Tyler Cowen: belief

Transcript context

…It’s hard to know. There were so many smart people — and I just got swept up in the excitement — so many smart people who said within three years we’re going to have driverless cars — 35,000 lives saved because there won’t be any deaths on the highway. True, there might be a few more pedestrians killed, but it’s going to be a huge advantage for improvement in human life. I think the technical problems there turned out to be quite a bit more daunting. I think a different kind of bias is we just assume that technology and focus will solve anything. Often it does — amazing. Getting a vaccine in a weekend, that was a great moment of human achievement. So many other things turned out to be harder. Let me ask you another super easy question. Let’s say we think that under current circumstances, a two-state solution would not lead to security either for Israel or for the resulting Palestinian state. Many people believe that. Let’s say also, as I think you believe, that a one-state solution where everyone votes would not lead to security for a current version of Israel or even a modified version of it. Let’s say also that the current reliance of the Palestinian territories on the state of Israel for protection, security, intelligence, water — many important features of life — prevent those governing bodies from ever attaining sufficient autonomy to be a credible peace partner, guaranteer of its own security, and so on. From that point of view, what do we do? We’re not utilitarians. We’re thinking about what’s right and wrong. What’s the right thing to do? There’s an expression from the Talumd, “to answer something on one foot,” because you can’t stand on one foot for very long. For some people it means you get 30 seconds. There’s some baseball pitchers who could probably stand on one foot for an hour or two, but it usually means — you want me to answer this on one foot. Of course, there’s no answer. I mentioned Micah Goodman a minute ago for his book, The Wondering Jew. He has another fascinating book called Catch-67, which explores the contradictions and inconsistencies with different worldviews toward the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in an incredibly thoughtful way. I recommend that book. It’s the best book you can read about what’s going on here politically and intellectually and emotionally. It’s a phenomenal book. Even though part of his insight is it’s wrong to look for a solution — if I remember the book correctly; I read it quickly — but think about ways to live with it. Think about ways to make life better. Think about ways to move toward improvement rather than fixing it. I think the American foreign policy establishment has spent the last decades just trying to fix it. It may not be fixable. It’s hard to admit that as a rational person. It’s hard to admit it as a person who lives here. By the way, I should just mention, people have hurt me in the last month saying, “Is it scary here? Would you be afraid to raise your children there if you had young children?” It’s an incredible place to raise children. Children here run free without fear. They play in a way that American children used to be allowed to play. I played that way growing up; it’s still true here. There’s very little crime on the streets, very little street crime, very little theft, very little burglary and so on. There’s the threat of terrorism. You’re much more likely to get stabbed in Jerusalem than you are in New York City. Of course, it’s not common, thank God, at least of right now, but it’s serious. Then you got Iran. As I alluded to earlier, it’s a tough neighborhood. I think it behooves — if I may use a word that’s out of fashion — it behooves us all to think about ways to both reduce the security threat to Israel, and to improve the lives of the people who, of course in the West Bank, in Gaza and elsewhere, who — they’re not very good democracies, even though sometimes there are elections. I don’t necessarily believe that the person on the street there is being — I don’t know what their attitudes are. They can’t give an honest answer, out of fear, so I wouldn’t rely on survey data. I think there’s certainly a lot of people in those parts of the world — our neighbors here, our cousins, just want to lead a normal life and have a better life for their children, like most people aspire to. How do you improve that? I would love to have more commercial interaction, although I agree with you that trade is not a panacea. Or does that mean it is a panacea? I can’t remember; I have trouble with that word.…

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