The Problem with #RedForEd (or any other political movement)

Right now, North Carolina teachers and their supporters are walking out and protesting for, among other things, higher pay. But there’s a problem. Like any political movement, issues get conglomerated. #RedForEd isn’t just about higher pay; its about more public education funding, smaller class sizes, less standardized testing, and more depending on who you ask. If you take a look at the sign above, you’ll see four issues.

This poses a problem. When we conglomerate the issue, we lose any specificity. What exactly are #RedForEd supporters for? More funding? Smaller class sizes? Less testing? All of the above? A combination of the above? What if I’m against more funding but for less standardized testing? Am I an advocate or an opponent? To be sure, there aren’t many people who are literally opponents of a better educated society.

With such a conglomeration of issues, how can one possibly disagree without being cast away as a degenerate? The #RedForEd supporters will always have a contingency when one disagrees:

“You aren’t for higher teacher pay? Well it’s not just about teacher pay!”

“You don’t think we need more funding? Well its not just about more funding!”

“You’re against #RedForEd!? You must hate our teachers!”

When we muddle the issue, it becomes harder to pinpoint the truth. Any straying questions can always be diverted. The movement can always fall back on any of the other positions when questioned; the movement cannot be proven wrong. This is a precarious path for political thought.

Worse yet, is that we need specifics. How much more funding? 10%? 20%? Without context its hard to tell whether any political movement is good.

*On a side note, do you see anything unusual with this sign? If you thought about averages, you’d be right. Mathematically someone has to be below average. Does this necessarily mean that funding should be increased? No, that’s just how averages work.

A Gun Compromise that Neither Side will Accept

The topic of gun control is almost never a polite discussion, but worse yet its almost never a discussion that leads to compromise or real solutions. To put it more clearly, each side is certain that their ideas will make the world a better place; that their ideas are totally right and the other’s totally wrong. Each side has been wholly consumed by the halo effect. No matter how reasonable the other side might be, we denounce them as evil, ignorant, and foolish. Hopefully, I am about to change that.

Before we begin its worth noting that I am a self proclaimed gun-nut. I own all sorts; from hunting shotguns, to historical military rifles, to “assault rifles”, to hi-capacity handguns. I absolutely love guns, but at the same time I find many pro-gun arguments and people to be irrational and polarized. Read many of their arguments and it will sicken you as to how insincere or unreasonable their beliefs are. You’re telling me that there can be NO good measure to solve gun crime or murders?!? NONE?!?!

On the flip side, I also find many anti-gun arguments to be unforgiving and non-academic. I find most of these arguments to be ignorant and, pardon my harshness, stupid. Many, if not most, anti-gun proponents legitimately don’t know how guns work, the relevant features of guns (SEE: 30 magazine clip), how powerful guns are, and yet they want to push severe measures restricting certain firearms. Just as many of these people are equally as polarized and irrational as their pro-gun counterparts. You mean a good, law-abiding citizen CAN’T own an AR-15?!?

Even as a hardcore gun owner, I find it sick that one person can kill tens of people so easily. I find it more disturbing that most pro-gun people can’t seem to entertain the notion that something could be done to solve this. Here’s where the compromise comes in. Suppose we craft a legitimate deal; one that gives gun owners and gun control proponents something they both like. The deal is this: instate Universal Background Checks (UBC), but remove restricted firearms/firearms accessories from the National Firearms Act (NFA). This means that firearms such as machine guns, short barreled rifles, short barreled shotguns, and suppressors would now be unrestricted. However, potential gun purchasers must pass the UBC to own any firearms. In other words, so long as one can pass the vetting process they can own any firearm they like. In principle, this wouldn’t harm anyone’s 2nd Amendment rights. And if it doesn’t, count me in. I’m all for limiting needless deaths and creating a better society.

So are you in?

The Left, the Right, Terrorism, Gun Control, and Accessibility Bias

When the next mass shooting happens, you can be sure that calls for more gun control, bans on assault weapons, magazine capacity restrictions, and universal background checks will abound from the left. Largely these calls, especially on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, are unfounded. According to FBI statistics, rifles, which compose most of what would fall in the assault weapon category, account for roughly 2-3% of all murders per year while handguns account for 45-50% of all murders. No matter how few rifle deaths are or how rare mass shootings are, the left always seems to target the big, scary, and magnetizing items like assault weapons and high-capacity magazines; the images become seared into their mind. The right points out, and rightly so, that many peoples lives, possibly greater than the number of deaths, are saved by defending their life with a gun. They also point out that the risk of being killed by a gun is in the ballpark of 2 thousandths of a percent (0.00257%) per year, or 1 in 38,000. They might also point out that car crashes kill far more people each year than guns. In other words, the right is trying to point out that the implementation of more gun control has very, very negligible gains and that the focus is too intense for the actual likelihood.

When the next Islamic terrorist attack happens, you can be sure that calls for stricter immigration, limitation of refugees, spying, and military action will abound from the right. Over the past 50 years, no matter how few people have died from terrorism and how rare terrorist attacks have been (especially in the US), the right seems to place an utmost importance on the proposals they offer to solve or limit terrorism. A little more than 3,000 US citizens have been killed as a result of terrorism in the last 20 years. Even recent terrorist attacks in Europe provide the right with an “I told you so” attitude. Even as terrorism is exceedingly rare, the images of terrorism become seared into their minds and cement the ideas of immigration vetting process into their politics. It even seems to be a large reason that Trump was elected. The left often points out that these types of attacks are rare and do not represent the average Muslim or that guns account for far more deaths than terrorism. They may also point out that immigration restrictions drastically hinder our economy. In other words, the left is trying to point out that the focus on terrorism is heavily overestimated and that immigration restrictions have negligible gains as compared to the actual risks.

On these issues, both the right and left (and everyone else) share a common trait: accessibility bias. When a mass shooting or terrorist attack happens, the visuals become seared into our minds. These events gain incredible amounts of news coverage and we remember every detail. In total percentage, however, they compose only a small fraction of deaths. To understand it better, lets define accessibility bias. Accessibility bias happens when our minds take information that is easily recalled (or accessible), such as mass shootings or terrorist attacks, and, because they are so easily recalled, we assign probabilities that vastly exceed the actual probabilities. For instance, suppose you are driving to work and see a horrific car crash. You likely slow down because you fear the same could happen to you. However, the truth is that the likelihood of you crashing never increased; the crash was so vivid that you slowed down. This happens in such an unconscious way that we hardly even know that it exists. To be cliché, before we can solve the problem, we must first recognize that we have a problem.

When it comes to matters like these, accessibility bias rules the roost. The right, when reacting to calls for more gun control, point out the over-exaggeration. Likewise the left does the same when confronted with calls for more immigration restrictions. Both however engage in a form of cognitive dissonance; they both forget that they themselves engage in the same mental bias. Before we propose any solution, we must remember that we suffer from powerful, unconscious mental biases. Imagine the small, unremarkable solutions that we might miss because we focus on the sensational. If we really want to change the world for the better, we must be aware that we might be overestimating a problem while offering a solution that does not pass cost/benefit analysis.

End the Skilled Immigrant Visa NOW!

If I was dictator for a day I would end the H1B Visa, or the temporary work visa for the comparatively skilled. It’s true, the H1B Visa is a net negative for not only the US economy but the world as a whole. Economists of all stripes agree on this; the H1B visa costs thousands of jobs and unnecessarily stunts our economy. But is it a net negative in the way we might suppose? Let’s end the H1B Visa process in favor of a system that effortlessly allows all interested people an immigration path to the US. This is what would truly Make America Great Again.

Conservative estimates by economists show that restrictionist immigration policies stunt our global economy by half. That is, World GDP would grow by 100%, or double, if polices like these were lifted. Currently World GDP is $74 trillion as measured in US dollars. This means that World GDP could be $150 trillion! This is truly the most important issue of our time; not ISIS, not healthcare, not global warming.

Why is immigration such a tremendous net positive? Let’s think about it. Imagine how our economy would look if women didn’t enter the workforce, such as before the 1950s. Artificially removing half of the potential workforce has glaringly obvious downfalls. Women entering the workforce has improved our economy drastically. The same logic applies to immigrants on a greater scale. Why should we artificially limit human intelligence in our economy?

The 100% GDP growth estimate is easy to understand for a few reasons. Namely human labor should be used where it is most valuable. It is not hard to see that productivity of Filipino workers would be drastically greater in the US than in the Philippines. The productivity gain of this individual worker could be at least 20 times greater! It doesn’t take much thought to understand that first world technology greatly enhance the labor of not only immigrants, but workers in general. Not only does this contribute to tremendous growth, but human intelligence is a terrible thing to waste. Is it logically sound to limit smart Vietnamese or Indians from immigrating to the US where their talents are much more valuable? Unfortunately this is exactly what the H1B visa does; it limits the immigration of the moderately skilled to 65,000 a year and another 20,000 for the highly skilled, or roughly twice the population of Richmond County, North Carolina. If immigration was truly a net negative, we must ask has our economy really been bogged down by 85,000 SKILLED immigrants a year? And this is only the 800 pound gorilla on the tip of the iceberg.

Could the H1B get any worse? Enter, the H1B lottery selection process. Every year, new applicants are subject to a lottery to begin work in the US. In other words, recent graduates on student visas aren’t allowed to stay or work if they don’t obtain an H1B visa. Can you, as a US citizen, imagine the horror of being subject to a lottery of only 85,000 tickets to continue living in your beloved country, let alone a country full of tremendous opportunity? In recent years, immigrants had about a 30% chance of winning this ultimate lottery. What this means is that your loving friend from Vietnam, or India, whom you might consider family, could be ripped out of your arms and sent back to a country of destitute opportunities. For instance, even though India is quite advanced, the bottom 5% of Americans are richer than the top 5% of Indians. Can you imagine having your child sent back to that kind of poverty? I cannot imagine something more heinously cold-hearted than this immigration policy. We have the opportunity to truly make a difference in the world, especially among the worlds poorest, yet selfishly think of only ourselves when crafting such policies. Policies crafted by misconceptions and lack of economic understanding.

The reasoning behind these ill-crafted policies stem from fallacious delusions in our reasoning. Some of these justifications are simply misguided biases, such as the idea that immigration causes American unemployment or more crime. These two are simply not the case, no matter how much Trump or other political pundits might suggest. The disemployment effect is easy to debunk. If immigrants are likely to reduce American unemployment then so too is a growing American workforce like women or the Baby Boomer generation. As hinted at above, drastically increasing women’s participation in the workforce has done the exact opposite. This rapid increase in the workforce from women or Baby Boomers of course did not provide such an effect, but rather improved our economy for reasons not limited to those described above. When immigrants arrive they too must rent or own houses, use electricity, buy cars, and more. Not only do they produce and innovate in their respective industries, but they purchase products. The crime rate argument is likewise easily demolished. Fortunately immigration numbers have improved over the past 50 years while the crime rate has also dropped. These two worries are not simply mistaken, but systematically wrong.

There are a couple questions we must ask ourselves if we still believe in this misguided policy. If any of the restrictionist logic applies to foreign immigration, then it must also apply within American borders. For instance, my moving to Florida two years ago was done in the economic interest of myself. Does any American ever disapprove of my move by way of “taking” a Floridian’s job? Of course not. But why should the logic be any different? Nationalism clouds our thinking in this manner. We also must ask ourselves if these policies represent what it means to be free and American. Immigrating to better someone’s life is truly the epitome of the American mentality. Have we become a nation who looks down or discourages this behavior? If one single policy is to Make America Great Again, it is this.