A year ago, lecturer Erika Christakis wrote an email criticizing Yale’s attempt to control students’ Halloween costumes. Christakis suggested that students, as adults, are capable of policing themselves, that the…
Another short piece introducing epistocracy at Aeon today. Also at the PUP blog. Of course, any epistocratic system would face abuse. It’s easy to imagine all the things that might…
Most predictions markets and election forecast models predict Trump will lose. One might be inclined to say, “Ah ha! See, democracy works!” Two problems with that: 1. HRC isn’t that…
Tyler Cowen asks today, if Trump wins, what’s the best theory of why? He offers a number of hypotheses, including that Hillary is unpopular, as well as cistscism: 2. A quite…
I have a paper in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Freedom called “Democracy and Freedom”. It’s available online first here. Abstract: There seems to be an intimate connection between democracy and…
In chapter 5 of Against Democracy, I attack “semiotic” or expressive arguments for democracy. These arguments try to prove that democracy is intrinsically just, or epistocracy is intrinsically unjust, because of…