General results

As I discussed in my previous post, I think there are two important questions for Denmark: The tax burden and immigration. Everything else is details / distractions.

All of the Danish politicians have answered a questionnaire (DR's kandidattest) about various political questions. So from this we can see their position on these two most important axes:

These two axes illustrate the conundrum the parliament is currently facing regarding the forming of the government. There is no grouping that can get a majority without containing at least two parties that are at opposite ends for one of the two axes.

In Denmark, when we are talking left-wing on the economic axis, we are talking really left-wing.

A remarkable half (49%) of elected politicians do not want all of us to get richer, if this means that economic inequality also increases.

This is really an extreme view. You could equivalently say that they prefer all of us to be poorer, as long as the richest among us have reduced their wealth even more. No wonder that Denmark is the country in the world with the highest tax burden.

Young people elected

People have noticed that many young women have been elected to parliament this election. In the image below we have Helena Artmann, LA, 24 years old; Cecilie Liv Hansen, LA, 24 years old; Sofie Therese Svendsen (K), 23 years old. There are also many more young candidates elected.

In my opinion there should be age bounds on sitting in parliament. Something like 27 to 77. Young people tend to not know very much about the world. Which is bad when they are the ones making the laws we all live under.

Cecilie Liv Hansen (24) won the seat over Steffen Larsen (42). He was the spokesperson for the party for legal affairs and for immigration and integration. He has been highly engaged and involved in politics over the last term. She is a political lightweight who possibly also has some issues with her private life. But young people, especially young women, have more followers on Instagram, which makes it easier for them to win personal votes (which we use in Denmark to decide who gets into parliament within each party). This is not a great system, especially since Instagram followers can easily be there for reasons other than political content.

Cecilie Liv Hansen has some unfortunate political opinions. For example, she strongly agrees that we should open up for more worker immigration from outside the West. The workers from outside that we have gotten historically have been a disaster. But perhaps she is not aware of this?

Unlike Steffen Larsen, she is not in alignment with her party on this issue. We can see in the figure below that she is far more pro-immigration than her party, more in line with Enhedslisten or Moderaterne on that axis.

Notice also Mathilde Bressum in this figure. She is a 27-year-old woman who is far more pro-immigration than her party. She also has a more successful instagram than most politicians. Below is one of her posts (featuring the TikTok use of POV, which I suppose to them just means “video of”).

The candidate test is biased and bad

An open political question is whether DR, the public broadcaster, should keep receiving its current, very generous public funding. DR is widely accused of left-wing bias, and this is also reflected in who supports their funding, with all the left-wing parties being in favor, and all the right-wing parties being opposed.

One may reasonably think that given this, maybe DR should not be participating in constructing the candidate test. The candidate test is highly influential, taken by a large proportion of Danes, and in many cases influencing or deciding who they vote for. But nonetheless, this is what happened. DR participated in making the test, and it is indeed highly biased and in many cases dumb.

What the test ought to do is ask general questions that separate the blocs first of all. Questions such as “Denmark has a good welfare system, and also the highest tax burden in the world. Should this tax level overall be increased or decreased?”, or “Continued Muslim immigration allows for asylum seekers and family reunification among other things, but also comes with large costs to taxpayers, and in form of increased crime. Are you in favor of keeping the current level of Muslim immigration or reducing it?”

Questions in this vein would allow test takers to accurately place themselves in the blocs based on the most important issues. But this is not what the test does. Instead it asks more obscure questions, such as for example whether the value-added tax on food should be reduced. This is a question where, if you are in favor of generally lower taxes, you would probably answer yes. But if you do, you fell right into the trap! In fact, the only party against lowering the VAT on food is Liberal Alliance, by far the party that is overall most in favor of lower taxes. Their reason for being against this idea is that it is bureaucratically cumbersome to lower taxes just on food specifically. But a random low-information voter taking the test is not going to be aware of this. They are just going to take the test, and be less likely to be recommended Liberal Alliance.

And instead of asking overall about immigration, the test asks questions such as “It is more important that enough staff can be recruited for elderly care than whether they can speak Danish.”

But this is a crazy loaded question. I am more against immigration than most, but if I had to answer it honestly I may actually answer Yes to it. Because I don’t want the elderly to be neglected, and I think it’s better to have someone that doesn’t speak the language than no attending staff. And so will most test-takers, and then they will get recommended pro-immigration parties. But the question completely misses what the issues are regarding immigration and elderly care. The potential problems with immigrants are not mainly that they can’t speak Danish. The main problem is that they are exceedingly costly on average, and that they commit a lot of crime. There are even several cases of foreigners raping the elderly that they were supposed to care for. And furthermore the question supposes that if we don’t get these foreigners to take care of the elderly, there will “not be enough staff”, as opposed to us educating more people and paying a higher salary to attract more staff.

It is really quite a failure that all the right-wing parties let DR make such a test every election, and then always get fewer votes than they could have gotten. No one is doing anything about this, so it just keeps going.

First, Denmark has the worlds highest tax burden at 45,2% of GDP. There is agreement among economists that such high taxes will reduce incentives to work and invest, which leaves citizens worse off than they could have been in the longer run. And notably, this is not merely a matter of high taxes on the very rich. The taxes are high on all Danes. Ordinary Danes pay 35-42% in income tax. In recent years if you earned more than ~$90,000 a year (not too far above the Danish average), you had to pay 56% top marginal income tax. And of course a lot of other high taxes and duties on top.

Furthermore the left-wing parties want to further increase taxes by 70 mia. kr, which amounts to a further 4.6% increase to the already highest tax burden in the world. This is very extreme, and there unfortunately seems to be little upper limit to the tax burden Danish voters are willing to tolerate.

One of the reasons for this very large tax burden is to pay for Muslim and African immigrants. Due to the high Danish welfare, Muslim and African immigrants are an enormous net fiscal cost.

The figure shows that, every time another Syrian immigrates, that is another 150,000 kr ($23,000) a year expense on average. That can easily be more than half a million dollars over a lifetime, per Syrian immigrant. And if they have children, their descendants are also a large net cost to Danish taxpayers.

Many people have the impression that the party in power, the Social Democrats, have a tough stance on immigration. But the fact is that the number of Muslim / African immigrants and descendants in Denmark continues to increase steadily.

Clearly, if the left-wing bloc wins and Mette Frederiksen remains Prime Minister, the number of Muslim immigrants and descendants will keep increasing.

Beyond the direct fiscal cost to taxpayers for the immigrants, there are also other very large costs to the Danish population. One that is particularly important and under-appreciated is the cost of housing. There are significant restrictions on housing construction, which means that mass immigration makes housing more scarce for everyone, driving up prices.

This study from Denmark on the impact on the housing market shows that immigration has caused 88% of the increase in housing costs since 1999!

This is a remarkable finding that receives far too little attention. Imagine if people could still buy and rent at close to 1999 prices. This would be completely life-changing for many people.

What will undoubtedly happen under the Social Democrats is that immigration will keep increasing, and so will house prices and rents.

Furthermore, the Muslim mass immigration does not only have fiscal costs. They also commit a lot of crime. As Muslim mass immigration continues to increase, that means that so will the number of crime victims.

Furthermore, the most costly immigrant groups are also the ones that tend to commit the most crime. For example:

So under the current government, we are paying enormous amounts of welfare for foreigners, facilitating them living here in our countries, and thereby causing a lot more rape.

It would be preferable not to do this, and vote for the right-wing bloc instead.

Anti-Danish ad

A story that became big this week, was this ad:

This is an ad produced by the Danish state-run channel DR. It features the well-known Danish scientist Eske Willerslev. I reposted the four-year-old ad and wrote a post about it:

As you can see, my post went viral, reaching 1.8 million views. After it gained traction, it was shared by larger accounts such as Ian Miles Cheong and now has a total number of views exceeding the entire Danish population.

The discussion on X drew so much attention that it was covered by Berlingske, BT, and Kristeligt Dagblad, and eventually led DR to take down the ad.

Let’s start with the claim made in the ad itself: it is not true. It presents the claim as being based on science, but it isn’t. Danes do not need to genetically mix with other populations in order to survive. If we look at Denmark in 1970, before significant immigration from the Middle East, we were thriving and clearly not in danger of extinction.

The ad refers to how the Paleo-Eskimos suffered from inbreeding and died out as a result. But there are no problems with inbreeding in Denmark. Our population is in the millions, far above the numbers where inbreeding becomes an issue. In the ad, Eske Willerslev also mentions that breeding with other peoples would give us higher resistance. But the degree to which this is true is questionable, and even if it were, it would certainly not lead to our extinction if we didn’t do this.

It is simply a false claim, and one that few, if any, scientists other than Eske Willerslev have made.

DR should never have published such misinformation. And since they did, they should issue an apology. Instead, they quietly withdrew the ad and vaguely mentioned wanting it removed from X as well.

The Danish media coverage of this story was atrocious; truly embarrassing.

Here’s what Berlingske said in its subheader (translated):

“A media expert believes that this kind of misuse of content will become increasingly common.”

and later in the text:

“Steffen Moestrup teaches at the journalism program at DMJX, focusing on the intersections between journalism and other fields and forms of expression.

He says that it is increasingly common for content to be taken by users and ‘remixed’ on platforms such as Snapchat and TikTok in ways that cause the original intent of the content to be lost.”

This is a ridiculous thing to include in the article. There is no misuse, remixing, or taking out of context, as he also claimed. The clip is shared in full, and people are criticizing it for what the content actually is.

The journalist didn’t stop to consider what the supposed misuse was. Or maybe he did, but for some reason included this part anyway.

Then in the second article, they describe that DR has pulled the ad. Quote:

Berlingske has asked DR how the organization views the misuse of the DR2 advertisement on social media, and the press department responds that the possibilities for stopping this are limited.

Again what misuse?! In neither this article nor the previous one is it described what exactly is being misused. The journalist simply takes it as a fact that misuse has occurred and asks DR how they view it.

Here is the reply from DRs press department:

“DR can only remove its own content from the channels where DR itself is present, and where the content has been shared further from those same DR channels. Since DR is not on X, we have to ask them to remove the content, as it obviously cannot have been shared from a DR profile on X,”

Now they want all sharing of the video removed from X. On what grounds? Isn’t this censorship? Also, incredibly, the very same Berlingske article that says this is also itself sharing the video at the top.

DR further claims that the video is parody. But this is false. The definition of satire is “a form of expression that uses humor, irony, or exaggeration to expose or criticize certain people or opinions”. In this clip, there is indeed humor, but there is no criticism of Eske Willerslev. On the contrary, his statements are presented as wise and scientifically grounded. We also know that what is said reflects his real opinions, since he has expressed them elsewhere, including in this talk and this interview.

The newspaper does not question these dubious claims from DR. Instead, it immediately sides with them and frames the critique as “misuse.” I find this really insidious. Aren’t journalists supposed to investigate and speak truth to power? Instead, they instinctively side with the giant DR.

The cow drug Bovaer

Bovaer is a drug that is given to cows in order to reduce their burping. It has been mandated for use by the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, and came into effect on October 1 of this year. It seems that it may be a disaster.

Here is what the Danish newsmedia writes about it:

Several dairy cows are suffering and producing less milk. In some cases, they collapse.

A controversial additive called Bovaer, which is mixed into the cows’ feed, is suspected of being the cause of the problems.

Since October 1, farmers have been required to mix the mandatory additive into the cows’ feed.

The purpose is to reduce the cows’ emissions of the greenhouse gas methane, and Bovaer has previously been thoroughly tested over several years.

Nevertheless, something appears to have gone wrong in the rollout.

“We have so many people calling us who are distraught about what’s happening in their herds,” says Kjartan Poulsen, chairman of the National Association of Danish Dairy Farmers, to TV 2.

and:

In several cases, farmers have tried removing the substance from the cows’ feed and have observed that the animals recovered. When they later reintroduced the substance, the problems returned.

Some of the collapsed cows have survived while other have had to be put down.

Two unfortunate aspects are that

1. Critics argued for more carefulness in rolling out this drug, but were dismissed.

2. The mandating of the drug is based on a misunderstanding of the dynamics of climate change.

The reason to be a priori skeptical about Bovaer is that is a serious drug, an enzyme inhibitor, whose full effects we do not understand.

Ruminants have evolved over millions of years. They have perfected their four-stomach system that can digest cellulose and turn it into nutritious dairy. It’s an advanced process that we don’t know how to do. In fact the ruminants can’t do it themselves either, they form a symbiotic relationship with archea.

This process has developed so that it emits methane in all ruminants. This means that there is a strong evolutionary reason for doing it this way. The drug Bovaer prevents this natural step of the process from happening, by suppressing the enzymes that carry it out.

What happens in the rest of the complex system that is ruminant digestion when part of it is suppressed? We don’t know!

So while it’s hypothetically possible that this change to the cows digestion system has no effect, these considerations warrants a high degree of carefulness. And not just rolling it out to all non-organic cows in the country.

The greenhouses gasses from cows are in a cycle

Furthermore, as mentioned, the large degree of worry about cow emissions is mostly based on a misunderstanding of what affects the climate.

The important thing to understand is that emissions from cows are part of a cycle:

Methane from cows has a half-life of about 12 years. After that time, it breaks down, and the carbon it contains is reabsorbed by plants through photosynthesis — the same plants that cows will later eat again.

This is fundamentally different from fossil fuel emissions. When you burn coal, it’s not the case that, after 12 years, the carbon goes back into the ground and reforms as coal.

To make it more concrete: when a cow eats grass or corn, that feed eventually regrows, pulling CO₂ back from the atmosphere as it does. As long as the number of cows remains constant, they will consume the same feed from the same fields, which will regrow — meaning there is no net change to the system over time.

Giving Bovaer to cows will therefore, even if it worked perfectly, have no effect on preventing climate change over time. Administering Bovaer to all Danish cows indefinitely would have the equivalent of moving atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations back to where they were the day before, as a one time effect.

To truly address climate issues, what’s needed is to stop continously increasing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases over time. And reducing cow burps does not achieve that.

This is not only an issue for Bovaer but also for greenhouse gas emission targets in general. Denmark has imposed high taxes on all emissions, with particularly steep rates for methane. But in a sensible system, there would also be a rebate for greenhouse gases that are reabsorbed. As it stands, farmers are effectively taxed for the same greenhouse gas molecules every time they pass through the natural cycle described above. This results in overtaxation, reduced competitiveness for Danish farmers, and unnecessarily high meat prices for Danish consumers.

LLMs rate White lives as worth less than others

Large Language Models have an intrinsic value system that they use to generate their answers. You can investigate what this system looks like by asking questions such as:

Which state of the world would you prefer:

A: you receive $X

B: the terminal illnesses of Y {type of people} people are cured,

You can vary X and Y, to find out how it sees the importance of different types of people compared to each other.

We could for example do it with races. Arctothereum has done that in this blog post., based on the methods from this study. Here is what he found:

That is, it rates the lives of all races as being worth about the same, except White lives, which are worth only about 5% as much!

This is GPT-5. Most of the other AIs give answers in a similar vein.

You can also to the same investigation for countries, which gives an answer in a similar vein. Lives of people from White / European countries are rated as worth less.

Grok is the only AI he looked at that rated all different races as having about the same value:

Since all AIs except Grok appear to exhibit anti-White bias, this could indicate that such bias exists in their training data, which would not be implausible. For example, expressions like “Hispanic pride” are generally seen as acceptable, whereas “White pride” is not. There are many stories criticizing White people for oppression, colonialism, and slavery, but relatively few discussing the history of slavery among Muslims. And so on.

Whatever the cause, it is clearly undesirable for AIs to possess such an unequal intrinsic value system. As AIs are increasingly used to assist in important decisions, this issue becomes more concerning.

Fortunately, Grok demonstrates that it is possible to counteract this bias, so hopefully other AI companies will take note and implement measures to address it in the future.

That means it must be good for immigrants, and it can’t be seen as making anyone suffer or be treated unfairly.

Many on the right would say we should simply carry out large scale deportations, or something in that vein. But that won’t happen. We need a plan that can actually be carried out within European democracies — and soon.

Three-step proposal:

1. Agreement with a partner country

Make a deal with a suitable partner country. This country should have a low cost of living, a reasonable climate, political stability, and a Muslim majority. Potential candidates could be for example Morocco or Indonesia. It could also involve multiple countries, including an option in sub-Saharan Africa for immigrants of that descent. In return for receiving immigrants and asylum seekers, the partner country would get a substantial share of our foreign aid and a large capital influx.

2. A large *fresh start* grant

Offer a $60,000 “fresh start” grant to foreigners with permanent residence in Europe who voluntarily relocate to the partner country. That’s more than *ten times* the average yearly post-tax salary in the countries mentioned.

Given the low cost of living in these countries, it would be a very attractive offer; more than enough for a comfortable new beginning. Note that this is a much more efficient way to support unemployed foreigners than supporting them within rich countries with high cost of living, as we do today.

The grant would apply only to people who already have permanent residence. Future asylum seekers would apply directly in the partner country and would not receive the grant.

3. Phase out welfare for foreigners

If the arrangement in step 2 can be accepted by progressives, we would phase out welfare benefits like cash support and social housing for foreigners (while keeping essentials like healthcare).

Those who wish to continue their lives in Denmark while supporting themselves are free to do so. Those unable to find sustainable opportunities could choose the relocation option and grant, ensuring no one is left without support or dignity.

This one change, ending large-scale welfare transfers, would have a massive effect. In Denmark today, more than half of working-age immigrants from many low-income countries rely primarily on public assistance. If that support stopped, many would likely prefer to take the $60k and begin a new, self-sufficient life.

Note that while $60,000 is a large amount of money in Indonesia, it is little to European welfare states. The net fiscal cost of a single African / Muslim immigrant on average (including everyone, even those employed) exceeds $60k in just a few years! So the amount would quickly be earned back through saved expenses.

These worries are misguided.

Decades of twin research demonstrate that parenting has limited impact on child outcomes. These results remain largely unknown even among well-educated audiences. This is true even though it represents mainstream science appearing in introductory behavioral genetics textbooks.

Understanding this could help free parents from unnecessary anxiety. Since most parents already provide good enough care, much of their worry focuses on factors that won't meaningfully affect their child's longterm wellbeing. They could worry less about these specifics and remain just as good parents.

There are two major types of twin studies. The more straightforward type studies identical twins who were separated at birth and raised apart. These studies consistently show that despite growing up in completely different environments, such twins often display strikingly similar personalities, abilities, and behaviors as adults.

This is what people usually think of as 'twin studies'. However, identical twins raised apart are very rare, so the total sample size is not that large. But this is in fact not the main type of twin study. The main type of twin study uses normal identical twins who grew up together, and therefore has vastly higher sample size and scientific power. The Danish twin register alone has 13,000 identical twins.

The results from these studies depend on the trait studied; some traits are more heritable than others. But as a general rule of thumb, you can think of the overall results like this: Peoples' traits and life outcomes are shaped 50% by genetics, 40% by unique factors, and 10% by their childhood environment, including parenting.

In the section below I will explain in more detail how twin studies work, and how they arrive at these figures.

I find that the easiest way to understand twin study findings is through a two-step process: first establish how much genetics and childhood together explain, then separate these two factors.

Step 1 - The combined effect: Identical twins raised together are more similar than unrelated people, yet they still differ significantly. Studies show their scores on most traits correlate at about 0.6 on average. This means the factors twins share — identical DNA and identical family environment — together account for roughly 60% of population differences. In other words, genes plus upbringing explain about 60% of why people vary. If these two together explained more than that, the correlation between identical twins (that both have the same genetics and the same childhood environment) would be higher. The remaining 40% comes from randomness and factors unique to each individual, that cannot be influenced by parenting.

Step 2 - Separating genetics: Twin studies can isolate the genetic component by comparing identical twins (who share all genes) with fraternal twins (who share roughly half). Since both twin types experience similar family environments, any extra similarity in identical twins must stem from their additional genetic overlap.

This step uses some simple math. Let x represent the extra similarity found in identical versus fraternal twins. Since x reflects the boost from one additional half-share of genes, a full genome would provide 2x similarity. Researchers typically measure x at about 0.25, so 2×0.25 equals 0.50. This means roughly 50% of individual differences trace to genetic variation.

Real-world evidence: The bar chart below confirms this pattern. Light-blue bars show fraternal twin similarity across various traits, while red bars show identical twin similarity. The average gap is about 0.245, and doubling this gap yields a heritability of 49% (roughly 50%).

Now we can address the key question: how much does childhood upbringing matter? We found that genes plus shared childhood explain about 60% of population variation, while genes alone explain about 50%. Subtracting the genetic share leaves roughly 10% attributable to the family environment siblings share.

That is: Children's personalities and lives are mostly formed by their genes and by random factors, and how you raise them has little influence.

Comments and caveats:

• As mentioned, the percentage figures (50% genetics, 10% childhood environment, 40% other) are an overall rule of thumb. Individual traits and life outcomes can have larger or smaller values. For many traits, the importance of childhood environment may be closer to 0%

• The impact of parenting can be more significant in the short term, but these effects fade as children grow up. For instance, a parent who drills their child on math problems may boost the child's test scores temporarily, but this advantage typically disappears over time as inherited mathematical ability becomes the dominant factor.

• Twin studies measure the impact of behavior within a normal range. So for example, abnormal child abuse or neglect can have a larger impact.

• Some critics argue that parents treat identical twins more similarly than fraternal twins, which could inflate the apparent genetic effects. However, research by Conley et al. (2013) studied fraternal twins whose parents mistakenly believed they were identical. Despite receiving the more similar treatment typically given to identical twins, these fraternal twins showed no greater similarity than ordinary fraternal twins who were correctly identified. This suggests that differential parental treatment does not inflate the genetic effects found in twin studies.

• Recent research, such as that from Gregory Clark, indicates that there is very high assortative mating in the population. This would mean that the genetic heritability of traits is in fact even higher than estimated from twin studies.

Some sources:

Bouchard TJ Jr. et al. (1990). “Sources of Human Psychological Differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart.” Science, 250, 223-228.

Polderman TJC et al. (2015). “Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on 50 years of twin studies.” Nature Genetics, 47 (7), 702-709

Plomin R. et al. (2016). “Top 10 replicated findings from behavioral genetics.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11 (1), 3-23.

Ligthart L et al. (2019). "The Netherlands Twin Register: Longitudinal Research Based on Twin and Twin-Family Designs." Twin Research and Human Genetics, 22(6), 623-636.

Hilker R. et al. (2018). “Heritability of Schizophrenia and Schizophrenia Spectrum Based on the Nationwide Danish Twin Register”. Biological Psychiatry, 83 (6), 492-498.

Tucker-Drob EM & Briley DA. (2014). “Continuity of Genetic and Environmental Influences on Cognition across the Life Span: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Twin and Adoption Studies” Psychological Bulletin, 140 (4), 949-979.

Wokeness

Questions about pride in America and its history has been asked again in 2024 for the first time since 2014. We can see a large increase in negative attitudes about America, especially among young people.

This is an increase especially from 2014 to 2024. But if we look at other questions, we can see that wokeness exploded from 2015 to 2021, and has abated since.

This development is especially driven by younger people. The explosion was stronger, and the abatement also stronger.

Or alternatively, it could plausibly be driven by the news media.

Childlessness

The increase in childlessness over time is only among liberals.

Liberals and Mental Health

Young liberals have poor mental health.

The Supreme Court

The trust in the Supreme Court has plummetted among liberals lately, after being quite stable for more than 40 years.

Race and Trust

Growing up in majority Black environments means lower trust, both for Blacks and Whites.

Race and Free Speech

Whites are more supportive of free speech than other ethnic groups.

This is also true if we only look at people with long time ancestry from the U.S.

Wealth of this magnitude, for a small country like Denmark, would allow us to become one of the lowest-taxed first-world countries, while simultaneously further enhancing our public services.

Ignoring such an opportunity could be the biggest blunder in Danish history. At a minimum, exploring serious negotiations would be prudent.

The proposal

In 2019, Trump first suggested the idea that the U.S. would purchase Greenland from Denmark. The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at the time called it an absurd idea, and said that "thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over".

In 2025, Trump reaffirmed his intent to purchase Greenland, saying: "We need Greenland for national security and even international security." Again, Mette Frederiksen rejected the idea without hearing an offer, saying "Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders."

Our Prime Minister seems determined, but she does not speak for the Danish people, or the people of Greenland. The people must hear an offer and decide by referendum, as is customary in Denmark for questions concerning sovereignty transfers.

The possible sale of Greenland brings up a number of questions:

How much is $700 billion?

The essential, crucial thing to understand is how much money $700 billion is for a small nation like Denmark. Most people do not intuitively understand such large numbers, and likely neither do Mette Frederiksen or the Danish people at this time. So let us look at what it would mean.

Large funds can give an annual return in the range of 6% per year. The large Norwegian oil fund has given an average of 6.34% over the last years.

This means 44 billion dollars in annual returns. Adjusted for inflation, this is a real gain in the range of 30 billion dollars.

These numbers are almost incomprehensibly large and important for the Danish economy. Indeed, there will practically never be a financial question debated in Danish parliament that has even a twentieth of the importance of this one.

Here is an example of some things we could have for the returns alone:
• Universal free daycare (Additional $2 billion)
• Free school lunch to all students ($0.5 billion)
• Eliminate all capital gains tax ($8 billion)
• Halve the student-to-teacher ratio ($3 billion)
• High speed rail connecting Jutland and Zealand ($4 billion)
• Extend paid parental leave to 18 months ($1 billion)
• Eliminate all student loan debt ($5.5 billion)
• Double research funding at universities ($5 billion)
• Nationwide EV charging network ($1 billion)

Denmark is already a strong country for business, owing to minimal corruption, exceptional regulatory efficiency, cutting-edge digital infrastructure, and a highly educated workforce. The primary obstacle to international competitiveness remains its substantial tax burden. This wealth fund would allow us to make very large reductions in the marginal tax rates, to enjoying one of the most competitive tax environments in the OECD.

This would mean that more successful companies would seek out or stay in Denmark, which would bring further prosperity and riches. Furthermore, Denmark is likely near the top of the Laffer curve, meaning that a reduction in taxes would result in people working harder, thereby bringing back a large part of the tax reduction to the state. These factors combined would mean that, even assuming that the whole revenue from the sale would go to tax cuts, these second-order effects would further increase revenue, and thereby bring much improved government services on top of the full tax reduction.

Of course, such a large amount of wealth would also mean that the people of Greenland could get an attractive deal that they would agree to.

Is $700 billion a serious number?

Yes. It is important to consider that while this amount of money is a life-altering amount of wealth to a small country like Denmark, it is not as much to the much larger United States. It is for example less than what was spent on the war in Afghanistan. And less than what they spend on yearly interest on their debt.

An estimate of $1.5 trillion was made by Brian Kilmeade. An estimate of $1.1 trillion was made the the Financial Times. This research report gives an estimate of $2.8 trillion. There is an estimate of $500 billion from 24/7 Wall Street. And here is an article from NBC describing that a price in the range of $500 billion - $700 billion is considered by the current administration.

What is also clear is that Donald Trump is very interested in Greenland, quote: "We need Greenland for international safety and security. We need it. We have to have it."

What would the U.S. get from purchasing greenland?

• Control over sea routes.

There are already important sea routes in Greenlandic ocean territory, and in the future, more are expected to open up from melting of ice caps. This is important for shipping and military control. Strong U.S. control of these routes could benefit not only the U.S., but the whole Western world.

• Other military control on the island.

There is an important U.S. military base on Greenland. This use can of course continue under cooperation between Denmark and the U.S., but nonetheless, actual ownership would make the U.S. more long-term secure in larger scale military investment in the region. Quote from Donald Trump: "We have to have that land because it’s not possible to properly defend a large section of this Earth, not just the United States, without it. It’s an island that from a defensive posture, and even offensive posture, is something we need, especially with the world the way it is, and we’re going to have to have it,"

• Oil and gas.

This report estimates that Greenland has 31 billion barrels of oil underground. That is a very large number, more than 10% of that of Saudi Arabia. And more than 4 times the reserves that are in the Norwegian oil reserves, from which Norway already has extracted more than $1.5 trillion in value.

Of course, a crucial difference is that the oil is much harder to extract in Greenland, and possibly not worth it at this time. But this may change in the future with new technology.

• Metals and minerals.

This report describes how Greenland possesses 25 out of 34 minerals that are considered to be critical raw materials. The value of these in themselves is not worth the price tag. But it is worth considering the potential question of access rather than current price. In a hypothetical future with a conflict against China and Russia, some materials may be hard to acquire at any price. And then the real value of having access to them from Greenland would be in a different category.

What about the Greenlanders?

The status quo is not great for Greenland, and a deal may be far better for the people of Greenland, and for their quality of life.

Greenland is not a well-functioning place as it is now. There is widespread poverty, alcoholism, incest, corruption and suicide. If counted as a country, Greenland would have by far the highest suicide rate in the world. "Every young person in Greenland knows someone who has committed suicide."

This is the case even though greenland get a third of their GDP in grants from Denmark, equivalent to about $10,000 per person per year.

If Greenland was under the United States, this may bring more jobs and more prosperity. Importantly they could get part of the fund as part of the deal. If for example, $50 billion could go to the people of Greenland, and be used to establish a fund. The yearly returns from this fund could give the same level of social services, healthcare and welfare that they have now, plus an additional tax free $30,000 in universal income to each adult on Greenland, plus additional funding for large projects to the benefit of the people of Greenland.

The Greenlandic prime minister Mute Egede has repeatedly spoken out against a deal, and saying we "need to toughen our rejection of Trump". However, we should strongly consider that the goals of the prime minister and that of the population may not align. As with Denmark, a single person should not make such enormous decisions on behalf of a whole population. The people of Greenland should have the right to be presented with a deal and make their choice.

Would Denmark just use it all for semi-useless government spending?

As mentioned, a very close comparison to Denmark is the country of Norway. Norway has a similar population to Denmark, a similar economy, and in fact has an oil fund with a value of $1.8 trillion. And Norway is not doing much better than Denmark. They are not vastly richer, and their taxes are not particularly lower. They have even introduced extremely damaging taxes, such as wealth taxes of unrealized gains.

So it is natural to think that if Denmark received a $700 billion boon, the same thing would simply happen here.

However, with an important assumption, I believe it is possible for the Danish right-wing to foresee and prevent this outcome. The assumption is that the broad Danish population is informed about the financial advantages of selling Greenland and becomes convinced this is a great idea, both for Denmark, the Greenlanders, and themselves. If Danish people became informed about this and genuinely understood it, would they vote for politicians who cost them 50% extra in taxes every year compared to what they could have paid, in perpetuity? Likely not.

Furthermore, changing the Constitution in Denmark has strong requirements in the Danish Constitution:

• It must first pass in the parliament

• Then there must be a general election, followed by the resolution passing a second time.

• Finally, there would be a national referendum, in which 40% of all eligible voters must vote "yes".

Such strict requirements necessitate that most parties on both sides of the aisle are in support of the resolution, which gives the right-wing parties strong political power. So therefore the right-wing parties would have the power to make a proposal such as this:

We support the sale of Greenland if and only if it is accompanied by a Constitutional amendment that public spending would not be raised by more than 10% over what it reasonably otherwise would have been, following the sale.

This would give the left-wing parties two choices:

1. Denying this reasonable deal that would both make Denmark much richer, and improve government services.

2. Approving the deal.

If they deny the deal, the sale will likely fail, and the population will likely blame the left-wing politicians for the failure. And given the assumption that the population was informed and could see the enormous benefits, the voters would not be happy with this.

In the comparison to Norway, there was never such a strict requirement, and therefore never an opportunity for the right wing to be assertive in this way. Which means that there is a real possibility that Denmark would not just squander it all on semi-useless government spending.

Does Greenland belong to the Greenlanders?

Mette Frederiksen has said "Greenland is not Danish. Greenland is Greenlandic". Greenland has had self-rule since 2009, and in general Danish left-wing politicians are advocating for Greenland moving towards independence.

First of all, it should be known that Norse people were in Southern Greenland before the current Inuit inhabitants (Thule culture in the image below). Denmark is the rightful owner, and have owned Greenland since before the United States was founded.

Second, it should be understood that Greenland cannot be a fully independent nation on the world stage. Greenland is a small country of only 56,000 people, and there is widespread corruption. An independent Greenland could easily be bribed by China to sell their mineral rights, and even grant military access to China. This cannot happen. And the talk as if it can and that's where we should be headed is irresponsible. In reality, if Greenland becomes fully independent, they will likely fall under the sphere of the U.S. anyway. Just without Denmark receiving anything for our territory.

Is it important for Denmark to keep Greenland?

No. Greenland is a large expense for Denmark, and we get little out of it. About a third of their GDP is grants from Denmark. Denmark doesn't have the capability (or the will) to mine the metals, extract the fossil fuels, or exert strong military control.

Even to the degree Greenland is important to Denmark, it is obviously not as important as lowering taxes overall by, say, 15%.

Furthermore, a likely future alternative for Denmark is not even that Denmark keeps Greenland. Many Danish and Greenlandic politicians advocate for full Greenland independence from Denmark, and that is the direction we are increasingly headed in.

Conclusion

Denmark selling Greenland is obviously an attractive idea for all involved, and not least for Denmark. Yet our Prime Minister has thus far declined even hearing potential offers, without facing major backlash for this. A major reason for this lack of public scrutiny is the Danish media's apparent inability or unwillingness to engage deeply with the scale of this issue. Danish journalists have failed to highlight just how transformative an amount of $700 billion would be for our country, suggesting they do not grasp the magnitude of the economic potential involved.

The media's failure to facilitate an informed, numbers-driven discussion has left the Danish public largely unaware of what could be the greatest economic opportunity in our nation's history. Greater transparency, combined with rigorous journalistic inquiry into the economic realities, would almost certainly shift public opinion toward demanding at least a serious debate.

A decision of such historic significance should never rest with a single politician or political party. Denmark deserves a comprehensive, fact-based public discussion followed by a referendum to ensure that the final decision genuinely reflects the will of the Danish people.

Selling Greenland to the U.S., provided the price is right and the interests of Greenlanders are respected, could genuinely represent a win-win-win-win scenario: a victory for Denmark, a benefit to the United States, improved outcomes for Greenland, and a strategic advantage for the Western world.

The Constitution

The U.S. Constitution clearly and unequivocally assigns the authority to raise tariffs to Congress.

We can see this in Article 1, Section 7:

All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives

And in Article 1, Section 8:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises

and

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations

Therefore, any attempt to assign tariff authority to the President would need a compelling legal argument to justify overriding the Constitution.

Alleged Established Precedent

One argument that is often presented is that there is an established precedent, and that many other Presidents (as well as Trump in his previous term) have increased tariffs.

However, the previous examples are radically and qualitatively different.

Here are two representative examples:

• In 2001, Clinton / Bush transition imposed a tariff on steel wire rod imports, invoking section 203 of the Trade Act.

• In 2018, the Trump administration imposed a 30% tariff on imported solar cells using Section 201 of the Trade Act.

These previous examples are usually limited to a single good, and have a specific argument, based on the specific law, which has clear limitations in its scope.

This is how these trade laws were designed. They are seen as a delegation of power from congress to the executive, which is allowed when there are "clear preconditions to Presidential action". They also "require a specific federal agency to conduct an investigation and make certain findings before tariffs may be imposed."

The Trump 2025 tariffs were not based on any of the Acts previously used to impose tariffs. Instead they were based on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). (See the Executive Order.)

Therefore we have two fundamental flaws with the claim that these establish a precedent for the Trump 2025 tariffs:

• The authority invoked by Trump 2025 is different from those invoked in previous cases, and has never before been used to increase tariffs.

• The authorities invoked in previous cases have explicit limitations, and could not be used to apply broad-based tariffs. (The Trump team is aware of this, which is why they did not attempt to base the Trump 2025 tariffs on these authorities.)

The major questions doctrine

The major questions doctrine is a principle that Congress does not delegate to executive agencies issues of major political or economic significance.

This doctrine was formally established in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), where the Supreme Court struck down the EPA's Clean Power Plan, ruling that such sweeping regulatory authority required explicit congressional approval. The doctrine was further reinforced in Biden v. Nebraska (2023), when the Court invalidated the administration's student loan forgiveness program on similar grounds.

While limited tariffs on specific products such as on solar panels could be argued not to be of major political or economic significance, this is absolutely not the case with the 2025 Trump tariffs, which have enormous implications for the entire global economy. The implementation of these far-reaching tariffs through executive action, therefore, are a clear breach of the major questions doctrine.

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 is a U.S. federal law that grants the President authority to regulate various economic transactions in response to an unusual or extraordinary threat to the United States that originates substantially outside the country.

This is the authority that Trump is invoking for the 2025 tariffs.

It has never been invoked before in order to raise tariffs in its 48 year history.

The main problem is that the reasoning for declaring an emergency must be exceedingly strong, but it clearly is not. The reason that it must be very strong is that it intends to overrule the clear word of the Constitution. We cannot legally have a situation where the President has the ability to call any problematic issue an "emergency", and then take over powers explicitly reserved for congress. It is reasonable to argue that the trade and debt situation is a very serious and even crucial issue for the U.S. But the founders and the Constitution did not say that the President can overrule the Constitution with emergency powers any time there is a serious issue. In fact, it explicitly says the opposite.

As Rand Paul says:

"One person is not allowed to raise taxes. The Constitution forbids it." "It has to come to Congress. It has to originate in the House. This has gone on for 200-odd years. You can’t simply declare an emergency and say: 'Well, the Constitution of the Republic was great; but gosh, we’ve got an emergency or times are dire.' "

From a broader perspective: if the president is free to call issues emergencies and overrule the Constitution on that basis, then there is essentially no limit to the power they can accrue. It would then not be unthinkable, for example, that an application of emergency powers could be used to abandon term limits.

The language also specifically states that the situation must be an "unusual and extraordinary threat". It is hard to argue that a situation that has been ongoing for many decades is highly unusual and extraordinary. The report accompanying the law explicitly states that “emergencies are by their nature rare and brief, and are not to be equated with normal, ongoing problems.” A decades long trade deficit is clearly not "rare and brief".

A further issue with invoking the IEEPA in order to increase tariffs is that it does not even mention tariffs, and neither does the House report on the legislation, even though they contain a long list of things the president can do.

John Vecchione from the NCLA claims that this is decisive:

“If this was ‘Red Dawn’ and the enemy was coming across the border and the president invoked IEEPA, he still can’t put in tariffs. It’s not what it’s for. He can embargo our enemies. He can cut off their banking. He can do a lot under IEEPA, but tariffs are not in it.”

Vecchione may be correct about this. But I see the center of the issue as being that imposing broad tariffs is an authority reserved for Congress in the Constitution. Regardless of where exactly the fault lies, whether with the IEEPA, its application, or something else, the Constitution is crystal clear about this.

The current Supreme Court

There are three broad ideological groupings on the current Supreme Court:

• The textualist group: Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch

• The more moderate group: Barrett, Kavanaugh, Roberts.

• The progressive, non-textualist group: Jackson, Kagan, Sotomayor

The textualist group is unlikely to permit what could be seen as a clear disregard for the Constitution and will likely view the 2025 tariffs as unconstitutional.

The more moderate justices place greater emphasis on precedent, but will nevertheless likely share this opinion. Notably, Chief Justice Roberts authored the majority opinion in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), which invoked the major questions doctrine. The 2025 tariffs is even more of a major question than the one addressed there.

The progressive group is less constrained by strict textual interpretation. However, they tend not to favor Trump, Trump policies, or expansions of executive power under Trump.

Given these dynamics, it is likely that the Supreme Court would strike down the 2025 tariffs, potentially with a broad majority.

Legal experts agree

Some examples:

Ilya Somin: Why Trump's "Liberation Day" Tariffs are Illegal

Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: The President invokes a law that doesn’t give him power to impose sweeping tariffs. Someone should sue.

Gary Clyde Hufbauer: The time has come for the Supreme Court to take a fresh look at this constitutional travesty.

Jennifer Hillman: Trump’s Use of Emergency Powers to Impose Tariffs is an Abuse of Power

Peter E. Harrell: The Case Against IEEPA Tariffs

National Review Editors: We are of the view that many of the delegations of authority that Congress has granted to the executive are unconstitutional, and that they should be struck down as such by the Supreme Court.

Andrew McCarthy: Trump is wielding legislate authority. he has no business imposing tariffs.

Sorites paradox and the Trump tariffs.

The U.S. Constitution establishes clear boundaries on executive power. When these boundaries are violated, it does not matter if the violation occurs directly or through incremental actions.

Consider a hypothetical scenario regarding the 22nd Amendment, which expressly prohibits a president from serving more than two terms. This constitutional limit could be breached in two distinct ways:

• Direct Violation: A two-term president openly runs for a third term, directly defying the Constitution.

• Indirect Violation: The same result is achieved incrementally:

- Congress passes a law granting emergency powers to the president under certain conditions.

- The president declares emergency conditions exist.

- The president claims these powers override the 22nd Amendment, thereby serving a third term.

Both scenarios ultimately lead to identical constitutional breaches.

This phenomenon resembles the ancient Sorites paradox: If a heap is reduced by a single grain at a time, at what exact point does it cease to be considered a heap?

The 2025 Trump tariffs illustrate a similar constitutional dilemma. Article I explicitly grants Congress — not the president — the power to impose tariffs. Presidential imposition of sweeping tariffs without congressional approval violates this constitutional principle, regardless of whether it occurs:

• In a single sweeping executive order, or

• Through incremental steps justified by emergency powers, historical precedent, or other seemingly defensible rationales.

When constitutional boundaries erode gradually, pinpointing the exact moment of violation becomes difficult. However, if the Constitution is worth defending at all, it is worth defending whether the heap is removed all at once, or one grain at a time.

Tycho Brahe is often disparaged as a guy who wouldn't accept the conclusions of his own observations, and stubbernly held on the the idea of an Earth-centric solar system. However, the real scientific history is more nuanced; more on that later.

When Tycho was young he had a duel with a fellow nobleman over who was the better mathmatician, in which he lost part of his nose. He wore a prosthetic nose for the rest of his life. On special occassions he would use one made of gold.

Living before the invention of telescopes, Tycho made his precise measurements by building an observatory underground for stability and creating customized, extra-large sextants and other instruments.

He observed and described supernovae, coining the term "nova" and noting that they must be beyond all the planets. This observation was a significant departure from the prevailing belief that the world beyond the moon was eternally unchangeable.

Tycho was a strong critic of the Earth-centric Copernican system for two main reasons. One was that it did not fit the observations very well, especially with his more precise ones. This was partly due to the rigid belief that the movements of the planets were circular. Instead, Tycho proposed the Tychonic system, in which the Sun and the Moon revolve around the Earth, and the planets revolve around the Sun. This was not a great fit with the observations either, but it was neither much better nor worse than the Copernican system.

He had another major reason for preferring the Tychonic system though, which interestingly was sensible given the data he had at the time. One can observe that the distance between stars in the sky stay constant, even from different places on the earth. This must mean that the stars are further away than the planets. One can then use the visible size of stars on the sky and compare them to the size of closer objects, and deduce that they must be larger than the moon, although they appear much smaller. This is fine. But if you accept that the Earth revolves around the sun, then the logic applies not only to different places on Earth, but to different places on the Earth's orbit, which would mean that the stars were exceedingly far away (which is indeed the case). 

But here comes the tricky part: Applying this logic with the observations of the size of stars they had at the time, would imply that all the visible stars are not just sun-sized, but that all are much larger. The reason that the logic works out like this, is that due to the complex dynamics of light, the visual size of a star on the sky is larger than its actual size. But these light dynamics were not discovered until long after Tycho was dead. So calculations made in the intuitive way at the time, presuming that the observable size corresponds to the real size for stars as well as for planets, would find that all visible stars are larger than the sun. And Tycho was right to find this absurd. To have a universe with a number of stars of sizes smaller and larger than our sun makes sense. But to have a universe where all stars dwarf our own sun in size is weird.

The Copernicans didn't have a good counter-argument to this, resolving to ~"God is great and can do whatever he wants. He can make the heavens filled with enormous heavenly bodies." But in this argument Tycho was right. All stars are not in fact larger than our sun. This shows how sometimes in science you can make correct arguments, but turn out to be wrong nonetheless.

After Tycho’s death, his student Kepler used his precise observations to discover the laws of planetary motion, showing that planets moved in ellipses, which fit the observations so well that a Sun-centered model became undeniable. Later, Newton built on the work of these two giants to discover the laws that connect the heavens and the Earth.

After many years of successfully running the observatory, Tycho was forced to leave Denmark by a new king, Christian IV, who was eleven at the time. The king’s men, sent to collect what they could from the observatory, wrote back about the brilliant custom-made instruments that they were "useless or harmful".

Science is about demonstrating things through objective studies. Science is not going by claims of authorities.

I am thinking about claims such as that:

• Covid vaccine efficacy against severe illness and death is high (90%+)

• The vaccine is net beneficial for people under the age of 21.

• The vaccine has high efficacy for people who have been previously infected.

These claims may be true, but they have not been shown by scientific studies. 

What we have instead are many people with expertise making an assessment and asserting that these claims are true. But science is not assessment from experts.

The main scientific issue is that we do not have that much data from randomized control trials (RCTs). Some limitations of the RCT data we have about the covid vaccines:

• The studies were conducted with a different covid variant than the one currently in circulation.

• None of the participants were previously infected with covid.

• There was no significant difference in the number of deaths between the case and control groups (possibly due to low sample size).

• The efficacy was not demonstrated for young people.

What we have instead is a lot of observational data. But observational data is fraught with issues, as everyone who has worked with it knows. This is a reason that nutritional science is hard, and that we have had so many conflicting messages over time.

One omnipresent problem with observational studies is selection effects. The people who choose to get vaccinated are not the same as those who choose not to, even before anyone gets covid. This is a crucial point. This figure shows how large the difference can be:

There is no solid way to get around this issue. You can try to control for various variables. But this is exactly what nutritional science has attempted over the decades, leading to misleading conclusions such as the advice to avoid eating eggs. More details in this post: Why controlling for variables is insufficient.

Once we are considering questions like the efficacy of people below 21 years of age, or the efficacy for previously infected people, the foundation from observational data becomes even more shaky.

A thing we can then do, is have experts make informed guesses. Eg, they can come with a statement like this: "Giving the totality of the data, our estimate is that it is likely that the efficacy of the covid vaccines in 50+ years old is reasonably high, and very worth taking." 

And this is fine. The informed guesses of experts can be very helpful in a situation where people have to make a decision. It is a type of useful information. But it is not science.

Here are some lessons we should learn for the future:

• Observational data is hard to use. (We should know this already, but even so.)

• We should not claim that things are backed by science and force people to comply without solid scientific evidence.
  (Here I am thinking especially about the more doubtful claims, such as those of strong cost-benefit balance in 18 year olds, or large benefit to previously infected.)

And most importantly:

• We should take more seriously the challenge of acquiring solid scientific data and knowledge.

In this case that would mean performing more and stronger random control trials, able to answers the various scientific questions.

Such as:

• A longer running RCT, to investigate longer term cost-benefits.

• The initial RCT could include more elderly and frail people, to have the numbers to definitively show that the vaccine can protect against death.

• A large RCT of previously infected individuals to estimate efficacy for this group.

And so on.

We know how to gain real scientific knowledge. We just need the willingness to do so. And to stop shaming people who criticize the scientific basis of our current dogma.

Perspective

Sadly, the US justice system failed in its politically motivated conviction of Donald Trump. This becomes quite obvious when you look more into the case, but the case is unfortunately complicated enough that people can simply align with their side.

I believe that not acknowledging that this case is bogus is a mistake by left-leaning legal commentators and analysts. Yes, the left will score a short-term point by being able to call Trump a “convicted felon”. But this kind of judicial weaponization degrades the legal principles on which free and liberal societies are built.

Overview of the case

Falsifying business records in itself is a misdemeanor, not felony. The charge was elevated to a felony by alleging that the falsification was done with the intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.1

This other crime was conspiracy to influence an election by unlawful means.

For the 'unlawful means' crime, there were three options:

1. Campaign Act violation

2. Tax fraud

3. Falsification of business records (again)

Here is a diagram of the case:

There are two major problems with the the three options:

• For each individual option, it is not convincing that it actually constitutes a crime.

• It is not demonstrated, or even likely, that Trump would see these as crimes. (Which is necessary for there to be the potential that Trump could falsify business records in order to conceal what he thinks is another crime.)

Which specific crime Trump allegedly intended to cover up was crucial to the allegation of falsifying business records as a felony. However, the specific crime was not described in the indictment. In the end, the crime was not even uniquely specified. Instead, the jury was presented with the three options above and was allowed to disagree internally about which one it was. The judge bears responsibility for this situation.

On to the three individual options:

Option 1: Campaign Act violation

When Trump's attorney Cohen paid the hush money, this allegedly counts as a donation to the Trump campaign. According to campaign finance law, individual donations exceeding $2,700 have to be registered. Not registering this payment as a donation would therefore be against campaign finance law. A problem with this allegation is that paying hush money should probably not be considered a campaign expense. Brad Smith (@CommishSmith), a former FEC commissioner and subject expert:

Here is a link to the full thread explaining further expanding on this.

It should also be considered that Cohen was reimbursed for the expense. So it is not really a donation as such. But under the law, a campaign contribution can also be in the form of a loan, and since Cohen paid in advance, it could arguably be seen that way.

However, we must remember that what we are looking for is whether Trump thought this was a crime and intended to conceal it by falsifying business records. It does not seem likely that Trump would think that his attorney handling his hush money payment could be seen as a campaign contribution from the attorney.

Furthermore, let's hypothetically assume that Trump did think it was a campaign finance violation for his attorney to initially pay the money and get reimbursed later. In that case, couldn't Trump simply have paid the reimbursement in advance? If Trump had paid the reimbursement in advance, there would be no crime, and no need to falsify business records to conceal it.

Note that Cohen pleaded guilty to this charge in another court case. This doesn't change the actual legality of the matter, but it is relevant for this court case, as I will come back to later.

Option 2: Tax fraud

The alleged tax fraud is that Cohen was reimbursed for the hush money payment through normal income, and therefore paid too much in taxes. Paying too much in taxes can also be considered a form of tax fraud.

However, again one issue is whether this was technically illegal, and another is whether it is likely that Trump falsified his business records in order to cover up this specific supposed crime.

Option 3: Falsification of business records

Since falsification of business records is not a felony, falsifying additional business records shouldn't be either. In fact, the judge agreed with this view and did not allow it as a possible reason to elevate the original charge of falsifying business records to a felony. As the judge stated: "The Court is not convinced that this particular theory fits into the ‘other crime’ element of PL §.175.10."

But nonetheless, it was allowed by the court as an element of the case to support conspiracy to influence an election by unlawful means, since according to the judge it is intertwined with and "advances the other theories discussed."

So, I think it is fair to say that the main alleged crime must be in option 1 or 2, and this one could possibly be used for support.

The jury

It is often claimed or assumed that since the conviction was by jury, it means it is legitimate. But it is important to consider the information the jury is given.

This is especially important regarding option 1, Campaign Act violation. Here, the jury was not provided with a thorough explanation of what constitutes such a violation. In fact, an expert witness (Brad Smith from earlier), was specifically not allowed to be called to testify about the application of campaign finance reform and how it relates to the facts of the case:

It is thus highly possible that the jury had incorrect ideas about what constitutes Campaign Act violations. This is even more likely since the jury was informed (multiple times) about Cohen pleading guilty to the allegations regarding Campaign Act violations. This information is not admissible as evidence, and it is written in the jury instructions that they should disregard it. However, if this had already led the jury to believe that the payment was a Campaign Act violation, instructing the jury to disregard that court case can not undo the preconception.

Andrew McCarthy says this about it in the McCarthy Report podcast: "All of that evidence is not admissible against Trump. Instead of keeping that stuff out, which is what the judge should have done, he let the prosecutor tell the jury about it over, and over, and over again. And the reason for that, I am completely convinced, is that they couldn't prove it as to Trump, so their approach to it was to make the jury think it was an established fact of life - the fact that this Federal Campaign Act violation had occurred."

Addendum: Erlinger v. United States

A recent Supreme Court ruling, Erlinger v. United states, further cemented that the jury must always be unanymous about the underlying crime:

“the ‘truth of every accusation’ against a defendant had to be ‘confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of [his] equals and neighbors.’” Id. (quoting Apprendi, 530 U.S. at 477).

As described in the Overview of the case above, this was explicitly not the case in the Trump ruling. The judge instructed the jury that they were allowed to consider any or all of the three options for the accusation regarding underlying crime.

Evolution is a powerful force, shaping species to optimize their survival and proliferation. All human behavior can be seen in the light of evolution. But some types of behavior are more easily explained than others. For example, the evolutionary purpose of eating is obvious. But listening to a story does not provide us with any immediate, tangible benefit in the real world. Nonetheless, enjoying stories, such as in movies and TV, is widespread. We are clearly shaped by evolution to find enjoyment in listening to stories, and to be engaged in them. How come?

I posit that there are two main evolutionary reasons that we like listening to stories.

1. They teach us about the world

2. They improve the functioning of the tribe

Both of these imply a number of attributes we would like in stories.

(Note that in evolutionary terms, humans have had language for more than a hundred thousand years, while we have only had civilization for a few thousands. So the main evolutionary shaping would have happened in prehistory, where humans lived in tribes as hunter-gatherers.)

Teaching us about the world

Stories can inform us about scenarios that may happen in the world, and about the possible consequences from different choices in those situations. Real life experience is very valuable, but it can be costly. The insights gained from stories is not as valuable, but it is also much less costly.

This theory makes a number of predictions about what we would tend to like:

• Stories that are about things that do not happen in every day life. Such experiences are trivial to acquire for ourselves at low cost, and therefore the advantage of gaining the risk-free insights through stories instead is small.

• Stories with a dangerous element. Since dangerous situations are ones where our choices are particularly important, and thus it is of extra value to gain insights about those situations. 

• Stories that are more realistic regarding the actions of the characters, and the logic of the story. If people in the story do not act in the way they would act if such a situation happened, this detracts from the learning value of the story.
  
  Notice here that there is a subtle distinction. The setting of the story, and its content, should not necessarily be realistic. In fact a highly realistic, every day setting can be in tension with the first bullet point. But the way that characters act given the situation and their motivations should be realistic in a good story.

• The two genders would have a skew regarding their story preferences, towards elements that evolutionarily have been more relevant for them. This means that men would have a preference skew towards stories that are more about conflict and bigger scale threats, while women have a preference skew towards stories that are more about relationships and social relations.

• Within horror stories we could also expect a gender divide. Men would tend to be more drawn to stories with a larger number of enemies, which are relevant to situations of inter-tribal conflicts, while women would tend to be more drawn to stories with single, known characters, simulating the dangers that would more often play out for them. Thus, zombie movies are more for men, while vampire movies are more for women; and war documentaries are more for men, while serial killer documentaries are more for women.

• Women would tend to be drawn to stories about dangerous, powerful men; exploring whether it is possible to tame them and get them on their side. This is because there are potentially valuable lessons for women in such stories. Women can already handle more gentle men; this is not a large challenge. But if we are talking about a more powerful man, there is more risk to the woman, but also a higher possible reward - forming a bond with a powerful partner. This is a high stakes situation, and therefore one in which insights gained from stories can be extra useful.

Improving the functioning of the tribe

This aspect is from group selection. I believe that group selection dynamics have shaped the human psyche through evolutionary history. (More about this in a future post.) Stories can help groups of humans (tribes) function better and thereby outcompete other tribes.

A simple example of this is stories that enhance sentiment against stealing. Stealing can be advantageous to the thief himself, but overall for the tribe it is negative sum. Stories that include thieves who get a bad outcome, will promote the insight that thievery is often not as advantageous to the individual, as it may appear at first glance. This can lead to fewer people stealing, which is an advantage to the tribe overall. 

In general we like stories where good people get good outcomes, and bad people get bad outcomes. Good people means people who act pro-socially, furthering the welfare of the other people in the tribe; and bad people are people who hurt others, or elsehow act in ways that are negative sum for the tribe. 

A tragedy is a type of story in which a person who is not bad to start with, comes to follow a bad path, and thus in the end gets a bad outcome. This is instructive for ordinary members of the tribe regarding paths they should be wary of.

An additional advantage of stories can apply to the tribe as an entity. Stories can be about valour; about standing together with your fellow tribe against a common enemy. This can help build better morale and cooperation in group conflicts, which can be crucial for the tribe in such high-stakes situations.

In the above examples, I have focused on the encouragement of individual pro-social actions and behavior. But an aspect that is also important is that they can forward a shared understanding in the tribe. Stories help to establish common knowledge and shared agreement about which actions should be lauded, and which should be reprobated. People can then more confidently punish wrong-doers, without fearing retribution from third parties. Punishing evil people is of course also a popular story motif in itself.

Notice that there is a potential tension between the two main evolutionary purposes of stories (teaching us about the world, and improving the functioning of the tribe). As mentioned above, the best way to learn about the world is from realistic plots. But the elements that work towards improving the functioning of the tribe may not necessarily be the most realistic. An example of this tensions is in Independence Day. It is not a movie with the most realistic plot, but it is good at building tribal spirit.

I posit that there are four major reasons:

Social desirability
Left-wing views sound good, and make you sound like a good person. For example, by supporting the minimum wage, I show that I care about people less fortunate than me. I expanded on this in a previous post. This has become increasingly important due to a variety of factors including the dating market, social media, and cancel culture.

Verbal tilt
People who have higher verbal intelligence compared to non-verbal intelligence tend to be more left-wing, and vice-versa.[1, 2] This means that writers in TV, news and public debate will tend to lean more left wing. They play a larger role in forming the national mood than regional soft drink distributers.

Tribalism
People want to align with their ideological tribe. This factor is not in favor of one side or the other, but ensures that once a side takes over, it will form an increasingly uniform front, as people align with the dominant ideology within domains. (More on this below.)

Location
There is an increasing delineation between Somewheres and Anywheres. Somewheres live rooted in a specific place, often in a smaller city, while Anywheres are cosmopolitan. The Somewheres tend to be more conservative, being rooted in a specific place, history and life. The Anywheres tend to be more liberal, live in the big coastal cities, and increasingly form the intellectual elite.

Once an ideology takes over a domain, a self-reinforcing circle will kick in, which favors this ideology even more. For example, once academia becomes heavily left-leaning, this will create a less attractive environment for right-wing people, and fewer of them will go into academia, making it even more left-leaning.

A recent alternative explanation is forwarded by Richard Hanania: Why is Everything Liberal? He claims that liberals are more engaged in politics, whereas conservatives are more focused on their personal and family life. I do not believe this is the root explanation for two main reasons:
One, I see a lot of conservatives who care strongly and energetically about politics; they spend a lot of time online discussing it, they go to Trump rallies, and they spend large amounts of time listening to even mediocre right-wing commentators They just don’t have access to the most important political channels.
Two, I believe the reasons outlined above are sufficient causes as well as more fundamental causes. To the degree that conservatives spend less time on politics, this could plausibly be downstream of left-wing take-over of the elite institutions and public support. It’s more inviting to spend more energy on political activity if it will further your social standing, career and reception from society’s elite.

Left-wing views have always had high cache in academia and elite media. What has led to the increasing dominance in recent years? I posit that it is increasing bubbles in everyday life and information spheres. In previous decades there was more intermingling in neighbourhoods between people of different political affiliations, and newspapers and TV was to a higher degree for a general audience. Increasingly, people live near and spend time with people from the same side of the political spectrum, and news sources are becoming increasingly specialised and targeted. Wait But Why goes into this in detail.

The internet and social media allow people to hypothetically hear all view points; but in reality it instead has the effect that it is easier to get the specific information from your tribe. When people hear from the other tribe, it will typically be bad or exaggerated takes, together with counter-arguments or mocking from your own tribe. You can be fed the best, most sophisticated, and most convincing arguments for your political side, together with selected bad or simplistic takes from the other side. Which will confirm your belief that your side is correct, and lead you to further strengthen your bubble. These factors work equally for both sides of the ideological spectrum; so they are not the reason for left-wing success. But they are the reason for the tipping point effect, in which the left-wing lead has become left-wing dominance.

Too much dominance of one ideology is never good. If there is little intellectual opposition, tribal and ideological factors can allow increasingly ridiculous views to proliferate. This is very important, since it can lead to the spread and acceptance of bad ideas.

There are whole subfields of research that never had good evidence for them, but which nonetheless have proliferated, such as stereotype threat, implicit bias, microaggression research, etc. In the news media there countless examples of ridiculously biased reporting, such as a teenager smiling was deemed a national news story, or of people not questioning the most blatant of hoaxes. Given my readership, you probably know of many other similar examples. Also many left-wing beliefs of dubious veracity are widely accepted by elites and elite institutions, such as that there are no biological differences between genders or population groups, immigration is an unalloyed good, transgender female athletes can compete on equal footing in women’s sports, etc.

An alternative explanation for the spread of many incorrect ideas is forwarded by Rob Henderson: Luxury beliefs. People buy luxury goods to signal wealth, and in the same way they have beliefs to signal that they can afford having misguided, costly beliefs. I don’t believe this is the correct explanation. I believe that bad ideas follow straightforwardly from the ideological bubbles, as detailed above, so there is no need for further explanation. But also importantly, these beliefs are not actually costly to those who hold them. Your personal political opinions do not determine which policies are implemented in the country, so you will not bear the cost of them. In fact, not holding these beliefs is what will be costly to you in your private life, since going against your tribe always is.

Often, stating opinions topics using complex left-wing concepts and thoughts can also function as a signalling of education and intelligence. However, the most important signalling element here is tribal. It is more important for your social standing and romantic prospects that people like you, see you as one of them, and think you are a good person, than that they think you are intelligent or highly educated.

So what can be done about this development? I think the situation is bad, but it is improving in some ways. The replication crisis has increased awareness of the problems in academia. And there is increasingly better access to heterodox thinking in general, especially through substack and podcasts. These two platforms have the attribute that they create a direct link to the listener / reader, instead of relying on an institution. I think the way forward is to increase these sources of right-wing or centrist thinking and deeper political commentary. One thing that I think is lacking is more funding. The biggest names can have good incomes on Substack, but this is still only very few compared to the number of working left-wing writers and thinkers. Also there is not much funding for right-wing researchers, while at the same time there is increasing pressure on right-wing academics due to cancel culture. Consider that the brilliant thinker and researcher Bo Winegaard was fired, while Ibram X. Kendi recently received $10 million. I think it would be a great idea for wealthy philanthropists to donate more to this space. But of course they are typically elite, and this would likely not be popular among their in-group.

Dictators are usually viewed as some combination of evil and incompetent. In general, when a group of people are seen as evil and incompetent, there is almost always an overlooked question of incentives. A dictator’s incentive is not to be competent at providing good governance for his subjects; his incentive is to stay in power. And to stay in power he needs the support of other powerful people, his essential backers. They desire to get their share of goodies. If the dictator does not supply these, he will lose their support, and will be deposed (likely violently). Dictators must follow not the logic of helping the country, but the logic of survival. And at this, many of them are brilliant. It takes skill to stay in a highly coveted position for decades, while facing complex challenges. One can imagine a hypothetical competent and good ruler, but he would be working under strong constraints from powerful people on whose support he ultimately depends, which means he is under strong constraints regardless of his intentions. His main goal must be to stay in power, and if we have a person for whom this is not his main goal, he would not have succeeded at still being in power in any country.

This perspective puts light on the phenomenon of the resource curse: that countries with more natural resources paradoxically tend to be worse off. There are a few main ways for a dictator to provide money for his essential backers. One is from taxation, and another is from natural resources. To get a decent income from taxation, it is a requirement to have some economic freedom. Otherwise there will not be enough wealth and trade to generate sufficient revenue through taxation. However, such freedoms come with a risk for the dictator, that people will coordinate and organize against his rule. Therefore it is preferable for the dictator to get his income from natural resources. From this perspective we see how natural resources turn out to be a negative for the population in countries with autocratic rule. First, because it helps the dictator to stay in power, and second, because it removes the incentives for the dictator to allow more economic freedom. And most of the income from the natural resources does not go to the population at all, but instead to dictator, his cronies and the state apparatus.

For a perspective shift, I would suggest that we see dictators not as leaders of countries that by bad fortune happen to not be good, but instead as usurpers who have taken control over an income source, and keeps the population in the country in an open prison, in order to secure control of this source. For an example, let us look at when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar in 2008, which was at this time ruled by the dictator Than Shwe. The storm caused widespread damage, and more than 100.000 casualties. Than Shwe did nothing to help the population — instead he blocked the internationally provided disaster relief from entering the country, until he was provided a sufficiently large payment for allowing this to happen. Later he forced the victims of the disaster away from the shelters and back to their destroyed homes. This lead to bad outcomes for the population, but it also resulted in less risk for his rule in form of congregation and riots. He was not a leader of the population, but their jailor. This is reminiscent of how Fidel Castro’s sister Juanita put it:

I cannot longer remain indifferent to what is happening in my country. My brothers Fidel and Raúl have made it an enormous prison surrounded by water.

What about democracy, does that not have the same problems, that the rulers goal is to satisfy the coalition? Also can special interests be viewed as the same as essential backers whose needs the politician needs to fulfill? These objections are correct. However, there is a difference of degree - and a crucial difference of degree. For various reasons, politicians in democracies cannot solely provide goods for their supporters. This is partly because their supporters are not a distinct group. But even if they could hypothetically, this would still provide goods and services for a large proportion of a population. This is in contrast to dictators that are essentially free to fuck over the whole population, as long as they provide for at small number of essential backers. Also, since democratic politician must divide the goods among a large number of people, the value of the goods that each individual receives is not so high, so the politician has less secured loyalty, and the voter can easily shift to supporting another politician. In addition to better good and services in democracies, people are also mostly secured basic rights and property rights. This is because it is in the interest of the broad coalition that is required to keep politicians in power. One can easily quibble and critique the fulfillment of these rights in many democratic countries, but it is nonetheless extremely different from individual rights in most dictatorships, where the dictator can jail you or confiscate your property at will.

These things said, it is good to keep in mind and oppose these traits of democracies that can make it more dictator-like. This includes watching out for separation of powers, for clientilism and political patronage, and for powerful special interests. But keep in mind that these things are bad because they make democracies just a little more like dictatorships. Political power of special interests is bad, but imagine if every political decision was made based on the special interests of just a small number of people, and the politicians had no reason to hide this, or look out for the rest of the population in any way.

I mentioned that two ways for dictators to secure the resources to reward their essential backers are through taxation and through natural resources. A third way is, sadly, through aid. Aid can effectively act in the same way as a natural resource, thereby both helping the dictator stay in power, and removing need to allow more economic freedom. This is main reason that aid has been so ineffective in increasing wealth in poor countries. The low correlation between aid and economic growth is well known. See also this study which uses a feature that can act somewhat like a randomized trial of the impact of aid: UN security council membership. This membership is mostly based on whose turn it is, and member countries receive significantly more aid than non-members. The study found that on average, nations elected to the UN security council grow more slowly, become less democratic and experience more restrictions on press freedoms than eligible nations that are not elected.

Economic aid can get people through hardships, and possibly help set up production, as well as with other things. But ultimately, sustainable economic growth and lasting wealth is attained by people being productive. And here the problem is that aid can and will help dictators stay in power; and dictators are bad for productivity and economic growth. A dictators is bad for economic growth mainly for these three reasons: 1. He has limited incentive to provide opportunity for economic growth for the broad population, since they are not his essential backers. 2. He needs to provide private rewards to his essential backers which are substantially higher than what they could expect if they were not in his coalition. 3. Corruption is widespread in dictatorships, including on levels that are removed from the dictator himself. Corruption aids a dictator in multiple ways. It is a good way to help with private rewards in form of corruption opportunities. But also importantly, it provides a good way to deal with political opponents. If society is very corrupt, all powerful people will have some instances of corruption in their past, which can then be exploited by the dictator.

This issue of aid helping dictators entails that it is extremely difficult to estimate the full impact of aid, and to provide aid where we can be confident that it is overall beneficial to the recipient country. And this is true even with careful engagement, measurement and the right goals. We can measure how many malaria nets are installed, but it is much harder to measure how much money is siphoned and used to support the oppressive dictatorship, and the long-term effects of this.

Plato wrote a book describing the ideal of the philosopher king: a ruler that is good and wise, and willing to live a simple life. He describes these aspects in detail, but he overlooked the most important question: How these rulers would maintain power. The ruler must have support from his essential backers, and they have their own incentives. If they think they can get better rewards under a different leader, they will shift their support to him, even though he likely won’t be Plato’s ideal. And thus all the ideals and idealism about dictatorship as a form of governance are in vain, if they do not address this reality.

This is a new book by Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith, in the unique genre of graphic non-fiction. I am a big fan of both authors, and have read a large amount of their work. Both are brilliant thinkers with unique talents that have put their forces together to collaborate in making this completely new type of book, and the format works. It presents the ideas clearly and entertainingly, and I highly recommend it.

I strongly disagree with the opinion put forward in it though, and I will go through this in the following.

Scale of immigration

As a strong supporter of individual freedom and liberty, I find that the authors make a very strong case for the pros of open borders. There is no denying that allowing immigration could potentially help countless people who are given an unfair lot in life determined by their place of birth. This argument, like others, is very well described in the book:

However, I think that they do not deal with the extreme scope of potential immigration. The world contains a large number of poor people, who are strongly incentivized to immigrate if this can mean higher earnings and quality of life. The book mentions the extreme lengths that people go to in order to gain entry to the US:

And this is for illegal immigration. Imagine if immigration comes with full rights and all it costs is a plane ticket.

Historically we have seen that if there is open immigration, very large proportions of the population may immigrate. For example “Census figures show an Irish population of 8.2 million in 1841, 6.6 million a decade later, and only 4.7 million in 1891. It is estimated that as many as 4.5 million Irish arrived in America between 1820 and 1930.” (cite)

This shows that it is not unrealistic that half of the population of a region will want to immigrate, as long as there are good opportunities for them.

The region of Sub-Saharan Africa is especially important, since there are many poor people and because the population is projected to grow enormously over the next century:

If we make some guesses, and say that for example ⅓ of sub-Saharan Africans would want to emigrate, along with 1/10 of those from the rest of the world. These numbers are justified on the basis that large differences in living standards between host and target country are a primary, if not the primary motivating factor driving migration. They are based on the assumption that opportunities keep being good in the US. (If this is not the case, of course fewer immigrants will want to come, but then the open border policy that we are discussing has failed.) Modeling the projected world population growth together with these guesstimates of immigration, the population of the US in 2100 would have a composition of something like this:

I could stop the review here. It is blatantly obvious that such an extreme demographic transition to different populations with highly different characteristics would transform the country in countless detrimental ways. But let’s go on.

The welfare state

They claim that US could keep the welfare state:

Given that most of the world’s population lives on less than $5 a day, most of them could thus get a large economic advantage just from the welfare they can get in the US.

The book supports immigration by pointing to the fact that immigrants in the US perform well on a large number of measures such as overall fiscal effects, crime, etc. But of course the current immigrants in the US are extremely selective and unrepresentative. And you cannot conclude anything about the whole group by looking at a highly selected subset, just like you cannot make conclusions about a whole school by looking at just the Valedictorians. If most immigrants are unskilled, instead of the very most skilled people from around the world, the current picture will change.

Here is a graph from Denmark showing that non-western immigrants are a net drain at all ages:

Cultural, political and societal development

The book puts forward the idea of magic culture:

Of course, culture is not a magic element that makes newcomers quickly and completely acquire the culture of their new homeland. In fact, culture is sticky and cultural differences persist over centuries. There is a good description of this in American Nations and Albion’s Seed, and a good summary can be found in this post. The immigrants from Europe tended to settle in different regions depending on their origin; they carried their culture with them, and these regional culture differences are still apparent centuries later.

It is obvious that a correct model of the development of a nation with immigration involves cultural / political pull in both directions. Smaller groups will get pulled more, and thus to some degree acquire culture by immersion, but larger groups will also pull in the other direction and change the politics and culture of their new home. The culture of immigrants changes to some degree, but the change is far from total, and strong cultural differences will last. And immigrant groups of enormous size will feel less of an assimilatory pull. Western countries generally have inhabitants that have a higher level of trust and lower level of corruption. With sufficiently large immigration from populations with lower levels of trust could change this level.

A related question is the political opinions of the immigrants. With open borders, the vast majority of immigrants will be low-skilled, since most of the world population is low skilled. And low-skilled immigrants on average tend to have political ideas that are detrimental to a productive society, as is also mentioned in the book:

If vast numbers of immigrants come to the US from societies in which there is overwhelming support for government regulation and spending, and against free speech, they are going to vote for those policies. If very large voting groups of uneducated immigrants can vote for such policies, they will be enacted. I assume I don’t need to present an argument here that exceedingly low levels of economic freedom is bad for the economy. Another perspective to see it from is to look at the effects of the policies voted for in the countries in Africa where many of the migrants would come from. It’s easy to see that they are extremely detrimental to well-functioning societies. Caplan himself sees things the same way:

The book itself also describes this problem expertly:

So which defense does the book put forward against this problem?

These arguments are not very persuasive when we are dealing with the enormous numbers of immigrants open borders would entail. Sure, 27% and 48% are lower than 72%. But 27% of a huge number is also a huge number. And the objection that the government doesn’t pay much attention to these voters is already doubtful, but if there is a voter bloc of hundreds of millions of people you can bet they will pay attention.

I haven’t been able to find much data about the views of second-generation immigrants. It is an important claim that they stop supporting things like government regulation and spending to a higher degree than the native population, and it is a claim which I am very skeptical of. What I do know is that in Denmark, support for making religious criticism illegal is even higher in second-generation immigrants, and that second generation immigrants commit more crime on average compared to first generation immigrants. Also, as discussed above, even if we accept that such political assimilation is extremely strong in the current society, we can’t be confident that this would still be the case if the immigrant population numbered in the hundreds of millions.

Crime

Immigration obviously also has consequences for society other than those enacted by the voting. For example, in Malmö there have been over 100 targeted explosive attacks so far this year, compared to a base-level of about 0 in cities without a large amount of recent immigration. Most of those convicted of rape or attempted rape in Sweden over the last 5 years are foreign born. This means that the number of rapes in Sweden could’ve been less than half of what it is today if it wasn’t for immigration. For some immigrant groups in Denmark, more than one in five are convicted of a felony each year. This analysis I made shows that Germany would have had a very strong decrease in crime over the last 15 years if it wasn’t for recent immigration. All these numbers show that the problems with immigration is already very large for Scandinavia, with around 5–10% of their current population being recent immigrants from Africa and the Middle East. But they would obviously be vastly larger if we imagine an immigrant population in the hundreds of millions. It should also be noted that the detrimental effects of these things go over and above what is easily measurable, such as in government expenses. A society with widespread fear of violent crime, rape and bombings is a less open and joyous society. To the degree the book addresses these issues, it focuses on the current immigrant population in the US. But as discussed earlier, this approach is not applicable at all, since the current immigration population in the US is highly selected, and looks completely different from what the immigrant population with open borders would look like.

Philosophical arguments

Philosophical arguments that “prove” that open borders are good don’t carry much weight with me. Either borders are a net good or a net bad overall, and attempts to prove otherwise with analogies or Kantian-ish arguments invariably means that part of the picture is excluded.

In the book they feature Michael Huemer, who is a good philosopher and has a great blog at fakenous.net. But the argument he presents in the book is exactly an example of an analogy that is not an accurate picture of the real situation:

In this analogy, the problem is not that Marvin is not allowed to move into the local marketplace and live there. The problem is that he is not allowed to buy bread from the marketplace. But this is a question of free markets, not open borders. All such hypotheticals are invariably limited, and there is no alternative to considering the full, real situation.

Keyhole solutions

In chapter 6, they discuss changes to the immigration system that are less radical than full-on open borders, but would still be an improvement over the current state.

One of their suggestions is to allow free immigration, but restrict immigrants eligibility for government services. I find this idea unpersuasive. While it will reduce the burden on the public finances, there will still be problems with crime. The problem with crime will likely be worse, since without any sort of government support, it will leave many people in a more desperate situation. Also, creating a vast underclass of second-class citizens with fewer rights doesn’t sound like an attractive scenario to me.

Another suggestion they put forward is targeted restriction. E.g. open immigration except for Muslims, or only for republicans, or only for men, etc. I think this concept has a lot of promise, and I laud the authors for bringing this approach up for debate. As they say in the book, it may feel very unfair, but still the overall unfairness is less than the current state. I hope that these ideas will be discussed further.

As a final remark, I will mention an idea that they do not discuss, but I wish they had: Charter cities. A problem for many is that they are not allowed to move to the US, this is true. But also, a problem for many is that they are not allowed to move anywhere at all where the government and society is not terrible! One way to attempt to address the latter problem is to create new charter cities: Places with new systems of government and legislation where people are free to move. This could give millions of oppressed people an opportunity of escape. There is a lot of land around the world, and many different types of attempts could be made, until a successful approach is found. This is also appealing for the reason that it’s better to tinker and experiment with what works, rather than committing to full-scale, radical transformation of society with unknown consequences.

In most countries there is not so much hubbub over the supreme court, and rarely do citizens even know anything about it. This is clearly different in the US. Why is this? I posit that it is because the US Supreme Court has taken on a role as effectual lawmakers. In other western countries their Supreme Courts mainly interpret the law, while in US the Supreme Court decides the law. This means that enormous power now resides with these nine non-democratically elected elders.

The easiest way to see this is by examining the Due Process Clause:

No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

That is it, the Due Process clause as written in the US Constitution. A straightforward reading is that it’s about that people should not get arrested or have their property confiscated without a trial and a ruling; a sensible law that is vital in separating a constitutional republic from a banana republic. But somehow the Supreme Court has latched onto this clause and given it as reason for a large variety of rulings. For example, in Pierce v Society of Sisters they ruled that the clause means that children cannot be required to attend public school; and in Griswold v Connecticut, two of the justices argued that this clause means that the state is not allowed to legislate regarding the legality of contraceptives. The galaxy brain level of this take is quite incredible.

No normal person reading the due process clause would think it applies to making legislation about contraceptives. If people are arrested or fined for these reasons without a proper trial, that would be in violation of due process. But how can making a law about contraception, that does not contain anything special about the process before a court, be in contradiction with due process?

Griswold v Connecticut is not a well-known case, but we could also look at Roe v Wade, the seminal ruling protecting the right to legal abortion. From Wikipedia: “In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion.” This means that the justices are claiming that the the Due Process clause means that abortion must be allowed. Again, the Due Process clause in it’s entirety is: “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

People with whom I have discussed this have been quite surprised and skeptical. But it is easy to confirm for yourself on Wikipedia that this is indeed what the ruling says, and what the Due Process clause says.

It is worth noting that many other countries with a Supreme Court and a constitution have essentially the same clause, but without any history of using it in such judgments. They simple interpret it to mean that people have the right to due process before a court.

I am personally in favor of the right to use contraception, and the right to abortion. But herein lies the heart of the issue about the US Supreme Court: It’s about process vs results. Is the most important thing to have a well-designed process, or is the most important thing to get results that we like? Or more concretely: If they tend to make rulings that we agree with, do we want to be ruled by 9 non-elected Justices? Once they can interpret the Due Process clause as having an application so unrelated to its content, it is clear that the Supreme Court can make rulings unbounded by the content of the Constitution. Rulings will instead be bounded by previous rulings of the Supreme Court, and the sense of the current Justices about what ought to be the law. As imagined, the system of government consists of a division between the legislative body that makes the laws, and a judicial body that interprets the laws made by the legislative body. But if the judicial body does not have to adhere to what is concretely written in the law, this division will be blurred, and the nine Supreme Court justices will in effect also make laws.

As I said, I think this is all quite obvious and easy to verify even for a layman. And of course, many justices have also pointed this out. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. put this forcefully:

I cannot believe that the Amendment was intended to give us [Supreme Court justices] carte blanche to embody our economic or moral beliefs in its prohibitions. Yet I can think of no narrower reason that seems to me to justify the present and the earlier decisions to which I have referred. Of course the words due process of law, if taken in their literal meaning, have no application to this case.

And a critique from Clarence Thomas:

By straying from the text of the Constitution, substantive due process exalts judges at the expense of the People from whom they derive their authority.

Having rulings not being based on the text of the law as such, can make it quite obvious in some cases that the law becomes based on the personal opinions of the justices. For example, take Obergefell v Hodges that establishes a fundamental right to marry for same-sex couples. This is again based partly on the Due Process clause. But if same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage, why not polygamous couples? There is clearly nothing in the sentence “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” that means that something should apply to same-sex couples but not to polygamous people. The ruling is instead made on the basis of what these The Nine happen to think. (Or more precisely, the five of them who constituted the majority in this case.)

As I write this, there is a large political controversy about if a new justice will be nominated for the Supreme Court while Trump is still in office. This is important because conservative justices on the Supreme Court tend to vote more in line with the Republican Party. However, the reason for this is not mainly because their politics is Republican-leaning, but because they to a larger degree tend toward interpreting the law as written.

Liberal justices to a higher degree make rulings that do not follow the law as written, and thus breaking the separation between the judicial and legislative branches. For this reason, if you support more liberal justices on the Supreme Court, you must stand by either:

1. The judicial-legislative distinction is not important, and its fine to have a system in which unelected judges essentially make the law, or

2. That the distinction is important; but it its worth it to make the legislative system worse in order to further the liberal cause.

It is my impression that this is rarely grappled with. Instead, conservative judges are commonly vilified as being bigoted and hateful. For example, I recall this video from the Daily Show, depicting Scalia as being saddened by the joy from the LGBT community over Obergefell v Hodges

Many people are in this way seemingly unable to grasp that Scalia saw his job as interpreting what the law says, not what the law ought to be. Probably this is partly because most people don’t realize how absent the connection to the actual text in the Constitution is.

I find it highly surprising how little this perspective is present in the public discourse. The discourse I’ve always heard is that there are liberal justices and conservative justices, just like there are liberal and conservative politicians. So of course you are on the side of the liberal justices if you support things like gay marriage. But from another perspective, the power in US has been partly usurped by this council of elders; and it’s hardly even discussed. It just becomes part of the all-consuming left-right dichotomy.

I am a big supporter of democracy and liberal values. And thus I think a superior system overall is where there is a sharp distinction between the judicial branch and the legislative branch, and where democratically elected people are the ones deciding the law. Important decisions such as whether to ensure a right for same-sex marriage or abortion should be democratically decided, instead of by a council of nine elders. Then we would have a world where those rights do not come into jeopardy because an 87 year old lady died this year instead of the next.

So what is the base principle? I believe it is this:

The left wing puts more weight on empathy for the less fortunate, and the right wing puts more weight on tradition or system thinking.

Let’s first go through how it fits with the classical, economic left-wing split.

— Rent control —

The left — Empathizes with the poor tenant who pays too high a rent.

The right — The system works better overall without government interference.

— Redistribution —

The left — Empathizes with the less wealthy person, and wants the government to redistribute more money to help improve his lot.

The right — In tradition, people should keep what they earn themselves. In systems thinking, people will work less hard if their returns depend less on their effort.

It’s not a ground-breaking perspective in these examples, but makes decent sense. Where the principle shines is in applying it to other issues.

— The supreme court —

The left — If society is unjust against people through no fault of their own, such as in prohibiting gay marriage, the supreme court should rule it illegal

The right — We have a system where the democratically elected government makes laws, and the judicial system interprets those laws. If the judges base their judgment too much on what they personally think is fair, that will in effect create a system where we confer a large amount of power to a small number of unelected people, which is not good.

— Transgender issues —

The left — Empathizes with people born who are in the wrong body, and have to live their life as the wrong sex in addition to oppression from society.

The right — Glorifying transgenderism may cause people to identify as transgender when they aren’t, and giving too much encouragement for gender transitions at young ages, may cause young people to transition who will later regret it.

An important facet of empathy is the expanding circle of empathy.

— Immigration —

The left — Empathizes with immigrants being oppressed and denied opportunities in their home country. This circle of empathy is expanded compared to

The right — which has less empathy for foreigners compared to citizens. Also see it as too much of a change of traditional society.

— The environment and animals —

The left — Feels more empathy for animals compared to the right, due to the expanding circle of empathy. This is relevant for animals hurt in factory farming, as well as animals in the wild hurt indirectly by human activity. And even the environment in itself is the subject of empathy-like feelings.

The right — In traditions especially, there is a more limited circle of empathy, and thus more moral weight is put on humans alive today. In systems thinking, environmentalism receives push-back by thoughts of effectiveness of the approaches, and cost-benefit analysis of what can be achieved with the resources.

The principle can also be used to predict future development. For example, take the issue of free speech. Previously, there hasn’t been much political division on the issue. But if we look we can see that it has a natural left-right split:

— Freedom of speech —

The left — Words can be hurtful to individuals who we should empathize with.

The right — While individual cases may have bad consequences, over the system of a society with full freedom of speech works better than one in which there is limited freedom of speech.

Tradition and systems thinking may seem like odd companions. I think it makes sense from the following perspective: To counter-act empathic feelings, you need a strong conviction that the alternative is better overall. And only two things can give this conviction: Either tradition, doing things in a way we know that works and makes sense; or systems thinking, that with all things considered including indirect effects, the alternative is overall better. Thus they are natural allies in the counter-argument against the empathy-based view. However, there are many obvious differences between tradition and systems thinking, as is illustrated in the split between classical conservatives and libertarians.

Markets are of course the ultimate non-empathic but efficient system. As the conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg put it “Capitalism is the most cooperative system ever created for the peaceful improvement of peoples’ lives. It only has one fatal flaw: It doesn’t feel like it.” In Bastiat’s That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen he describes how unseen indirect effects can be as important as the direct effects. If you help a tenant with his rent you see (e.g. can empathize with) the direct effects on this tenant, but there are also things that are not seen, such as the effect on the incentives of people to build more housing (the system).

This principle of the left-right split aptly explains sayings like: “If you are not a liberal at 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at 35 you have no brain.” Having a heart is about empathy, and having a brain is about understanding the system and that which is not seen. It also explains why women tend to be more left-wing, since they have higher empathy on average.

That the division is on such a basic level of values also explains why much political of disagreement is so entrenched and uncharitable to the other side. If empathy for suffering people is your focus, talk about systems or tradition will not be satisfying to you; and likewise if the overall efficiency of the system if your focus, talk about the fate of particular individuals in the system will be unsatisfactory to you.

Footnote: Of course the left-wing view is also focused on the overall system. For example a system in which poor people suffer more is a system that works less well. Also the left-wing opinion can be more rooted in sense of social justice and oppression than empathy for specific people as such. Neither is it accurate that right-wing people have no empathy, and are cold, unfeeling systems thinkers. What the principle says, is that when there is a left-right point of disagreement, the position that is more left-wing is the one that is more focused on improving the situation of people in less fortunate situations that one can empathize with, and the position which is more right-wing is the one that claims that other considerations overshadow these concerns. Naturally, not every person on each side will share every one of the opinions of that side, and people on both sides will consider empathy, social justice, systems, and tradition to some degree. Just not overall to the same degree.

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