Troy Camplin

Today, at 1:30 pm, Dylan Francisco Camplin was born. And there was much rejoicing. (Yea!) He is #3, and he will be the last. Read Full Story

Whenever I engage in discussions with people who object to evolutionary explanations of human behavior, I discover the same underlying misconceptions of evolution. First, we need to realize that the presence of a trait does not mean it was necessarily selected for or 100% adaptive. Evolution is not teleological. You can have traits that are adaptive, traits that are neutral, and even traits that are slightly maladaptive, so long as it is not overly harmful. Those of the latter two kinds can... Read Full Story

Mario Rizzo on rationality . I recommend paying attention to Peter Lewin's first comment, too. A few thoughts: Reason is contextual. Reason is not what you think the person should do, but has to do with the person in question having good reasons given what they know. Reason cannot assume perfect knowledge. A rational decision is not monological. For example, I may know that if I want to accomplish X, I must do Y. But I do not want to do Y for moral reasons. Thus, it is rational for me not to... Read Full Story

I was asked what I would do if I could begin to make changes in the political economy of the United States. Of course, being a Hayekian and spontaneous order scholar, I understand that the changes that need to take place have to be marginal changes. You have to keep in mind the fact that all changes have to take place within the context of the rules that already exist. Thus, one has to consider what the elimination of a given regulation will cause to happen. The last thing you want to do is... Read Full Story

The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) has recently been shutting down exemplary schools (while keeping open the worst ones) and has also decided to extend teachers' work days by 45 minutes (not to provide 45 minutes more education for students, but rather for more pointless meetings that accomplish nothing and from which nobody learns anything -- if my experiences are typical), which has had teacher's protesting the actions. In Texas, it is illegal for teachers to go on strike, so... Read Full Story

The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) has recently decided to shut down several schools to save money. This could be a great opportunity to shut down the worst schools and get rid of all the bad teachers who help make those schools so bad. Instead, DISD has decided to shut down their exemplary schools, meaning they will be getting rid of their best teachers. What corporation in the market economy would act like this, shutting down their best performing companies and keeping open their... Read Full Story

One of the trademarks of Austrian Economics is that it argued that the economy is too complex to fully comprehend. The conclusion, therefore, is that we should approach understanding it with humility, and we should beware of anyone who says they know how to make it behave as they would wish it to behave. This is always my argument against those who think they know how the economy will or ought to behave, those who believe this or that regulation will have this or that definite outcome... Read Full Story

Last night in the State of the Union address, President Obama said he wanted the government to drive up prices for consumers, treat the symptoms rather than the disease of higher education costs, and decrease charitable giving. With his proposed "Trade Enforcement Unit," Obama is actually proposing to punish countries for selling cheap goods to the U.S. The argument is that subsidizing businesses so they can sell to us cheaper is unfair. However, such actions are actually harmful not to... Read Full Story

Watching waves roll in can tell you a lot about the world. On the weekend of the 13th, I was in Hermosa Beach, on the pier, watching the waves roll in . The waves moved in smooth, almost unnoticeable, until they approach the shore, where resistance changes the wave's shape, eventually turning it into much more complex foam as it breaks. Still, the energy of the wave drive the foam to shore. Energy plus resistance creates work and more complexity. The waves came in in predictable patterns... Read Full Story

Gus diZerega argues that democracy is a spontaneous order. In the broadest sense of political action, it certainly is. In the sense of government as a set of organizations, it is not. Of course, the first requires the existence of institutions and organizations, so in a real sense, if democracy is the first, it is also necessarily the second as well. One can argue about whether or not protests are part of a democracy proper, but if they are not, then you probably believe government is... Read Full Story