reductio ad absurdum

that was my secret to As in Econ in college and some success in the financial markets.

Let's take a couple of examples and reduce to the absurd.

Teacher Pay

Did you know teachers in Aspen get paid about half of what teachers in Lake Forest IL get paid.  And they get only about 2/3rds of what teachers in Boulder get paid.  And of course you know which area has the higher cost of living.  Would you be surprised to know that Aspen has a very high rate of teacher turnover.  Reductio ad Absurdum applied to teachers' pay---if you pay Aspen teachers 1$ a year (cause Aspen is such a great place to live and teach) you will have no teachers.  If you pay Aspen teachers $1m a year you can employ just about any teacher in the world (but our taxes would be a lot higher--still not as high as Chicago but a lot higher).  What is the 'optimal' level of teachers pay---surely more than we are currently paying, because the turnover is high and that is costly.

Taxes

Did you know that most schools in Oklahoma are only in session 4 days a week.  They can't afford to pay teachers for 5 days of work so they only open the schools Tuesday-Friday.  Did low taxes create enough economic growth to generate enough revenue to provide good education environment---nope.  Are new businesses choosing other states cause of the poor schools (and infrastructure ) in OK?  Yup---even with the low taxes of OK.  Are taxes too low in OK (and KS) --obviously.  Reductio ad Absurdum----if the tax rate is zero then there are no public services---no government, no property rights, no infrastructure etc---zero is clearly too low unless you are an anarchist. 100% taxes are clearly too high---no one wants to just work for the man.  What is the 'right' top tax rate--it's hard to  know for sure but I would guess between 30-50% would still provide incentive to earn money.  And the other side to balance in the equation is how much revenue does the government require to provide the services for its citizens to best flourish--the OECD average is 35% while the US is about 26% (and dropping). 

Guns---2nd amendment

Reductio ad Absurdum----nothing shall infringe upon the right to bear arms.  Arms includes all weapons---muskets to nuclear weapons.  Right?  That is reducing it to absurd.  The gun control 'debate' is the ultimate place to reduce to the absurd because it is absurd.  What is the 'right' age to buy an AR-15?  Do you realize how absurd things have gotten when you start to have a serious debate about how to harden (secure) schools?  Do you really want the government to have a huge database tracking all potential mental issues?  Are you ready to give up that much privacy and spend that much money so that individuals can purchase semi auto weapons and handguns?  More guns equals more gun deaths.  There is a great article in the NYT showing this very clearly.  gun deaths--international comparsion . 

I propose making all guns illegal except for single shot rifles (no magazines and bolt action but rifles that chamber only a single round) and over under or side by side shotguns.  This wouldn't (shouldn't) impact hunters. 

Reduce to the absurd --a kid walks into school with a rife and shoots someone---and then has to work the bolt to remove the spent casing and find and load and new bullet with their adrenaline pumping.  How long do you think that would take?  Long enough for a student or teacher to whack the kid with a chair or disarm them somehow.  You betcha.  Maybe not after the first round and maybe, just maybe not after the second but I guarantee you that the number of deaths in Newtown CT or Florida would drop a lot.

Reduce to the absurd==a kid walks into school with an AR-15 and starts shooting.  Every kid and teacher is armed with a handgun or AR-15.  One kid starts firing their gun.  Then the good guys start firing theirs.  In this absurd situation many more people die.

Here are some Reductio ad absurdum questions the second amendment provokes:

1.  What limits on the right to bear arms---semi auto is ok but not full auto.  Guns are ok but not cannons.  Artillery is ok but not bombs?  Bombs ok but not WMDs?  When the second amendment was written arms referred to swords, single shot pistols and muskets that had a rate of fire of 2-3 rounds per minute.  An AR-15 can fire 90-140 rounds per minute (assuming a 30 round mag).  Using the most conservative assumptions an AR-15 is 30x more powerful than a 1790s musket.  It's arguably more powerful than a 1790s cannon.  Do you think our founding fathers intent was to allow an 18 year old boy to buy 5 cannons from the local arms depot?  Absurd.

2.  Make schools more secure.  With what money?  What about the right to carry my gun everywhere.  So how does this work exactly---we've got every school employee and student over the age of 18 carrying a gun, do you really honestly think schools are going to be safer.

3.  Don't let crazy people buy guns.  How can we tell who is crazy?  Who makes that determination?  How is that information shared?  Where does the 4th amendment stack up against the second?

The amount of guns owned in the US is staggering (like 300 million).  What is maybe more terrifying is the firepower of those guns has increased massively as well. 

More guns + more firepower = more deaths

Anything else is absurd.


Ok enough serious shit--here is an absurd picture of my dogs looking to take the car for a spin.