Contra Caplan On Arbitrary Deploring

A sharp rebuttal to Bryan Caplan's 'Unbearable Arbitrariness of Deploring' (why outrage at sexual harassment but not worse emotional abuse? at chemical but not deadlier conventional weapons? Caplan: people are biased by drama and bandwagons). Scott's alternative: people get upset over violations of already-settled BRIGHT-LINE norms because that's the efficient use of limited enforcement resources. The clean police-town model: 10 cops, 60 crimes; if the chief publicly commits to disproportionately punishing muggings (a bright line), the first violator faces the whole force, so muggers give up — solving mugging with zero ongoing resources, IF the commitment stays credible (hence the need to crack down disproportionately on any test). Applied to chemical weapons (the taboo saves lives by being enforced out of proportion to the immediate body count), sexual harassment (building a credible new bright-line norm), and the Uighur camps (enforcing the 'don't put minorities in concentration camps' norm).

Quality 72 · Strong. Strong, high (72). A clarifying, frequently-applicable rebuttal — the bright-line-norm-enforcement model explains why disproportionate outrage at norm-violations is rational, not just biased — delivered with a clean toy model and three apt applications. Upper-Strong; concise rather than expansive.

Claude’s paradigm shift 55 · Moderate. Moderate, high (55). The norm-enforcement / Schelling-point explanation of selective outrage is a fresh, sharp reframe of Caplan's puzzle, building on coordination theory.

Real-world impact 3 · Moderate. Moderate (3). A portable analytical frame (bright-line norms / credible-commitment enforcement) used in the rationalist sphere and applied to real cases; its reach is intellectual.