I've been on the road for the last five weeks. Not work on the road, where I have lots of time in hotels, but rather vacation on the road, where I had to be all social and stuff. It was agony, but sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do.
Among that doing was this.
(I'm the gray haired guy.)
Over the course of several hours, we went through about $300 of ammunition. Unlike my friend, I'm not particularly a gun guy. I owned a revolver when we lived in Alaska, and carried it when Rusty the Alaskan Wilderness Adventure Dog took me on walks, because up there predators were never very far away. Get crossways with a grizzly, there's no way the State will get there in time.*
Despite my relative lack of enthusiasm, I get it. Guys like mechanical stuff, especially when gadgets are involved. There is no female equivalent of the Sears Tool Center, or Project Binky. Many men like stuff that explodes, or hurtles into the sky while almost but not quite exploding. Hopefully.
Beyond the gadgetry and things that go bang, properly using a gun isn't nearly as easy as it looks. It takes a surprising amount of muscle control, hand eye coordination, and practice to be any good at it. It should come as no surprise that men can be just as enthusiastic about the skill aspect of shooting as they are about the mechanics and gadgets.
Then there is the mindset, practically inarguable, that self defense is an inalienable right that no legitimate government can ever take away. As I noted above, there are some situations where the only help that will arrive in time is that which you provide yourself. That much should be self evident, just as self evident as the existence of people who take that very, very seriously.
To me, it is interesting how these things cleave politically. Progressives are fond of citing self-fluffing studies; all the ones I've seen produce tendentious pre-ordained conclusions to show how wonderful they are, and how not wonderful everyone else is. Perhaps less naval-gazing would allow discovering something rather more fundamental going on. I work in a gadget intensive occupation that requires mechanical knowledge, as well as significant skill and practice. Almost all the guys I work with have hobbies that have the same characteristics. Almost all of them own guns. And almost all of them are anti-Progressive. And I'd bet that goes for every similar occupation. Pilots and mechanics are gun owning individualists. Progressives don't work with their hands, and are collectivists.
I have no idea why these seemingly disparate things should overlap, but in my experience, such as it is, their correlation is almost ironclad.
Which appears to be something confiscationists simply do not get. Even if their arguments have some validity at the margins -- and that is debatable -- their crusade is totalitarian at its heart. It doesn't matter how much other people enjoy their gun hobby, or how intrinsic they view gun ownership to be in a free society, confiscationists will have none of it. They, in their lack of awareness, and inability to leave well enough alone, send gun sales through the roof, and will have started a civil war should they attempt to impose what they cannot get voluntarily.
Last August, my across the street neighbor probably got between a sow and her cubs -- that was his best guess. Regardless, without the gun he was carrying, his family would have been without a husband and a father.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Why RWR is such a fun topic for me
The recent passing of Nancy Reagan was for me, an interesting reminder of the past. I was at the time still what the late Andrew Breitbart would call a default liberal. Left leaning, not the classical kind, but without being a true believer. Some time during Reagan's second term, I started to think that he got many things right in comparison to his critics. I had already been looking beyond conventional notions about many things for over ten years by then even though I wasn't yet 30 years old. Even media and pop culture sources begrudgingly changed from portraying him as an amiable dunce to a bit of an over the top version the other way as in the SNL mastermind skit.
First, thinking of that time and how the media treated her:
In an interview with Larry Elder Nancy shared these thoughts:
He clearly demonstrates a solid understanding of important ideas about the world:
A source for some of the material that Reagan studied in refining the explanations of what he believed was FEE, The Foundation for Economic Education:
The blind partisanship demonstrated by demonizing opponents as well as forgetfulness of admirers in not remembering how hard he battled the establishment in getting elected and pursuing his agenda also come to mind. The U.S. with leadership and vision provided by RWR liberalized economic policy and led the way amongst developed economies in the economic resurgence of the 1980s. If you want an appreciation for what that was like:
Beyond being open minded enough to appreciate what I was observing, I took the opportunity to read the works of several authors who were instrumental to providing ideas relevant to this great resurgence. Jude Wanniski, Art Laffer, Robert Mundell, George Gilder and John Rutledge all had valuable insights to contribute. Anyone can learn a tremendous amount by reading their papers and books.
As a reminder, the four pillars of Reaganomics that were so effective in revitalizing the economy were: sound money, reduced taxation, limited regulation and freer trade. Yes, it really did work.
(As an aside, David Goldman who worked with the late Jude Wanniski at his firm Polyconomics has an interesting observation: Ted Cruz is intellectually arrogant, like Ronald Reagan)
I think you can see why Ronald Wilson Reagan is a fun topic for me. But Reagan being Reagan with a terrific sense of humor, I think the best way to end this post is with a joke:
UPDATE:
Just to make clear - I did not vote for him. Although far from perfect, he got a lot right.
Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts:
Like I said, a fun topic for me.
First, thinking of that time and how the media treated her:
Yes, she was likely far more decent and intelligent...Mrs. Reagan was hated because President Reagan was hated. There wasn’t a great deal to hate about Nancy, and so such vices and foibles as she had — quaint, in retrospect — were exaggerated to unrecognizable proportions. Spend any time around politics, and you’ll quickly understand that the lie lives forever...
In an interview with Larry Elder Nancy shared these thoughts:
Reagan: Well, I think his legacy was making the country feel good about itself again, making people feel good. There was a whole optimism that he exuded.If you doubt the he knew much, I would simply direct you to read Reagan, In His Own Hand.
Elder: And is that the quality about Ron Reagan that you most admire -- his optimism?
Reagan: Well, that's one of the things that I admire. There are lots of things that I admire about him. That's one of them.
Elder: Tell us what some of the others are, his qualities.
Reagan: Oh, his kindness, his ability to be a great communicator, to communicate with people -- all kinds of people, all different ages, it didn't make any difference. He just connected with them. He was a very romantic man, as those letters he wrote show. A wise man. I could go on and on. How long have we got? (Laughter)
Elder: The thing that people most misunderstand about Ron Reagan.
Reagan: Well, I don't think it's true any more, since they've published the speeches that he wrote, the letters that he wrote, but it used to be that people thought, well, he didn't know anything -- they just handed him things -- but he didn't know anything. Now, with the publication of all the speeches that he wrote, I mean, it shows that way, way back, he had his philosophy firmly in place. He knew what he was doing.
He clearly demonstrates a solid understanding of important ideas about the world:
Scrupulously edited and presented, this book assembles and excerpts scores of his handwritten works, mostly from radio commentaries Reagan wrote in the late 1970s. The collection recovers the most powerful elements of Reagan and Reaganism, such as the depth and clarity of Reagan's principles and his fundamental optimism.More than 50 years from the time of choosing speech, it is still quite a solid exposition of principles of liberty. (transcript)
A source for some of the material that Reagan studied in refining the explanations of what he believed was FEE, The Foundation for Economic Education:
Another person who got hooked on FEE’s materials was a middle-aged actor named Ronald Reagan. The story is fascinating, as detailed in the 2006 book The Education of Ronald Reagan, by Thomas Evans.Aside from having formulated his views with real diligence, Reagan was a successful two term governor of California. Yet, far more often than not the media referred to him as a B level actor.
From 1954 to 1962, Reagan worked as the host of CBS’s top-rated General Electric Theater and served as General Electric’s official spokesman. For weeks at a time he would tour GE’s 139 plants, eventually meeting most of the 250,000 employees in them. Reagan himself estimated that he spent 4,000 hours before GE microphones giving talks that started out with Hollywood patter but ended up as full-throated warnings about Big Government. “GE tours became almost a post-graduate course in political science for me,” he later wrote. “By 1960, I had completed the process of self-conversion.”
The blind partisanship demonstrated by demonizing opponents as well as forgetfulness of admirers in not remembering how hard he battled the establishment in getting elected and pursuing his agenda also come to mind. The U.S. with leadership and vision provided by RWR liberalized economic policy and led the way amongst developed economies in the economic resurgence of the 1980s. If you want an appreciation for what that was like:
...the presidency that was by far the most analogous to Barack Obama's in terms of the miserable economic conditions inherited was that of Ronald Reagan. And comparing the Gipper's 1986 address to Obama's 2014 was a startling exercise in contrast, illustrating the wide gulf between their competing economic recoveries.
Beyond being open minded enough to appreciate what I was observing, I took the opportunity to read the works of several authors who were instrumental to providing ideas relevant to this great resurgence. Jude Wanniski, Art Laffer, Robert Mundell, George Gilder and John Rutledge all had valuable insights to contribute. Anyone can learn a tremendous amount by reading their papers and books.
As a reminder, the four pillars of Reaganomics that were so effective in revitalizing the economy were: sound money, reduced taxation, limited regulation and freer trade. Yes, it really did work.
(As an aside, David Goldman who worked with the late Jude Wanniski at his firm Polyconomics has an interesting observation: Ted Cruz is intellectually arrogant, like Ronald Reagan)
I think you can see why Ronald Wilson Reagan is a fun topic for me. But Reagan being Reagan with a terrific sense of humor, I think the best way to end this post is with a joke:
UPDATE:
Just to make clear - I did not vote for him. Although far from perfect, he got a lot right.
Jonah Goldberg has some thoughts:
In terms of personal character and ideological seriousness, Trump and Reagan could not be more different. Reagan was one of the most dignified politicians of the 20th century, one who turned his cheek to vicious attacks, refused to use profanity, and rarely showed an angry side. Meanwhile, Trump’s crude and vengeful streaks virtually define the man.A book review titled: The Gipper Wins Another One
Reagan’s ideological principles were derived from decades of reading, speaking, and debating. Trump, meanwhile, is winging it.
“I don’t think he has an ideology,” Pat Buchanan told the Washington Post. “He very much is responding to the realities that he has encountered and his natural reactions to them. It’s not some intellectual construct.”
Here lies both the irony and farce of the cult-like effort to anoint Trump as the second coming of Reagan. The one meaningful similarity between the two men is that they can both be seen as authentic responses to their times. The difference? Reagan was the right response.
Remarkably, Weisberg dispenses with the ideological bias that has afflicted the authors in this series, and presidency scholars in general, for he has produced a genuinely fair and somewhat admiring book about Ronald Reagan’s presidency.
This is a nuanced account, detailing Reagan’s hatred of nuclear weapons and his somewhat unique assessment that the Soviet Union was doomed.
...
Weisberg’s assessment of Reagan’s effort to trim the size and reach of the welfare state is also quite balanced. He argues, contrary to the hysterical rhetoric of Reagan’s critics then and now, that “Reagan didn’t succeed in eliminating a single major program, which illustrates the truth of his adage about eternal life and government bureaus.” He does note that Reagan’s deregulatory drive “halved the thickness of the Federal Register, which complies new regulations.”
...
And speaking of evil, American liberals hated Ronald Reagan when he was President, although it has become gospel among some of them that Reagan was liked on both sides of the aisle. He wasn’t. Tip O’Neill, arguably the most partisan House Speaker of the 20th century, declared that Reagan, not the Soviet Union, was the focus of evil in the modern world.
...
Weisberg rejects this vicious and vacuous assessment, for Reagan was one of the few public figures to embody “the idealized national character,” with his elements of “simplicity, innocence, and personal modesty.” These qualities are, as Weisberg rightly notes, rare in public life and hard to fake. This book is a rarity as well, and one that hopefully portends more balance in the future from the American Presidents Series.
Like I said, a fun topic for me.
Saturday, March 12, 2016
The Patent is the Property
Being a roboticist, a song writer, and someone interested in economics and politics means that I almost never go a week without running into the term "Intellectual Property" at least once. The first thing that's interesting about that is that it's a relatively new term that was coined in the 1960s, the decade when the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) was founded, and even then wasn't in widespread use for another couple of decades.
Before that, it seems, it was commonly agreed that one could own a patent, and therefore a patent was a type of property. On the other hand, it wasn't generally thought that the intellectual creation that formed the knowledge on which the patent was based was property. Nowadays, the phrase Intellectual Property has distorted the language sufficiently such that many people believe that intellectual creations are indeed property and are double-plus good.
My belief is that intellectual creations and knowledge are not usually property without completely distorting the meaning of the word 'property.' In order to argue this point, I'm going to focus on just one aspect of intellectual creations as an example: the creation of knowledge that forms the "meat" of method patents. I'm also going to focus on a single attribute of property: that it can be stolen. If something cannot be stolen, as defined by law, then it's not property.
Let's say Joe invents a method. Let's say it's only in his brain and notes and that he hasn't disclosed it to anyone else. Does he, at that moment, own the invention? Not really, I would say. First, Jack, John, Jill and June might have already also invented the method independently or will soon. Indeed, most inventions are not patentable because they fail the non-obviousness criterion. Even the ones that are deemed adequately non-obvious still are, or would be, invented independently by multiple people or entities.
If the invention is ever property, it is at that moment when it is a trade secret, and if and only if nobody else has also come up with the same invention and disclosed it. At the moment, the undisclosed knowledge can be stolen and therefore it can potentially be thought of as property. Someone could torture Joe until he discloses the invention (very unlikely); someone could break into his office and steal his notes and learn of the invention that way (pretty unlikely - have you ever tried to read an inventor's notes?); or someone could bug his office and eavesdrop on him discussing the invention with someone else (rather unlikely). However, trade secrets are typically lost when a rogue employee distributes them without permission and that does happen once in a while. At the moment, if Joe is really the only one to have come up with the invention and if Joe has not disclosed it publicly, then it can potentially be stolen and I'll concede that it is, at that moment, plausibly a type of property. Even so, a trade secret is just a type of secret, and I'm not sure that secrets, while perhaps quite dear to the originator, are really property.
They say Necessity is Mother of Invention. I say Progress is the Father of Necessity in that as new knowledge and products are created so are new needs (part of the process of Creative Destruction). Supporting Technology is the Father of Invention. Engineers and Scientists (and others) are the Siblings of Invention and we all live in the same great big happy and competitive family and are nearly simultaneously exposed to the same Necessity, state of Progress, and Supporting Technology. In other words, many of us are driven to invent more or less the same thing more or less at the same time. I've never seen an invention that nobody else would have ever invented if the particular inventor who first figured it out had not. Of course, I haven't looked through all of the many millions of patents worldwide or considered the far larger body of non-patented inventions, but I've seen quite a few and that's my impression.
Most of the time, it makes no sense to patent an invention. For example, I've invented hundreds of methods in the realm of robotics but have only patented between ten and twenty of them. Perhaps the invention is too obvious so you can't get a patent; perhaps it's so non-obvious that disclosing it in a patent is counterproductive because the disclosure would give the competition a step up that it wouldn't otherwise have; perhaps the value of the invention is less than the cost to file, maintain, and enforce the patent; perhaps the inventor or company just doesn't have enough money or other resources to pursue a patent even if it would be well worth the cost; and so forth.
Are these non-patented inventions property and if so, whose property is it? If Joe's non-patented invention is disclosed, either because he uses it in a commercially available product and the invention is readily deduced from looking at the product or he otherwise causes its disclosure, then everyone learns about it and can use it for any purpose. We don't consider this dissemination and use to be theft or to be illegal, unethical, or immoral in any sense, so I find it hard to consider Joe's invention to be property of any kind. Again, the principle is: if you can't steal it, it isn't property.
Let's say Joe's invention is sufficiently non-obvious and novel to qualify for a patent and he writes the patent and files it and he is the first of the inventors to file (even though the others may have invented it first). Is the invention property now? No. It's the same deal. Until the patent issues (and it might never issue for a variety of reasons), anyone can use the disclosed invention for any purpose. In addition, it's likely that the patent will publish and disclose the invention well before the patent is issued. Again, anybody can use the disclosed invention for any purpose until the patent issues. Again, it's not stealing, therefore it's not property.
Let's say Joe's patent finally issues today. Yesterday, the invention wasn't property. Is it property now that the patent has issued? No. The patent is the property. The patent is a type of Government Originated Legally Enforced Monopoly (GOLEM) (and a GOLEM, in turn, is a type of Government Originated Legally Enforced Restriction on Trade (GOLERT)). The patent is what's sold, licensed, or bartered. The invention is still disclosed and known by many people. They can still build on the knowledge or work to circumvent the knowledge. They can still even use the knowledge for certain non-commercial purposes. The thing of value is the GOLEM and that was created by the government out of thin air. You still can't steal the invention since it's been freely disclosed, therefore the invention is still not property. It's the GOLEM that's property and that property restricts others from using the publicly disclosed invention.
Eventually Joe's patent expires. One day Joe has the right, via the GOLEM, to control most uses of the invention. The next day he doesn't. The invention, which wasn't property one day is definitely not property the day after the patent/GOLEM expired. Now it definitely can't be stolen.
In summary, the only time the invention is plausibly property is prior to when the first inventor discloses it (either intentionally or accidentally). After that, the invention, the intellectual creation, the method, is not property.
The patent is the property.
Before that, it seems, it was commonly agreed that one could own a patent, and therefore a patent was a type of property. On the other hand, it wasn't generally thought that the intellectual creation that formed the knowledge on which the patent was based was property. Nowadays, the phrase Intellectual Property has distorted the language sufficiently such that many people believe that intellectual creations are indeed property and are double-plus good.
My belief is that intellectual creations and knowledge are not usually property without completely distorting the meaning of the word 'property.' In order to argue this point, I'm going to focus on just one aspect of intellectual creations as an example: the creation of knowledge that forms the "meat" of method patents. I'm also going to focus on a single attribute of property: that it can be stolen. If something cannot be stolen, as defined by law, then it's not property.
Let's say Joe invents a method. Let's say it's only in his brain and notes and that he hasn't disclosed it to anyone else. Does he, at that moment, own the invention? Not really, I would say. First, Jack, John, Jill and June might have already also invented the method independently or will soon. Indeed, most inventions are not patentable because they fail the non-obviousness criterion. Even the ones that are deemed adequately non-obvious still are, or would be, invented independently by multiple people or entities.
If the invention is ever property, it is at that moment when it is a trade secret, and if and only if nobody else has also come up with the same invention and disclosed it. At the moment, the undisclosed knowledge can be stolen and therefore it can potentially be thought of as property. Someone could torture Joe until he discloses the invention (very unlikely); someone could break into his office and steal his notes and learn of the invention that way (pretty unlikely - have you ever tried to read an inventor's notes?); or someone could bug his office and eavesdrop on him discussing the invention with someone else (rather unlikely). However, trade secrets are typically lost when a rogue employee distributes them without permission and that does happen once in a while. At the moment, if Joe is really the only one to have come up with the invention and if Joe has not disclosed it publicly, then it can potentially be stolen and I'll concede that it is, at that moment, plausibly a type of property. Even so, a trade secret is just a type of secret, and I'm not sure that secrets, while perhaps quite dear to the originator, are really property.
They say Necessity is Mother of Invention. I say Progress is the Father of Necessity in that as new knowledge and products are created so are new needs (part of the process of Creative Destruction). Supporting Technology is the Father of Invention. Engineers and Scientists (and others) are the Siblings of Invention and we all live in the same great big happy and competitive family and are nearly simultaneously exposed to the same Necessity, state of Progress, and Supporting Technology. In other words, many of us are driven to invent more or less the same thing more or less at the same time. I've never seen an invention that nobody else would have ever invented if the particular inventor who first figured it out had not. Of course, I haven't looked through all of the many millions of patents worldwide or considered the far larger body of non-patented inventions, but I've seen quite a few and that's my impression.
Most of the time, it makes no sense to patent an invention. For example, I've invented hundreds of methods in the realm of robotics but have only patented between ten and twenty of them. Perhaps the invention is too obvious so you can't get a patent; perhaps it's so non-obvious that disclosing it in a patent is counterproductive because the disclosure would give the competition a step up that it wouldn't otherwise have; perhaps the value of the invention is less than the cost to file, maintain, and enforce the patent; perhaps the inventor or company just doesn't have enough money or other resources to pursue a patent even if it would be well worth the cost; and so forth.
Are these non-patented inventions property and if so, whose property is it? If Joe's non-patented invention is disclosed, either because he uses it in a commercially available product and the invention is readily deduced from looking at the product or he otherwise causes its disclosure, then everyone learns about it and can use it for any purpose. We don't consider this dissemination and use to be theft or to be illegal, unethical, or immoral in any sense, so I find it hard to consider Joe's invention to be property of any kind. Again, the principle is: if you can't steal it, it isn't property.
Let's say Joe's invention is sufficiently non-obvious and novel to qualify for a patent and he writes the patent and files it and he is the first of the inventors to file (even though the others may have invented it first). Is the invention property now? No. It's the same deal. Until the patent issues (and it might never issue for a variety of reasons), anyone can use the disclosed invention for any purpose. In addition, it's likely that the patent will publish and disclose the invention well before the patent is issued. Again, anybody can use the disclosed invention for any purpose until the patent issues. Again, it's not stealing, therefore it's not property.
Let's say Joe's patent finally issues today. Yesterday, the invention wasn't property. Is it property now that the patent has issued? No. The patent is the property. The patent is a type of Government Originated Legally Enforced Monopoly (GOLEM) (and a GOLEM, in turn, is a type of Government Originated Legally Enforced Restriction on Trade (GOLERT)). The patent is what's sold, licensed, or bartered. The invention is still disclosed and known by many people. They can still build on the knowledge or work to circumvent the knowledge. They can still even use the knowledge for certain non-commercial purposes. The thing of value is the GOLEM and that was created by the government out of thin air. You still can't steal the invention since it's been freely disclosed, therefore the invention is still not property. It's the GOLEM that's property and that property restricts others from using the publicly disclosed invention.
Eventually Joe's patent expires. One day Joe has the right, via the GOLEM, to control most uses of the invention. The next day he doesn't. The invention, which wasn't property one day is definitely not property the day after the patent/GOLEM expired. Now it definitely can't be stolen.
In summary, the only time the invention is plausibly property is prior to when the first inventor discloses it (either intentionally or accidentally). After that, the invention, the intellectual creation, the method, is not property.
The patent is the property.
Wednesday, March 09, 2016
It's not the differences that concern me the most
Last summer when Trump started to rise in the polls I gave it very little thought. Because electoral politics and especially primaries can be so volatile, I usually don't try to make sense of things until a number of states have voted. Having grownup in New York, Trump's exploits and style are easily ignored. Now the matter deserves some attention:
Angelo Codevilla is concerned that Trump would be another Obama:
Contrary to that perspective, this author explains that Trump has experienced healthy humiliations which have had beneficial effect:
Many Americans shook their heads in 2008 wondering how in the world President Obama was elected when he had told us plainly that he wanted to “fundamentally transform” our country. Then, the perplexity increased when he was reelected in 2012 long after his radical policies and disdain for the Constitution were abundantly evident. Unbelievably, after suffering through the effrontery of the Obama Administration’s arrogance and his flaunting of executive actions instead of bipartisanship, the nation is now enthralled with Donald Trump’s bombastic, flamboyant, but empty promises – based solely on his ability to capitalize on the public’s anger and to manipulate people’s fears, rather than specific policy proposals or potential for effective constitutional governance -- to come in and liberate us from the overweening government bureaucrats with their endless thirst for control and restore America’s greatness. The Washington Post summarized the situation by claiming that Donald Trump is giving the establishment (on both Capitol Hill and K Street) the “middle finger” and “his supporters love it.” One analyst likened Trump to a parasite eating up the host; another called him America’s “Fatal Attraction.”Ed Driscoll had some thoughts over at Instapundit:
PC Education: Emotions and feelings are important and hard thinking is rarely taught or experienced. Politically Correct language is the norm; nothing can be allowed that offends the proliferating collection of victims on the Left.
Cultural Disintegration: There is no way to overstate the influence of the media and entertainment industries in shaping attitudes and values. In many respects both Obama and Trump are products of the media. President and Mrs. Obama have been media darlings since their earliest days on the national scene. With his ability to play to the crowd, Trump is always good for headlines. Neither man sees a distinction between politics and entertainment.
The rise of Trump and the fall of free speech in academia are equal signs that we are losing the intellectual sturdiness and honesty without which a republic cannot thrive.
As with Obama in 2008, whatever his many transgressions, it’s tough to complain about Trump intuitively understanding that today’s pop culture was built for him to exploit to the fullest. “Years from now they’ll say: the center didn’t hold. The tree was hollow. All it took was one hard push from a virtuoso demagogue,” Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal writes on Twitter. Ah, but which one?
Angelo Codevilla is concerned that Trump would be another Obama:
Obama has been our first emperor. A Donald Trump presidency, far from reversing the ruling class’s unaccountable hold over American life, would seal it. Because Trump would act as our second emperor, he would render well-nigh impossible our return to republicanism.
...
For two centuries, the government’s main decisions have happened through open congressional proceedings and recorded votes. That’s the republic we used to have.
...
Neither Obama nor Trump seem to know or care that cycles of reciprocal resentment, of insults and injuries paid back with ever more interest and ever less concern for consequences, are the natural fuel of revolutions—easy to start and soon impossible to stop. America’s founders, steeped in history as few of our contemporaries are, were acutely aware of how easily factional enmities deliver free peoples into the hands of emperors. America is already advanced in this vicious cycle. The only possible chance of returning it to republicanism lies in not taking the next turn, and in not following one imperial ruler with another.
Contrary to that perspective, this author explains that Trump has experienced healthy humiliations which have had beneficial effect:
My guess is that Trump was a badly spoiled brat, a kind of would-be narcissist. His father sent him to a military academy, where every cadet is humiliated over and over again, and then built up by earning respect for meeting tough challenges every day, like Marine Corps training.Hard to know for sure, but certainly interesting. It's also interesting to watch foreigners ignoring the obvious:
The only thing that can cure NPD is a long diet of bloody noses. They don’t respond to talking therapy, but let them run into the same brick wall over and over again, and they can learn to grow up. Trump entered the military academy as a snot-nosed troublemaker, and four years later emerged as the head of the cadet corps. It took a lot of bloody noses to get there.
...
The difference from Obama is that long history of painful setbacks and comebacks. Obama has always been surrounded by adoring fans, and still has genuine trouble dealing with setbacks. What Freud called the Reality Principle is the key to responsible adulthood.
“Europeans are trying to wrap their heads around Trump’s popularity…with little success.”
Other than their version of the MSM completely failing them (which is always a possibility when dealing with old media), I don’t understand why not.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
Gell-Mann Amnesia is ... uhh ... What was the Question?
The NYT Op-Ed page seems to have gone off its meds, but today's offering, Jets Will No Longer Get a Free Ride on Carbon Emissions has to be, flat out, no holds barred, without exception, absolutely, the most, without peer, beyond competition, ne plus ultra, the stupidest thing to shamefully see the light of day, since, well, ever.
Not unreasonably? From where, exactly, did they pull that unargued conclusion?
Because, as we all know, all that is required to turn wish into reality is an Obamster ocean receding, earth healing, decree.
It is nearly impossible to unpack all the stupid in this editorial. But I will start with what is glaringly apparent to anyone possessing enough curiosity to wonder if walking out in front of a bus is a good idea. It is called a fact:
Fuel consumption amounts to about 30% of airline costs. As the dictionary definition, perhaps somewhat improved, makes clear, engineers specify titanium instead of pig iron for a reason. Therefore, and pay attention here, NYT Editorial Board and UN tools, airliner design embodies everything practical, which is darn close to everything possible, to minimize fuel consumption:
The B737-900 manages 99 passenger miles per gallon.
Somehow, without government pestering, aircraft and engine manufacturers doubled fuel efficiency in twenty years. Somehow, without government pestering, since the late 1990s, jet travel routinely achieves fuel efficiencies that not even the most subsidy-coddled rare-earth gobbling hybrids can get close to.
Obviously, the designers and engineers have no idea that the only thing standing between them and frolicking herds of sparkly pastel unicorns is a UN decree.
Open question: how is it that journalists invariably make bog standard Golden Retrievers seem critical thinkers by comparison?
Okay, the preceding was, and I know this comes as a shock, a bit snarky. Still. This Op-Ed is so smug, and so devoid of even the most easily ascertained clues, that I am utterly at a loss to comprehend how journalists could put up such a pathetic performance, unless the stupid is very strong with them, indeed.
It has been almost 50 years since the federal government began setting standards for automobile emissions. It is also about a half-century since the introduction of wide-body jets set off a runaway expansion of the aviation industry. About 3.8 billion people are expected to fly this year, 50 times as many as 50 years ago — making planes the fastest-growing source of carbon dioxide emissions, although they have faced none of the limits set on cars or trucks. That is, until last week, when the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations agency, finally proposed the first binding limits on aircraft emissions.
This is a welcome development, even if it has left many environmental groups disappointed. They have argued, not unreasonably, that the agency set the bar far too low.
Not unreasonably? From where, exactly, did they pull that unargued conclusion?
The history of pollution controls has shown that the first step, however modest, is often the most important in raising confidence and creating momentum toward greater change. In this case, the timing is important, since the clock is running out on the Obama administration.
The United States accounts for half of all carbon dioxide emissions from planes, and limiting aviation emissions has been high on President Obama’s environmental agenda. But the international agreement took more than six years to negotiate, and it still needs approval from the group’s larger council and then its full assembly, followed by laws or regulations in each of the 36 member states.
Because, as we all know, all that is required to turn wish into reality is an Obamster ocean receding, earth healing, decree.
It is nearly impossible to unpack all the stupid in this editorial. But I will start with what is glaringly apparent to anyone possessing enough curiosity to wonder if walking out in front of a bus is a good idea. It is called a fact:
fact |fakt|
noun
a thing that is known or proved to be true: 1. the most commonly known fact about airliner design is that it does everything possible to minimize fuel usage; 2. That thing to which journalists are most allergic, and about which they are invariably disinterested.
Fuel consumption amounts to about 30% of airline costs. As the dictionary definition, perhaps somewhat improved, makes clear, engineers specify titanium instead of pig iron for a reason. Therefore, and pay attention here, NYT Editorial Board and UN tools, airliner design embodies everything practical, which is darn close to everything possible, to minimize fuel consumption:
Between 1960 and 2000 there was a 55% overall fuel efficiency gain (if one were to consider the Boeing 707 as the base case). Most of the improvements in efficiency were gained in the first decade when jet craft first came into widespread commercial use. Between 1971 and 1998 the fleet-average annual improvement per available seat-kilometre was estimated at 2.4%. ... Airbus states a fuel rate consumption of their A380 at less than 3 L/100 km per passenger (78 passenger-miles per US gallon)
The B737-900 manages 99 passenger miles per gallon.
Somehow, without government pestering, aircraft and engine manufacturers doubled fuel efficiency in twenty years. Somehow, without government pestering, since the late 1990s, jet travel routinely achieves fuel efficiencies that not even the most subsidy-coddled rare-earth gobbling hybrids can get close to.
Obviously, the designers and engineers have no idea that the only thing standing between them and frolicking herds of sparkly pastel unicorns is a UN decree.
Open question: how is it that journalists invariably make bog standard Golden Retrievers seem critical thinkers by comparison?
Okay, the preceding was, and I know this comes as a shock, a bit snarky. Still. This Op-Ed is so smug, and so devoid of even the most easily ascertained clues, that I am utterly at a loss to comprehend how journalists could put up such a pathetic performance, unless the stupid is very strong with them, indeed.
Getting Driven Crazy
It's a good thing Great Guys are pretty relaxed about deadlines. Nearing my first anniversary in the heart of European Socialism is easily way more than enough time to commit experiences to pixels.
And what could be a more mundane way to start than driving?
In Germany, and likely the rest of the EU, drivers' licenses from Many Countries (a list that includes the US, at least) are valid for six months from arrival. And cars from those Many Countries can be driven for a year before they must be registered.
What could be so hard about that?
Plenty, as it turns out.
License to Kill
I'll start with driving. Oddly, in the dual sense that there is no apparent reason, or available explanation, US licenses have varying degrees of acceptability to the Germans. Many States are completely acceptable — go to the TüV (the German version of the DMV, pronounced like a cross between "toof" and "tough"), hand them your license, and they give you a German one. Oh, by the way, the TüV is as justifiably famous for speedy customer service as almost any DMV.
Other states are treated with greater skepticism: take the theoretical test, and the license is yours.
The rest of the states get no respect whatsoever: their unfortunate license holders get treated as if they were born before 1886, and have been in comas ever since. For them, every inch of the entire nine yards (new money: 2.54 cm in 0.9144m): first aid course, written test, and driving test.
No extra points for guessing which treatment Alaskan drivers get.
My SWIPIAW (hereafter, TOSWIPIAW) never does in the afternoon what can be done in the morning. So we hit the ground running. We had the first aid course done within our first month.
Oddly — a word I will be wearing out — her being a registered nurse cut no ice. Even more oddly, sitting through an entire day of first aid training in German did. The CPR dummy was the last event of the day. When it was my turn, my first chest compression, perhaps powered by aggro, sent the dummy's head flying across the room, where it spun like footballs often do after a touchdown. Oddly, they didn't score that as a save.
But still, one block checked. Our hearts filled with resolution, we advance, in imagined solidarity with the rest of our comrades, onwards to the theoretical test.
You have no idea. None. What. So. Ever.
I've not had a license in every state, but I have had more than my share. All of them: flip through thirty or so pages printed on cheap paper, spend 10 minutes taking a multiple guess test consisting of picking the blindingly obvious from the glaringly incorrect.
Not here. Uh uh. No way. There is a 1000 question bank from which the questions are randomly chosen. The correct answer may be one, or more, of the choices. Both the questions and the answers are designed to be misleading. The only way to pass the damn thing is to memorize all the questions. Here is an example why:
Notice the question asks what you must do. But the answer includes what you may do. Knowing the sign and reading the question is a recipe for failure.
Hours upon hours, gone.
And months, too. The TüV, with a mistrustful eye on "customer service" only offers the test in English twice a month. It was five months until my planet and theirs lined up.
All that remained was passing the driving test. For which lessons, seven 45 minute sessions in my case, are required. Our car has a stick shift, so I had to get a manual transmission endorsement. At some level, although it doesn't get too deep before I go full ranting skeptic, I get driving ecomentally.
What I don't get is the insistence on short shifting the heck out of the poor thing. Third gear at 20 mph is just wrong: no torque, the motor is lugging, and desperately wants to go faster than 20, which is bad if the speed limit is 20. But when in Germany, drive the way the ecomaniacs insist, even though it doesn't have heck all to do with either safety or economy.
Throw the only English speaking instructor's schedule and mine together, and yet more months go by. I failed to fail the driving test last Friday.
Whereupon I went straight to the TüV licensing office to promptly turn my certificate into a license. No wait, the exact opposite of that. Because their pace is so murderous, they close at noon on Fridays.
Eleven months later, and I'm still not done.
But wait, there's more:
Licensing the Weapon with which to Kill
Of all the things in life that should be easy, so easy, in fact, as to not warrant doing in the first place, registering a German car in Germany should be right up there.
Or so you would think, anyway.
Oddly, the US requires symmetric and prohibits asymmetric driving light beams. Hold that sentence up the mirror, and that is the EU. Repeat with rear fog lights: US prohibits, EU requires (although in this case the US cares nowhere near enough to actually check).
With regard to headlights, symmetry means the beam spread is uniform; asymmetry means there is a pronounced notch on the left side so as to avoid dazzling oncoming drivers with your low beams.
I think it is nearly a law of nature that if two diametrically opposed concepts persist simultaneously, then the difference between them is utterly without distinction.
Just so here. Sure, it makes sense to not dazzle oncoming drivers. But given that we haven't been hit even once with a flash of the high-beams, there is considerable experiential evidence to suggest that this whole asymmetry thing doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
As for the rear foglight, that was simple. The internet assured me that replacing the US light switch with the EU version incorporating a rear foglight position, reprogramming the lighting control computer, would serve just fine.
While I was on a trip, TOSWIPIAW, for whom "wait" is a swear word, took the car to the dealer to get an estimate on what needed doing, and came back with a mountain of Euros — 4500, or about $5000 — to summit our hill of beans.
Mr. Jaw, meet Mr. Floor with loud, anvil-like clang. Followed by muttered imprecations, and a vow to set the car on fire first.
(Here is where a montage with images of internet searching, traveling and calendar pages flipping belongs).
Ahem. About those Headlights. Had we not paid extra for the dynamically adaptive xenon cosmosity, going from symmetric to not involves nothing more than a blocking patch of sticky backed tin foil placed just so.
Silly us. Since the headlights move five different ways to Sunday, cheap and fast was out of the question. Fortunately, that internet searching in the montage you didn't see coughed up a price that, while not exactly cheap, was less than half the dealer quote. And, despite their vague threats, the things went right in.
Now for the rear fog lights. Installing the new switch was a doddle, so off to the dealer we went to get the car reprogrammed.
Which they couldn't do. Not wouldn't, couldn't. Suggested we needed a new $1,000 instrument cluster.
More imprecations. Renewed resolve to set the thing on fire. More montage. In the midst of it, twig that eBay might, just might, also be a thing in Europe. (I need to get my money back on that first montage). Indeed it is, a fact probably less surprising to almost everyone than me.
Far less money — $150 — and a week later, the proper EU part shows up in perfect condition. Ten minutes to install it, Bob's your uncle, and off to the dealer.
Still can't program it. Suggest another, larger dealer. Despite making a far more thorough effort, including contacting BMW itself, their conclusion is that it would be far easier to invent time travel than to get something working which the car already has.
Whereupon I did what I should have done much sooner: research the door-stop worthy factory shop manual's electrical diagrams, buy a ten dollar switch, five dollar relay, some wire, a couple connectors, and do it myself (if you care, and you don't, the solution is at the end).
Idiots.
Almost worse than the money and time involved attaining the pointless, is the psychic harm this causing TOSWIPIAW. Not only is this taking forever — longer, in her world — but the police keep pulling us over.
Not, you cynics, for our driving. No, oddly, something far worse. In the US, many states, cognizant of how useless front license plates are, don't require them. Michigan, were we bought the car, is one of those states. Alaska isn't, but to demonstrate my point, three cars, seven and a half years, and not one even slightly raised eyebrow from anyone.
In the EU, and, it seems, particularly in Germany, front license plates are required. When we drive down the street, people stop, stare, point, walk into lamp posts, fall off their bikes. Some of them turn on flashing lights and chase us down. We shrug, do some pointy-talky, they miss the distinction between the Alaska and Michigan, and send us on our way.
Sheesh.
Cue another montage, with many flipped calendar pages and travel scenes, and the damn thing will get inspected in April. Close as darnnit to a year, though far less than $5000*, just to get license plates.
Surely, you must be wondering, there is a point here somewhere.
Several, actually.
Socialism is pickayune and burdensome. Surely, you'd think, government agencies could either just pick one damn way or another — really, who cares? — and stop being such pests.
Socialism is what socialism does. Three hours waiting to do a five minute transaction (swapping a piece of paper for a plastic card) especially one that involves spending money, is unheard of in the red in tooth and claw world of heartless capitalism.
Thank goodness we live in a walkable city with plentiful public transit options, which nearly makes having a car redundant. Yes, I know.
A sure fire way to reduce the number of pre-mature deaths in the US isn't some jihad against guns, but rather to make getting a license cost more than $1000. Which makes this possible, while managing a motor vehicle fatality rate less than half that of the far more lackadaisical US.
And Germans would go absolutely spare seeing the shambolic heaps that far too often pass for our cars.
Although it isn't clear whether that is due to socialism, or being German.
In an American BMW, what would be the rear foglight is occupied by a low intensity lamp that is on when the parking or headlights are on. It is so unimportant that there is no mention of it in the owner's manual, and, unlike every other light on the car, doesn't throw a warning when it is out. That makes the solution easy: cut the common ground, run a wire from the lamp ground to a rocker switch tastefully stuck to the side of the instrument binnacle, then from the switch to a relay controlled by the power lead to the front fog lights -- that stops the rear fogs being on unless the fronts are, which is a requirement. Time: hour and a half, almost all of it routing that wire from the trunk to the instrument panel. And a heck of a lot cheaper than two dealer visits and $250 in now useless parts.
And what could be a more mundane way to start than driving?
In Germany, and likely the rest of the EU, drivers' licenses from Many Countries (a list that includes the US, at least) are valid for six months from arrival. And cars from those Many Countries can be driven for a year before they must be registered.
What could be so hard about that?
Plenty, as it turns out.
License to Kill
I'll start with driving. Oddly, in the dual sense that there is no apparent reason, or available explanation, US licenses have varying degrees of acceptability to the Germans. Many States are completely acceptable — go to the TüV (the German version of the DMV, pronounced like a cross between "toof" and "tough"), hand them your license, and they give you a German one. Oh, by the way, the TüV is as justifiably famous for speedy customer service as almost any DMV.
Other states are treated with greater skepticism: take the theoretical test, and the license is yours.
The rest of the states get no respect whatsoever: their unfortunate license holders get treated as if they were born before 1886, and have been in comas ever since. For them, every inch of the entire nine yards (new money: 2.54 cm in 0.9144m): first aid course, written test, and driving test.
No extra points for guessing which treatment Alaskan drivers get.
My SWIPIAW (hereafter, TOSWIPIAW) never does in the afternoon what can be done in the morning. So we hit the ground running. We had the first aid course done within our first month.
Oddly — a word I will be wearing out — her being a registered nurse cut no ice. Even more oddly, sitting through an entire day of first aid training in German did. The CPR dummy was the last event of the day. When it was my turn, my first chest compression, perhaps powered by aggro, sent the dummy's head flying across the room, where it spun like footballs often do after a touchdown. Oddly, they didn't score that as a save.
But still, one block checked. Our hearts filled with resolution, we advance, in imagined solidarity with the rest of our comrades, onwards to the theoretical test.
You have no idea. None. What. So. Ever.
I've not had a license in every state, but I have had more than my share. All of them: flip through thirty or so pages printed on cheap paper, spend 10 minutes taking a multiple guess test consisting of picking the blindingly obvious from the glaringly incorrect.
Not here. Uh uh. No way. There is a 1000 question bank from which the questions are randomly chosen. The correct answer may be one, or more, of the choices. Both the questions and the answers are designed to be misleading. The only way to pass the damn thing is to memorize all the questions. Here is an example why:
Notice the question asks what you must do. But the answer includes what you may do. Knowing the sign and reading the question is a recipe for failure.
Hours upon hours, gone.
And months, too. The TüV, with a mistrustful eye on "customer service" only offers the test in English twice a month. It was five months until my planet and theirs lined up.
All that remained was passing the driving test. For which lessons, seven 45 minute sessions in my case, are required. Our car has a stick shift, so I had to get a manual transmission endorsement. At some level, although it doesn't get too deep before I go full ranting skeptic, I get driving ecomentally.
What I don't get is the insistence on short shifting the heck out of the poor thing. Third gear at 20 mph is just wrong: no torque, the motor is lugging, and desperately wants to go faster than 20, which is bad if the speed limit is 20. But when in Germany, drive the way the ecomaniacs insist, even though it doesn't have heck all to do with either safety or economy.
Throw the only English speaking instructor's schedule and mine together, and yet more months go by. I failed to fail the driving test last Friday.
Whereupon I went straight to the TüV licensing office to promptly turn my certificate into a license. No wait, the exact opposite of that. Because their pace is so murderous, they close at noon on Fridays.
Eleven months later, and I'm still not done.
But wait, there's more:
Licensing the Weapon with which to Kill
Of all the things in life that should be easy, so easy, in fact, as to not warrant doing in the first place, registering a German car in Germany should be right up there.
Or so you would think, anyway.
Oddly, the US requires symmetric and prohibits asymmetric driving light beams. Hold that sentence up the mirror, and that is the EU. Repeat with rear fog lights: US prohibits, EU requires (although in this case the US cares nowhere near enough to actually check).
With regard to headlights, symmetry means the beam spread is uniform; asymmetry means there is a pronounced notch on the left side so as to avoid dazzling oncoming drivers with your low beams.
I think it is nearly a law of nature that if two diametrically opposed concepts persist simultaneously, then the difference between them is utterly without distinction.
Just so here. Sure, it makes sense to not dazzle oncoming drivers. But given that we haven't been hit even once with a flash of the high-beams, there is considerable experiential evidence to suggest that this whole asymmetry thing doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
As for the rear foglight, that was simple. The internet assured me that replacing the US light switch with the EU version incorporating a rear foglight position, reprogramming the lighting control computer, would serve just fine.
While I was on a trip, TOSWIPIAW, for whom "wait" is a swear word, took the car to the dealer to get an estimate on what needed doing, and came back with a mountain of Euros — 4500, or about $5000 — to summit our hill of beans.
Mr. Jaw, meet Mr. Floor with loud, anvil-like clang. Followed by muttered imprecations, and a vow to set the car on fire first.
(Here is where a montage with images of internet searching, traveling and calendar pages flipping belongs).
Ahem. About those Headlights. Had we not paid extra for the dynamically adaptive xenon cosmosity, going from symmetric to not involves nothing more than a blocking patch of sticky backed tin foil placed just so.
Silly us. Since the headlights move five different ways to Sunday, cheap and fast was out of the question. Fortunately, that internet searching in the montage you didn't see coughed up a price that, while not exactly cheap, was less than half the dealer quote. And, despite their vague threats, the things went right in.
Now for the rear fog lights. Installing the new switch was a doddle, so off to the dealer we went to get the car reprogrammed.
Which they couldn't do. Not wouldn't, couldn't. Suggested we needed a new $1,000 instrument cluster.
More imprecations. Renewed resolve to set the thing on fire. More montage. In the midst of it, twig that eBay might, just might, also be a thing in Europe. (I need to get my money back on that first montage). Indeed it is, a fact probably less surprising to almost everyone than me.
Far less money — $150 — and a week later, the proper EU part shows up in perfect condition. Ten minutes to install it, Bob's your uncle, and off to the dealer.
Still can't program it. Suggest another, larger dealer. Despite making a far more thorough effort, including contacting BMW itself, their conclusion is that it would be far easier to invent time travel than to get something working which the car already has.
Whereupon I did what I should have done much sooner: research the door-stop worthy factory shop manual's electrical diagrams, buy a ten dollar switch, five dollar relay, some wire, a couple connectors, and do it myself (if you care, and you don't, the solution is at the end).
Idiots.
Almost worse than the money and time involved attaining the pointless, is the psychic harm this causing TOSWIPIAW. Not only is this taking forever — longer, in her world — but the police keep pulling us over.
Not, you cynics, for our driving. No, oddly, something far worse. In the US, many states, cognizant of how useless front license plates are, don't require them. Michigan, were we bought the car, is one of those states. Alaska isn't, but to demonstrate my point, three cars, seven and a half years, and not one even slightly raised eyebrow from anyone.
In the EU, and, it seems, particularly in Germany, front license plates are required. When we drive down the street, people stop, stare, point, walk into lamp posts, fall off their bikes. Some of them turn on flashing lights and chase us down. We shrug, do some pointy-talky, they miss the distinction between the Alaska and Michigan, and send us on our way.
Sheesh.
Cue another montage, with many flipped calendar pages and travel scenes, and the damn thing will get inspected in April. Close as darnnit to a year, though far less than $5000*, just to get license plates.
Surely, you must be wondering, there is a point here somewhere.
Several, actually.
Socialism is pickayune and burdensome. Surely, you'd think, government agencies could either just pick one damn way or another — really, who cares? — and stop being such pests.
Socialism is what socialism does. Three hours waiting to do a five minute transaction (swapping a piece of paper for a plastic card) especially one that involves spending money, is unheard of in the red in tooth and claw world of heartless capitalism.
Thank goodness we live in a walkable city with plentiful public transit options, which nearly makes having a car redundant. Yes, I know.
A sure fire way to reduce the number of pre-mature deaths in the US isn't some jihad against guns, but rather to make getting a license cost more than $1000. Which makes this possible, while managing a motor vehicle fatality rate less than half that of the far more lackadaisical US.
And Germans would go absolutely spare seeing the shambolic heaps that far too often pass for our cars.
Although it isn't clear whether that is due to socialism, or being German.
In an American BMW, what would be the rear foglight is occupied by a low intensity lamp that is on when the parking or headlights are on. It is so unimportant that there is no mention of it in the owner's manual, and, unlike every other light on the car, doesn't throw a warning when it is out. That makes the solution easy: cut the common ground, run a wire from the lamp ground to a rocker switch tastefully stuck to the side of the instrument binnacle, then from the switch to a relay controlled by the power lead to the front fog lights -- that stops the rear fogs being on unless the fronts are, which is a requirement. Time: hour and a half, almost all of it routing that wire from the trunk to the instrument panel. And a heck of a lot cheaper than two dealer visits and $250 in now useless parts.
Thursday, February 04, 2016
Ferocious
A couple of days ago, my neighbor brought to my attention that our mail was no longer being delivered. It turns out that it hadn't been delivered for over a week, but I hadn't even noticed - almost nothing of importance ever comes through the mail anymore: bills are paid on line, taxes are filed electronically, notices come via email, etc.
To me the Post Office is just a bit player in the giant circle of junk-mail life. They deliver it, I put it in the recycling, new paper is made from it, new junk mail gets printed, and the Post Office redelivers it to keep the circle going. Other than that, they have little use from what I can tell.
So they just stopped delivering my mail - no notice, no explanation, no nothing.
Why?
The ferocious furball pictured below approached and barked at the mailman. There was no contact between them and our dog didn't even get particularly close to the mailman. The dog is well trained and my wife was present and verbally in control of the dog (for example, she told it to stop barking and it did). Nonetheless, the barking is still considered an "attack" and enough of an incident to get mail delivery to stop without notice. The Post Office claims 6,000 dog attacks on mail carriers in a year. However, given that barking is an attack, I'm surprised the number isn't far higher. What dog doesn't bark (other than the one in the Sherlock Holmes story)?
When I first learned the reason for non-delivery, I did a google search. There're a gazillion stories of non-delivery where it was really onerous to get it started again and I started to worry. For example, an 11-pound furball caused an entire condo complex to lose mail delivery forever (or until the owner agreed to put the dog to sleep). So I was wondering what hoops I would have to jump through to get my mail started again. If it was just me, I wouldn't've even bothered since mail isn't useful to me. Unfortunately, my neighbor was unpleased at his lack of delivery so I was worried the whole thing would become a giant nightmare.
But it wasn't bad. The Post Office just made me sign something that said that I agreed to keep the dog under control during mail delivery times and that the mailman would not deliver mail on days when any dogs were visible. Works for me and it was only a little bit annoying.
Don't get me wrong - I am sympathetic to being afraid of dogs. Our 25 pound furball does have a ferocious bark for something so small and fluffy. I do wonder though: if a mailman is so afraid of dogs that merely being barked at is traumatic enough to be considered an attack, perhaps he's chosen the wrong career?
To me the Post Office is just a bit player in the giant circle of junk-mail life. They deliver it, I put it in the recycling, new paper is made from it, new junk mail gets printed, and the Post Office redelivers it to keep the circle going. Other than that, they have little use from what I can tell.
So they just stopped delivering my mail - no notice, no explanation, no nothing.
Why?
The ferocious furball pictured below approached and barked at the mailman. There was no contact between them and our dog didn't even get particularly close to the mailman. The dog is well trained and my wife was present and verbally in control of the dog (for example, she told it to stop barking and it did). Nonetheless, the barking is still considered an "attack" and enough of an incident to get mail delivery to stop without notice. The Post Office claims 6,000 dog attacks on mail carriers in a year. However, given that barking is an attack, I'm surprised the number isn't far higher. What dog doesn't bark (other than the one in the Sherlock Holmes story)?
When I first learned the reason for non-delivery, I did a google search. There're a gazillion stories of non-delivery where it was really onerous to get it started again and I started to worry. For example, an 11-pound furball caused an entire condo complex to lose mail delivery forever (or until the owner agreed to put the dog to sleep). So I was wondering what hoops I would have to jump through to get my mail started again. If it was just me, I wouldn't've even bothered since mail isn't useful to me. Unfortunately, my neighbor was unpleased at his lack of delivery so I was worried the whole thing would become a giant nightmare.
But it wasn't bad. The Post Office just made me sign something that said that I agreed to keep the dog under control during mail delivery times and that the mailman would not deliver mail on days when any dogs were visible. Works for me and it was only a little bit annoying.
Don't get me wrong - I am sympathetic to being afraid of dogs. Our 25 pound furball does have a ferocious bark for something so small and fluffy. I do wonder though: if a mailman is so afraid of dogs that merely being barked at is traumatic enough to be considered an attack, perhaps he's chosen the wrong career?
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Heart and Head
I'm not sure, but I think that I may have been the cause of another post at Cafe Hayek. As a result, I've written the following letter to the blogger there...
----
Dear Professor Boudreaux,
I'd like to explain in more detail than is plausible in the facebook commenting section on your blog about what I meant when I asked, "Can you really not see why folks like Jim thinks that a fair amount of your writing shows "contempt" for the common American people?"
But first I want to start with a brief (true) story about your ex-co-blogger Russ Roberts and my eldest daughter. Once upon a time, Russ wrote a book called "The Invisible Heart." I read it to my daughter ten years ago when she was nine years old. It's a wonderful love story where the main character just happens to be a high-school economics teacher and a few economic concepts are introduced in the book by that character. My daughter really liked the book but I had no idea whether or not she really grasped the economics concepts or not or whether she would remember them even if she did get them in the first place. But three months later, after Halloween trick-or-treating, she and a group of friends traded candy with each other - each would trade away what they didn't like for what they did. After the other kids had left, my daughter said to me completely unsolicited, "Daddy, it was just like in the book 'The Invisible Heart' - by trading our candy we all became better off!" So not only did she get at least the concept of the benefit of trade, but she remembered it and was able to apply it to a real world situation in her life many months later.
Russ Roberts reached through the heart of a nine-year-old girl to place some fundamental economic concepts in her head. Talk about the power of the pen!
What I learned (eventually) from this story and other experience is that the only way to nearly everyone's head is through their heart. Before that, I'd often encounter nonsensical arguments and think, "Oh! All I have to do is point out the mistake in their reasoning and/or facts and/or evidence and they'll see things correctly!" Of course, I'd always be disappointed because they weren't putting forward rational arguments of the head. They were putting forth arguments that they believe in their hearts, things that are "true" in their hearts. In my experience, for most people, belief and faith trumps rationality every time; the heart trumps the head every time. The most important things I've learned regarding this is that if I make statements that contradict what's true in their hearts, folks will reject it out-of-hand, the debate is instantly shut down, and I've lost, pretty much every time. And if I'm not very careful, they will feel that I have contempt for what they know in their hearts to be true.
Let's take an example. Consider the following statement that might be similar to one made by a minimum wage advocate:
Someone who writes something like the above statement is probably not trying to write a rational statement. They are writing a statement of the heart. Responding with rational arguments without first reaching for and accessing the heart is counterproductive in my experience. For example, telling them about all the counter studies, meta studies, etc. that show the opposite of Card and Krueger is probably pointless. Telling them that economic theory is at odds with Card and Krueger is meaningless to them. As soon as you write the word "monopsony" they run for the exits. Pointing out the problems of collectivism and waxing eloquent about liberty for liberty's sake is generally going to fall on deaf ears unless you can make it felt by the heart; in other words, being anti-collective or anti-government is not usually a winning argument with most people.
The question is how to respond to such statements. I don't necessarily know, but here is a response I've given to statements like the above that actually does seem to have a positive effect and seems to open the door to rational debate (or at least not close the door): "Well, my concern about a $15/hr minimum wage is that at one point I was thinking about being a musician instead of a computer guy and I would never have been good enough at music to be worth $15/hr. But you've heard my music and it's pretty decent, right? And if I had dedicated myself to music professionally it would've been even better. And if I had chosen that path, I would've been happy enough making $5/hr and that's all I would've been able to get. And if that door was closed I would've ended up being stuck flipping burgers at $15/hr which, as I'm sure you can imagine would've been a far worse option for me even though it paid more. And how about my cousin who worked for that private charity that helps disabled kids. They were only able to pay her $5/hr because that's all the money they could raise from donors and the government. Should they have to fire her and prevent her from helping disabled kids because they didn't have enough money to pay her more?" And so forth. Lots of statements directed at the heart.
I suspect you're horrified by the above paragraph. But is it really so terrible? Is Russ's Invisible Heart really so terrible? Building a narrative that constantly pulls at heartstrings and then slipping in an occasional rational fact? Is it so bad?
Now let me give examples of why I can imagine people reading your writing might think that you have contempt for them. Note the the "your" and "you" are plural and include not only just you but also Bryan Caplan and others.
First consider the post that "Jim" commented on. Bryan self-quotes, "The median American is no Nazi, but he is a moderate national socialist..." Oh, so only a milque-toast Nazi, not a full blown one. Certainly not a complement for the typical ("median") American and the statement rather reverberates with contempt for anyone who considers themselves a typical American, in my opinion.
Caplan then goes on to say that Americans basically all have ADHD; that is, they are mentally ill or mentally deficient. He basically says thanks heavens for that, otherwise our policies would be even worse, yet at the same time writes, "I look down on the public's ADHD." The phrase "I look down on" is very close to synonymous with "contempt," no?
While you didn't explicitly endorse Caplan's post, the fact that you referred to it might seem to indicate you're at least sympathetic with it and the possible contempt that could be associated with it.
Furthermore, Caplan has written a book "The Myth of the Rational Voter" which you've referenced at least a few times. Many people believe in their hearts in democracy, believe in their hearts in the democratic process, believe in their hearts that they are good citizens, and believe in their hearts that their votes are rationally based and important. To at least some of those people, that very title drips with contempt.
Do you not have contempt for virtually all politicians? For example, you've written:
You also wrote, just yesterday:
Then you reply with rational economic analyses that miss the heart by many light years and, as a result, look to me to have little positive effect. Even worse, you do admittedly view these beliefs of the heart with contempt when held by the speaker or the listener or both, no?
So that's why I think the writings of you and others such as Bryan Caplan can be easily interpreted as "illustrating the contempt with which the American elite view the common American people" per Jim's comment.
Have you read Russ's Invisible Heart? You may not much like it, but a nine-year old girl did and it helped her form a rational understanding of economics.
Thanks,
Bret
----
Dear Professor Boudreaux,
We must collectively do something about burger flippers making such a low wage and since the Card and Krueger study shows no adverse effect on employment a reasonably high minimum wage is a good way to address this low wage problem.Since you've addressed similar statements with about a hundred posts in last couple of years, we both know exactly how you would answer it. I could almost write the respnse for you out of a synthesis of other ones.
"As regular readers of this blog know, I’m allergic to almost all politicians – and my allergy is non-partisan. So on those occasions when I single out a politician for ridicule, I must not be interpreted as believing that he or she is uniquely scurrilous and contemptible."Does this not say you have contempt for all politicians? Can you not see how if someone reading this believes in the democratic process and feels some level of responsibility for electing those politicians that they could possibly feel you have indirect contempt for them as well?
"It’s true that I do hold in very low regard – in, indeed, contempt – the “economics” expressed by many non-economists and by the politicians and pundits who cater to economic ignorance."Are they catering to economic ignorance? You clearly think so, but I think not. Man is a political, social, emotional, and moral-believing animal, and I think that the "economics" expressed by these "non-economists" is neither economics nor rational but is catering to the political, social, emotional, moral-believing nature of man; in other words, it's aimed at the heart. And, much to many economists' frustrations (such as yours?), the statements hit their mark.
Bret
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Coming Soon to A Road Near You*
Here is the sort of thing for which socialism in general, and single payer health care in particular, is so justifiably famous.
No. Wait. The exact opposite of that.
*Unless you live in the United States, where these lights, thanks to the NHTSA are illegal. Yes, that is the same NHTSA that mandated sealed beam headlights at least a decade past their sell-by date.
No. Wait. The exact opposite of that.
*Unless you live in the United States, where these lights, thanks to the NHTSA are illegal. Yes, that is the same NHTSA that mandated sealed beam headlights at least a decade past their sell-by date.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Well That Sure was Fun. Now What?
I generally avoid reviewing reviews of things I haven't seen or read; it would be hard to imagine a means of forming opinions more baseless. However, I have a couple reasons for making an exception here.
First, Krugman writes an entire column that isn't guilty of ranting under the influence of naval gazing. More importantly, though, the book he reviewed, Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth raises enough ideas that can be debated without having to have read the book first.
It is hard to argue with this. For someone living in 1880, 1950 would be completely unimaginable. The gulf from 1950 to 2020 (absent something completely unforeseeable) is tiny by comparison.
The Great Inventions — electricity, flush toilets, cars, airplanes, and the like — transformed life in ways that subsequent inventions haven't and can't. Their spread was the cause of the nearly a century's worth of rapid economic growth; that all the Great Inventions have been invented and fully adopted means that the growth we have become used to is already a thing of the past.
I think that conclusion is very difficult to argue against. Even if you add IT to the list of Great Inventions (Gordon apparently does not), computers haven't transformed our lives in the way the Great Inventions have — and won't so long as artificial intelligence, which still makes a cricket look brilliant, perpetually remains five years in the future.
As for the Great Inventions themselves, they have all followed identical horizontal-S performance curves. Slow at first, then a phase of rapid improvement, followed by near stagnation. Indoor plumbing has already improved our lives as much as it ever will. Airplanes will never go faster than they do now. Space flight will always be extraordinarily difficult and limited.
Does that mean everything has been invented? Of course not. Graphene, for just one likely example, is "about 100 times stronger than strongest steel with hypothetical thickness of 3.35Å which is equal to the thickness of graphene sheet. It conducts heat and electricity efficiently and is nearly transparent.[4] Researchers have identified the bipolar transistor effect, ballistic transport of charges and large quantum oscillations in the material."
Just the first property alone could make featherweight airplanes, trains, cars, and rockets.
All of which would still be subject to the same barriers they do now: the speed of sound, wind resistance, and reaction mass. They would do what exactly what they do now, but more cheaply. The payload fraction of a space launch would go up, but it wouldn't get anywhere significantly more quickly.
In short, we may be reaching an economic and existential "end of history".
Krugman, true to form, bangs the inequality drum, without noticing his own review has taken away the sticks:
Even though there are no more Great Inventions* — and this should be glaringly obvious to even the most casual observer of reality — stagnant incomes do not mean stagnant living standards. All the minor inventions surrounding the Great Inventions have flattened consumption. Everyone has smart phones, garbage disposals, flush toilets, air conditioning, ad nearly infinitum. The rich undoubtedly have fancier of all those things, but there is scarcely anything the rich have that the rest of us do not.
Cars are a perfect example, perhaps one I have overused. The average new car today could not have been bought for any amount of money 20 years ago. The average four year old car today is so much better than even the best new car of 40 years ago as to make meaningful price comparisons impossible. Yet the time it takes an average worker to earn the money required to buy an average new car today is identical to what it was in the mid-1970s: 23 weeks.**
Stagnant income means stagnant living standards? Wanna trade your Focus for a Pinto? The question answers itself. And cars are by far from the only example.
The point here isn't that growing inequality*** doesn't exist, but rather that it leaves one wondering how important it is. Yes, perhaps, probably, even, there are no game changing innovations left. To me, the more interesting question is what it might be like for civilization itself to have reached the right side of that horizontal-S curve. If that is indeed the case, then humanity is looking at an indefinite future that has the same aspect as the indefinite past before the industrial age: incremental, scarcely noticeable change.
Hard to conceive of, given what we have lived through in my lifetime.
* Genetic engineering notwithstanding
** No, I am not going to track down the source for that one. You will just have to trust me.
*** Clearly inequality is growing, but progressives, for whom this is the latest new religion omit, or confuse, a great many things: free agency, composition vs. characteristic, and correlation of class with divorce, among other things. No matter, the concept fluffs their looting fetish, so we are stuck with it.
First, Krugman writes an entire column that isn't guilty of ranting under the influence of naval gazing. More importantly, though, the book he reviewed, Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth raises enough ideas that can be debated without having to have read the book first.
Robert J. Gordon, a distinguished macroeconomist and economic historian at Northwestern, has been arguing for a long time against the techno-optimism that saturates our culture, with its constant assertion that we’re in the midst of revolutionary change. Starting at the height of the dot-com frenzy, he has repeatedly called for perspective: Developments in information and communication technology, he has insisted, just don’t measure up to past achievements. Specifically, he has argued that the I.T. revolution is less important than any one of the five Great Inventions that powered economic growth from 1870 to 1970: electricity, urban sanitation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, the internal combustion engine and modern communication.
It is hard to argue with this. For someone living in 1880, 1950 would be completely unimaginable. The gulf from 1950 to 2020 (absent something completely unforeseeable) is tiny by comparison.
The Great Inventions — electricity, flush toilets, cars, airplanes, and the like — transformed life in ways that subsequent inventions haven't and can't. Their spread was the cause of the nearly a century's worth of rapid economic growth; that all the Great Inventions have been invented and fully adopted means that the growth we have become used to is already a thing of the past.
I think that conclusion is very difficult to argue against. Even if you add IT to the list of Great Inventions (Gordon apparently does not), computers haven't transformed our lives in the way the Great Inventions have — and won't so long as artificial intelligence, which still makes a cricket look brilliant, perpetually remains five years in the future.
As for the Great Inventions themselves, they have all followed identical horizontal-S performance curves. Slow at first, then a phase of rapid improvement, followed by near stagnation. Indoor plumbing has already improved our lives as much as it ever will. Airplanes will never go faster than they do now. Space flight will always be extraordinarily difficult and limited.
Does that mean everything has been invented? Of course not. Graphene, for just one likely example, is "about 100 times stronger than strongest steel with hypothetical thickness of 3.35Å which is equal to the thickness of graphene sheet. It conducts heat and electricity efficiently and is nearly transparent.[4] Researchers have identified the bipolar transistor effect, ballistic transport of charges and large quantum oscillations in the material."
Just the first property alone could make featherweight airplanes, trains, cars, and rockets.
All of which would still be subject to the same barriers they do now: the speed of sound, wind resistance, and reaction mass. They would do what exactly what they do now, but more cheaply. The payload fraction of a space launch would go up, but it wouldn't get anywhere significantly more quickly.
In short, we may be reaching an economic and existential "end of history".
Krugman, true to form, bangs the inequality drum, without noticing his own review has taken away the sticks:
So what does this say about the future? Gordon suggests that the future is all too likely to be marked by stagnant living standards for most Americans, because the effects of slowing technological progress will be reinforced by a set of “headwinds”: rising inequality, a plateau in education levels, an aging population and more.
It’s a shocking prediction for a society whose self-image, arguably its very identity, is bound up with the expectation of constant progress. And you have to wonder about the social and political consequences of another generation of stagnation or decline in working-class incomes.
Even though there are no more Great Inventions* — and this should be glaringly obvious to even the most casual observer of reality — stagnant incomes do not mean stagnant living standards. All the minor inventions surrounding the Great Inventions have flattened consumption. Everyone has smart phones, garbage disposals, flush toilets, air conditioning, ad nearly infinitum. The rich undoubtedly have fancier of all those things, but there is scarcely anything the rich have that the rest of us do not.
Cars are a perfect example, perhaps one I have overused. The average new car today could not have been bought for any amount of money 20 years ago. The average four year old car today is so much better than even the best new car of 40 years ago as to make meaningful price comparisons impossible. Yet the time it takes an average worker to earn the money required to buy an average new car today is identical to what it was in the mid-1970s: 23 weeks.**
Stagnant income means stagnant living standards? Wanna trade your Focus for a Pinto? The question answers itself. And cars are by far from the only example.
The point here isn't that growing inequality*** doesn't exist, but rather that it leaves one wondering how important it is. Yes, perhaps, probably, even, there are no game changing innovations left. To me, the more interesting question is what it might be like for civilization itself to have reached the right side of that horizontal-S curve. If that is indeed the case, then humanity is looking at an indefinite future that has the same aspect as the indefinite past before the industrial age: incremental, scarcely noticeable change.
Hard to conceive of, given what we have lived through in my lifetime.
* Genetic engineering notwithstanding
** No, I am not going to track down the source for that one. You will just have to trust me.
*** Clearly inequality is growing, but progressives, for whom this is the latest new religion omit, or confuse, a great many things: free agency, composition vs. characteristic, and correlation of class with divorce, among other things. No matter, the concept fluffs their looting fetish, so we are stuck with it.
Friday, January 15, 2016
John Barleycorn (must die)
The author of the zman blog observes that we are living during a crisis of liberal democracy:
Richard Fernandez has his own take on the coming collision :
John Fund makes the point that authorities are in denial and continue to take a do nothing approach to the matter:
We used to do a decent job of assimilating immigrants:
Assimilation can help but it will not be enough to deter the strongest believers in Islamic supremacism.
In order to decide how we should deal with this matter and many other important matters we need to have serious discussion about competing approaches. The imposition of political correctness makes this nearly impossible.
Some of our supposed betters are discouraging people from bucking political correctness, power hungry statists that they are. PC also contributes to warping behavior to the point of people failing the Turing Test.
There are plenty of people looking to get free from this form of control:
Then we have the leftist intellectuals on campus today:
We may finally be approaching the point where the PC chickens are coming home to roost.
Anyone who values a free society should realize that this battle needs to be fought.
John Barleycorn This PC thing must die!
What we are witnessing in the West is the great test of liberal democracy. On the one side, all over the West we see recalcitrant mainstream parties digging in their heels on polices that benefit the global elite at the expense of the local populations. On the other side you have local populations trying to force change on their government through the liberal democratic processes. The theory says the politicians, as a matter of survival, will yield.
So far, that has not been the way to bet. Instead the main parties find new ways to subvert the will of the voters. In Greece the Germans laid siege to the country until they broke the will of the people. Closer to home, the German government is unleashing a wave of Muslim terrorism on their people, presumably as a form of intimidation. In France, the main parties have teamed up to block the third party from winning.
You don’t have to be a seer to see what’s coming. If through the accepted democratic process the will of the people is thwarted, then the people will lose respect for those processes. If the people in charge already look upon these processes with contempt, there’s no one left to support the status quo and the whole things falls to pieces. Perhaps the post-democratic world imagined by the global elite is what emerges, but 100 years ago all the smart people had similar thoughts.
Richard Fernandez has his own take on the coming collision :
There remains the belief that Western leaders can still fix this problem with a little tweaking. But the time for easy action has passed. The Golden Hour in which to prevent irreversible damage has lapsed, neglected by a Washington too sure of its own fantasies to act decisively. Now the storm has broken and Merkel is downstream of a dam opened by the policy of "leading from behind". The valve with which Obama had hoped to shut down the Islamic civil war has been turned the wrong way to full open. Worse, the wheel has broken off in his hand and he is staring at the snapped spindle.A search of this blog for political correctness shows some interesting posts including discussions of Cultural Marxism. This attempt to undermine a free society includes ideas such as multiculturalism and political correctness. The constraining of speech is meant to also control thought and generate conformity with the desires of those in power. It is an attempt to avoid the competition of ideas in the public arena.
That human tide of misery will combine with the denial which this generation of Western leaders are capable of to produce a separate catastrophe, still in the future, itself foreseeable, which can still be avoided. If only ... if only... those who missed the chance the first time now wake up to act this second time.
Yet as Friedrich Hegel once observed what history teaches is that humanity learns nothing from history. Our Tower of Babel is helpless to save itself. Ironically if Europe survives it will be on account of the ghosts: in the remnants of the culture the left has come close to killing; the providence of a God they no longer believe in; the stirrings of memory of a nation they have doomed to oblivion; the struggles of a half-remembered honor we are told to disown.
The fact is, for West to survive, it must become something other than what our PC leaders have tried to make it. For it is written that "the stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone." It's poetic justice to be sure but we have to accept the justice if we are to save what's left of the poetry.
John Fund makes the point that authorities are in denial and continue to take a do nothing approach to the matter:
See something, say something.” We’ve all seen ads from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that ask people not to turn a blind eye to suspicious activity. But all too often the reality, both in the U.S. and even more so in Europe, is that neighbors, politicized police departments, and the mainstream media act as if the slogan should be “See Something, Do Nothing.”
...
Ostrich-like behavior that puts political correctness ahead of security concerns is even more prevalent in Europe.
...
For Americans, the more pertinent question is this: Are we allowing political correctness to destroy the very values of individual responsibility and truth-telling that have helped immigrants assimilate successfully throughout our history? Or, under the thumb of PC, are we increasing the risk of terrorist violence? If the answer to both is yes, the unhappy political conditions might be such that Americans would feel tempted to rip up the welcome mat for foreigners.
We used to do a decent job of assimilating immigrants:
Today, our elites are far too “sophisticated” to promote Americanization. As immigrants, refugees, assylees and others come and settle here, they are actually taught that this is a racist, Islamophobic country and that they are victims. In fact, much about how they live—from social standing to actual tangible benefits—will depend on their status as members of an aggrieved, protected group.
...
Discussion of this issue has nearly become taboo, because the Left pounces on anyone who will take it up. One can surmise, of course, that the Left pounces as hard as it does because it realizes that an internally riven society is an essential ingredient of regime change—or “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” as some call it.
...
The word “assimilation” itself was used by President Washington and embraced by all the Founders on down to Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Ronald Reagan. Most importantly, the report calls for presidential candidates of both parties to debate this existential matter.
This is a debate we haven’t really had. Elites in the academy and the arts, the bureaucracy and politics, decided on their own to stop assimilating newcomers and move to the multi-group model.
Undoing the damage of multiculturalism, affirmative action, and the entire culture of victimhood won’t be easy, and working only toward cultural and economic integration will not be enough. After all, 2013 Boston bomber Dzhokar Tsarnaev and last year’s San Bernardino’s Syed Farook were “culturally integrated.” Patriotic assimilation is key. But first, we need to be able to talk about it—without being shouted down.
Assimilation can help but it will not be enough to deter the strongest believers in Islamic supremacism.
In order to decide how we should deal with this matter and many other important matters we need to have serious discussion about competing approaches. The imposition of political correctness makes this nearly impossible.
Some of our supposed betters are discouraging people from bucking political correctness, power hungry statists that they are. PC also contributes to warping behavior to the point of people failing the Turing Test.
There are plenty of people looking to get free from this form of control:
GOP candidates in the single digits might take a hint from Trump -- show the American public that you can speak awkward truths in the face of hysterical PC criticism. You are probably going to lose anyhow, but if you are going to sacrifice millions in futile campaign spending and endless rubber chicken banquets, die for a good cause, and, given our current political landscape overflowing with dishonesty, what could be a more noble cause than killing the beast of PC
Then we have the leftist intellectuals on campus today:
Political correctness – the academic aping of the class struggle — has increasingly generated campus hijinks unintentionally redolent of the cartoonist Al Capp’s 1960s depiction of S.W.I.N.E. (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything). Recently, referring to the plague of campus hoaxes regarding rape and race, capped off by the ruckus at Oberlin College because of the cultural “disrespect” shown by serving General Tso’s Chicken with steamed instead of fried rice, I was asked by a well-educated friend, “how did academia come to this sorry pass?”
...
“The postmodern campus aggrievement industry,” notes Arthur Milikh, writing in City Journal, aims to introduce a new standard of wisdom: judging the highest achievements of human knowledge by the unreasoned, spontaneous feelings of uncultivated minds.
We may finally be approaching the point where the PC chickens are coming home to roost.
But the big new development in 2015 is that the left’s culture war came back to attack the very institutions that hatched it.
...
It is on campus that the left has created a quasi-totalitarian system of social conformity — as the base from which they have tried to impose those rules on everyone.
...
But the universities can’t escape having the same quasi-totalitarian system imposed on themselves, and that’s what came to a head this fall at the University of Missouri, Yale, and Claremont McKenna College — with many other campus activists itching to get in on the revolution. The universities, those utopias of multicultural tolerance, have found themselves accused of being shot through with “systemic racism,” and protesters have demanded the firing of administrators, all the way up to the presidents of universities, for such crimes as daring to question the Halloween Costume Inquisition.
...
There are two centuries of chickens coming home to roost, because that’s how long ago academic intellectuals began toying with the idea that ideas don’t matter and everything is just a raw power struggle.
But while the new political correctness may seem irresistibly strong — at least when it is employed against soft targets like university administrators — that masks an underlying weakness, what I called the Paradox of Dogma: “If you try to shut down public debate, is this a way of ensuring that you win — or an admission that you have already lost?”
...
A swing back to the right, I concluded, is not at all inevitable. Rather, the fragility of the left’s dominance presents us with an opportunity. And given the number of people who thought their moderate liberalism made them safe from political correctness but who are now discovering how foolish that was, there is plenty of fuel for a backlash.
Anyone who values a free society should realize that this battle needs to be fought.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Unclear on the Concept
I reluctantly subscribe to the NYT. The reason I do so is so that I don't confine myself to information sources that flatter my world view.
The reason I am reluctant is that it seems, particularly lately, that the NYT either cannot comprehend constitutional government, or it can and is actively hostile to the entire enterprise.
There are many problems with that second paragraph, from the concept that the government may compel individuals to support private organizations, to what should be, but aren't in this case, scare quotes around "fair share". According to whom?
That's bad enough, but par for an Op-Ed section so at war with evidence and reason, not surprising.
It gets worse.
No, NYT. Wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong. Let me help:
Just as with Citizens United, which part of "no" do you not get?
The reason I am reluctant is that it seems, particularly lately, that the NYT either cannot comprehend constitutional government, or it can and is actively hostile to the entire enterprise.
A case the Supreme Court will hear on Monday morning threatens to undermine a four-decade-old ruling that upheld a key source of funding for public-sector unions, the last major bastion of unionized workers in America.
In the 1977 decision Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the justices ruled that public unions may charge all employees — members and nonmembers alike — for the costs of collective bargaining related to their employment. For nonmembers, these are known as “fair-share fees.” But nonmembers may not be compelled to pay for the union’s political or ideological activities.
There are many problems with that second paragraph, from the concept that the government may compel individuals to support private organizations, to what should be, but aren't in this case, scare quotes around "fair share". According to whom?
That's bad enough, but par for an Op-Ed section so at war with evidence and reason, not surprising.
It gets worse.
The Abood ruling was a sensible compromise between the state’s interest in labor peace and productivity and the individual worker’s interest in his or her freedom of speech and association.
No, NYT. Wrong, wrong, a thousand times wrong. Let me help:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech …
Just as with Citizens United, which part of "no" do you not get?
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Richard Dawkins Shills for Christianity!
Well, "shills" is maybe a little too strong, but still, that's a headline I never thought I'd be able to write. From Breitbart:
In a text that is coursing about on social media, professional God-slayer Richard Dawkins begrudgingly admitted that Christianity may actually be our best defense against aberrant forms of religion that threaten the world.
“There are no Christians, as far as I know, blowing up buildings,” Dawkins said. “I am not aware of any Christian suicide bombers. I am not aware of any major Christian denomination that believes the penalty for apostasy is death.”
In a rare moment of candor, Dawkins reluctantly accepted that the teachings of Jesus Christ do not lead to a world of terror, whereas followers of radical Islam perpetrate the very atrocities that he laments.
Because of this realization, Dawkins wondered aloud whether Christianity might indeed offer an antidote to protect western civilization against jihad.The world's most vociferous and rabid atheist, the man who calls those who don't "believe in" Evolution "ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked ...)," the person who's spent decades railing against religion of any form, suddenly wonders if maybe Christianity might have a use after all? Wow! My jaw dropped open so fast it dislocated - ouch!
Of course his logic is a bit like my tongue-in-cheek Religion is Like the Pox post that I wrote over ten years ago, but I'm glad he finally sees the light.
One for the Ages
Last night, as we were getting ready for our arrival, the Paris-CDG Automated Terminal Information Service produced this:
Aviation communication is very narrowly scripted, which makes this nice touch stand out even more.
In case you care, here is the translation: ACARS Information Bravo, time 2115Z, transmitted to aircraft 915FD on 11 Jan 16 at 21:24Z. Expect Instrument Landing System approaches to runways 27R and 26L (i.e., landing to the west on the outboard runways), departures 27L and 26R (the inboard runways), Standard Instrument Departures 1A, 1B and 1Z. The runway is wet. Transition level (changing from standard to local altimeter on descent) is 6,000 feet on standard. Make sure to hold short of the departure runway after clearing the landing runway. ATC has recently decided to reduce radio congestion by no longer reading the frequencies of Tower and Departure control on handoff.
The weather: winds out of the west at 17 kts, visibility greater than 10 kilometers, scattered cloud at 1600 feet, broken cloud at 2000 feet. Temperature 7C, dewpoint 4C, local altimeter setting 991 hectopascals.
And yes, aviation chaotically mixes metric and English units.
Aviation communication is very narrowly scripted, which makes this nice touch stand out even more.
In case you care, here is the translation: ACARS Information Bravo, time 2115Z, transmitted to aircraft 915FD on 11 Jan 16 at 21:24Z. Expect Instrument Landing System approaches to runways 27R and 26L (i.e., landing to the west on the outboard runways), departures 27L and 26R (the inboard runways), Standard Instrument Departures 1A, 1B and 1Z. The runway is wet. Transition level (changing from standard to local altimeter on descent) is 6,000 feet on standard. Make sure to hold short of the departure runway after clearing the landing runway. ATC has recently decided to reduce radio congestion by no longer reading the frequencies of Tower and Departure control on handoff.
The weather: winds out of the west at 17 kts, visibility greater than 10 kilometers, scattered cloud at 1600 feet, broken cloud at 2000 feet. Temperature 7C, dewpoint 4C, local altimeter setting 991 hectopascals.
And yes, aviation chaotically mixes metric and English units.
Property Wrongs
The NYT Op-Ed section runs a series called The Stone, "a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless." I have rubbished previous articles in the Stone, for failing to understand the structure of certain problems, and another mistaking self reference for paradox.
The most recent offering deepens the pile.
In This Land Is Your Land. Or Is It? Prof. McBrayer tries to demonstrate that the whole concept of private property is — what's the in term these days? Oh, right — problematic. At some level, of course, private property is problematic. It is, after all a human concept,* and one would be hard pressed to find any human concept that isn't problematic in some regard.
Unfortunately, Prof McBrayer goons up basic concepts so badly as to have hit the rocks long before getting anywhere worthwhile.
Whereupon the good professor presents the paramount example of legal but unjust private property: slaves. When the 13th Amendment passed, a whole category of private property was eliminated with the stroke of a pen. So, following the easy, hence overused, philosophical chain of reasoning, he poses another example to show how our thinking isn't on firm ground. We all presume to own our cellphones (or any other item we call "our own", like, say, guns), because we paid for them with our own money. Clearly, the government could, just as with slavery, outlaw phones, or, if the NYT, Obama and Harry were to have their way, guns.
So far, so good. However, here is where the train of thought starts to leave the rails.
First, he flattens a straw man: "An idea common among conservatives — and surely an assumption of the protesters in Oregon — is that the past fully explains private property."
I've never heard of anyone thinking that. Now, that could be my ignorance rearing once again its ugly, unshaven head, but tossing the word "fully" in there almost guarantees the impending sacrifice of another straw man. Almost nothing, ever, fully explains anything. Which is why I'll bet that a search for said conservatives would yield a null result.
There's another sure sign of a strawman being put to the torch: the effortless refutation of the presumed assertion:
Well, duh.
But wait, there's more.
Clearly, Prof McBrayer is completely unclear on one of the two concepts fundamental to his argument. Money is not property in the sense that cellphones, guns, or land are. Money is a universal medium of exchange; money is dimensionless and timeless, all its units are identical, and, anymore, is rarely exchanged in its physical manifestation. To be quite blunt, the concept of tracking numbers back through history is so ridiculous as to make quite certain that the requirements to become a philosophy professor (or the editor the NYT Op-Ed page) do not include any particular grounding in reality.
Sure, one can steal a quantity of cash, or, through identity theft, units of money. But it is the means which taints the quantity gained, not the units themselves.
It is with the other fundamental concept that he demonstrates the need for extensive idea safety training, because it is here where he metaphorically blows his other logical foot off at the hip:
If memory serves, this step, or rather, stumble, is an example of reductio ad absurdum: mode of argumentation that seeks to establish a contention by deriving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because its rejection would be untenable.
Unfortunately, Prof MCBrayer is one reductio shy of fully absurd. Yes, the Northern Paiute Tribe once populated Eastern Oregon. But why them, and not another tribe? Indeed, it is as certain as it can be that there was yet another group before them, and the Paiute's themselves obtained, and held, Eastern Oregon by force. Indeed, all ownership of all land is irrevocably tainted. No, wait, he has hurdled that reductio:
No, professor, that isn't at all hard to see: it makes slaves of us all — remember that unjust property you mentioned above? — and leads directly to parades of horribles so bloody and awful that one would think that any philosophising that ends up here is its own indictment.
Either the ranchers, and all the rest of us, aren't entitled to our titles, or at some point the past is, indeed, past, and ownership is established by a significantly lengthy string of legal transfers.
"… if history explains private property, how does anyone come to be entitled to previously unowned stuff in the first place?"
Really, Scarlett, who gives a damn?
And, I beg to differ, it isn't a hard question to answer. The first person to be able to exert sufficient force to exclude all other claimants was the one entitled to own the stuff in the first place. This is where that asterisk above comes in. Prof McBrayer is missing another clue. Private property is not just a human concept. Almost all animals at some level aim to exert a sole claim to some resource or another, whether it is territory, the female of the species, or a recent kill. And they do it the same way private property is acquired and its ownership maintained: through the threat of force, or if that fails, the real thing.
So, contra Prof McBrayer, we don't need some holy grail of a theory of private property that makes sense. We already have one: reality.
Obviously, such a red in tooth and claw explanation for private property is an exercise in self-justification. It doesn't begin to touch on how in many countries, Brazil, for instance, the initial establishment of ownership led to concentrating so much land in so few hands as to create a situation that should at least disturb the morally sentient, even while causing despair for finding a solution.
†In addition to dragging whatever fell to hand in pursuit of pre-conceived conclusion, Prof McBrayer is also extraordinarily economical with the facts.
The most recent offering deepens the pile.
In This Land Is Your Land. Or Is It? Prof. McBrayer tries to demonstrate that the whole concept of private property is — what's the in term these days? Oh, right — problematic. At some level, of course, private property is problematic. It is, after all a human concept,* and one would be hard pressed to find any human concept that isn't problematic in some regard.
Unfortunately, Prof McBrayer goons up basic concepts so badly as to have hit the rocks long before getting anywhere worthwhile.
Since last weekend, armed men have been in control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Incensed by the sentencing of local ranchers to jail time for burning public lands†, the protesters want the federal government out of the land business. Their stated goal is to return the refuge to the locals so that “people can reclaim their resources.” But this raises an important question: Why does justice demand that the land and resources belong to the locals instead of the commons? What makes property private?
This is not a question germane only to a standoff in Oregon. It’s a question that applies to each and every one of us. If you’re reading this, you probably own a smartphone. You think you justly own your phone and that it’s wrong for the government or anyone else to take it from you. But why is your phone your private property? You might say that you are entitled to it because the law says that you are entitled to it. But that’s a bad answer.
Whereupon the good professor presents the paramount example of legal but unjust private property: slaves. When the 13th Amendment passed, a whole category of private property was eliminated with the stroke of a pen. So, following the easy, hence overused, philosophical chain of reasoning, he poses another example to show how our thinking isn't on firm ground. We all presume to own our cellphones (or any other item we call "our own", like, say, guns), because we paid for them with our own money. Clearly, the government could, just as with slavery, outlaw phones, or, if the NYT, Obama and Harry were to have their way, guns.
So far, so good. However, here is where the train of thought starts to leave the rails.
First, he flattens a straw man: "An idea common among conservatives — and surely an assumption of the protesters in Oregon — is that the past fully explains private property."
I've never heard of anyone thinking that. Now, that could be my ignorance rearing once again its ugly, unshaven head, but tossing the word "fully" in there almost guarantees the impending sacrifice of another straw man. Almost nothing, ever, fully explains anything. Which is why I'll bet that a search for said conservatives would yield a null result.
There's another sure sign of a strawman being put to the torch: the effortless refutation of the presumed assertion:
But is that true? Suppose I steal your car and sell it to my friend Dugald. Is Dugald entitled to the car because he paid for it? You probably want to say “no.” Buying something doesn’t give you entitlement unless the seller was entitled to the thing first. So a transfer of property from one person to another is rendered illegitimate if the seller got the property through unjust means.
Well, duh.
But wait, there's more.
But now think back to your smartphone. What are the chances that the money you used to buy your phone can be traced backward through your employer, your employer’s customers, and so on back through history without passing through the hands of a serious injustice? Slim to none.
Clearly, Prof McBrayer is completely unclear on one of the two concepts fundamental to his argument. Money is not property in the sense that cellphones, guns, or land are. Money is a universal medium of exchange; money is dimensionless and timeless, all its units are identical, and, anymore, is rarely exchanged in its physical manifestation. To be quite blunt, the concept of tracking numbers back through history is so ridiculous as to make quite certain that the requirements to become a philosophy professor (or the editor the NYT Op-Ed page) do not include any particular grounding in reality.
Sure, one can steal a quantity of cash, or, through identity theft, units of money. But it is the means which taints the quantity gained, not the units themselves.
It is with the other fundamental concept that he demonstrates the need for extensive idea safety training, because it is here where he metaphorically blows his other logical foot off at the hip:
And, as the situation in Oregon makes clear, deciphering the boundaries of private property for real estate is even more troubled. Eastern Oregon was once populated by the Northern Paiute tribe. Like the history of your smartphone, the shift of property from the Paiutes to the white settlers is surely marred with various injustices. And if injustices render a transfer of private property illegitimate, then the protesters in Oregon have little to complain about.
If memory serves, this step, or rather, stumble, is an example of reductio ad absurdum: mode of argumentation that seeks to establish a contention by deriving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because its rejection would be untenable.
Unfortunately, Prof MCBrayer is one reductio shy of fully absurd. Yes, the Northern Paiute Tribe once populated Eastern Oregon. But why them, and not another tribe? Indeed, it is as certain as it can be that there was yet another group before them, and the Paiute's themselves obtained, and held, Eastern Oregon by force. Indeed, all ownership of all land is irrevocably tainted. No, wait, he has hurdled that reductio:
And if our property isn’t legitimately private, it’s hard to see how it’s unjust for the government or anyone else to take it from us.
No, professor, that isn't at all hard to see: it makes slaves of us all — remember that unjust property you mentioned above? — and leads directly to parades of horribles so bloody and awful that one would think that any philosophising that ends up here is its own indictment.
Either the ranchers, and all the rest of us, aren't entitled to our titles, or at some point the past is, indeed, past, and ownership is established by a significantly lengthy string of legal transfers.
"… if history explains private property, how does anyone come to be entitled to previously unowned stuff in the first place?"
Really, Scarlett, who gives a damn?
And, I beg to differ, it isn't a hard question to answer. The first person to be able to exert sufficient force to exclude all other claimants was the one entitled to own the stuff in the first place. This is where that asterisk above comes in. Prof McBrayer is missing another clue. Private property is not just a human concept. Almost all animals at some level aim to exert a sole claim to some resource or another, whether it is territory, the female of the species, or a recent kill. And they do it the same way private property is acquired and its ownership maintained: through the threat of force, or if that fails, the real thing.
So, contra Prof McBrayer, we don't need some holy grail of a theory of private property that makes sense. We already have one: reality.
Obviously, such a red in tooth and claw explanation for private property is an exercise in self-justification. It doesn't begin to touch on how in many countries, Brazil, for instance, the initial establishment of ownership led to concentrating so much land in so few hands as to create a situation that should at least disturb the morally sentient, even while causing despair for finding a solution.
†
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)