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Escaping Malthus
How have we escaped the Malthusian trap, and is our escape only temporary? Malthus argued that human population was naturally at the limit of what resources could support. To put it another way, the very poor were always on the edge of starvation. Any increase in resources would only bring temporary respite: the population would…
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Immigration
Why do we have immigration restrictions in the U.S.? Does it make sense to advocate for free trade and free flow of capital without also permitting free flow of labor? It’s interesting to ponder how much immigration would increase if there were no restrictions. Many people enter the country one way or another despite the…
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Medical Expenses
So why is health care so expensive in this country? This is a subject I don’t really know anything about, which gives me even more opportunity than usual to speculate freely and leap to broad conclusions. Obviously a big chunk of it is profits taken by pharmaceutical companies, profits which would have much more justification…
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W. Richard Stevens
I was thinking about W. Richard Stevens the other day, when a colleague bought one of his books. I think the books he wrote are still unquestionably the best books on Unix programming and on TCP/IP. I first got in touch with him when I sent him a long list of errata for Advanced Unix…
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The Amazing Randi
I went to a talk by James Randi yesterday. He used to perform magic as the Amazing Randi, although at 78 and recovering from a double bypass, he said he now merely aspires to be the Mildly Astonishing Randi. He is of course best known as a debunker of paranormal claims (though he said that…