Presented Jan 30, 2025 Kia Ora. Morena. Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou Katoa. My name is Ananish Chaudhuri. I am Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland. My views are my own and not those of my employer. Thank you very much for giving me an opportunity to speak this morning.…
ANANISH CHAUDHURI: Oral submission on the Treaty Principles Bill
ANANISH CHAUDHURI: Oral submission on the Treaty Principles Bill
30 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, development economics, discrimination, economic history, growth disasters, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: affirmative action, Age of Enlightenment, constitutional law, free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
Trying to reconcile indigenous ways of knowing with “white” ways of being in New Zealand
29 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
This article actually appeared on the Museum of New Zealand’s website, and is about as explicit an argument for the country adopting indigenous “ways of knowing” (Mātauranga Māori, or MM) as I have found. You may remember that MM is a mixture of practical knowledge, religion, superstition, morals, teleology and guidelines for living. Despite this […]
Trying to reconcile indigenous ways of knowing with “white” ways of being in New Zealand
A celebration of Christopher Hitchens by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, Douglas Murray, and Lawrence Krauss
27 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, Freedom of religion, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left, sex discrimination
Christopher Hitchens, whom many of us admire despite occasional differences of opinion, died at only 62 on December 14, 2011. Lawrence Krauss organized an event with four of Hitchens’s friends, all reminiscing about the Great Lion of Rhetoric. The panel was filmed in London on December 13, 2024—just 19 days ago—and I’ve put the video […]
A celebration of Christopher Hitchens by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry, Douglas Murray, and Lawrence Krauss
The DEI preference cascade
23 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, behavioural economics, discrimination, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, economics of information, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, gender, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice Tags: affirmative action, Age of Enlightenment, free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left, sex discrimination
Consortium of secular organizations attack scientists deemed transphobic, The Center for Inquiry responds
21 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of religion, health economics, politics - USA Tags: 2024 presidential election, Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
This will be the next-to-last item I write about my entanglement with the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF)—I hope. I am pretty sure that the joint statement below resulted from the fracas that ensued after the FFRF took down my post about biological sex, followed by my resignation and those of Richard Dawkins and Steve […]
Consortium of secular organizations attack scientists deemed transphobic, The Center for Inquiry responds
Forcing people to choose between reality and trans rights is a bad idea
07 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, gender gap, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Jerry Coyne writes: When I wrote yesterday about my critique of Kat Grant’s “What is a woman?” piece, a critique published on the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) website, I had no idea that what I wrote was being removed by the FFRF at that moment! … One part of what Coyne wrote resonated with me: The first […]
Forcing people to choose between reality and trans rights is a bad idea
Atheist Orthodoxy: The Freedom From Religion Foundation Censors Scientist Over Transgender Views
03 Jan 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, health economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, Freedom of religion, gender gap, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is under fire this week after it censored a leading scientist, atheist, and board member, Jerry Coyne, a professor emeritus of ecology at the University of Chicago. The FFRF took down a column in which Coyne published a column titled “Biology is not bigotry,” a critique of an earlier […]
Atheist Orthodoxy: The Freedom From Religion Foundation Censors Scientist Over Transgender Views
Another one leaves the fold: Steve Pinker resigns from the Freedom from Religion Foundation
30 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Like me, Steve Pinker has resigned from the Honorary Board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). His resignation was sent yesterday. Steve is a bigger macher than I. both intellectually and, in this case, because he was Honorary President of that Board. I put below his two emails, reproduced with permission. The first one […]
Another one leaves the fold: Steve Pinker resigns from the Freedom from Religion Foundation
A third one leaves the fold: Richard Dawkins resigns from the Freedom from Religion Foundation
30 Dec 2024 1 Comment
in discrimination, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Well, that makes three of us. Steve Pinker, I, and now Richard Dawkins, have all decided independently to resign from the Honorary Board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). The organization’s ideological capture, as instantiated in throwing in their lot with extreme gender activism and censoring any objection to their views—as well as in […]
A third one leaves the fold: Richard Dawkins resigns from the Freedom from Religion Foundation
Simon Fraser University tries to decolonize and indigenize STEM
28 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of education Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left
UPDATE: The site to which I refer below disappeared for a while this morning, and then reappeared. So the post right below still links to the right places: Simon Fraser University in British Columbia recently adopted a policy of institutional neutrality. But its latest endeavor shows that it’s still in the thrall of wokeness, for […]
Simon Fraser University tries to decolonize and indigenize STEM
JOHN RAINE: Why Engineering Cannot be Decolonised
10 Dec 2024 1 Comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
Concordia University is Decolonising Early 2024, Lawrence Krauss reported [1] that Concordia University in Canada is in the process of decolonising and indigenising its curricula, including Engineering. He noted that this will put Concordia on the Map, but not in a positive way. The new university plan at Concordia is drawing on “principles embodied in…
JOHN RAINE: Why Engineering Cannot be Decolonised
The Missing Myths
04 Dec 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, discrimination, economic history, economics of climate change, economics of information, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, environmentalism, financial economics, gender, global warming, health economics, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, Marxist economics, occupational choice, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Age of Enlightenment, crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, free speech, gender wage gap, law and order, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left, sex discrimination
Michael Huemer’s Progressive Myths is the best book on wokeness. One of its many strengths is its focus on basic facts. As the author explains:I have selected beliefs that can be debunked fairly quickly and forcefully. Many other progressive beliefs require long argumentation and subjective judgment calls to assess. About these more difficult issues, I…
The Missing Myths
A defense of the sex binary against Steven Novella’s “multidimensional” definition of sex
27 Nov 2024 1 Comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, health economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: Age of Enlightenment, conjecture and refutation, free speech, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left
At the CSICon meetings in Las Vegas this November, I gave a half-hour talk on the two aspects of evolutionary biology that have been most deeply misrepresented by ideologues: sex and race. “Progressives” maintain that sex is not binary but a spectrum, and also that “race and ethnicity are social constructs, without scientific or biological […]
A defense of the sex binary against Steven Novella’s “multidimensional” definition of sex
Centrist: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer admits Māori have ‘different rights’
26 Nov 2024 Leave a comment
in law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: Age of Enlightenment, constitutional law, free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
The Centrist reports – In a Q&A interview with Jack Tame, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer acknowledged Māori have separate rights under Te Tiriti o Waitangi as tangata whenua. When pressed on whether this meant different standards of citizenship, she said, “We have different expectations and different rights, absolutely.”
Centrist: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer admits Māori have ‘different rights’
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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