The 2000s: Decade in Review

If you read the news, it may sound like as though the Oughts were the worst decades in — well, decades. There’s certainly some truth to that. The Dow is in the same place it was at the beginning of the decade. September 11 was the worst terrorist attack in history. We got involved in two endless, expensive, foreign wars, and illegally detained and tortured a number of people in Guantanamo Bay. The size and scope of the government increased massively under both President Bush and President Obama, and spending is growing at an unsustainable rate.

But if you just read the headlines, you may be missing the picture. While governments may be screwing things up on an unprecedented level, entrepreneurs, innovators and economics are making everyone’s lives better.

First, during this decade it became possible to reach almost anyone in the world instantaneously, and cheaply, through email and cell phones. I can write these words from my home in Alamo and you can read them wherever you are, for the price of an internet connection. The gap between celebrities and their fans is receding quickly. I believe we are only scratching the surface of potential applications for the internet. We are inventing and adapting new technologies at a breakneck pace.

Second, globalization is helping millions of people earn higher incomes and escape poverty, especially in Asia. Access to international markets have helped millions of Chinese workers earn more. Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz’s excellent new book From Poverty to Prosperity outlines this in more detail. We are helping our own, too: Kling and Schulz point out, “Sixty years ago, a social studies teacher looking for a movie that would motivate students to sympathize with the plight of the unfortunate in America might have chosen The Grapes of Wrath. Today, it would be Supersize Me. All sorts of consumer goods, especially entertainment, have become extraordinarily cheap, making people’s lives better. If you don’t believe me, ask the homeless dude with the laptop.

As anyone who grew up playing SimCity knows, you can’t make your town smart and healthy overnight – but play the game on fast-forward for thirty years and everyone’s smart and living longer. Development is slow and boring.

Kevin Burke

Kevin once inadvertently left Waiting for Godot during the intermission. He runs a link blog and a daily CMC newsletter.

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Blind Faith

Progress, progress, gibble, gabble, one of us, one of us.

Have you ever wondered how ideas, like your cutesy good-life-inducing innovations are produced? Perhaps, though, you’re right, and rather than wondering about what humanity’s failures can tell us, we should just embrace the inevitable onslaught of progress.
Blind Faith

Progress, progress, gibble, gabble, one of us, one of us.

Have you ever wondered how ideas, like your cutesy good-life-inducing innovations are produced? Perhaps, though, you’re right, and rather than wondering about what humanity’s failures can tell us, we should just embrace the inevitable onslaught of progress.
http://kburke.org Kevin Burke

After I finished my piece, Tyler Cowen wrote an article with a similar theme for the NYT.
http://kburke.org Kevin Burke

After I finished my piece, Tyler Cowen wrote an article with a similar theme for the NYT.
It’s a Grown-Up World

“illegally detained and tortured a number of people in Guantanamo Bay”

Besides the fact that it wasn’t remotely illegal, hardly qualifies as torture, and didn’t happen at Gitmo, did you ever wonder if there is a side that “deserves” to win? It has become very clear to me that progressives like you have a blind faith in random moral rules and never stop to consider what might be necessary for better people to do to worse people in order to preserve their way of life (which is a clearer way to think about justice than human-rights hand-wringing).

And seriously, you think we just detained “people”? Try terrorists. Another example of political correctness keeping people from understanding the truth.
It’s a Grown-Up World

“illegally detained and tortured a number of people in Guantanamo Bay”

Besides the fact that it wasn’t remotely illegal, hardly qualifies as torture, and didn’t happen at Gitmo, did you ever wonder if there is a side that “deserves” to win? It has become very clear to me that progressives like you have a blind faith in random moral rules and never stop to consider what might be necessary for better people to do to worse people in order to preserve their way of life (which is a clearer way to think about justice than human-rights hand-wringing).

And seriously, you think we just detained “people”? Try terrorists. Another example of political correctness keeping people from understanding the truth.
http://kburke.org Kevin Burke

Few people who know me would call me a progressive.

Your criticism is factually incorrect.

In Guantanamo Bay and other secret sites, inmates were forced to defecate on themselves, kept awake through the playing of loud music, exposed to severe cold, beaten and thrown against walls, confined in extremely tight spaces, among other things, including sexual abuse and murder. The American Red Cross, the organization charged with upholding the Geneva Convention, has clearly labeled these practices as torture, and Americans have labeled these practices as torture, in other times and settings. We continued to torture people after everyone said they had divulged all useful information. We also tortured people beyond the DoJ prescribed limits for torture. Susan J. Crawford, the special attorney for the Bush Administration who decided which detainees would be brought to trial, could not refer one Guantanamo detainee (Mohamed al-Qahtani) for trial because he had been tortured – in Guantanamo.

On at least one occasion the United States government tortured a man they knew to be innocent. Not to mention the Uighur Chinese who were kept there for four years even though they were innocent.

Your statement that “some things are necessary for better people to do to worse people” is obtuse. Thinking about this issue in terms of our side and their side, our side being morally justified in everything it does, because it’s our side, and in terms of ends justifying the means, are sure ways to lower your IQ. We have surrendered the moral high ground. What if someone captures a US soldier and subjects him to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and all of the other tricks in the book? Ignoring the fact that everyone in the United States would immediately recognize this as torture, the capturers can claim that turnaround is fair play.
http://kburke.org Kevin Burke

Few people who know me would call me a progressive.

Your criticism is factually incorrect.

In Guantanamo Bay and other secret sites, inmates were forced to defecate on themselves, kept awake through the playing of loud music, exposed to severe cold, beaten and thrown against walls, confined in extremely tight spaces, among other things, including sexual abuse and murder. The American Red Cross, the organization charged with upholding the Geneva Convention, has clearly labeled these practices as torture, and Americans have labeled these practices as torture, in other times and settings. We continued to torture people after everyone said they had divulged all useful information. We also tortured people beyond the DoJ prescribed limits for torture. Susan J. Crawford, the special attorney for the Bush Administration who decided which detainees would be brought to trial, could not refer one Guantanamo detainee (Mohamed al-Qahtani) for trial because he had been tortured – in Guantanamo.

On at least one occasion the United States government tortured a man they knew to be innocent. Not to mention the Uighur Chinese who were kept there for four years even though they were innocent.

Your statement that “some things are necessary for better people to do to worse people” is obtuse. Thinking about this issue in terms of our side and their side, our side being morally justified in everything it does, because it’s our side, and in terms of ends justifying the means, are sure ways to lower your IQ. We have surrendered the moral high ground. What if someone captures a US soldier and subjects him to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and all of the other tricks in the book? Ignoring the fact that everyone in the United States would immediately recognize this as torture, the capturers can claim that turnaround is fair play.
That was…

….a grown-up response for a grown-up world. (and also factual)
That was…

….a grown-up response for a grown-up world. (and also factual)
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The 2000s: Decade in Review

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