Pun Salad

This is another self-published collection of old blog posts made by Bryan Caplan at the EconLog group blog years back. (Bryan has since moved over to his own Substack Bet On It.) My reports on previous entries in this series: Labor Econ Versus the World; How Evil Are Politicians?; Don't Be a Feminist; Voters as Mad Scientists; You Will Not Stampede Me). (There are a couple more titles stuck in my to-be-read stacks. Eventually…)

The title on Bryan's lead essay sounds a little in-your-face, doesn't it? Don't I have the right to eat lefse and lutefisk if I want? Can't I mutter "Uff Da!" now and again? Relax! Bryan is making the point that "culture" is often used as a shorthand for "other people". And his ire is aimed at people who want to use government as a coercive tool to ensure that those "other people" are ones of your particular culture. Yeah, don't do that.

The essays here are a mixed bag of philosophy, economics, and travelogue. Specifically, there are a lot of Caplanesque observations made during trips around the US and the world. You might find them more interesting than I did.

I've previously remarked that I'm not a fan of Bryan's chosen format in this series. I view buying the books as a grateful contribution to his life and work, like my Dave Barry substack subscription. But this book seems even more disjointed and less coherent than previous ones.

Here's a gripe: Bryan's 2016 post on AI, "Is It Really Conscious?" is reproduced more or less verbatim here. I think it's well thought-out for a short blog post. He refers to the "Problem of Other Minds", arguably a relevant concept, and says:

In the near future, I’ll offer my solution to the Problem of Other Minds – a solution that strongly suggests AIs are no more conscious than Choose Your Own Adventure Novels.

Reader, I was expecting (perhaps) the next essay in this book would offer his solution. Nope. And not in the remaining chapters, either. (For that matter, a superficial Google search doesn't show up anything either.) How about it, Bryan? Am I missing something?