Bryan Caplan
Economics professor at George Mason University and author of The Myth of the Rational Voter, Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, The Case Against Education and Open Borders. Writes Bet On It.
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What they believe
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The U.S. Constitution's checks and balances have become largely ineffective.
It means that the famed checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution are now mostly impotent.
betonit.aiSaid 22 Sept 2026This on korrents
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War cannot be morally justified unless there is high confidence its long-run effects are very good.
Actual war means killing a lot of innocent people - and that cannot be justified unless you have high confidence that the long-run effects are very good.
betonit.aiSaid 21 Sept 2026This on korrents
The bold line is korrents’ wording; the quote is theirs. These 2: what they wrote before what they said aloud, one per source, newest first.
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From one piece The Neo-Median Voter Model 3 beliefs · betonit.ai
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Their words
In the Neo-Median Voter Model, platforms diverge widely, especially on issues where the base is passionate and the median voter in the general election is apathetic.
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Their words
Thus, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that despite much rhetoric to the contrary, the president is more than halfway to being a four-year dictator.
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Their words
It means that the famed checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution are now mostly impotent.
21 September
From one piece The Negligence of War and Peace 2 beliefs · betonit.ai
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korrents.com
Since 1990, the United States has carefully planned its wars but poorly planned for their aftermath.Their words
You could consider "Since 1990, the U.S. has carefully planned its wars, yet poorly planned for the aftermath" a mixed compliment.
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korrents.com
War cannot be morally justified unless there is high confidence its long-run effects are very good.Their words
Actual war means killing a lot of innocent people - and that cannot be justified unless you have high confidence that the long-run effects are very good.
18 September
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Nothing matches.
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 22 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
Each is a — compiled by korrents.com, not by them: the one-line wordings are korrents', the quotes are theirs.
Recent
The U.S. Constitution's checks and balances have become largely ineffective.
It means that the famed checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution are now mostly impotent.
The Neo-Median Voter Model Said 22 Sept 2026
The U.S. president now wields power comparable to a temporary dictator.
Thus, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that despite much rhetoric to the contrary, the president is more than halfway to being a four-year dictator.
The Neo-Median Voter Model Said 22 Sept 2026
Political party platforms diverge most on issues where the party base cares intensely and the general electorate is apathetic.
In the Neo-Median Voter Model, platforms diverge widely, especially on issues where the base is passionate and the median voter in the general election is apathetic.
The Neo-Median Voter Model Said 22 Sept 2026
Show 19 more
War cannot be morally justified unless there is high confidence its long-run effects are very good.
Actual war means killing a lot of innocent people - and that cannot be justified unless you have high confidence that the long-run effects are very good.
The Negligence of War and Peace Said 21 Sept 2026
Since 1990, the United States has carefully planned its wars but poorly planned for their aftermath.
You could consider "Since 1990, the U.S. has carefully planned its wars, yet poorly planned for the aftermath" a mixed compliment.
The Negligence of War and Peace Said 21 Sept 2026
If academic arguments can be dismissed for reaching politically unwelcome conclusions, there is no point in having academic arguments about politically charged subjects at all.
If human beings can dismiss academic arguments merely because they lead to politically unwelcome conclusions, what’s the point of having academic arguments about politically-charged subjects?
The Anti-Intellectual Northern Michigan University Said 21 Oct 2025
Standardised testing is a good idea badly executed: the tests in common use are the problem, not testing itself.
Standardized testing is glorious, but many standardized tests royally suck.
What's Really Wrong With Standardized Tests Said 15 Apr 2025
A test meant to find the best candidates must make perfect scores vanishingly rare, so that the top of the distribution can still be told apart.
First and foremost: Perfect scores should be vanishingly rare. Instead of clumping the best candidates together, you should be able to clearly distinguish the 99th percentile from the 99.9th, 99.99th, and so on.
What's Really Wrong With Standardized Tests Said 15 Apr 2025
Elite programmes stay with tests that cannot separate the best candidates because doing so is a stealthy move in a wider war against merit.
Wokeness is the obvious answer. There are many lines of defense in the War Against Merit.
What's Really Wrong With Standardized Tests Said 15 Apr 2025
Bad admissions tests survive on herding: no programme wants to be the one asking for a different exam, even a far better one.
So a lot of the problem is mere herding: If every other top engineering program is using the GRE, it’s too weird to require a different test even if the alternative test is a far superior selection mechanism.
What's Really Wrong With Standardized Tests Said 15 Apr 2025
Funding education does not make a country rich; being rich is what makes a country fund education lavishly.
Lavishly funding education doesn’t cause countries to become rich; being rich causes countries to lavishly fund education.
Educational Austerity and Progress Studies Said 12 Mar 2025
At the national level there is no clear evidence that more education raises living standards at all.
At the national level, it’s not clear that education increases living standards at all, much less that education makes countries’ living standards increase at a faster rate.
Educational Austerity and Progress Studies Said 12 Mar 2025
The way to find useful ideas is to search for useful ideas, not to follow whatever fascinates you and hope it turns out useful.
Yet common sense insists the best way to discover useful ideas is to search for useful ideas — not to search for whatever fascinates you and pray it turns out to be useful.
Educational Austerity and Progress Studies Said 12 Mar 2025
The main function of education is signalling rather than building skill, so subsidising it mostly inflates credentials.
Since signaling, not building human capital, is the main function of education, the main effect of government subsidies is credential inflation.
Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College? Said 19 Feb 2025
College is not a good career investment for most of the population.
Despite misleading statements by mainstream education economists, college attendance in particular is not a good career investment for most of the population.
Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College? Said 19 Feb 2025
Most of a degree's value comes from finishing it, so starting one you will not complete is a bad investment.
Since about 70% of the college payoff comes from completion, non-completion implies a terrible return on investment.
Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College? Said 19 Feb 2025
Whether to go to college should be decided on objective evidence about your own ability, starting with a test score.
What should you do instead? First and foremost: Get objective evidence on your own intelligence.
Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College? Said 19 Feb 2025
Parents and teachers are not trustworthy judges of how intelligent a young person is.
Don’t base your life choices on whether parents and teachers constantly tell you that you’re “smart.” They’re not trustworthy assessors of your intelligence.
Selfishly Speaking, Who Should Skip College? Said 19 Feb 2025
An AI can already earn an A on a university economics midterm, years earlier than informed forecasters expected.
To my surprise and no small dismay, GPT-4 got an A. It earned 73/100, which would have been the fourth-highest score on the test.
GPT Retakes My Midterm and Gets an A Said 21 Mar 2023
Differences between the public's and economists' positive economic views resemble judgemental anomalies in which laypeople and experts systematically disagree.
Differences between the general public's positive economic views and economists' resemble other judgemental anomalies: Laypeople and experts systematically disagree.
Differences between the public's and economists' economic views do not solely reflect economists' self-serving bias.
The paper first tests and decisively rejects the hypothesis that the differences solely reflect economists' self‐serving bias.
The robustness of apparent biases about economics suggests that the judgemental anomaly is real.
Apparent biases' robustness suggests that the anomaly is real.
What is a korrent?
A korrent is a belief a person has stated in their own words: one sentence stating the claim, backed by a quote and a source, kept at korrents.com.
Under a name here, the quoted block is what they actually said. The korrent beneath it is the claim those words support, in korrents' wording — tap it to see the record, its source, and who else holds it.
Nobody here wrote their own korrents. They are compiled from public statements, and a person can change their mind, which is recorded too.
Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 8 things, 9 mentions — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Liked ChatGPT
Here’s me talking to ChatGPT. Big picture: I struggle to imagine a better conversation with a human being on this topic.
betonit.ai 19 Aug 2026
Loved Modern Times
I’ve loved it since I was a teenager, but professional historians typically rolled their eyes in disdain when I mentioned it.
betonit.ai 19 Aug 2026
Loved For a New Liberty
This is the chapter that has literally converted thousands of highly intelligent, economically informed people to anarcho-capitalism.
betonit.ai 15 May 2026
Show 6 more
Loved For a New Liberty
In all honesty, I think that these are the best eight pages of economics I’ve ever read.
betonit.ai 17 Apr 2026
Recommends Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets
It is definitely my broadest and least inhibited book — and in my judgment, the best-written and the best overall.
betonit.ai 3 Mar 2026
their own
What others say about Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets →
Loved Progressive Myths
I recently interviewed Mike Huemer on his new Progressive Myths. To repeat, I consider it “the best book on wokeness.” You know you’re reading a special book by page 3
betonit.ai 4 Feb 2025
Recommends Richard Hanania's Newsletter
Hanania is the world's best living essayist. Style and substance.
betonit.ai 18 Oct 2024
Recommends Overcoming Bias
Robin is a genius and my best friend in the world.
betonit.ai 16 Feb 2023
Recommends Fake Noûs
Where they publish
Newsletter Bet On It Their newsletter on economics, education and open borders. Has a feed.
Posts most days on labour economics, the signalling model of education, immigration and the bets they will take on any of it. Continues the blog of the same name they wrote at EconLog.
Recent
- Hankinson Replies on Immigration 15 Oct 2026 I invited Simon Hankinson to reply to my reflections, and he accepted. Here’s Hankinson. I’m in blockquotes, he’s in regular text. I just did a second immigration debate against Simon Hankinson of the Heritage Foundatio…
- Sentiment Analysis: Adding Hanania to the Mix 13 Oct 2026 Update: The noble Ariel Krakowski tries replicating my earlier post. Here’s my unrelated followup. After my initial conversation on sentiment analysis with ChatGPT, I decided to ask it to add Richard Hanania to the Cowe…
- A Sentiment Analysis of Cowen, Hanson, Caplan, and Krugman 8 Oct 2026 A conversation with ChatGPT inspired by Fabio Rojas
Show 17 more
- Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: 15th-Anniversary Edition 6 Oct 2026 Greetings from Yellowstone! Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids is the only book I ever wrote that definitely improved the world a lot. A lower-bound estimate is that several hundred extra babies were born as a result — a…
- The Rideshare Revolution 1 Oct 2026 The numbers will amaze you - and the future amazes me.
- Reflections on Simon Hankinson 29 Sept 2026 Debating immigration with an unusual gentleman.
- EA: The Good, the Bad, and the Buggy 28 Sept 2026 Effective altruists have been getting a lot of hate lately. But if you ever actually meet a group of effective altruists, even their harshest critics will struggle to maintain their anger. In person, they’re some of the…
- On Stage With the Emo Kids 24 Sept 2026 High agency illustrated.
- The Neo-Median Voter Model 22 Sept 2026 The Median Voter Model says that democratic competition impels politicians to offer whatever policies maximally satisfy the median voter. Actual democracies have never met its highly restrictive assumptions: There is mo…
- The Negligence of War and Peace 21 Sept 2026 I was still in college the year of the Gulf War. At the time, I opposed the war; and in hindsight, I still do. But I freely admit that the U.S. planned its war carefully. They assembled over half a million troops, got b…
- In Honor of Brian Doherty 18 Sept 2026 Chris Baker organized this panel in honor of my friend Brian Doherty. He was great mind, a free spirit, and a true friend. Hail the victorious dead.
- Upcoming Events 16 Sept 2026 Cincinnati, Madison, Bozeman-Laramie
- Could You Get It If You Were Rich? 15 Sept 2026 One common complaint about markets is that profit-maximization leads to low-quality products. The populist version is just, “They cut corners to save money.” But the populist version doesn’t explain why firms don’t offe…
- The Trials of Dagobah: A LARP for Kids 11 Sept 2026 I originally wrote this LARP 10 years ago for the 7th birthday of my son, Simon. The kids had a great time, and I think the structure holds up. If you ever run it, I’d like to know how it turned out! P.S. Completely con…
- Zitelmann on Hitler’s Economics 10 Sept 2026 After my series on the Nazi economy, I discovered the work of independent scholar Rainer Zitelmann. He’s had an amazing career in Germany doing two things I greatly admire: making lots of money in real estate, and judic…
- Home Equity and Net Worth 9 Sept 2026 Caplan and Candor
- AMA: Start of the 2026 Academic Year 4 Sept 2026 Here’s the video for last week’s AMA. I cut out the first seven minutes where the orientation was wrong. Sorry, it won’t happen again.
- Silver Diner DC Meet-Up This Weekend 3 Sept 2026 At the urging of Jason Ford, I am hosting a Bet On It meet-up at the Fair Lakes Silver Diner this Saturday at 10 PM ET. All are welcome. Hope to see you there! P.S. Other than recognizably drawing me, this is pretty goo…
- Reflections on Americans’ Net Worth 2 Sept 2026 I’ve been an economics professor for almost 30 years, but I don’t think I’ve ever before seen anything like the table below. I knew that claims that “58% of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 car repair” were laughable cli…
- High Agency is High Variance 31 Aug 2026 Thoughts on Cate Hall’s *You Can Just Do Things*
Link verified 1 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
x.com @bryan_caplan Short-form, and where the bets get offered.
Short-form economics, the standing offers to bet on public claims, and where new Bet On It posts are announced.
Recent
- Straight out of Indiana Jones 14 Oct 2026
- Do positive things. 14 Oct 2026
- Notice that they could've used the same chart to praise blacks. But would cut against their neurotic misanthropy. 13 Oct 2026
Show 17 more
- Charles is amazingly productive, and working on the most neglected topic relative to its importance: fertility. 13 Oct 2026
- "So I’d put Hanania considerably closer to Caplan than Krugman on baseline enjoyment of modern life." 13 Oct 2026 betonit.ai
- "The distinctive Hanania emotion is contempt." 13 Oct 2026 betonit.ai
- The right to suicide is the safeguard of dignity. 12 Oct 2026
- I trust Alex. So should you. 12 Oct 2026
- Do positive things. 12 Oct 2026
- A replication analysis of my sentiment analysis: 12 Oct 2026 zappable.com
- " If you calmly weigh the social benefits of political hyperbole, carefully crunch the numbers, and grudgingly and sorrowfully conclude that it’s justified in specific cases, I’m all ears. But if you defend hyperbole with casual, undiscriminating delight, life’s too short to listen to you." 12 Oct 2026 betonit.ai
- "I hate the 'winning proves I’m right' mentality of politics. Winning only proves your views are popular, and popular views are often wrong." 12 Oct 2026 betonit.ai
- Je suis Despereaux. 12 Oct 2026 I am Despereaux.
- I'm not saying that we would worship any human with a narrow exceptional ability as a god. But a human who could fluently discuss any subject in any language? Outperform top experts, including mathematicians, at their own games? That is god-like. 11 Oct 2026
- ??? It's solitaire either way. 11 Oct 2026
- Will a major religion of AI worship emerge? Seriously, if a human being could do what AI does, we would worship him as a god. 11 Oct 2026
- We'll never know for sure, but that's highly plausible. Caveat: If your goal is just to have high status within your ideological tribe, pushing racial antipathy may be a tactical success from your own point of view even though it's bad for your side. 10 Oct 2026
- Fair question. Answer: Quite a few high-profile Republican politicians have expressed anti-Indian views in the last year. 10 Oct 2026 chatgpt.com
- Even I'm surprised by this. Misanthropy will latch on to anything. 10 Oct 2026
- "The irony is that Raskolnikov is one step away from a great truth: Most of history’s 'great men' were criminals who murdered anyone who denied that they were 'benefactors of mankind.'" 9 Oct 2026 betonit.ai
Link verified 1 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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