I agree with James R. Harrigan about Warren Buffett’s recent pronouncements.

I think Buffett’s donation of most of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is probably a good idea. That organization might be the best in the world at carefully optimizing huge charitable gifts to do the most good for people. It’s certainly not perfect, but spending those amounts of money wisely is hard. If Buffett doesn’t want to do that work, but generally agrees with the Gates Foundation causes, then letting them do the work for him makes sense.

Unfortunately, Buffett also decided to spout off against repealing (or reducing) the inheritance tax.

There’s nothing wrong with people directing the (already taxed) fruits of their labor toward their loved ones. Buffett has a right to dislike inherited wealth. He doesn’t have a right to steal it (or help others do so).

It’s fine to encourage people to direct most of their wealth to other causes. He’s setting a great example of doing just that. But, it’s not fine to impose it on others by force.

And, I notice that Buffett didn’t decide that the best place to put his money is in the hands of politicians.

Why force others to do such a stupid thing?

I was at the Microsoft Tech·Ed Conference last week.

I try to avoid writing about my job on this blog, and I’m not going to change that (much) now. I just thought I’d mention that I found it very valuable and enjoyable. Microsoft did a great job, as usual, of keeping a large event like this fairly well organized.

The non-techie highlights worth mentioning are:

• Mary Lynn Rajskub (the actress who plays Chloe O’Brian on 24) appearing at the Keynote address. I’m a “24” fan, and I liked that they had her there, and that they used “24” as a theme for their amusing keynote videos.

• The party at Fenway Park on Thursday night. Microsoft finally found a place with enough seats for everyone! I’d never been to Fenway before and it was pretty cool. Also the Train concert was much better than I expected (I didn’t really love the music from listening to downloads, but I really enjoyed the live performance).

The other thing worth mentioning is how I’m constantly impressed by Microsoft. They’re far from perfect, but they manage to continually advance their products and technologies in ways that are likely to satisfy the actual demands of their customers. Most other large companies fail in their attempts to do that.

Congratulations to everyone responsible for the death of Zarqawi!

The world is a better place now that he’s not alive in it.

Anyone who doesn’t think so is not the sort of person I understand.

I have no idea whether this will indicate a major turning point that
will help end the Iraqi security problems, but I certainly hope that it
will. It seems that it must cause at least some short-term disruption
to the terrorist activities, and hopefully things will cascade towards a
major reduction in them.

In any case, this is an occasion for all decent people to rejoice.

I heard about this exchange between a reporter for The Independent and Ted Nugent on the radio this morning:

“What do these deer think when they see you coming?” I ask him. “Here comes the nice guy who puts out our dinner? Or, there’s the man that shot my brother?”

“I don’t think they’re capable of either of those thoughts, you Limey asshole. They’re only interested in three things: the best place to eat, having sex and how quickly they can run away. Much like the French.”

He’s often outrageous and sometimes ridiculous; but you gotta love Ted Nugent.

There is a shortage of organs available for transplants in the United States. There’s some dispute about the number of people who die each year waiting for one, but it’s certainly many thousands.

Whenever there is a shortage in the United States, it’s a good bet that it’s caused by the government intervening (ostensibly to help us).

That’s definitely true in this case.

The National Organ Transplant Act of 1984 made it a crime “For any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human organ for valuable consideration for use in human transplantation.”

Organs are valuable, and many people are squeamish about donating them. So, if the government forces the price to $0, a shortage is inevitable.

Most bioethicists agree that it’s better for more people to die waiting for organs than for some people to get them before it’s their turn. That wouldn’t be fair.

I hope that one day sanity will emerge and this stupid policy will be ended.

In the meantime, I urge all of you to consider joining Lifesharers: an organization that allows organ donors to grant and receive priority to/from other members. If we can’t give people a monetary incentive, perhaps we can offer them something else valuable to encourage them to become donors. The more people who join, the greater the incentive for others to join (and become donors, which is the real point).

Here’s a great Reason magazine article on the subject from a few years ago.

(HT Tim Lee)

There was a very nice article by Tim Harford in Slate last week.

In it, Harford discussed the fact that people often make economically unsound decisions because their fear of risk and loss is way out of proportion to the actual expected costs.

I don’t blame insurance companies for taking advantage of this demand people have to hedge their risks; even when it will almost certainly make them (the people) worse off monetarily

But, I do think people would be better off if they would think about the issue, decide to try to put things into proper perspective, and resolve to discover and pursue the course that makes the most sense.

Sometimes, it makes sense to spend money to soothe one’s fears.

But, if it’s possible to reduce one’s fears by thinking about the truth of the matter, then I think we should try.

Some risks are worth taking. Becoming more comfortable with taking them will pay off in many ways.

One of my favorite stories is that of the very young Carl Friedrich Gauss outwitting a mean teacher by solving a problem intended to inflict many minutes of drudgery (adding up the numbers from 1 to 100) by quickly discovering a shortcut to the answer.

I was reminded of the story by this interesting article that examines the story in a few ways.

I guess I don’t really care if it’s true. It’s still a great story.

One reason I like it is that it shows the victory of a young child over a cruel adult who was abusing his position of power. It shows that the common assumption of which of these people is smarter can be very wrong.

But, the main reason I like it is because it’s a great tale of cleverness.

And, I really like cleverness.

(By the way, the version I was told had Gauss performing the problem as an individual punishment, rather than being the first to complete a task assigned to the entire class. Somehow, I think that’s an even better story.)

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Stuart Mill.

Cattalarchy has Mill-Fest of blog posts in celebration.

While it can be challenging at times (some really, really, long sentences, for example), I have to say that On Liberty is one of the few works that I’m happy to have been required to read in college.

I’m not often big on tradition, but a bicentennial anniversary strikes me as a good excuse to spend some time reviewing and celebrating Mill’s works.

I’m a strong believer in pursuing one’s own rational self-interest.

But, I also think it’s good to cultivate and promote virtues that may not maximize one’s prospects in every individual circumstance, but (especially if widely adopted) will help to protect and promote those things we most value in the long run.

Thus, I agree with Eugene Volokh’s recent post about Courage, Shame, and Practice.

In it, Eugene responds to a commentator who questions whether he would behave differently from those (neighbors who sought the eviction of a terror target) he had criticized.

Eugene is no Bill Whittle, but I think he makes very strong points in his own clearheaded style.

We shouldn’t be foolhardy, but we also shouldn’t be cowardly. A culture of people who are often ready and willing to protect each other is stronger and safer than one where predators can be confident that their individual threats will meet little resistance.

I particularly liked Eugene’s final paragraph:

But dark days are here, and darker still are ahead. Each of us may one day indeed face a terrible test. If we don’t perform the small acts of bravery, how will we ever be able to perform the large ones? If we don’t try to make a habit of courage — if we don’t seize, in our mostly safe and comfortable lives, the opportunities to be brave — how can we make sure that our courage will be there when we really need it?

There was also an amusing exchange in the comments, in which a commentator began his criticism of that final paragraph with “Are you psychotic?”, and Eugene replied:

Tip 1: If you want a substantive discussion, don’t start by asking the other person whether he’s psychotic.

Tip 2: Assume the other person is not psychotic, and ask yourself whether there could be a sensible interpretation of what he’s saying.

Today I heard a radio advertisement that struck me as odd.

I don’t remember it precisely but I think the ad said something like “You know how you feel when you find a $5 bill? Well, imagine how you’d feel if you found a $5 bill, and right next to it a $495 bill? That’s what it’s like to switch to Geico for your auto insurance because new Geico customers report saving an average of $500 dollars…”

I was thinking, “Yeah it’s just like that. Superficially attractive, but clearly fraudulent!”

I suspect I’m not the only one.