Isaac Chan’s Reviews > The Road to Serfdom > Status Update

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I also find myself with little differentiated views to speak of. Most of my views are just the product of my society, the people I associate with, or rehashes of other thinkers.

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obvious that most stupid people are conservative'. Mill does NOT say that most conservatives are stupid, he says that it is obvious that most stupid people are conservative. ii) Do the students and academics of our higher institutions have differentiated views today? It seems that they are overwhelmingly left-wing, progressive and anti-capitalist. iii) It obviously reminded me of Trump's base.

Note 3/n:
regions with lower moral and intellectual standards.

Important caveat by Hayek, however: this does NOT mean that most people have low standards; it merely means that the largest group of people whose values and beliefs are similar are the people with low standards.

Definitely an interesting idea, and I've been reflecting on it all day. 3 points: i) It reminded me of how Mill asserted that 'it is ...

Note 2/n:
on top. Firstly, it is 'probably true in general' that more intelligent and educated people have more differentiated views. This is clear: stupid and uneducated people cannot think for themselves, their beliefs are dictated by primitive and common tastes and instincts. I would add first-order thinking to that mix.

So, to find a high degree of similarity and uniformity in outlook, we must descend to the...

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I have reached Chapter 10: Why the worst get on top - probably the most one-sided chapter, where Hayek finally says what he's been itching to say for the whole book: that totalitarianism is inevitable if we allow a select few to run our society. I find this sort of extreme thinking bizarre but I look forward to unpacking the arguments.

What caught my eye was an interesting idea behind why the worst get...

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famous Franklin quote (which Hayek peruses) of 'Those who sacrifice liberty in exchange for security deserve neither' is equally philosophically meaningless.

I'm sure an individual with a predilection for security could equally use reason to argue why security dominates liberty.

Note 3/n:
ideologue on neither liberty nor security). Pure reason cannot PROVE why a certain end, even liberty, is the ULTIMATE end: each individual has their own preference for either liberty or security based on their passions. This is why I find Hayek to be constantly shouting 'Liberty liberty liberty!' but never telling me, why liberty? He can't!

Sentimentalist moral philosophy is the same reason why the ...

Note 2/n:
It seems to me that this is the classic conundrum of sentimentalist moral philosophy at play. Reason can only inform us HOW to reach our ends (in Hayek's case, his reason informed him that security will eventually subsume liberty - the end that he wants), but never WHICH ends to reach for. I find myself bound in a world where only the passions can inform us which ends I want (in my personal case, I'm an ...

Note 1/n:
I've finished reading Chapter 9: Security and Freedom, and the main takeaway was that Hayek, of course, argues very well why trading off a bit of liberty for some security is a slippery slope that will eventually demand from us all our liberty, BUT, Hayek never (and I would argue, can never) proves/ argues WHY liberty should be the supreme good, or at least, why it is a better good than security.

Note 3/3:

Since your income is not tied to equity risk, a salaried worker shouldn't expect to be compensated more than a business owner - but it seems that, according to Hayek, many well-trained, highly educated white-collar workers envy the blue-collar business owner who makes more than them.