009:

June 03 — Australia’s recession in perspective (Open Forum)

May 28 — The rise of neo-socialism (Canberra Times)

May 11 — Making things worse (Business Spectator)

April 07 — A war on charity (Open Forum)

Feb 25 — In civil society, it should always pay to be generous (Canberra Times)

Feb 18 — We need to start an emissions debate (The Australian)

Jan 31 — The best way to help a warming planet is to tax carbon and let the market decide (The Age)

Jan 30 — Taxation rhetoric and reality (Business Spectator)

Jan 26 — Accepting the recession (Canberra Times)

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Earlier non-refereed writing…

2008 July 17 — Let people be free to choose indepenence from the State (Financial Review)

2008 March — The case for free immigration agreements (IPA Review)

2007 March — Everything you always wanted to know about Austrian economics (IPA Review)

2007 Sept — Anti-competitive Politics (Policy Magazine)

2007 ?? — EU-ANZ FTA: new ideas in world trade (Quadrant)

2006 Nov 1 — Korea as a financial hub (Korea Herald)

2005 Nov 30 — Simpler tax is easy, but where’s the political courage (Financial Review)

2005 Aug 24 — Values, government and liberalism: not so strange bedfellows (Online Opinion)

2004 ?? — Book Review: Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton (Economic Analysis & Policy)

2003 Jan 17 — Smokers rights in Canberra (Canberra Times)

2003 Jan 05 — Howard and Costello share the blame, not credit (The Australian)

I think there are only two absolute moral “goods” — utility and freedom.

My reasoning was that there were only two scales on which “good” could be determined — on the outcome or on the process. Regarding outcome, I consider “utility” to simply mean “what you want” by definition. So saying that people want to maximise utility is a tautological truism. Regarding process, the only options are either violent/involuntary or peaceful/voluntary, and I consider “peace better than violence” to be axiomatically true.

Axiomatically true, yes, but I also have some reasons which goes into metaphysics. It has to do with the meaning of being a “moral being”, linked to the perception of (if not the actual existence of) free-will, and the need for peaceful interaction to give meaning to the existence of free-will. But whether my metaphysical reasoning is accepted or not, I think “utility better than disutility” and “peace better than violence” are axioms that would have general support.

How then can we find another moral good, as some people claim exists with “equality”? I can’t see it. I have to ask “why do you think equality is a good thing?” and the answer will inevitably link back to utility.

Sure, equality can be a good thing. So can be chinese food, new shoes, tennis lessons and many other things in life. But they are not “absolute goods” in a moral sense. They are just things that can be good (or not) based on the fact that people want them.

After a few weeks off, last Saturday I got back into rugby. This is good news. First, by playing in different places I get to explore new parts of Sydney, and last Saturday we had a game out of Balmoral, which has a stunning beach.

Second, it keeps me fit. And this was doubly true on Saturday because I played two full games (for 3rd and 2nd grade).

Third, I’m learning a new skill. I think I’m clearly getting better at rugby, especially my defence and my understanding of the game. I’m starting to get a bit more confident and try a few things. And the particular “yay for me” moment this week was that I scored my first (and our teams only) try in the 2nd grade game.

A short dramatic recreation: The evil enemy was leading 5-0, but we had the ball in their half. From the breakdown one of the more mobile forwards went down the blind side and drew in teh winger, and then got a pass out to me on teh left wing. The easy part was to stroll past teh out-of-position winger The harder part was to run over (there was no space around) the fullback… but that didn’t prove too hard and I fell over the line in teh corner. That took the score to 5-5.

The postscript is that the enemy went on to scare another half dozen unanswered tries and we lost badly.

Forth, rugby is toughening me up a bit. A decade of not playing contact sport, and driving a computer, has made me too soft. Waking up covered in cuts and bruises and aching everywhere is a good tonic for an otherwise easy life.

And of course, the final and most important benefit of rugby is that it is fun. Perhaps there is something inherent in guys that makes us enjoy physical combat. I’m feeling pretty sore, and annoyed at some of my mistakes (I managed to do a clearly kick straight into the arms of a waiting opponent who scared easily, among other things), but it was fun.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve felt a bit out of kilter. But this was the weekend when I got back my groove. For those people not in their kilter or groove… these are the ingredients you need to create a kilter-groove fix.

A place of your own; long weekend; friends; Jazz & Blues Festival; an old friend coming into town for a surprise visit; a lovely girl to tease you; alcohol & marijuana; tasty asian food; fireworks; stunning sunsets; and time to go walking in parks and around the city.

The long weekend was for the Queens birthday. Though the Queen was actually born on 21 April (and turned 82 this year) so it was a bit late. The w/e did cross over with the birthday of another famous Brit though — the economist Adam Smith.

The headline act for the Jazz & Blues Festival was the famous trumpet player James Morrison… and he did a good job in front of his brothers band “Swing City”. But my favourite was the blues by the Dave Brewer Band & Mighty Reapers (both starring Dave Brewer on guitar & Clayton Doley on keyboard… who were great).

I also saw bits of Mr Percival (all vocals, with clever use of record & reply to make his music), Carl Riseley (previously from Australian Idol), Anita Wardell, Weird Assembly & The Bakery. Walking around Darling Harbour, listening to a music festival, sleeping in a new room, strolling through the city, trying good korean & chinese food in china-town, falling asleep in a park with a pretty girl, and catching up with an old friend (Luke Hamilton) all contributed to a mood similar to how I feel when I am traveling.

It was good. And now I have my groove back.

It looks like I’ve annoyed a hoard of angry right-wing fools.

My crime? I have suggested that a revenue-neutral carbon tax would be more efficient than an emissions trading system. Towards this end I wrote a monograph, several op-eds and hosted a discussion forum. As I’ve explained elsewhere, my preferred policy is no policy… but as an economist it perfectly reasonable to compare different policies and comment on their relative merits. 

Apparently, this has upset the ferals. It started with the mentally unstable Graeme Bird, then sparked outrage from the angry hater Gerry Jackson, echoed by his poodle Doug, and now Prodos has joined the unofficial Humphreys fanclub. These people are united by several traits… they are all angry old men, mostly ignored by serious people, untrained in what they talk about, full of hate and are unable to follow simple logic. And they were all pro-war. 

If you can judge a person by the enemies they make, then I think I’m doing fairly well.

I think I should take this all as a compliment. Apparently, I’m so bloody important that these impotent old fools think it necessary to spend hours writing about me. Prodos even went so far as to make two youtube videos about me… complete with “fascist bubbles” popping over my face. Enjoy…

Cut. No, no, no…. that’s not what we’re after. Let’s try it again. Ready? Let’s roll the year 2009… take 2.

The calender has just ticked over into winter. Time for a fresh start. For the first half of the year I tried the share-house in suburban north Sydney. For the second half I’m going to change pace, and do the single-living thing in the funky near-city suburb of Potts Point… walking distance to Kings Cross, Woolloomooloo, the Domain & the city. A lifestyle change. 

The past two weeks have been a pain. While homeless and house-hunting I found it difficult to concentrate on real life and I’ve felt at a loose end. No more. It came down to a decision between living in Surry Hills (with a cramped room, old apartment, sofa-bed, nice view) or Potts Point (more room, renovated, proper bed, no view). Potts Point won out. 

I will move in on Thursday (4 June) and then can get back into real life.

Opps. I forgot to blog about the acid party.

Since I came to Sydney I had been talking about having an evening on LSD, and we finally got around to it on Friday 24 April. In the end we found eight merry party-goers to join the shenanigans and found a nice safe haven in the house of a Charlotte (friend of Kristy).

Evening started normally enough. A few beers. Bit of chatting. And one by one we dropped the acid tabs. Tom1 was the first to start tripping, when he discovered that he couldn’t make a cup by simply thinking it into existence and stared with disappointed confusion as the water continued falling from the tap through his non-existent “cup”.

Kristy then had an encounter with invisible purple butterlies… and I had to content with my right leg actually having it’s own separate consciousness. Charlotte’s trip started with an attack of the washing machine. At this point James (aka “Emo”) declared that it wasn’t going to work on him, and he left. Soon after we got a mangled SMS from a clearly tripping Emo in a taxi… who managed to then go to the Anzac day ceremony the next day still seeing pretty lights.

Tom2, Chris and Matt soon joined the trip… though Matt spent most of his time starring at the wall. Tom1 discovered the joys of the lounge-room light (which fascinated everybody for a while) before getting a cosmic hug from the universe. Kristy became a tree-frog in the hammock, chris was mesmerized by a chair, the tarp morphed into a beautiful satellite view of a turbulent ocean, and gremlins danced along the fence. We laughed.

Then in the early morning we added a bit of weed to the mix and stumbled down to Maccas — where we had two mcmuffins, four hash browns and two drinks and hotcakes. Each. And then hobbled home and got to bed at about 10am the next day. Mission accomplished.

The moon is a harsh mistress (Robert Heinlein) — This was a re-read of the sci-fi anarchist classic set on the moon. The lesson is that we should not recognise the government as legitimate. Sure, obey them like you would obey any thug with a gun, but don’t pretend that thug has a right to your life.

The consolations of philosophy (Alain de Botton) — The six philosophers I wrote about yesterday.

Getting off track (John B. Taylor) — A short overview of how bad government policy was the primary cause of the current recession, and how their responses have continued to make things worse.

The Ayn Rand Sampler (Ayn Rand) — Random excerpts from the works of Ayn Rand. Nothing new for me. 

The Ascent of money (Niall Ferguson) — This is as interesting as you can make a book about money. Niall (who I met in NYC earlier this year) covers the evolution of the financial systems and how loose monetary policy generally leads to a collapse at some point.

God is not great (Christopher Hitchens) — Read this a while ago now. An easy read, Hitchens takes a more conversational and relaxed approach than Dawkins.

The wealth of generations (Johan Norberg) — An overview of why international capitalism has made the world a better place, including the idea that humans have an evolved instinct to be scared of things (even when there is nothing to be scared of) and how this leads them in a democracy to continue voting for government “protection”.