tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71992179121013241962024-03-05T19:29:57.472-05:00xyquarxBillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-51146164416635420032012-04-14T21:52:00.004-04:002012-10-24T17:56:59.060-04:00I'm Leaving BlogspotI've decided to take my blogging to a new site.<br />
<br />
The problem is, Google overtook blogspot, and they've mismanaged it.<br />
<br />
Before, when you posted something on your blogspot blog, you could set it to send you an email every time someone comments. They changed it so that you had to have some sort of Google identity (I don't remember the details, all I knew was I didn't want one), and to see if there were any comments on your blog, you had to periodically check your identity.<br />
<br />
That's unacceptable. I just want to check my email.<br />
<br />
I have taken my business to Wordpress, which does contact me through email if anyone responds to my blog. You can see my new blog at <a href="http://xyquarx.wordpress.com/">http://xyquarx.wordpress.com</a>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-34442138897973534082012-01-01T20:58:00.000-05:002012-01-01T21:00:38.104-05:00Fireworks!<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Fireworks!</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"></span></span></div><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><br />When I was a teenager, most of my peers were interested in smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. Neither of those activities appealed to me, but I was fascinated by fireworks.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I was living in Germany, and there, fireworks are legal to sell only twice a year -- for a couple of weeks before New Years, and during Fasching. Fasching is sort of negative Lent. Since people are going to deprive themselves of pleasure during Lent, they have a period before Lent, Fasching, during which they throw wild parties, which sometimes involve fireworks.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Many stores would sell fireworks. Legally, you had to be 18 to buy them, but most stores would bend the rules and sell them to minors.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> My parents, especially my mom, didn't want me to have them. She was afraid I would get hurt.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> So if you were a kid, you had to A: save up your money before the season during which fireworks were available, B: buy them, and C: hide them from your parents.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Year after year I did this.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I remember, when I was in 5th grade, I did have one explode in my hand. There were 'screamers', which made a lot of noise but were safe to hold in your hand. But they said on them, "Don't hold in your hand", in German. I bought another firework that looked like a screamer, but it was a different color. It said "Don't hold in your hand", but since screamers were safe to hold in your hand, I ignored this. It screamed for awhile, then got quiet. A little flame came out and I wondered what it would do next. Then "BANG" -- I got my answer. It was very small. The explosion was painful, but did not harm my hand. I never told mom about that, of course.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Once I tried to make a hand grenade. I put a very big firecracker in an empty soft drink can. At the time, German soft drink cans were steel, not aluminum. I took it into the forest near where we lived and threw it in into a gully where the shrapnel wouldn't hurt anybody. It was quite a disappointment -- the explosion just blew off the end of the can, the rest of the can was intact -- no shrapnel was formed.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I remember one type of firework I had, it didn't have a conventional fuse. One end was sulfurous, like a match head, and you struck it on a match box and then it would flame like a blow torch for awhile, then the firework would explode. Once I was in the woods and I lit one of those and threw it down a steep hill in a forest. It landed in a tree, 40 feet up. The first 30 feet of the tree didn't have any branches, so there was no hope of climbing the tree. More and more smoke came from the firework and I realized the blow torch was setting the tree on fire. I was worried it was going to start a forest fire and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Then the explosion came, which blew the fire out.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> We generally didn't have forest fires in Germany, the place is too wet.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> In Germany, I went to an international school, and our school had an American Boy Scout troop. We would go on camp outs with other American troops, virtually all of whom were military kids. Military kids rarely went off base, I don't think most of them had German money in their pockets. So they didn't know they could get fireworks from the Germans. I went around at a camp out selling fireworks to Americans at a hefty profit.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I remember a prospective customer didn't like it that the fireworks didn't have a conventional fuse. I showed him the troop number on the shoulder of my uniform and promised him that if he couldn't get it to light, he could come to my troop and find me and he'd get his money back.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The next day I was walking along and I saw him coming the other way and he had one eye bandaged. He said "The firework blew a hole in a tent.". I was freaking out, thinking he'd injured himself with the firework I'd sold him, but he realized what I was thinking and told me the injury was because of something else.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> What had happened is that the guys in his troop were very skeptical that the firework would work, and someone had been sitting in a tent, slowly striking it against a matchbox, then it went into blowtorch mode, so he threw it to the other side of the tent. While still in blowtorch mode, it burned a hole in the tent.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> When I was 15, I got word that my family would be moving to Australia in a month. I met some grownups who had lived in Australia, but I couldn't trust them to ask them what the firework situation was there. They would think I was too young to have them and fink on me to my mom.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I had saved up some money from a job I'd had selling refreshments at movies that were shown at my high school, and I spent basically all of it on fireworks. My dad's company was going to ship everything we had to Australia, even the food in the pantry.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I hid the fireworks in a lot of different places. I took a lamp apart and stashed some there. I put some in the pockets of my mom & dad's military uniforms in the attic. We had some American cake mix in the pantry, so I made a cake, filled the box with fireworks, and glued it back shut.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I hid the fireworks in about 8 different places, and wrote a list of those places. When we moved to Australia, it took about 8 weeks for all the stuff to get there by boat, and during that time, I lost the list.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> When the stuff arrived, I collected my fireworks as best I could.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> In Australia, soft drink cans were aluminum like in the US, so I repeated the hand grenade experiment. Again, no shrapnel, but the bottom of the can was blown out into a half-spherical shape.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> A year or two after we arrived in Australia, my mom opened up a box of powdered sugar to find fireworks inside. I'd forgotten about those. By then I was old enough that she was cool with me having them, so she just gave them to me.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> A few years later I was in college in California, and wanted to take my fireworks there. Returning from a visit home to Australia, I smuggled some in my suitcase. I knew they did not pose a danger, because I had been experimenting with fireworks for years and knew that if they went off, they wouldn't even blow the suitcase open.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Years after that, I saw a sign at an airport saying the penalty for carrying explosives on an airplane was 5 years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Sobering.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-8441675076703202482011-11-06T14:44:00.001-05:002013-05-12T16:02:03.333-04:00Book Report: The Big Short by Michael Lewis<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Bg7MdGXOuHTE7-D_cMDJtY7p2ugtGNFx-lQunIlWERDKP_wioEIahn9jvtNjyvV6lkpYfoOaZdCBaqdzj7ljMdvRoEFVIzvYeDB25R4F8-_Vg9Ok78PR8YJURvCcR9pawMl2yeNKQuk/s1600/TheBigShort.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671977458713601730" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Bg7MdGXOuHTE7-D_cMDJtY7p2ugtGNFx-lQunIlWERDKP_wioEIahn9jvtNjyvV6lkpYfoOaZdCBaqdzj7ljMdvRoEFVIzvYeDB25R4F8-_Vg9Ok78PR8YJURvCcR9pawMl2yeNKQuk/s400/TheBigShort.png" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 288px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 193px;" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">This book provides an inside look at the mortgage meltdown, through the eyes of investors.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The mortgage meltdown is something of huge importance and relevance to our times, in that it is responsible for the current recession. It is also not very well understood at all by the lay public.</span></span> <br />
<ul style="font-family: times new roman;">
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Many see the problem as "greed", whatever that means.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Leftists see the meltdown (which they didn't predict) as an inevitable consequence (like everything else they don't like in the world) of the Evils of Capitalism.</span> </li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Democrats were quick to blame it on "deregulation". For awhile they were at a loss to say the removal of <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">which</span> regulation, in particular, was responsible. Eventually some of them said that the 1999 repeal of some provisions of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall">Glass-Steagall Act</a> was to blame, and the rest of them echoed this sentiment without the foggiest idea of what Glass-Steagall actually was. I have yet to hear a coherent account of how Glass-Steagall would have prevented any bad mortgage loans from being made.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Predictably, Republicans countered the Democrats, blaming the meltdown on <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">too much</span>, rather than too little, government, somehow laying it at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government agencies set up to facilitate home loans.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Many people say they saw the meltdown coming, and most of them are full of baloney. In The Big Short, the author, Michael Lewis, focuses on the few investors who can credibly make this claim, those who not only saw the meltdown coming, but anticipated it well enough to profit from it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Three groups are followed, a lone investor in Silicon Valley, a pair of rich hippies in Berkeley who liked making long-odds bets, and some very cynical New York investors who just smelled a rat in the mortgage market from the very beginning.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Michael Burry, the lone investor in Silicon Valley, was a smart fellow with Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's Syndrome is just a formal way of saying someone is extremely geeky. Such people have great difficulty with interpersonal relationships, but are quite bright and often focus on very narrow areas of interest, becoming experts in their fields. Burry had gotten a medical degree but lost interest, particularly because he didn't like interacting with his patients. He became interested in finance and demonstrated a precocious talent for picking stocks. He eventually found himself running an investment fund worth many millions of dollars of other people's money, and his fund greatly outperformed the rest of the stock market.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> At some point he became interested in mortgage bonds, and unlike most other investors, read the fine print. He really didn't like what he saw, some of these home loans being made were so bad that there was a fortune to be made betting against them. He figured out how to make such bets. Unfortunately, it was hard to predict exactly when the loans would go bad and the bets against them would pay off, and he didn't do a very good job of selling his strategy to his investors, most of whom lost faith in him and deserted him. In the end, he and those who stuck with him made a killing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Jamie Mai and Charley Ledley were a pair of 30 years olds who started investing with $110,000 and a Charles Schwab account in 2003, working from a shed in the back of a friend's house in Berkeley, California. They had an interest in long-odds bets, and some of their early bets paid off, leaving them with many millions of dollars. At some point they became interested in credit default swaps, where, for a small sum of money, you can bet to win a large amount of money if a bond defaults. They decided to bet against mortgage bonds and the rest is history.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Steve Eisman was a New York investor whose bias about the world was that most other investors were crooks for phonies. When he started dealing with the mortgage market, it seemed to confirm his bias, and he ran with it. Unlike Burry, who sat secluded in his office in California reading the fine print of contracts, Eisman went out of his way to seek out all the people he felt were blowing it and confront them with his world view, to confirm whether he or the world was going insane.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The book follows these three characters as they travel through the investment world, and we see all the signs that the subprime mortgage bond market was insane, which looks so obvious in hindsight, while so few people actual paid attention to these signs at the time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> My own take on the mortgage meltdown, which I wrote nearly two years ago, is </span><a href="http://xyquarx.blogspot.com/2010/02/real-estate-evils-of-owner-occupied.html" style="font-family: times new roman;">here</a><span style="font-family: times new roman;">. One thing that was really apparent to me before the meltdown was that no one I talked to who was buying real estate seemed to take seriously the idea that there was any possibility whatsoever that home values could sink. This shows up in The Big Short, when Steve Eisman encountered someone who worked for the rating agencies. Eisman had calculated that if real estate prices just stopped rising, there would be massive defaults. Eisman asked the rater if he had run calculations on the prospects for the bonds if real estate values were to decline. The rater replied that the software he used refused to take input predicting a decline in real estate values. But the book doesn't stress this as much as I do, in fact the book does not hold the home buyers accountable at all -- it is mostly focused on the relevant people on Wall Street.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I've heard a lot of talk about the rating agencies being "corrupt" (the media is obsessed with labeling financial activity as criminal or borderline so) in that the agencies were paid by the banks whose bonds they were rating, which undermined their objectivity, but one problem discussed in the book that I hadn't previously been hearing about was with the quality of the people at the rating agencies. The salaries to be had working for a rating agency paled in comparison with what one could make as an investment banker. As one investor put it, "If you couldn't get a job working at an investment bank, you could always go work for the rating agencies". On top of that, the lowest-ranking people in the rating agencies were the ones rating mortgage bonds. As a result, the investors who would put together deals of mortgage loans were much smarter than the people rating the resulting bonds, and learned to game the system and fool the rating agencies into giving the bonds much better ratings than they deserved.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> One thing the book talks about is how, after the cataclysm, people on both ends of the deals gone bad wound up rich. The people who had shorted the bond market were obviously rich, and justly so, but the major players who lost their banks billions of dollars by betting on subprime loans wound up out of work, but sitting on tens of millions of dollars they made before losing their jobs in disgrace. I'm not sure what can be done to counter this -- if I were a bank, I would want to provide a disincentive for my employees to lose me billions of dollars, but I'm not sure how I could hold them accountable. The worst thing you can do to an employee who hasn't violated a contract or done anything illegal is fire them in disgrace. If you've been paying them tens of millions of dollars a year up to that time, they wind up unemployed, disgraced, and very rich. I can't think of a solution here. It's a big problem, because it seems plausible to me that an investor might see a 10% chance of a financial meltdown in a few years. If he bets against the meltdown, he has a 90% chance of making a large salary over those few years, and if he gets held accountable for the meltdown, he just takes a very luxurious vacation for a few years afterward. Furthermore, if you make bets alone against the system and you're wrong, everyone thinks you're a fool. If you make bets with everybody else and the whole system fails, you don't get held individually accountable, you were just one of many people wiped out by hard times.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The psychologies of the different characters were very different, in interesting ways. Michael Burry, with his Asperger's, was quite content to sit in his office, read the fine print, and calmly conclude that the world had gone insane and bet millions of dollars on that opinion without further ado. Steve Eisman, a more normal character, wasn't going to make huge bets that the world was going insane unless he met the people involved, publicly called them idiots to their faces, and confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were insane, or at least very stupid. It all makes for fascinating and dramatic reading.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> There are some things that are not well explained by this book. For example, the worst mortgages sold were these adjustable-rate mortgages that started out with a small monthly payment being required for a couple of years, then would suddenly reset to much larger monthly payment that the homeowner had no hope of being able to pay. What was going through the heads of the homeowners who signed those mortgages? Did they know about the reset? Were they fooled? And if they were fooled, what were the mortgage originators thinking when they loaned people money that wouldn't possibly be repaid? As it was, these originators were able, for awhile, to fool the homeowners into signing the mortgages and fool the banks into buying the loans, but it must have gone through their heads that this was not a sustainable state of affairs. This isn't mentioned in the book, but I remember the CEO of Countrywide, one of the worst mortgage originators, saying, when confronted with the fact that he had generated a huge number of bad loans, "If these loans were so bad, why were the investors buying them?".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> There was a lot of money lost on credit default swaps. A credit default swap is where you buy insurance in case a bond will default. This is fine, but all insurance is based on basically making a bet that something bad will happen -- if the bad thing happens, the insured "wins", and gets money to help him recover from his misfortune, and the insurer loses, paying that money. Well, a lot of people were buying credit default swaps on bonds they didn't own, so it wasn't really "insurance" any more, it was just a bet. A lot of money was obviously lost when homeowners couldn't pay back the money they borrowed, but there was a huge shadow market of credit default swaps, where banks lost a lot of money just betting that the home loans were good, multiplying those losses.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> One issue that comes up a lot in the book is that Michael Burry was one of very few people who was actually reading the fine print of these contracts. This highlights one problem our society has -- many people are entering into agreements without reading the contracts, just signing long documents with the belief that since "everybody else is doing it too", so if the deal goes bad, no matter how stupid signing the contract was, the government will come to everyone's rescue. Signing a mortgage is an extremely important contract, probably second only to marriage contracts in importance as the most important contract one signs in one's whole life. If the contract is too long or too boring to read, one should hire a lawyer to at least make sure one understands what one is signing.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> There is a push in the current administration to have regulation simplifying mortgage contracts, in such a way that, for instance, people will plainly see what the maximum mortgage payment they will be expected to make will be. In an ideal world, people would just refuse to sign contracts they don't understand and thus force the banks to write simple contracts in plain English, but apparently we don't live in such an ideal world so such regulation is probably a good idea.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> One change that I think would be constructive is if the banking system changed the way it handled credit default swaps. I think if I were in the business of selling credit default swaps, I would want to make sure that for every swap I sold, the buyer of the swap actually owned the bond being insured -- so I would know that I was selling to people looking for insurance for what they perceived to be an unlikely event, not making bets against people who knew more than I did. I don't think any government action is necessary to bring this change about, just the sellers of credit default swaps need to wise up.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I think, and this is my own take, it's not stated in the book, that too many people in too many places in the investment system were assuming that, even if their own piece of the system were a weak link, the rest of the system was sound and would make up for that weak link. Thus, the loan originators figured that if the investors bought the loans, they must be good loans. The investors assumed that the ratings were sound, though they should have known better. Everyone assumed that the value of the house would always be at least as much as the outstanding value of the loan, so if the homeowner didn't pay, you could foreclose and get your money back.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> A lot of reform has already happened, independent of the government. The bond market now realizes that the ratings are fallible. Everyone now realizes that real estate values can sink. Banks will not recklessly sell credit default swaps on mortgage loans like they used to.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> In the afterword, Michael Lewis discusses a lot of conversations he had with politicians and government officials after he published the book. Most of them really hadn't figured out what on Earth had gone wrong, and were trying to get him to explain it to them. After a lot of such conversations, an official who actually was pretty knowledgeable called him and they had a conversation. At the end of the conversation, the official asked him "I understand you've discussed this with a lot of politicians and officials. Was anybody particularly insightful who I might call up and interview?". Lewis explained to him that </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">none</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> of those callers were explaining anything to </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">him</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;">, they were all asking </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">him</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> to explain the situation to </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">them</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;">. The official laughed, thanked him for his time, and ended the call.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-28063197030190904332011-10-10T22:13:00.000-04:002011-10-10T22:18:13.607-04:00Occupy Wall Street<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I went down to the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations a couple of times. I had read hostile reviews from the right-wing press, and the more mainstream press seemed to be saying that the demonstrators generally weren't sure what they wanted.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> There were basically no demonstrators at the New York Stock Exchange. They were at Liberty Square, about 6 blocks away. I would estimate there were a couple of thousand of them. Many sleeping bags lay on the ground, so I guess a lot of the people had come a long way.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The demonstration didn't seem to have obtained appropriate permits, so they weren't allowed to use audio amplification. The speaker would yell a sentence, then people 30 feet away would repeat it, then people 30 feet further on would repeat it again. It didn't seem to me to be a good way to come up with nuanced insights into macroeconomic theory sufficient to get us out of the recession and bring the jobs back. The second time I went there they had a video screen where the speaker's words would be typed.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> At least 85% of the demonstrators were under 25. Generally, the young people lacked concrete suggestions about specific policy changes, and the few ideas they had were half baked. I went around, generally asking people "What are you demonstrating for? What do you want?". Several people obviously were unprepared for anybody to ask them that and felt a bit put on the spot. People with signs, however, generally had a lot to say.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> One kid had a sign saying "Jail guilty bankers". I asked him what laws he felt the bankers had broken. He said that Obama had said that no laws were broken by Wall Street in the mortgage meltdown, and the kid wasn't satisfied with that, he wanted an investigation. I remembered seeing some congressional hearings on TV a couple of years ago, I think investigations did occur. I told the kid I felt a lot of home buyers applying for homes had illegally exaggerated their incomes, pretending to be able to afford houses they couldn't, but that obviously wasn't what he was looking for. I excused myself and moved on.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I tried to seek out people who looked old enough to buy a beer without getting carded and talk to them. They tended to be hippies / radicals, and they tended to interpret the demonstration as being in support of whatever the individual hippie or radical in question wanted.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Of course, people would ask me who I was. I told them I was a computer programmer for Wall Street, that I voted for Obama and intended to vote for him again next year, and give him money. When I engaged with people, I generally took the point of view that the best course of action was to support the Democratic party.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> During the 2 hours I was there, there was no friction between the cops and the demonstrators.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I did talk for a long time with one demonstrator, Robert, who was about 50 and had been there for most of the demonstration. He had been arrested while blocking the Brooklyn Bridge. He said the demonstrators had been walking toward the bridge, but the sidewalk crossing it was too narrow for the large crowd, and many of them spilled over onto the roadway. The police warned them that if they continued they would be arrested. Robert wanted to commit an act of civil disobedience and deliberately proceeded forward. The demonstrators reached the middle of the bridge before the police descended on them with nets and arrested several hundred of them. Robert said the first hundred all heard the warning that they would be arrested, but the several hundred following were too far back to know. He felt it was a setup, because when the police finally did arrest them they were ready with nets and vans to cart them away in.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Afterward I thought about it, and I'm not sure it was a setup. With a large crowd consisting of young people and old radical hippies gathering, demonstrating for an unclear purpose, it would have been prudent and appropriate for the cops to have arrest vans in the wings somewhere, and when the demonstrators started crossing the bridge roadway, the vans would have been called, but it would have taken time for them to reach the spot, by which time the demonstrators would have reached the center of the bridge.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Robert said the fine was $100, which he didn't consider to be anything unreasonable.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I talked to one guy who was promoting a "socialist constitution". He said the existing constitution was "based on slavery". I asked him if he wanted to overthrow the existing constitution. He said yes.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I didn't talk to any union people. It was largely random chance I didn't run into any, but I wasn't seeking them out. My own biggest misgiving about supporting the Democratic Party is that they are trying to make it easier to form unions.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> They had a 2 page newspaper, "The Occupied Wall Street Journal" that I bought. Robert had told me that some politicians had been volunteering to talk at the demonstration and the organizers had rebuffed them. Unions, however, were welcome aboard, the newspaper contained endorsements from a bunch of them.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The term "99%" was bandied about a lot in the newspaper. Occupy Wall Street is claiming to represent 99% of the population.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I don't think "Occupy Wall Street" will amount to much. There isn't a clear consensus, agenda or party platform. It's mostly a bunch of kids who don't know anything, who are poorly organized and unrealistic. The older radicals aren't offering anything new, just leftist solutions that this society's been rejecting for a long time.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-53630786288696574282011-10-03T22:51:00.002-04:002011-10-03T22:58:57.778-04:00My High School<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">This is a description of the high school I went to in Australia, highlighting the differences between American and Australian education styles.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I went to FIS, an international school in Europe that was mostly American, and where the prevailing culture was American, through 10th grade, after which I went to Australia and finished up at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School, one of the best (if not the best) high schools in Australia.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> There were no girls at Melbourne Grammar. You wore a uniform (suit and tie), and called the teacher "sir".</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The Australian school was mostly along British traditional lines. In Europe I had teachers who were mostly American and English, so I became familiar with the differences between the two styles.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> One very big difference between the Australian teachers and American ones is that American teachers feel that a student's grade is a confidential matter, between teacher and student. Generally, in American schools, other students are shielded from a knowledge of how well a student is doing in all classes except gym, where everybody's performance is completely visible to their peers. As a result, American students typically put 10 times more effort into gym than they do into their academic subjects.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> From what people who had been at the school a long time told me, Melbourne Grammar had made a cultural shift around 1950, +/- 10 years. Prior to that, the school had been ruled by jocks. I don't know how the school was run prior to that, and I had no friends from other schools, so I have no information about how other Australian schools were run.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Typically, when there were more students studying a subject than could fit into one class, there were naturally several classes taught. But the students were separated into classes by ability. So if there were three classes, there was the top set containing the brightest students, the middle set, and the bottom set, containing the slowest, and everybody knew which was which. On top of that, at the end of every term, a few students were switched between sets depending upon how well they had performed - talk about visibility of performance! I had been an honors student in math and science prior to arriving in Australia, but the school had seen Americans before, and generally they had struggled academically. So to be safe, they put me in bottom set everything. After one term, I was transferred two classes up to top set. It was immediately obvious to me that the top set students were treated with more respect by the faculty.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> In American schools, it is really clear - studious students occupy the bottom rung of the social ladder, which is totally dominated by jocks. At Melbourne Grammar, it was a completely different story. Being a smart student carried with it a lot of prestige and recognition from the faculty and from the other students.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Another big difference was democracy. American schools tend to be very democratic. Any student who holds any office or authority got that way by being elected by the other students. At Melbourne Grammar that wasn't the case at all. The administration had the attitude that we were not adults, we were not ready to make these decisions for ourselves, and they would make the important decisions. There were some students who were "prefects", a word that doesn't exist in the American vocabulary. They were students appointed to authority by the administration. They wore different ties, different shirts, and presided over house meetings.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Your "house" corresponded to your dorm. About 20% of the students were boarders and their houses were the dorms they lived in. Everybody else had sort of a virtual house, where we would have weekly meetings. Intramural sports teams were all organized along house lines, each house had its own tie in the school uniform, and a student had a lifelong loyalty to his house. Any student could tell instantly what house any other student belonged to by looking at his tie. So having the prefects preside over house meetings was not an insignificant perk.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Being able to choose prefects gave the administration tremendous leverage over student society. The administration could choose students who they considered the most mature by adult values to be role models for other students. This is very different from American school, where students who would never have been very well liked by adults would often occupy the high rungs of the student social hierarchy.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> In Australia, the grades went kindergarten, 1-6th grade, then I-VIth form, where VIth form corresponded to American 12th grade. Students in classes were totally segregated by age. Where in American high school you would often have students of radically different ages in the same class, in Australia there was no mixing of ages in anything but gym, and when there was mixing, older students had authority over the younger.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The school had it down to a science. Students progressed steadily through the years in maturity, and a VIth former was considered a nearly-finished product, very much at the top of the ladder.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> One thing the school did to promote intellectualism among its students was the "VIth-form society". At the beginning of VIth form, a list was circulated to all of VIth form naming about 40 of the smartest students in the class, who were invited to attend VIth form society. The society consisted of a dinner every month, with wine, followed by a thought-provoking speaker, who would talk to the society and then have a question and answer session. It was a lot of fun.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The selection of students was not by any blind academic point system, it was a deliberate and arbitrary choice by the administration of which students they wanted to give recognition to, and being seen on that list was quite a distinction. Students who weren't invited were welcome to join, only a few did, and I remember one brilliant student who refused the invitation. I never understood what his problem was.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Grading of exams was done differently than in the US. In the US, 90% is usually an A, 80% is a B, 70% a C, and 60% a D. In Australia, 80% was an A, 70% was a B, 60% was a C, and 50% was D. This meant that an Australian exam would typically contain a lot more questions that really required major insight and imagination on the students part, since the teacher could afford to ask 10% questions that nobody could get and still have a lot of A's.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Teachers would re-normalize their grades. You would get a raw score, and then the teacher would look at the curve and adjust all the scores to fit a fairly standard curve. So if the students generally did pretty well on an exam and you got a raw 92%, the teacher might adjust it to 85% to reflect that it was really just a low A.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Mid-term grades were given as letters in the Greek alphabet instead of the Roman alphabet. I'm not sure what this achieved.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The school was flirting with co-education. It was highly, highly controversial with the parents. The alumni association (known as the "Old Boys") was extremely conservative and against the school changing in any way. But experimentation was starting.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> I remember one thing that happened. We were studying Macbeth as part of our curriculum, and we had a filming of Roman Polanksy's Macbeth in our auditorium. They arranged to have some girls from Lauriston, a local girl's school, over to watch it with us. They reserved the front few rows for the girls, had all the boys sit down, then the bus bringing the girls arrived, and they filed in a sat down, and we all watched the movie. Then the girls got up and filed out. The boys all got up and were trying to get out of the auditorium, but the teachers were frantically blocking the doors trying to keep us in. After several minutes we finally did find a way out, to discover that the girls' bus had gotten a flat tire. So the girls wound up taking streetcars home, giving us a chance to actually talk to them. I think the faculty really didn't want that to happen, because they were afraid some unfortunate incident might happen and the whole flirtation with co-education would be pronounced a failure. The teachers, not have been brought up in a co-educational environment, were very nervous about the whole concept, even if they were for it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> My school in Europe had had an honors program where we went through 2 American math classes in one year - in 9th grade I covered geometry and algebra II in a single year, in a single class. This left me at a level where, having just finished half of 10th grade and moving forward a half year to Vth form by crossing the equator, I was just at the right level for the Australian curriculum.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> Students in Australia tended to be segregated into technical students vs students in the humanities. If a student, like myself, choose to be a technical tracker, he took, in Vth and VIth form, a load of 2 math classes, physics, and chemistry, plus English, with one additional elective in Vth form. However, the pace of the math classes was much slower, so that we covered about as much material in a year in 2 math classes as we had covered in the same time in a single class in Europe, but in much more depth, where in Europe I had been complaining that the material was going by so fast we were often often on the verge of being reduced to memorizing equations we didn't really understand.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The government had a set of 3 hour exams given at the end of senior year, called Higher School Certificate, or HSC, exams. In most classes, 100% of your grade was determined by this exam. I took the American SAT's and achievement tests as well, but they were trivial compared with the Australian tests. There was no calculus in the American tests, and they were all multiple choice. The American questions were all very straightforward, while the Australian tests, particularly Pure Math and physics, had a lot of very difficult questions requiring major creativity to answer.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-65874812872558107682011-09-11T17:36:00.000-04:002011-09-11T17:38:21.141-04:00A Question on 9/11<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Ten years ago, less than two dozen angry barbarians killed about 3000 unsuspecting innocent Americans. What I find surprising about this is not that it happened, but that this sort of thing hasn't happened more often.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The Islamic world has a strong "victim of the West" narrative. It is deeply upsetting to them that they are not the dominant culture in the world, and they have fabricated a whole alternate reality that preaches that this is not due to any failings in their own culture, but rather a grave injustice inflicted upon them by the West though underhanded means. It is true that the West, through colonialism both subtle and outright, has been meddling in the Islamic countries, so the "victim" narrative is not entirely unjustified.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> So, in 2001, a bunch of them got fired up and lashed back, killing as many Americans as they could. Surprise, surprise.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> But what about all the other failing cultures in the world? There are many other societies in the world that live in crushing poverty. There must be a lot of rabble-rousers around eager to tell all these people that their problems aren't their own fault, someone else is to blame. And most of these societies have been manhandled by the West at one time or another, so it shouldn't be hard to construe a reasonably credible "victim of the West" narrative in any of those cases and sell it to the masses.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> 9/11 is not an isolated incident. There have been many other attempts to commit mass murder against the West, but to my knowledge, they have all been perpetrated by militant Islam. What about all the other losers of the world? Why aren't they participating in this game?</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-82069904669635609732011-08-28T15:43:00.004-04:002011-09-06T21:55:43.568-04:00Massimo Pigliucci on Evo Psych<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">In the 24 pages of chapter 7 of his book "Making Sense of Evolution", Massimo Pigliucci lays out scientific objections he has with the fairly new (since 1975) field of Evolutionary Psychology. In his book "Nonsense on Stilts", there is a small section where he deals with evo psych, but it is basically just a shorter subset of what is discussed in that chapter.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Massimo has been quoted in a </span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Evolution-Meetup/messages/boards/thread/7129506">Newsweek article</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> as saying that evolutionary psychology is "not good science". I am assuming that it is in these two books where he makes his case for this. The Newsweek article was an appalling piece of journalism -- intellectually dishonest, and resorting to emotional cheap shots. Massimo's chapter, in comparison, is like a breath of fresh air -- he sticks to scientific arguments and refrains from getting personal.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> I am not going to defend everything any evolutionary psychologist ever said. I have not read anything by Tooby and Cosmides, and the criticism I have read of evo psych seems to particularly single out their work. Having only heard the criticism, I don't think much of it, and the things they are quoted as saying fail to strike a chord with me like what I've read from other evo psychs such as David Buss or Steven Pinker.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> </span><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Generally, I am very leery of things said by evolutionary psychologists that are not backed up with psychological experimentation. It is very easy to do a lot of armchair speculation and call it "evo psych", making up evolutionary stories that are based on things that have not been verified about our ancestral environment, and substituting modern social stereotypes for actual psychological data. But if someone carefully studies what is known about prehistoric life, comes up with theories based on that, and tests those theories with psychological experimentation, that should be taken pretty seriously.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> We need to make a distinction here between two different concepts: "Evolutionary Psychology", and "Psychological Evolutionary Biology". In evolutionary psychology, we use knowledge about evolution to cast light on psychology. In psychological evolutionary biology, we use knowledge about psychology to cast light on evolutionary biology. As we shall see, Massimo is mostly debunking psychological evolutionary biology, not evolutionary psychology.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> In his book, Massimo is constantly comparing evo psych with the study of the evolution of non-human organisms by evolutionary biologists. It should be noted that for evo psych to be useful to humanity, it has to be at least about as good as mainstream psychology. The study of evolutionary biology of non-human organisms is the wrong standard to which to compare it. If </span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >both</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> mainstream psychology and evo psych are less scientific than evolutionary biology of non-human species (as is almost certainly the case), that does not in any way establish that mankind would not benefit greatly from studying evo psych.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> One objection Massimo makes is that while evolutionary biologists often study species which have many other species closely related to them, comparison and experimentation between these species being very illuminating, </span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >homo sapiens</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> has no close living relatives, the most recent common ancestor of ourselves and the great apes having lived some 6 million years ago. This is obviously totally irrelevant to the issue of any comparison between evo psych and mainstream psychology, since it is a problem </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >both</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> of them face.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Throughout his discussion, Massimo is really obsessed with distinguishing whether observed traits of species are adaptations or caused by other evolutionary forces, such as genetic drift. This is a very central issue to an evolutionary biologist, but it's not very interesting to a psychologist. A psychologist is primarily interested in whether a trait exists, not how it came into being. The difference between evolutionary psychology and psychological evolutionary biology is key here. If a species-wide genetic psychological trait is identified and verified to exist, that is progress, regardless of how the trait emerged.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Massimo says that evo psychs sometimes talk about high level, specific behavioral traits when the evidence may not be sufficient to support such conclusions. That may be true sometimes, but you can accuse any field of intellectual inquiry, including mainstream psychology, with excessive speculation beyond what the evidence would support. This may be a relevant objection to bring up with respect to specific conclusions, but it does not mean that evo psych cannot be done well.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Massimo goes into a lot of detail about the fact that humans are very difficult to study because ethical considerations preclude a lot of experimental methods routinely used on other species. Again, this is a problem shared by </span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >both</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> evo psych and mainstream psychology, and it says </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" >absolutely nothing</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> about how one is better or worse than the other.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Massimo claims little is known about life during the Pleistocene. He says "little", not "nothing", so it's not clear how much he means by that. I maintain we know enough to make progress, and I deal with this issue in my piece </span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://xyquarx.blogspot.com/2011/03/manufacturing-absence-of-evidence.html">Manufacturing an Absence of Evidence</a><span style="font-family:times new roman;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Done right, evo psych has a lot to offer. Evolutionary psychologists have at their disposal every technique available to a mainstream psychologist, plus they have the evolutionary perspective, much as an anatomist is better off for being aware of the fact that the organisms being studied were being shaped by evolution, and that most of the structures being observed therefore contributed to survival and / or reproduction in some way. Demanding that psychologists ignore the theory of evolution makes about as much sense as demanding that anatomists ignore it as well.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-21763327165953135412011-08-27T19:22:00.003-04:002011-08-27T19:26:07.171-04:00Book Report: Evil Genes by Barbara Oakley<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">I met Barbara Oakley when she gave a talk in New York about the book she wrote after this one, "Pathological Altruism". The talk was poorly received because she ran afoul of liberal orthodoxy, but I thought she made some good points and the audience was just being dense. "Pathological Altruism" was not available yet on kindle, but her other book, "Evil Genes", was.</span>
<br />
<br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> In "Evil Genes", she focuses on the "successfully sinister", people who are profoundly lacking in morals who nonetheless not only stay out of jail, but excel in society. One case she talks about is her morally dysfunctional older sister, who shamelessly used and abused her family at every opportunity.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;">
<br />
<br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> On the one hand, how objective can we expect anyone to be about their own sister? On the other hand, it makes for entertaining reading. I read Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works", a much more scientific piece, but found I remembered nothing about it. The author's liberal use of anecdotes to describe the dysfunctional people she focuses on bring the issues to life.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;">
<br />
<br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> She discusses mental illness, especially borderline personality disorder and psychopathy, and how they lead to morally depraved behavior. She uses several examples of tyrants including Serbian president Milosevic, Chairman Mao, Adolf Hitler, and the CEO of Enron to illustrate her points.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;">
<br />
<br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> At this point, science is at the level where many specific genes associated with mental illness have been located, and Oakley frequently mentions them. I wonder how long it will be before we will have located genes associated with certain types of intelligence, or with altruism? Also, we still have at least fragments of the bodies of many of the tyrants she discusses, it would be interesting to analyze their genomes and see if her analysis of their mental illnesses is very accurate.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;">
<br />
<br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> Oakley says there are two types of people: those who have encountered the successfully sinister and those who haven't. I count myself in the first category -- I had a close friend a long time ago, who I thought was a wonderful person until I got up close, then she started acting really underhanded and making threats. I got as far away as I could as fast as I could, but she rose to become a successful CEO.</span></span> Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-47103136130675341692011-07-27T22:12:00.003-04:002011-07-27T23:00:36.717-04:00Ideology and Science<div style="text-align: center;font-family:times new roman;"><big><big><big><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ideology and Science Don't Mix</span></big></big></big><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">In some Scientific American articles I've read over the years, I felt there was considerable liberal bias, but they published a particularly offensive article this month: </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><a style="font-family: times new roman;" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=in-defense-of-wishful-thinking-2011-07-05">In Defense of Wishful Thinking</a></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">, where the writer admits that he lets his liberal ideological bias influence his scientific thinking, and he makes no apologies for it.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">It's disgraceful that anyone saying such a thing should be allowed to publish in such a prestigious science magazine. I see </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >any</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;"> ideological bias in science as a very bad thing.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: times new roman;"><big><big style="font-weight: bold;">Ideological Bias in Global Warming Science</big></big><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >I have observed that many Libertarians are global warming skeptics, and I have heard liberals speculate about why this is. Some speculate that they have been bought off by the oil companies, and in fact I have heard my Republican brother say that he feels that most of the resistance from the American political right is due to the influence of the fossil fuels lobby.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >I think the fossil fuels lobby is obviously doing its level best to oppose any action to fight global warming, but an important point is that Libertarians don't have to be bought. Their ideology, and their political faith, leads them to believe that anthropogenic global warming theory cannot be scientifically true.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Libertarian ideology holds that most of what our government does is unnecessary, that the level of taxation we suffer from is orders of magnitude more than necessary or desirable, but further, taxation and regulation are not only harmful and unnecessary, but </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >morally wrong</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >When posed with the question "What if severe taxation or government regulation really were, in some instance, necessary?", a Libertarian will answer "That is never the case.". And, when the questioner starts airing scenarios, the Libertarian will come up with explanations, in each case, how either A: "That would never happen." or B: "The situation could be dealt with without regulation.".</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >As I am not an extreme Libertarian, I see a lot of these explanations as rationalizations, and a lot of the Libertarian world is an industry for manufacturing such rationalizations.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >But behind the rationalizations is a </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >faith</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >, a </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >desire</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" > to believe certain things, a </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >desire</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" > to reach certain conclusions. If someone gets swept up in the Libertarian movement, they eventually convince themselves that the principle that massive regulation is never a good thing is one of the central characteristics of the world, like the conservation of energy. They get an almost theistic belief that it is a fundamental quality that a creator endowed the universe with.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >If global warming is really a threat, it is virtually impossible to think of a realistic solution to it that can be achieved without </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >massive</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" > government intervention. Given the fervent faith of a hard core Libertarian, it just seems </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >impossible</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" > to them that the creator would put us in such a situation. It's as unthinkable as agreeing we should eat our young. Given that the science is hard to follow and most of the scientists involved are liberals who tend to feel that regulation is a good thing in and of itself, it is easy for Libertarians to mistrust the scientists and reject the science.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >It is a very bad thing when faith gets in the way of science.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Now, my liberal friends (which means nearly all of my friends) will think this is an illustration of why Libertarians are bad, and the moral of this story is we should not listen to Libertarians, but that is not my point. My point is that it is bad when people let their ideology blind them to the facts.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-family: times new roman;"><big style="font-weight: bold;"><big>A Scenario Where Liberal Bias Could Be Harmful</big></big><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Let's create a hypothetical situation where liberal faith might get in the way.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Scientists could do tests on people, like putting them in a MRI scanner and watching their brains while they see videos of suffering, and see how much they are repulsed or turned on, to determine whether they were empathetic, sadistic, or indifferent. And suppose, with such tests on people of all ages from babies to adults, scientists determined that a dominant gene, HYNC3, caused people to be severely sadistic. Only a small proportion of the American population carried it, but it was very common in the prison population.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;"> While very few Americans carried HYNC3, a very poor country on our border, Pralaxia, had a population twice as large as that of the US where 75% of the population carried it. Pralaxia was in a shambles, a horrid, brutal society, and many people there were illegally immigrating to the US.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;"> Conservatives would look at this state of affairs and say that we should go to great lengths to stop illegal immigration from Pralaxia. How would you expect liberals to respond?</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I think liberals would deny the science, claiming that the MRI scans were not as meaningful as the scientists claimed them to be, that correlation does not establish causality, they would go on and on. Why would they manufacture all these objections? Because the whole state of affairs would violate several articles of liberal faith:</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><ul style="font-family: times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Genes are not a very important factor in determining human behavior.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Ethnic discrimination is always morally wrong. Nothing good ever comes of it. It is never justified.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">We are a "Nation of Immigrants". It is always wrong for anyone descended from immigrants to say we should bar any other immigrant.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">There is no such thing as a bad social / ethnic group, other than perhaps white American males.</span></li></ul><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;"> Given that Pralaxia was much larger than the US, a failure to stop the immigration would quickly put us into a situation where 40% of our population was severely sadistic and probably reduce us to the same sorry state as Pralaxia. We are talking about the total destruction of our country. I think liberals would still deny the science, and resist measures to stem the tide every inch of the way.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">Idealistic people are often likable and inspiring. But ideology should be </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >extremely</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> suspect among scientists.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;font-family:times new roman;"><big><big>What About a <span style="font-style: italic;">Real</span> Situation????</big></big><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">A liberal might say "Well, that's just a hypothetical, fictitious situation. There are no </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >real</span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;"> situations where liberal bias is causing harmful policy.".</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">I chose to give a hypothetical situation because I feel the liberal world, like the Libertarian world, is an industry of self-justifying rationalizations, and if I were to talk about any real liberal policy that I see as harmful, it would be ardently defended by liberals who have long ago generated rationalizations for it.</span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-11507551460898813302011-07-24T21:58:00.006-04:002011-07-26T22:12:15.479-04:00Standardized Tests<div style="text-align: center;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">College Tuition Costs and Standardized Tests</span></span><br /></span></div><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br />One of the biggest problems American society faces is that college tuition has become so high that many people just can't afford college, or if they go, they graduate massively in debt.<br /><br />There are standardized tests, the SAT and ACT, that are widely used for entrance to college. Colleges put a lot of weight on these, because grades are non-standard and not very meaningful. A good grade could just mean that one had an easy teacher or dumb classmates. The presence of standardized testing for college admissions has been very beneficial, it allows outstanding students at unexceptional schools to get recognition.</span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br />We have a standardized tests for graduate school admissions, such as the GRE. However, the service that administers the GRE refuses to make their test scores available to private companies hiring college graduates. Given that grades are an unreliable indicator, this means that all the companies have to go by when considering applicants is the reputation of the school and the student's GPA.</span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br />What determines the reputation of a college? The quality of the undergraduate program has little to do with it. The quantity of research being done has a lot more, and it is common for professors at elite schools to neglect their teaching so they can focus on their research. The university administration doesn't get very upset about it, because it is the research and not the quality of instruction that determines the reputation of the school.</span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br />There is also a big problem of grade inflation. Many teachers give nearly all of their students good grades, because that discourages students from complaining about poor instruction quality. Rarely do administrators do anything about it.</span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br />There is only so much fame to go around. The average hiring manager can only have heard of a certain number of nationally famous schools. The vast majority of people are going to have to go to relatively unknown schools. And it would be nice if someone could go to a cheaper, less famous school, and still be recognized as an outstanding performer. Widely available, standardized tests taken at the end of one's college education would be a great way to achieve this.</span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br />Another benefit of widely available, standardized tests taken at the end of one's college education is that one could compare the test scores of students graduating from schools with the SAT scores they got while applying, and see which schools had the most beneficial impact on test scores.</span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br />One criticism of testing is that schools will "teach to the test". This certainly happens, but the solution to it is simple: construct an intelligently designed test such that the best strategy for achieving a high score is a mastery of the subject matter. I have heard, mostly from people who are against testing, that the "No Child Left Behind" tests are particularly bad. The solution is to improve the tests, not do away with them.</span> <span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" ><br /><br />A big problem liberals have with standardized tests is that different social groups perform differently on them. </span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >If these tests were mismeasuring talent due to unfair cultural bias, I would expect there to be groups who are high performing in society who perform poorly on the tests and groups that are low performing in society who are performing well on the tests. This is not the case -- generally, performance of groups on standardized test correlates very highly with the per capita intellectual performance of individuals in those groups in society, even before those tests existed. This is evidence that the tests are not unfairly biased.</span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" > Given that society stands to benefit so much from the institution of more widespread standardized testing, I think the burden of proof should be on those who maintain that the tests are unfairly biased.</span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-88685065659623086042011-06-15T22:58:00.003-04:002011-07-25T17:21:20.834-04:00Book Wagging<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">I get into a lot of intellectual discussions, on facebook, at meetups. I see a discussion as a collaborative effort to shed light on reality or at least entertain each other. And some tactics are more constructive than others.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Reading books is a good activity, provided you're actually learning anything from them. Obviously, people who read a lot are in a position to contribute more positively to a debate.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">If a discussion is going along and you're able to articulate ideas you've gathered from a book to illuminate the discussion, that's great. But there's another tactic which I call "book wagging".</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Book wagging is when someone declares someone else in the conversation wrong, but refuses to explain why, claiming it's all in a book they've read. For one thing, it kills the conversation since it cannot now proceed until the "refuted" party goes and reads the book.</span></span> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><br /><blockquote style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Cindy: I think we need to raise taxes.<br />Carol: That's been completely proven wrong, you need to read "Atlas Shrugged".<br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Carol now has the upper hand. She has established herself as better read than Cindy, and declared a victory in the debate. Bear in mind "Atlas Shrugged" is about 1000 pages long. The conversation is now dead until Cindy goes and reads all 1000 pages. If she finds that the book was not relevant to the case she was making, or that the arguments contained in it were not very persuasive, the discussion has been over for weeks, Carol is by then long gone and not accountable.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">A couple of times people have wagged books at me during the discussion of topics near and dear to me, so much so that I dug up the book and read it, only to find that it had </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i><b>no</b></i><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> legitimate bearing on the topic being discussed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">If Carol really </span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><i><b>had</b></i><span style="font-family:times new roman;"> read "Atlas Shrugged" (not really for certain -- people often wag books they haven't actually read) and it really did contain insights that would shed some light on the discussion, Carol probably would have been able to articulate some of them. The fact that she declined to do this and just threw a book at Cindy is a sign that this wasn't the case.<br /><br />Sometimes a topic is too complex to be dealt with in a certain medium, such as an informal verbal discussion or a facebook discussion, and then it is a valid time to say "I can't explain it to you here, but it's in this book". But much more frequently, books are wagged as a disingenuous tactic of the intellectually bankrupt.<br /></span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-5175298618622580162011-04-25T19:39:00.002-04:002011-04-25T19:43:50.191-04:00The Conservatives' Deaf Ear on Global Warming<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Many liberals are having trouble understanding why it is conservatives are putting up so much resistance to the concept of global warming. A little history is in order.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Many people become environmentalists because they are technophobes. They hate technology, specifically because they don't understand it. You can't be a very constructive environmentalist unless you have a solid grasp of science. Most of what such people have to say is just plain stupid.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Other people become environmentalists because they are economic leftists. They claim to be concerned about the birds and trees, but really they just want any excuse they can find to give grief to corporations.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Global Warming isn't the first time we've been told that we would have to drastically overhaul our energy infrastructure. There was an oil shock in 1973 and after that we spent most of the 1970's hearing about how we were running out of oil. I remember reading, in the mid-70's, that the world would be out of oil by about 2005, and out of natural gas by about 1995. So for anyone old enough to remember those times, the current alarm about AGW doesn't sound all that new.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Another voice related to the environmental movement is the alternative energy movement. This group has been, ever since the early '70's, promoting severely immature technologies without any regard for whether they were economically feasible.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">According to energy prices quoted by Scientific American in 2009, the cost of switching our entire electrical energy production to silicon solar cells would have been, at that time, more money, per year, than all personal federal income taxes combined. Alternative energy enthusiasts talk as if this isn't even a concern.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The alternative energy enthusiasts were promoting solar back in the 1970's, when it was nowhere NEAR as cost-effective as it was by 2009. I remember a professor of mine in college had a political cartoon on his door saying that the only reason that solar energy was deemed economically infeasible in 1979 was because of a conspiracy of the big oil companies.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The consequence of all this is that industrialists have been subjected, for at least as long as anyone below retirement age has been working, to a steady stream of mixed hostility, stupidity, and gratuitous alarmism coming from the environmental and alternative energy movements. It is thus natural for them to perceive these groups to be not only enemies, but also profoundly lacking in scientific and economic competence.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">AGW denialism in this country is an unfolding disaster, and something must be done about it, but an understanding of the problem is not complete without an awareness of how the political left bears a great deal of the responsibility for their current credibility problem with the American right.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-8772824175497786982011-04-02T16:34:00.008-04:002011-04-06T18:19:43.373-04:00Book Report: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made us Human<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8zbAqAA3jHOt34mmV9QJI_9xnEw6w_trbYYzKsahxBRUweQu2fDzgvzQ5r2kXuWA7jww0ls78sEFLkEdznbQoAY5CdIoYcSA2R51eozn9YZ7Mkm4lJcS93rZikmq1twkxz5SAKB81ets/s1600/catchingfire.png"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 257px; height: 350px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8zbAqAA3jHOt34mmV9QJI_9xnEw6w_trbYYzKsahxBRUweQu2fDzgvzQ5r2kXuWA7jww0ls78sEFLkEdznbQoAY5CdIoYcSA2R51eozn9YZ7Mkm4lJcS93rZikmq1twkxz5SAKB81ets/s400/catchingfire.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591094494940832914" border="0" /></a><br /><div align="left" style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">This book is about the human use of fire during prehistory, and how it shaped us.<br /></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:130%;">My own speculation (as opposed to what is actually in the book) is in <i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">brown italics</span></i>.</span><br /></div> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:130%;" ><br /></span> <div align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:130%;" ><b>Modern Raw Food Faddists</b></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span> </div> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br />Some modern people choose to attempt a raw food diet, believing that this is how prehistoric people ate, and since we are thus theoretically evolved for it, a raw diet is more "natural" and will lead to greater health.<br />It should be noted that modern people attempting such a diet have a number of advantages over a prehistoric raw foodist. They have access to very sharp steel knives, blenders, and cuisinarts suitable for preparing food and breaking it down. They have access to supermarkets full of processed, easy to digest food. Furthermore, many people claiming to live on a "raw diet" actually heat some of their food slightly (to about 120 degrees Fahrenheit) which helps break it down a bit.<br />Nonetheless, people on raw diets observe the following effects<br /></span> <ul><li><span style="font-size:130%;">They have trouble maintaining body weight. In our times, this is often seen as a good thing, but in prehistory, it would have been quite a bad thing. It would have been an especially bad thing for a pregnant woman.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">There is a drastic reduction in fertility:</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Half the women quit menstruating, becoming temporarily sterile. It is probable that those who manage to keep menstruating are experiencing a substantial drop in fertility.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Men become less virile.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Some raw foodists see this drop in fertility as a good thing, feeling that menstruation and ejaculation are ways the body gets rid of "toxins". Less frequent menstruation and ejaculation are thus evidence of less "toxins" in the diet. <i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">Look at the bright side of this: Such people are voluntarily removing themselves from the gene pool!</span></i></span></li></ul></ul><span style="font-size:130%;"> All modern primitive peoples had fire when discovered. <i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">I had heard that Tasmanian aborigines didn't have fire, but investigation showed they did, they just didn't know how to start it. If a tribe lost their fire, they borrowed some from a neighboring tribe.</span></i><br />The conclusion from all this is that a prehistoric <i>homo sapiens</i> tribe that lost its fire and couldn't reacquire it would be unable to maintain their fertility very well, would be unable to maintain their health well enough for the physically active prehistoric lifestyle, and would be unable to hold their own in warfare with neighboring tribes. Such a tribe would be doomed.<br /><br /></span> <div align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">How Long Have We Been Cooking?</span></b><br /></span> </div> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br />There are a few very ancient fire pits that look like humans started them, but these are extremely few and far between -- hearths are generally nowhere near as well-preserved as fossilized bones.<br />We do know a lot about the physiology of prehistoric people, however. Notable are three big changes in physiology between apes and <i>homo sapiens</i>:<br /></span> <ul><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Our guts are smaller.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Our jaws are considerably smaller. It should be noted that non-human primates often spend hours each day chewing their food.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">We don't have opposable toes. We can't climb trees anywhere near as well as our ape cousins. Apes usually sleep in trees. Sleeping on the ground in a jungle or forest is quite dangerous, as you are an easy target for predators. If we had fire, we could keep predators at a safe distance.</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:130%;"> These changes were already substantial by the time <i>homo erectus</i> emerged -- about one and a half million years ago. So we would have had to be cooking our fire for a long time before that in order for these drastic changes in physiology to have had time to evolve.<br /><br /></span> <div align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">How Did We Tame Fire?</span></b><br /></span> </div> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span> <span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);font-size:130%;" ><i>I've wondered a lot about this. This was the main thing I wanted to learn from this book, and the author doesn't gives it as much attention as I would have liked.<br /><br />Taming fire is difficult. You have to figure out that wood and leaves burn and that rocks, dirt and water don't. You have to figure out that dead wood and leaves burn better than green wood and leaves. You have to figure out that if you hold a branch that is burning at the end with the end pointing down, the fire spreads to the rest of the branch, while if you hold it upright, it doesn't. And you have to not start a forest or bush fire or inflict life-threatening burns on yourself while you figure all this out.<br /></i></span><ul><li><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);font-size:130%;" ><i>One theory is that a fire might be caused by a lightning strike, and then people would get the fire from that. This just doesn't fly. A human would be lucky to see a single fire from a lightning strike in their lifetime. You couldn't learn how to tame fire well enough to keep it going from that one encounter in your life.</i></span></li><li><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);font-size:130%;" ><i>Another theory is that people might get fire from a forest or bush fire. Again, this just doesn't seem workable. This is a rare occasion, and an emergency to boot. If you encounter a forest or bush fire, you are unlikely to survive if your response is anything other than to run at full speed in the opposite direction.</i></span></li></ul><span style="font-size:130%;">Clearly, to tame fire, we would have had to have regular, non life-threatening access to it over a long period of time. The author's answer is quite convincing: There is a type of rock that is a mixture of iron and sulfur known as pyrite, or "fool's gold". It is not extremely rare, and could be quite in abundance in some places. Banging such rocks together produces really good sparks. This could have been quite entertaining, and if done enough, could lead, over a long time, to learning how to tame fire. Eventually we would learn that food, especially meat, tastes better and is easier to digest if cooked.</span><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);font-size:130%;" > (When I was in the Boy Scouts, we were taught that one legitimate way to cook a steak was "caveman style", where you just throw it on the burning coals. I never actually tried this myself, though). </span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><br /></span> <div align="center"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:130%;" ><b>How Did Fire Affect Us?</b></span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span> </div> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br />Digesting raw food takes a lot of energy. Cooking food makes digesting easier frees up a lot of energy for other uses, such as larger brains.<br /><i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">Cooking could also help drive the evolution of larger brains. Keeping a fire going and not being injured by it is not easy, especially for a hominid with</span></i><i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);"> brains</span></i><i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);"> much smaller than ours. It was high tech for the time.</span></i><i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);"> Hominids with larger brains would have been more able to pull it off.</span></i><i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);"> As has been said, as we evolved more dependency upon fire, losing it would have been a major threat to a tribe's survival.<br /></span></i>The author talks about human pair bonding being primarily oriented toward division of labor. A hunter could go out and cover a much larger radius if he could be confident a cooked meal was waiting for him when he got home.<br />He argues that a human man-wife team was more oriented toward division of labor and having one party be able to stay at the camp and cook while the other hunted, than reproduction. He cites, as evidence, a modern primitive tribe <i><b><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">(one </span></b><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">tribe</span><b><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">)</span></b></i> where the wives sleep around with their husbands' knowledge. The husbands don't like this, but put up with it. <i><span style="color: rgb(153, 102, 51);">I really had trouble buying this, and I think it is more easily explained by bad anthropology by whoever studied that <b>one</b> tribe than anything else. He also didn't elaborate on how willing these husbands who had been blatantly cheated on were to make sacrifices for the well-being of the children of such unions.</span></i></span> </div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-50747024176686163482011-03-30T06:50:00.012-04:002011-03-31T06:38:21.537-04:00The Price on Human Life<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;"></span> Many people feel the price on human life should be infinite. I will examine two statements:<br /> <br /> "No one should EVER die because they can't afford medical care" -- a meme that was traveling around facebook around the time Obamacare went through.<br /> <br /> "Car companies should NEVER compromise safety to save money" -- I hear this one a lot.<br /> <br /> </span> <hr style="font-family: times new roman; height: 4px;font-size:85%;" width="100%"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /> </span> <div style="font-family: times new roman;" align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b>"No one should EVER die because they can't afford medical care"</b><br /> </span></div> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /> Many people feel this is the case.<br /> <br /> About half the people in the US die in hospitals. That's about a million people a year.<br /> <br /> The vast majority of people who die in hospitals could be kept for a few more hours, sometimes weeks, sometimes months, of agonizing pain if, say, we were willing to spend $10 million on each of them. People who die of heart problems could be kept alive, with enough money, for a long time if they were put on the sort of heart / lung machines that are used on people who receive heart transplants. People whose digestive systems are ruined could easily be fed intravenously. Stroke victims whose brains are basically ruined and not sending correct signals to the body could be kept alive by sedating their brains, connecting electrodes to their spinal cord and sending the right signals to keep the body alive.<br /> <br /> About a million Americans die in hospitals a year. A million times 10 million is 10 trillion dollars. US GDP is about $15 trillion dollars. Would that be worth it? Basically, the money is just not there.<br /> <br /> One problem with the US health care system is that most people have insurance, and they want their insurance to pay ANY PRICE for medical care. A basic principal is you have to be willing to walk away from the deal if the price is too high. If you're not willing to do that, which is usually the case with people who have insurance with a fixed co-pay, medical prices rise and rise and rise, much faster than inflation. It's one of the biggest problems our economy faces.<br /> It should be noted that the price of cosmetic surgery, which most insurance doesn't pay for, has not been even keeping up with inflation. When people are spending their own money, unlike when they have "spare no expense" health insurance, they shop around and get better deals.<br /> <br /> </span> <hr style="font-family: times new roman; height: 4px;font-size:85%;" width="100%"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /> </span> <div style="font-family: times new roman;" align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;"><b>"Car companies should NEVER compromise safety to save money"</b><br /> </span></div> <span style="font-size:130%;"><br /> People often seem to feel that if a car company makes such compromises, criminal charges should be pressed against them.<br /> <br /> Let's imagine what a car and roads that make no compromises for safety would be like.<br /> <br /> It would have to, I suppose, be able to keep its passengers safe in a head-on collision with an 18 wheel semi. So it would have to be MASSIVELY armored, at least as heavy as an M-1 Abrams tank. Mileage for tanks is usually measured in gallons per mile. So say it gets half a mile per gallon.<br /> It would cost something like a half a million dollars, more than a typical house. To buy one, you would need to take out a 30 year loan. Since it's going to take so long to buy one, and there's no way the average American can afford to buy another one during that 30 years, it has to be well-built enough to last at least 30 years. Add another $200,000 for that increase in quality. Maybe you'll need to take out a 40 / 50 year loan, so it has to last 40 / 50 years. Add another $100,000 for that further increase in quality. So that's $800,000 for a car.<br /> <br /> For safety, speed limits should be MUCH slower, about 20 miles an hour, in case you run into a building or a mountain or make a head-on collision with another tank like yours, and to make sure you don't accidentally drive over a cliff. If you live 30 miles from work, nowadays, traveling at 60 mph, you will spend an hour a day commuting. Let's assume you never travel except for work. Obviously, you'll travel more that that, but let's make that optimistic assumption.<br /> If you now travel at 20 mph, it will now take you 3 hours every day to commute. During a career starting at 22 years old and ending at retirement at 67 years old, you commute over 11,000 days in your life. Times 2 hours of lost time per day, that's 22,000 hours. One year is 8766 hours, or about 5844 waking hours per year. So that's about 3 years of your waking life wasted by commuting at 20 mph. It's pretty doubtful whether all these safety-improving measures will increase your life expectancy by that much.<br /> <br /> And all that traveling at 2 gallons per mile, with gasoline at AT LEAST $2.50 a gallon, for 22,000 working days times 60 miles, is 60 * 250 * 2.5 is over $37,000 a year spent on gasoline, just for commuting. And if everybody was driving these gas-guzzling cars, it would drive the price of oil up astronomically. Actually, the US would basically be consuming more gasoline than current world production.<br /> And the increase in global warming could cause catastrophic climate change sooner, with huge crop failures, thus massive death by starvation.<br /> One could live closer to work. Since that means you would have less choice of jobs, you would have to work at a crummier job for lower pay. Good luck paying for that $800,000 car and huge amount of money worth of gas.<br /> <br /> </span> <hr style="font-family: times new roman; height: 4px;font-size:85%;" width="100%"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /> </span> <div style="font-family: times new roman;" align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;">Let's face it, the price on human life is finite.<br /> </span></div> <big><span style="font-family:Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><br /> </span></big>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-86858463582923307312011-03-13T20:42:00.013-04:002011-03-15T06:03:59.749-04:00The King<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">This really happened to me. I don't think I ever told anyone about it.<br /><br />It was early spring, 2002. </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">I was living in Silicon Valley, </span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">had been unemployed for 5 or 6 months, my social life was abysmal, and, desperate to improve my mood, took a trip up to Lake Tahoe, 4 hours away, to go snowboarding.<br /><br />After the snowboarding, I went down to Reno, Nevada, close by. I'd heard you could shoot a machine gun at gunnery ranges in Nevada. I looked one up, went there, and it was true. I fired an Uzi at a paper target with a human form on it. This being 6 months after 9/11, you could get targets with cartoon pictures of Osama Bin Laden on them, but for some reason I didn't.<br /><br />Normally, when you go shooting pistols at a range, if you're shooting a .22, you can shoot all day and it hardly costs anything. If you're shooting a .45, it adds up, you can go through 30-40 bucks worth of ammo in a half hour. Shooting a fully automatic weapon, it turns out, is <i><b>really expensive</b></i>, you can go through $100 worth of ammunition in a few seconds.<br /><br />It was a long, boring drive home by myself. I was pulling out of a gas station, and saw a hitchhiker on the on-ramp. I could really use the company, so I pulled over. I hadn't taken a very good look at him.<br /><br />When he stepped in, he was wearing a lot of denim, looking like sort of a country-boy, long haired, heavy-metal type. We introduced ourselves and discussed our destinations. As I pulled onto the freeway, I noticed he smelled, well, pretty bad.<br /><br />He asked what I do. When he learned I was a computer programmer, he became animated and said he used to work with computers in Washington DC. He mentioned a bunch of acronyms, I think they related to one of the old brands of computers that hardly anyone uses anymore, Honeywell, or someone like that. We really couldn't talk shop.<br /><br />He had been working for a traveling carnival. He said he was "The King" there, in charge of the whole crew responsible for assembling and disassembling the rides.<br /><br />He had left his job as the foreman, and was hitchhiking his way back to the Bay Area, where he had a job as a garbage collector lined up. There was obviously a missing piece of information here -- why would someone abandon a job as "The King" to go be a garbage collector? He said "I couldn't take it any more. I had the power of <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">life and death</span>." and would get all silent and spooky.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">The crew had been mostly drug addicts, it sounded like hard drugs, and the top management of the carnival had no idea about it. "The King" had taken it upon himself, among his responsibilities, to cover up for people who, for example, were incapacitated because they had taken sub-standard drugs. He said the management were totally clean-cut, non-drug people. If they were to learn about all the drugs, they would replace the whole crew. He felt, as "King", he was protector of the crew, and it was among his responsibilities to keep management in the dark.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">We talked some more about other things, talked about me for awhile, we bonded a bit.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;">He started talking about a problem they had. One of the crew was a pedophile. "The King" had reliable evidence, from 3 sources, that this guy was molesting kids at the carnival.</span><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;"> It was clear that if the child molester were reported to the authorities, he would fink out everybody about the drugs and they would all get fired.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman,Times,serif;"><br />He took his job as "King" seriously, and he felt one of his responsibilities was to protect the public, to keep the carnival a safe place for people, including children, to come. He kept stressing that he had reliable information from 3 sources that this guy was a molester.<br /><br />Eventually it came out that he'd hired organized crime to off the pedophile. The mob had then chopped up the body and disposed of the pieces it in 14 dumpsters. The "King" totally couldn't live with it. Completely freaked out, he left the carnival to hitchhike across the country back to the town he'd grown up in to be a garbage collector.<br /><br />Maybe he was just telling me a story. Maybe he'd never been "King", maybe this was all made up. But I totally believed the whole thing.<br /><br />I dropped him off at the place he wanted me to, he told me he could get back home from there on his own. He bade each other a cheerful goodbye and he showed me a tattoo on his chest before he closed the door.<br /><br />Should I have turned him in? It would have been easy -- I knew exactly where he was going, and his first name.<br />If his story was true, he was sorry as hell. He was completely torn up about it (and was probably going to spill his guts about it to more people). He wasn't a dumb guy, but it was really stupid to tell me, someone who didn't owe him squat, about it. That shows how much agony his conscience was putting him through.<br />I don't believe in punishing people who are already sorry. He was never going to do anything like that again. From the looks of it, he was making sure he was never going to be <i>in a position</i> to do anything like that again. I let it go. I wasn't going to take it on myself to pass judgment. I'm sure the child molester's ghost is damning me to hell for that decision, but that's <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">his</span> problem.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-88394716676783852372011-03-05T22:38:00.026-05:002011-08-28T14:57:55.524-04:00Manufacturing an Absence of Evidence<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >When discussing an issue with someone, one does, of course, have to keep in mind what the other person believes. But it is at least as important to keep in mind what they <i><b>want</b></i> to believe. Most of us have reluctantly accepted bitter truths, but secretly we're harboring hopes that these bitter truths are inaccurate.
<br />And then there are a few intrepid individuals who will throw reason to the wind and embrace what they want to believe in spite of overwhelming evidence.
<br />
<br />Many want to believe AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is a hoax. It would be very nice if they are right -- curbing our CO2 emissions, if it is ever done, will result in a drop in the standard of living in every nation in the world. Only a few people see AGW as a good thing: Luddites, technophobes, and starry-eyed alternative energy proponents who haven't done their economics homework. To everybody else, it's bad news.
<br />Some are spearheading a very formidable resistance to doing anything about it, well-funded by the fossil fuels lobby. The evidence for AGW is pretty strong: CO2 levels have been rising significantly (everybody agrees on that), the arctic ice cap is thinner than it used to be, and the most recent decade has been the hottest on record.
<br />The counter-evidence the AGW denialists cite is they point at every snowstorm that occurs as evidence of cooling. This is idiotic and easily deflected: there has been <b>at most</b> 1 degree Fahrenheit of warming so far, and nobody with an IQ over 70 believes that 1 degree of warming will mean there will be no more snowstorms.
<br />Then they get more creative. "Most of the recorded temperature data from the 20th century is flawed!" they say. Their solution for this: "We have to start all over. Ignore the data from the 20th century, start again from scratch, and collect data for at least several decades if not another century.".
<br />Unfortunately, before enough warming (How much? 5 degrees?) occurs to convince these "skeptics", warming will cause the thawing of permafrost and the massive release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere potentially causing a catastrophic, irreversible, runaway warming effect.
<br />They also say "Climate models are really complex -- those climate scientists don't really know what they're talking about!". Again, the solution is "Let's wait until it's too late.".
<br />Note the pattern here: they aren't really producing evidence, they're trying to dismiss the overwhelming evidence that is there. That's what I call "manufacturing an absence of evidence".
<br />
<br />Liberals are not without guilt here, too. During the '70's and '80's, they were dead against the notion that ANY human behavioral trait, including (and especially), intelligence, was influenced by normal variation in the human genome. (Except for homosexuality, they said. That one, they knew for sure, they said, was <i><b>100% determined at birth!</b></i>). The evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin wrote a whole book, <b>Not in Our Genes</b>, (which I have not read) denying the influence of normal genetics on human behavior, in 1984.
<br />People who did twin studies were vilified as Nazi eugenicists, it was really hard to make any progress for awhile. Eventually, some brave souls put up with all the ad-hominem attacks and did the twin studies, and the evidence came back that nature was a far stronger influence on the human mind than any well-understood factor in nurture. Scientific American did an article on the topic in the '90's. Title: "Eugenics Revisited", satisfying Godwin's law. You know that a debate is getting heated when Scientific American sinks to the same level as Creationists who claim that belief in evolution leads to genocide!
<br />The nature denialists put up a good fight: "Identical twins have an identical experience in the womb!" was one claim. But the observed dissimilarities between fraternal twins refuted that. "Identical twins adopted at birth are both placed by the same adoption agency, so they wind up in similar homes!". Studies were done that tracked the standard of living of the respective homes. Sorry, in spite of these attempts to manufacture an absence of evidence, the verdict was still overwhelmingly nature. The real smoking gun was that unrelated people adopted into the same family aren't much more similar than if they had been raised in different families. Identical twins separated at birth taking IQ tests separately have scores nearly as similar to each other's as one person taking two tests on different days.
<br />In spite of the liberal attempts to manufacture an absence of evidence, the notion that we enter this world as a "blank slate" is dead to any reasonable person.
<br />See my other blog entry which reviewed the book </span><a href="http://xyquarx.blogspot.com/2010/04/book-review-genius-in-all-of-us-by.html"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >The Genius in All of Us</span></a><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >. The author, David Shenk, was trying, even in 2010, to resurrect the "blank slate". He even admitted, in his book, that "The blank slate is dead.", and then spent every other sentence in the book trying to bring it back to life. In his desperate quest to manufacture an absence of evidence, he even tried to pooh-pooh the whole concept of statistical evidence!
<br />
<br />Another area is the lives of primitive humans. A few hundred years ago, primitive people were seen as depraved, brutal "savages" to be either religiously converted or enslaved by their more enlightened brothers.
<br />The political left condemned this exploitation, interference and victimization, and rightly so. But they went too far. Marx had the belief, based on no evidence at all, that during prehistory, humans lived in an idyllic, egalitarian, altruistic society, and it was only the modern class-oriented, market-driven society that had brought man down to a lower, more selfish, state.
<br />In the early 20th century, left-leaning anthropologists like Margaret Mead were so beholden to this vision that they painted the lives of primitives they observed as sexually liberated and wonderful. Later anthropologists observing the same culture found that just the opposite was true.
<br />But as the 20th century wore on, more people spent time with primitives, and it became more and more evident that preliterates were brutal, selfish, and even worse, quite gender-stereotypical, to put it mildly.
<br />The liberals have <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">huge</span> problems with this: they <i><b>hate</b></i> social stereotypes, including gender stereotypes, however true, with a passion. Given that the evidence is overwhelming, their strategy is, again, to manufacture an absence of evidence. "Those tribes don't count because they don't live on the African savanna!", they say. "All modern primitives are uncharacteristic of prehistoric life because they've all been influenced by modern civilization at this point.", they say. Some go so far as to say "We know <b>nothing</b> about the lives of pre-historic people!".
<br />That's ridiculous. We know a lot of things for certain about prehistoric people:
<br />
<br /></span></span><ul><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >They didn't have access to refined sugar.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >They didn't have access to hard liquor. Alcohol available to them, if any, was extremely weak, and probably tasted terrible.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >Life expectancy was a lot shorter than it is now.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >Because human babies are so helpless and burdensome, and life expectancy was short enough that the presence of grandparents couldn't be relied upon, if a female wanted to pass on her genes, she was going to be much more able to do it if she had someone committed to helping her raise the kid.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >A female knew for certain that any baby that emerged from her body was her own child. Infidelity by her husband, or his taking multiple wives, had no possibility of undermining that. </span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">If a male wanted to pass on his genes, he had to avoid being cuckolded. Potential infidelity by his wife was a very serious threat to his passing on his genes.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >Males were, on average, bigger and stronger than females.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >A male had the physical potential to create a lot more offspring than a female could.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >Due to our digestive system being less ample than that of apes (smaller abdomen, smaller and less strong mouth for chewing), and due to what we know from observing modern people who attempt raw diets, a tribe was dependent upon cooking to be healthy and fertile enough to maintain their numbers. If a tribe lost their fire and didn't know how to restart it, they would probably dwindle out within several generations.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >Humans without tools or fire were easy prey for predators, due to their not being able to run very fast, and their lack of claws or formidable mouth and teeth.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >A small tribe that didn't swap mates with other tribes over many generations was subject to severe health problems due to inbreeding.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >The children of incest were most often unhealthy.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >In the tropics, resistance to disease was more important than it was for those from colder climates.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >Sunburn was a more serious problem in the tropics.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >People wanted the best for their children.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >Healthy people had more children.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >If a war occurred between tribes, the tribe that was healthier, more numerous, and whose individuals were smarter and physically stronger was more likely to win.</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style=";font-family:times new roman;" >The average person was smaller than the average person is today.
<br /></span></span></li></ul><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">And those are just<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"> some</span> of the things we know <i><b>for certain</b></i>, it only took me about a half hour to cough those up. If we allow information we have gleaned from observations of modern primitive people, we know a <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">lot</span> more than that.</span><span style="font-size:130%;">
<br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">It should also be noted that liberals were completely comfortable with talking about observations about modern primitive peoples in the days of Margaret Mead when they still thought that such evidence was in their favor. It was only after they learned that the evidence was overwhelmingly against them that they started trying to declare it inadmissible.</span><span style="font-size:130%;">
<br />
<br /></span><span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >One sure sign that you are dealing with someone who is manufacturing an absence of evidence is, when they claim we "can't know" something, if you suggest an experiment that would shed light on the subject, they get angry.
<br />
<br /></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;">There is a basic drive in human nature to believe what we want to believe. When we hear evidence to believe something we don't like, we try to find evidence to support our position. Failing that, the next step is to try to find excuses to dismiss the evidence we don't like. To be an honest intellectual, one must resist this temptation.</span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-20659948367021669032011-03-03T21:22:00.002-05:002011-03-04T07:33:18.774-05:00The Key to Will Power<span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Most of us know what we should do, but don't do it. We should diet, we should exercise.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">One problem I used to have was it was hard to get out of bed in the morning. one thing I used to do when I had flextime was usually show up at work between 11am and noon, and work until 8 or 10pm.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">The consequence of this was that my social life from Monday to Friday was horrible. I basically never did much after work.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Then I got a job where I *HAD* to show up at 9am. I thought I was going to die. But I adjusted, and I found that I could leave work at 6pm with a clean conscience and suddenly, I had a vastly improved social life.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Then I moved to the job I have now where, if I show up before 10;30am, no one is going to complain. Nonetheless, it remained in my interest to be at work around 9am.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Unfortunately, it was hard to translate this long range desire for a healthier social life into the will power to propel me out of bed.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">So I adopted a rule for myself. If I get off the subway in Manhattan before 9am, I get to buy a ham and egg sandwich, which I really like, from a street vendor on my way to work. If I'm later, I have to settle for cereal at work, which I don't like anywhere near as much. Now, when I'm in bed and not feeling like getting up, I think of the sandwich. A tangible reward like that within an hour or so of the desired activity gets me to do it.<br /><br />Once I got off the subway and I was 2 and a half seconds late. I didn't get the sandwich. It would've been a completely hollow victory if I cheated.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:times new roman;">Similarly, I walk up 19 flights of stairs twice a day in the skyscraper I work in. The goal, of course is to be in good shape. Of course, it's a very long-term goal, and sometimes it's very tempting to skip the exercise. So if I make it up the stairs a second time, I reward myself with a large glass of diet sprite. Similarly, that helps get the job done.<br /><br />So I think I've stumbled onto something here. The brain is too impatient to think in terms of long-term goals, so substitute short-term rewards for long-term ones.<br /></span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-9486111597058955542011-02-20T20:48:00.017-05:002011-03-27T05:55:18.136-04:00The Worst First Date I Ever Had<span style=";font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >A couple of years ago, I signed up for the Brainiac Dating site on the internet. It wasn't a particularly great site, but it was free. I didn't do much with it. Eventually they started charging for it. I never paid them anything, but they didn't take down my profile. The result was people could pick me, but I couldn't pick anyone else, which was fine with me.<br /><br />Brainiac Dating isn't like Mensa -- you don't have to pass any test to get in, you just have to think you're smart.<br /><br />A couple of weeks ago, a girl picked me. Let's call her Sandra. She had a lot of pictures up, and they looked fine. She said reasonable things on her profile. She had gone to Johns Hopkins and had two master's degrees, one of them an MBA.<br /><br />I was about to leave town on a snowboarding trip, so I asked her on a date a couple of weeks in advance. I suggested an Ethiopian restaurant that I liked. I don't take all my first dates to Ethiopian food, but if I date someone several times, we usually make it there. I really like the cuisine, but also, it's a good date because most people have never tried it and nearly everybody who does likes it -- so at that point I've introduced them to something they like, which gets things off to a good start. I emailed her a link to the menu.<br /><br />While I was in Aspen, I checked my email. She had looked up the building the restaurant was in on bedbugrgistry.com, and someone had had a bedbug problem two years ago in an apartment several floors above the restaurant. I don't see how you're going to get bedbugs from visiting a restaurant. Maybe if you're sitting in upholstered seats, but this restaurant, like most restaurants, just had wooden chairs.<br /><br />She said "I don't know much about Ethiopian food. I'd like to go to one of these three restaurants", and she named 3 French restaurants.<br /><br />I don't like French food. They smother everything in mushrooms, and I despise mushrooms. It's so pervasive they sometimes put mushrooms in a dish without even mentioning it on the menu. And everything's got thick creams that don't taste particularly good. And nothing's spicy, and I love spicy food.<br /><br />I googled the three restaurants to look at the menus and see if any of them had anything I'd be willing to eat. None of them had a full menu on the internet -- they only listed about 5 dishes each, and they didn't list prices.<br /><br />One of them was right near work. I've been walking past that restaurant for 5 years and never gone in. That's partly because it was French, but I try to keep an open mind. There must've been some other reason, but I didn't remember what it is. Anyway, I picked that restaurant.<br /><br />I checked her profile again, and she had changed it. She complained that most men wanted to take her to ethnic food or cheap hole-in-the-wall places, and she named the three restaurants she preferred. It didn't seem to occur to her that French food is ethnic.<br /><br />When I got back to work, I checked the restaurant. It was exorbitant. She had said how much she liked wine, so I figured she would probably order a bottle, and not of something cheap. I estimated $250 for dinner for the two of us with a bottle of wine. I sent her an email telling her she was too high-maintenance for me and canceled the date.<br /><br />I was surprised to hear back from her. She apologized, and said she had been planning to pay for her half (a likely story -- what's more, that's still $125 out of my pocket for a first date eating food I don't particularly like). She said I could name the restaurant.<br /><br />I had gone to a French restaurant with a friend about a year before, and had enjoyed the place reasonably well. I asked that friend for the name of the restaurant. She couldn't remember where we had gone, but she recommended 3 French places. I looked up her favorite and it was fine. I estimated it would cost $80 for the two of us. The building didn't have any bedbugs reported.<br /><br />I suggested that restaurant to Sandra and it was fine with her.<br /><br />For some reason she sent me an email telling me she frequently went to the opera, the ballet, the symphony, and chamber music. I replied, telling her I didn't go to live music very much, the only band I saw in 2010 was ZZ Top.<br /><br />She had also mentioned she liked museums. I told her that I am a card-carrying, contributing member of the American Museum of Natural History, and hate MOMA and the Guggenheim. She replied that she had never been to AMNH.<br /><br />For some reason, neither of us canceled the date. It was really clear at this point that we were not at all compatible, but she had thrown so many curve balls by this point I was morbidly curious about what she would be like in person. So I continued with this hopeless date, expecting it to have some entertainment value.<br /><br />On Saturday night, I showed up at the restaurant. She was sitting at the bar. She looked reasonably like she did in her pictures.<br /><br />We conversed. Then I found out what her voice was like. It was by far the worst voice of anybody I've ever dated. High pitched and squeaky and garbled, almost difficult to understand. "Speech impediment" doesn't begin to cover it. I wondered if she was deaf and thus hadn't learned to speak properly. She had talked about listening to music, but her tastes were so pretentious that I wouldn't put it past her to go to symphonies she couldn't hear.<br /><br />Further conversation revealed she didn't even live in NYC. She lived 4 hours (and about $100 one-way) away by train in Washington DC. She said she came to New York about once a month and stayed with her sister in Brooklyn.<br /><br />She worked in IT. I'm a computer programmer, so we talked shop. It turned out she knew nothing but Microsoft. I deal with Microsoft a bit, but I'm a Unix/Linux bigot who feels Microsoft is evil.<br /><br />I ordered a glass of wine. I would've preferred a beer, but I knew she wouldn't like that.<br /><br />I'm not a total ignoramus on wine. I don't like red wine, partly because I don't like warm drinks, partly because I don't like the taste, but mostly because it leaves a really bad stain when you spill it. I know that among white wines, you're supposed to like dry wines, but I don't. I like sweet, fruity wines. Those also happen to be cheap, but I would be willing to pay a premium to get them. I also know that, according to the ads, I'm supposed to like Pepsi more than Coke. Screw that -- I will drink either, but given a choice I will drink Coke. What everybody else likes is one thing, what I like is another. So I ordered my favorite wine, which is White Zinfandel (which is also one of the cheapest wines you can get). I'm sure that cost me some points. The restaurant was too snooty to carry it. I run into that a lot. I didn't even ask for Chablis, because restaurants that don't carry White Zin usually don't carry Chablis either. Hardly any place carries Chablis. I settled for Chardonnay.<br /><br />A few years ago, I did a taste test of six wines that were lying around my house. Two Buck Chuck did pretty well, but my very favorite was this really cheap stuff that came in one gallon bottles. I figure I could take a course in wine and learn what I am supposed to like, but liking what I'm supposed to like is <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">so not me</span>. Furthermore, I had nothing to gain from such a class. A cheap taste is a blessing. If I learned to like other, more expensive wines, I would just be harder to please. What good is that?<br /><br />Soon afterward she said she wanted to pay for her tea. I told the bartender to put my drink on the table tab and he was fine with that.<br /><br />Once she had paid, she got up, scooped up her coat, turned to me and said "Bye" and slipped out the door.<br /><br />I am grateful to her for abandoning me before I had spent any money on her.<br /><br />I paid for my wine, left the restaurant, and finished the evening with a nice dinner and a Coors Lite at an Irish pub.</span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-85940259045862537342011-01-17T11:30:00.029-05:002011-01-23T10:55:05.524-05:00Employee-Owned Companies<span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /><div align="justify">I recently went to a lecture where someone suggested that one beneficial change our system can make is to shift from its present form toward employee-owned companies. Thus, the "evil", "greedy", "exploitive" capitalist would be removed from the equation and the company would be run according to the interest of the employees.<br><br />There are no legal barriers to doing this: employee-owned companies do exist, but they're rare.</div><br /><strong><div align="center">Quantity of Capital</div></strong><br /><div align="justify">The first problem with it is: do the employees have enough money to own their companies? The total value of all companies in the US that are traded on the stock market is $14 trillion. Say that's 2/3 of the economy, so extrapolating, the total value of all the companies in the country is $21 trillion. The total number of workers in the US is 154 million. That means that the average worker would have to cough up $136,000 to own their share of the company.<br><br />The average worker does not have that sort of money sitting around. Typically they want to own their homes, and if they do that nearly all of their money is going in that direction. They also want to save for retirement. One could argue that when they retire, they can sell their stake in the company and use that for retirement. I will show why that is a bad idea later.<br><br />Also, should such a company hire someone who is broke, like a young person entering the workforce? How would that be arranged? How would those people get jobs?</div><br /><div align="center"><strong>The Dubious Wisdom of Investing in One's Employer</strong></div><br /><div align="justify">A big problem with the whole idea is that it presents <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">extremely</span> poor risk diversification. An important principle of investing is that you don't want all of your investment in one place, you really don't want more than 20% of your net worth in any one investment. That way, if any one of your investments goes sour, you still maintain 80% of your net worth.<br />From a viewpoint of risk diversification, you are already over invested in your employer just by working there. If your company does badly, especially badly enough to lay you off or go out of business, the consequences for you are catastrophic. If all you own is stock in the company, your stock has depressed, maybe even zero, value at exactly the same time as you lose your income, making it difficult to survive long enough to get a new job, or move to a new job, or retrain for another profession.<br><br />Many companies offer stock options to their employees, and stock-purchase plans, where employees are given the chance to buy company stock at a discount as part of their compensation. It makes sense to do this, because it is in the interest of the company to have its employees' self-interest tied to the firm. The fact that it's a good thing for the company doesn't mean it's the best thing for the employees.<br><br />Many people feel that because they work at a company, they have an intimate knowledge of how well it is performing and how well it will do in the future. This is not accurate. Studies show that employees really don't have an accurate estimation of their companies. All you know firsthand is how well your part of the company is doing. Most of what you hear is one-sided propaganda from management, spun to put the best possible face on everything. It's common for layoffs to be preceded by an announcement to the effect of "We're facing a tough stretch ahead, but no matter what, we won't lay anybody off!". Furthermore, what you hear from your peers in the workplace is skewed. People know that expressing negative opinions about their employer is not a good career move, so you won't get an honest assessment from most of your co-workers. Furthermore, employees who do have insights that the company is going to do badly find other jobs and quit, at which point they are usually dismissed by the remaining employees as malcontents. So employees usually have a very distorted, rosy view of the prospects of their companies. Not a good position for an investor to be in.<br><br />Several times I have worked for companies where company stock has come into my possession through stock options or stock-purchase plans. I have always sold it immediately and invested it in something else, to diversify my position.<br><br />Similarly, using stock in your employer as a retirement investment is a terrible idea. What if the company goes bankrupt two years before you plan to retire? Hope you enjoy the taste of dog food!</div><br /><div align="center"><strong>Quality of Management</strong></div><br /><div align="justify">Another question is: Would the company be well-run? An employee-owned company would be like a union-run company. Unions are usually the mortal enemies of employee accountability and meritocracy.<br><br />When a normal company has a union, there is management independent of the union to represent the interests of the stockholders and customers, to balance out the voice of the union.<br><br />Would an employee-run company ever decide to buy new automation so that they can get more done with fewer employees? That is something that must be done periodically to keep the company efficient and competitive. If business is dwindling, would an employee-owned company lay off employees, or would they just sink deeper and deeper into debt until they go bankrupt altogether?</div><br /><div align="center"><strong>A Balanced Solution: Addressing These Concerns</strong></div><br /><div align="justify">Suppose we moderate the idea to address some of these concerns. Suppose we have part of the company owned by the employees, and let investors other than employees also buy stock so there is enough money altogether to own the company. The management of the company would be chosen by all the investors, not just the employee investors. New employees, if they don't have enough cash to buy their share of the company, can be hired and have part of their savings go to buying its stock. If the employee would rather buy a house, save for retirement, or just spend their money rather than investing or saving it, they would be free to do that. Management would be not only answerable to the employees, but also to the non-employee investors. Such an arrangement would be completely legal under existing laws. It would be very easy to implement. In fact, <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"><strong>it is exactly the arrangement we currently have!</strong></span></div></span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-69759520489270326652011-01-02T14:57:00.014-05:002011-02-21T08:34:05.878-05:00Giving Up on the Bible<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I have given up on my attempt to read the Bible cover to cover. It is such crap, and I keep thinking of all the great books I could be reading, and I'm reading this tripe.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Some parts are vaguely interesting because they are so repulsive. There is a lot of genocide that believers don't like to talk about, particularly in, but not limited to, the book of Joshua. I can't believe Jews and Christians still name their kids “Joshua” anymore. At least Germans don't name their kids “Adolf” nowadays, but most Jews and Christians are so oblivious to what that book actually contains. You'd think if a couple was planning to give their kid a Biblical name, they would pick up a Bible and see what the bastard actually </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >did!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> But no, they have no clue!</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Here's a quote from Moses, telling the Jews what they are to do when they enter Palestine: </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Deut</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> 20:16-18:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-KJV-5444"></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >16But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">breatheth</span>: </span></p><p style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-KJV-5445"></a>17But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Amorites</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, the Canaanites, and the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Perizzites</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Hivites</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, and the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Jebusites</span><span style="font-size:130%;">; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: </span></p><p style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-KJV-5446"></a>18That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So Moses was worried his people might learn something from these foreigners. Great reason to commit genocide, isn't it?</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Most people, both believers and the religiously indifferent, believe that Biblical figures represent noble, wonderful people. This is wrong: many of them, including the really famous ones (not to mention the diety himself), were </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >horrible</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> people!</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">The idea of writing the Bible, of having a tribe keep its history in writing rather than just passing it down verbally (though most of it was written generations after the events, so much so that many of the events probably never actually occurred) was a great step forward for its time, great progress. But to hold these savages, real or fictitious, up as role models for modern people is just not healthy.<br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">One bit that was interesting was in 1 Samuel 27:5-12:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-NIV-7936"></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >5 Then David said to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Achish</span>, “If I have found favor in your eyes, let a place be assigned to me in one of the country towns, that I may live there. Why should your servant live in the royal city with you?” </span></p><p style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-NIV-7937"></a><a name="en-NIV-7938"></a>6 So on that day </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Achish</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> gave him </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Ziklag</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, and it has belonged to the kings of Judah ever since. 7 David lived in Philistine territory a year and four months. </span></p><p style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-NIV-7939"></a><a name="en-NIV-7940"></a>8 Now David and his men went up and raided the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Geshurites</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Girzites</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> and the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Amalekites</span><span style="font-size:130%;">. (From ancient times these peoples had lived in the land extending to </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Shur</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> and Egypt.) 9 Whenever David attacked an area, he did not leave a man or woman alive, but took sheep and cattle, donkeys and camels, and clothes. Then he returned to </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Achish</span><span style="font-size:130%;">. </span></p><p style="font-style: italic; margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-NIV-7941"></a><a name="en-NIV-7942"></a><a name="en-NIV-7943"></a>10 When </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Achish</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> asked, “Where did you go raiding today?” David would say, “Against the Negev of Judah” or “Against the Negev of </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Jerahmeel</span><span style="font-size:130%;">” or “Against the Negev of the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Kenites</span><span style="font-size:130%;">.” 11 He did not leave a man or woman alive to be brought to </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Gath</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, for he thought, “They might inform on us and say, ‘This is what David did.’” And such was his practice as long as he lived in Philistine territory. 12 </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Achish</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> trusted David and said to himself, “He has become so obnoxious to his people, the Israelites, that he will be my servant for life.” </span></p><p style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So David lied to his friend king </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Achish</span><span style="font-size:130%;">, and David killed innocent Gentile women and children. Note that for the rest of David's life, there was never any repentance for these atrocities, and the god never got upset about them.<br /></span></p><p style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">And later, in 1 Kings 15:5, it says</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0.49in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a name="en-NIV-9255"></a></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >5 For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">(the case of Uriah the </span><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-size:130%;">Hitttite</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> was completely separate from this).</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So, according to the Old Testament, it is not <b>in any way</b> sinful for a Jew to lie to a Gentile, even a friend, and it is not <b>in any way</b> sinful for a Jew to kill Gentiles, even innocent women and children. Interesting.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Note that this is not a cherry-picked, atypical set of quotes. Contempt for, and hatred of, Gentiles is one of the strongest themes pervading the Old Testament.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">1<sup>st</sup> & 2<sup><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">nd</span></sup> Kings wasn't particularly horrible, just boring. It listed a long sequence of kings, and kept track of how pious or impious each one was, and according to the priests who wrote Kings, the pious kings (surprise!) met with better fortune than the impious ones. Then you get to Chronicles, which comes right after, and you find out they're going to repeat what was in Kings <i>all over again</i>.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I gave up halfway through the book of Psalms. Such <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">repetitive</span> <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">drivel</span>! My summary of Psalms, for those of you who don't want to read the whole thing, follows:<br /></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >The Lord rewards the faithful and punishes the ungodly.</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;font-size:130%;" >Please, Lord, lay waste to my enemies!</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><br /></p>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-2099020090907356142010-06-05T08:20:00.003-04:002011-01-17T11:50:19.730-05:00Book Report: The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4TaZU49x_IyY89-mUujTQWueAWwxx80Zwoyhyd_UaADlDCdi_cdwmQ3FQ185xvtxBCZDMD6MgUd2Gv6x5sMwJq7okxdIqdT1BYbHX3YQl-tNiyS_6jWpCMvr96EXZFWM1tLst0NZT8hk/s1600/MysteryOfCapital.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 264px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4TaZU49x_IyY89-mUujTQWueAWwxx80Zwoyhyd_UaADlDCdi_cdwmQ3FQ185xvtxBCZDMD6MgUd2Gv6x5sMwJq7okxdIqdT1BYbHX3YQl-tNiyS_6jWpCMvr96EXZFWM1tLst0NZT8hk/s400/MysteryOfCapital.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5479264882375328066" border="0" /></a><br /><p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">De Soto explains that there is a lot of property in the 3rd world that economist's don't normally count. It is all the unofficial, or "extralegal" property. Many of the people, for example, are squatters living in shanties they have built in slums, working at unofficial businesses. The value of their land, buildings, and businesses is often a majority of the total property of a 3rd world country.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">People choose to keep their property outside the law because complying with the law and making their property holdings and businesses legal is prohibitively difficult, taking many months or years of work, with hundreds of bureaucratic steps involved.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">All this informal property is very hard to deal with -- you cannot use it as collateral for a loan, for example. Building a shanty in a slum is very inefficient, you have to be living in it the whole time to enforce your stake in it, building with what materials become available. If the land had been formally purchased, one could take out a loan against it to fund the construction. Because the state doesn't recognize your property, you often turn to gangsters and the like to guarantee your property rights.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">De Soto, a Peruvian, provides many examples from Peru and other 3rd world countries. He spends a lot of time discussing American history -- in much of the nineteenth century, many American settlers and miners had extremely dubious claims to the land they settled and worked, and he discusses how this property eventually evolved into formal, legally recognized property.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Then the author discusses how this process could be brought about in the modern third world. The barriers are formidable, as many of the elite classes and particularly the lawyers are quite unsympathetic to the plight of those who own unofficial property.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">De Soto makes a convincing case for a process that is central to spreading prosperity to the third world. The book has many endorsements from prominent people and prestigious economic publications.</span></p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> The main problem with this book is that it repeats itself too much. It could have been about 1/4 as long as its length of 246 pages.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-79110083160042286822010-05-18T22:41:00.003-04:002011-01-17T11:50:54.546-05:00Book Report: Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNgpIw8SagemTSnGyfh4h55r7nWbZo_FVmqI8aR52mSVawY_CnlmZN3YUj_Q1T708Wvldei4R6Nwsb4maaDRVwl30U9-FbwiSkJnuDFGillZw6ZjgQu_nLGN01UShyvPVGTtcWgQFOkY/s1600/DescentIntoChaos.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 167px; height: 258px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNgpIw8SagemTSnGyfh4h55r7nWbZo_FVmqI8aR52mSVawY_CnlmZN3YUj_Q1T708Wvldei4R6Nwsb4maaDRVwl30U9-FbwiSkJnuDFGillZw6ZjgQu_nLGN01UShyvPVGTtcWgQFOkY/s400/DescentIntoChaos.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472805944301373842" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Fascinating book, a history of Afghanistan and Pakistan since September 11th. The book shows how Musharraf, then dictator of Pakistan, and the Pakistani intelligence service (ISS) extensively fooled the US for years, pretending to be fighting Islamic extremism while actually supporting it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The book extensively criticizes the Bush administration for 2 things -- its failure to do major nation-building in Afghanistan, and its willingness to leave power in Afghanistan in the hands of warlords. I'm no fan of Bush, but I don't think these criticisms are entirely justified.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Firstly, it would have been nice of us to spend a fortune doing nation building in Afghanistan, but then, why not do nation building in Botswana? At least Botwana had never hosted a terrorist organization that killed thousands of Americans. It would be nice of us to spend more money on foreign aid, but does it make sense to focus that money on countries where the people particularly hate us?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Secondly, I have read (but it was not mentioned in this book), that Pashtuns, if not all Afghans, are notoriously xenophobic. If we had chosen not to leave power in the hands of native warlords, it would have involved a much greater presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan, triggering a xenophobic backlash. Working through the warlords, however backward and unjust they might be, was a shrewd strategy.</span></span>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-47502004584679532982010-04-25T13:58:00.010-04:002011-01-17T11:51:29.555-05:00Book Review: "The Conscience of a Liberal" by Paul Krugman<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnnAb75tTxtoKg86U-s6b7DhwqsKn_tTqH1q5pJsFwLBpFGR38Ijst9wR7gDHL3hOWu6RVOEBpz2ESPXOrcHrRzYmZyf83FIfRizdYKtC2apP5ncY_TwU_qLYzA68Grk_g-quDGGr5MUE/s1600/conscienceOfALiberal.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 174px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnnAb75tTxtoKg86U-s6b7DhwqsKn_tTqH1q5pJsFwLBpFGR38Ijst9wR7gDHL3hOWu6RVOEBpz2ESPXOrcHrRzYmZyf83FIfRizdYKtC2apP5ncY_TwU_qLYzA68Grk_g-quDGGr5MUE/s400/conscienceOfALiberal.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464136101494170434" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">This book wasn't really what I expected. I expected Krugman to be trying to persuade me to become a liberal, while in fact he tends to assume I already am one and is mostly talking about tactics to achieve liberal goals. I also expected a lot of talk about poverty, and about liberal social issues. In fact neither of those things were discussed very much at all. What was discussed was mostly "inequality".</span></span><div id="app2481647302_sfwt_full_1" style="" fbcontext="4d89a90bd8a0"> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Apparently, while per-capita GDP has risen considerably since 1980, the median income, adjusted for inflation, has stayed roughly constant. The increase in wealth has been mostly concentrated among the rich. This offends Krugman, and most of the book is spent focusing on reducing "inequality".</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">On the topic of the median income not having risen, has the skill level of the median person increased? Krugman gives no information on this, and I am skeptical about whether it has. In my opinion, one of the biggest problems the economy faces is that so many people are arriving in the workforce without skills. Even people born with a silver spoon in their mouths and their college education paid for by their parents often major in something of no economic value, economically castrating themselves, and spend the rest of their lives complaining about how "unfair" capitalism is because they aren't paid better. People make these unfortunate choices partly because they often find economically rewarding topics less interesting or more difficult, and partly because we have an extremely popular counterculture that is doing everything it can to discourage economically rewarding activity, at least of the legal variety.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">One point Krugman makes many times is that the Republicans benefited tremendously from race as an issue, and that race was the main reason Ronald Reagan got elected. I disagree that Republicans gained so much from race, it generally is a topic they're sick of hearing about, while liberals always want to go on and on about it. He makes no mention of a couple of issues Reagan benefited from: Carter's impotence in dealing with the Iranian hostage crisis, and the widespread perception that the UAW had destroyed the Michigan work ethic, and with it, the competitiveness of the US auto industry.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Another point Krugman made, briefly, is that the influx of unskilled illegal immigrants only decreases unskilled wages in the US by about 5%, which I find </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >extremely</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> difficult to believe.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">So if we give Krugman what he wants, and divvy up the pie more in favor of those without skills, we will reduce the incentives to get skills and thus have fewer skilled people contributing to the economy, and lower productivity as a result. But Krugman, in the whole book, which was almost entirely about economics, <i><b>never</b></i> expresses any concern about productivity. In his mind, wealth is not something you create, it's something you take from the rich.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I am no fan of the Republican party, but Krugman really despises and vilifies them to an extreme level.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Krugman gives a history of the 20th century, slanted from his own point of view, but interesting, nonetheless. He mentions that while the top bracket marginal tax rate is currently about 40%, after WWII it was about 70% and in the fifties it was about 90%. I don't personally understand why so many Americans are so upset about how high taxes currently are. About the only major policy position McCain was offering during his bid for the presidency was a tax cut for the rich, and until the financial crisis, he was neck and neck with Obama, though Obama was better financed.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">It's not surprising that Krugman is a fan of labor unions, but it's interesting that one of the reasons he supports them so much is that they provide an opportunity to indoctrinate workers to vote for liberal politics. Of course, as I've said, their negative impact on productivity doesn't bother him a bit. Krugman is convinced that only CEO's and the rich are against unions, he seems totally unaware of the fact that they are unpopular with many common people as well. He bitterly mentions Reagan's firing of the illegally striking air traffic controllers in 1981, but fails to mention the fact that it was met with widespread public approval.</span></p> <p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">There is a chapter about health care reform, which is quite sensible.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Krugman never mentions religion as a political issue, nor does he mention social issues the Republicans have gained from, such as fighting abortion and banning gay marriage. Thomas Frank, who I think is more liberal than Krugman, in his "What's the Matter with Kansas?", discusses how these issues took the spotlight away from the economic issues that he, like Krugman, would like people to focus on.</span></span><br /></p></div>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-5160649262310389932010-04-14T22:12:00.017-04:002013-04-23T21:39:47.526-04:00Book Review: The Genius in All of Us, by David Shenk<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Vaj5iDZxHzEpC4CLVW1ewlEsORLqXbhGayd4joHPGJeB4Z_1tYSmIV2-DywYa8Yj8nveJVlfGkZL4C34YBf9EOdnSVc6at7J3LYxkHpV2ruHfU8h2JXe9IRhOvmn1cUVe3_yQBRgGwY/s1600/theGeniusInAllOfUs.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5460192423459331906" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Vaj5iDZxHzEpC4CLVW1ewlEsORLqXbhGayd4joHPGJeB4Z_1tYSmIV2-DywYa8Yj8nveJVlfGkZL4C34YBf9EOdnSVc6at7J3LYxkHpV2ruHfU8h2JXe9IRhOvmn1cUVe3_yQBRgGwY/s400/theGeniusInAllOfUs.png" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 236px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 157px;" /></a><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The following post was published on The Gotham Skeptic on April 7, 2010.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">On Saturday, March 13, David Shenk, the author if "The Genius in All of Us" delivered a lecture to the New York City Skeptics. The book's press release promised a lot, saying Shenk would give us reason to "Forget everything you think you know about genes, talent, and intelligence.". Shenk said there was a "mountain of evidence" for a level of "talent abundance" that we had previously not known about. The talk totally failed to deliver on these promises, as did his book.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I am reminded of the claim that "we all use only 10% of our brains" that was discussed in the latest issue of "Skeptic" magazine, the implication being being that there should be some way to tap into that other 90%. How does one confirm or refute such a claim? But the burden of proof is on Shenk, since he did promised us a "mountain of evidence". Shenk mentions one experiment with a sample size of one, where a college student with average IQ was taught, over the course of a year, to memorize sequences several dozen digits long, but it is questionable whether this is a useful skill, let alone a meaningful increase in "intelligence". Shenk never gives clear evidence that the average human can be made into a genius, in fact the general thrust of his book is to dismiss evidence rather than provide any, unless you're willing to be persuaded by anecdotes, which a skeptic shouldn't be.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">To begin with, what, precisely, is the thesis of the book? Shenk gives (mostly anecdotal) evidence, 99% of the time, for the idea that talent and intelligence have nothing to do with genes. He does discuss a concept that intelligence is not a matter of "G + E" (genes plus environment), as many experimenters have analyzed it, but rather "GxE", or a complex interaction of genes and environment (though in his prose, Shenk interprets this as mostly environment). But where is he taking us with this? Is he providing us with another function that fits the experimental data better? No, he just says "it's complex", doing everything he can to render the problem intractable, manufacturing an absence of evidence that will leave him free to draw any conclusion he wants, supported by anecdotal evidence alone. However, he realizes there is strong scientific evidence in favor of a substantial genetic influence, so he occasionally covers himself with statements like "The blank slate is dead. Genetic differences do matter" that contradict what he's saying most of the time. So, in a nutshell, his point is "</span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-weight: bold;">Genes don't matter! Genes don't matter! Genes don't matter!</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> (Except they do.)". This double talk, this not really admitting what he's obviously out to prove, is shifty and infuriating.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I don't think this "GxE" business comes as news to genetics researchers. Everyone has known all along that the interaction between genes and environment is complex. But when you're doing research and taking measurements, you have to start somewhere, make approximations, and fit data to simple curves. Shenk wants none of that, data and statistics are his enemies, he wants to live in the world of the purely anecdotal, because you can support pretty much any conclusion you want that way.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">More from Shenk on statistics: "knowing the average lifespan doesn't tell me how long my life will be". Of course it doesn't tell me </span><i class="moz-txt-slash" face="times new roman" style="font-weight: bold;">exactly</i><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> how long my life will be, but that doesn't mean it's a useless bit of information. If I am trying to assess how long I will live, say in order to plan for retirement, the average life expectancy for someone of my age and gender is one of the first things I will look at. What is Shenk offering us as a replacement for the evils of statistics? One anecdote after another -- hardly an improvement.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Shenk spends only 10 pages discussing twin studies, which is way too little given that twin and adoption studies provide most of the evidence he wants to refute. Much of these 10 pages are wasted on anecdotes. He does, accurately, report that twin studies have determined the heritability of 60% of IQ, 60% of personality, 40-66% of motor skills, and 21% of creativity.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">He then launches into a diatribe about how he doesn't like the term "heritable", pointing out that height is 90% heritable but that doesn't mean that "90% of my height comes from my genes and 10% from my food", which I agree with, but where is he taking us with this? He does not enlighten us with another, more meaningful way to interpret the word, rather his motivation is to give us an excuse to ignore it altogether. The fact that the IQ of adults is at least 40% heritable given a wide range of environments tells us a lot. It is a very meaningful fact.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Shenk attributes some of the observed similarities of identical twins reared apart to "hidden dissimilarities", that is, researchers reporting coincidental similarities while not recording all the dissimilarities, and "coordination and exaggeration", where twins who were raised apart but had met prior to the study would coordinate their scores on tests to be similar. Most twins reared apart and studied as adults had met each other years before being studied.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Regarding the "hidden dissimilarities" I agree that may be a point, and my response to it is to ignore all the stupid anecdotal coincidences that most sources (including Shenk) bring up when discussing twin studies. Regarding the "coordination and exaggeration", let me describe the methodology of the study where Thomas Bouchard at the University of Minnesota studied over 100 pairs of twins reared apart:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;">"Participants complete approximately 50 hours of medical and</span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;"> psychological assessment. Two or more test instruments are used in</span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;"> each major domain of psychological assessment to ensure adequate</span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;"> coverage (for example, four personality trait inventories, three </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;">occupational interest inventories, and two mental ability </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;">batteries). ... Separate examiners administer the IQ test, life</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;">history interview, psychiatric interview, and sexual life history </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;">interview. ... The twins also complete questionnaires independently, </span><span style="font-family: times new roman; font-style: italic;">under the constant supervision of a staff member."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For twins to "coordinate" scores on IQ tests that they take independently and under supervision would be quite difficult. They would have to somehow assess not only </span><span style="font-style: italic;">which</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> of the two of them was smarter, but also </span><i class="moz-txt-slash" style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">how much</span></i><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> smarter, and have that person deliberately do more poorly than they could have on the test, but not </span></span><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><i class="moz-txt-slash" style="font-family: times new roman; font-weight: bold;">so</i> poorly that they do worse than their twin. A substantial fraction of the test sample would have to be doing this, the whole effort never being discovered by the researchers. This is so farfetched that it's just not a credible explanation for the high correlation of twin IQ test scores, across multiple studies.</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Another argument Shenk makes is that early environment, both pre-natal and after birth prior to separation, is shared by twins, so that the similarity observed by twin studies may be caused by environment rather than genes. This would easily be examined by comparing the similarity of fraternal twins versus the similarity of non-twin siblings, I don't know of any studies that did this, nor does Shenk bring any up. I'll bet it has been done.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Another study mentioned by Shenk was in The Skeptical Inquirer; it tested the similarity of identical twins versus the similarity of strangers. The study found, not surprisingly, that when they assembled 25 pairs of same-sex, roughly same age strangers on a college campus, along with 13 pairs of identical twins, they found that some of the strangers had "uncanny" anecdotal similarities to rival those of the twins. Since I try to ignore anecdotes anyway, this doesn't have much impact on me. What Shenk didn't mention was that when the study subjected everybody to systematic, independently taken personality tests, they found the pairs of identical twins were more similar to each other than the pairs of strangers were, despite the small sample size.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Shenk points out one study by Turkheimer (more on it later, and see link at end of article), that studied children raised at or near the poverty line, and which found the genetic influence on IQ was near zero, which shows that a really bad environment can make a big difference, overwhelming the genetic influence.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">For all of Shenk's criticism of twin studies, he doesn't suggest how a better study would be done. He is interested in dismissing evidence, not in exploring evidence that could either support or undermine his position.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">There is a lot of evidence that Shenk does not discuss. The evidence for genetic heritability of IQ is not limited to studies of identical twins reared apart, there are also studies which compare the IQ of adopted non-twins to (a) the parents who raised them and (b) their biological parents. There are studies that compare correlations between identical twins (0.86), between non-twin siblings (0.47), between half siblings (0.31), between cousins (0.15), and so forth. Shenk never mentions that these studies exist, except that he mentions Turkheimer's study (which he thinks supports his thesis) without explaining that it did not involve adoption. A couple of things that arise from all these studies, neither of which Shenk </span><i class="moz-txt-slash" style="font-family: times new roman;">ever mentions</i><span style="font-family: times new roman;">, are that</span></span><br />
<ul style="font-family: times new roman;">
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">as the child gets older, the genetic influence on IQ <i class="moz-txt-slash">increases</i> rather than decreases, which surprised everybody. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">the correlation of adult IQ between two people raised in the same family is very small, in some studies no more than two equally-related people raised in different families. The total non-genetic effect on IQ is pretty large, but the majority of this variation still seems random to researchers. Factors that would go along with the adoptive family, such as school quality, IQ of parents in the home, parenting style, and quantity and quality of books in the home, seem to have little influence. </span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The tendency of the effects of genetics to increase, rather than decrease, with age is explained by some by the fact that, as people create their environments as they get older, the genetic influence makes itself felt in their choice of environments. I am reminded of something Eddie Van Halen said: "If you want to be a great guitarist, you've got to like playing the guitar.". Similarly, if you want to be a genius, you've got to like thinking. And whether you like thinking may be genetic. Most people aren't that crazy about thinking, as a glance at the reading material near the checkout counter of any supermarket will tell you. So the people with genes that make them like to think will exercise and develop their minds more than would other people. Young children are in school whether they like it or not, being forced to think whether they like it or not, so the genetic influence on IQ at those ages is less.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">One weakness of adoption studies is that poor people are ineligible to adopt, so that few adoptive households are really bad. Turkheimer's study got around this and measured poor children by studying children with varying degrees of genetic commonality raised by biological relatives. Adoptive families range from solid working class to extreme upper class, and over this range, adoptive homes are observed to make little difference. The feeling is that while a really bad environment can make a big difference, any environment at or above what we would consider "adequate" (the bar being pretty low) will make little difference. Note that Turkheimer's study only measured children at age 7, when the genetic influence is known to be weaker.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">One interesting study discussed by Shenk involved rats running mazes. In 1958, Rod Cooper and John Zubek deliberately bred one group of rats to be smart at running mazes, and another group to be dumb at it. With time, they were able to observe a large genetic difference in performance between the two strains. Then they tried raising both the smart and dumb strains in a very unstimulating, limited environment. Like the humans in the Turkheimer study, the rats all did poorly and almost no difference in performance was seen. Then they tried raising both smart and dumb rats in an especially enriched and stimulating environment. Now the dumb rats were doing almost as well as the smart rats, again the difference in performance due to genetics was greatly diminished.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">It should be noted that the data was shown in a plot. But it wasn't a plot of the actual data -- it was an <i>artist's depiction</i> of the data. I've seen research papers where they give actual data and artists depictions, and the depictions are usually wildly skewed in favor of the point the paper is trying to make.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I would have liked to read more detail about the study, but I couldn't find it on the web. The ramifications for humans raised in poverty were clear and not very surprising given the other studies we've looked at. But what about the "enriched" environment? Twin and adoption studies include children adopted into wealthy homes, and the effect of those homes is observed to be small. Could there be some way of "enriching" our environments to radically improve most people's intellects, like those of the mice? Thousands of educators, some of them very well-funded at the best schools, have been trying for a long time. Some major breakthrough may be possible, you never know. We should certainly keep trying, for the same reason we should keep doing nuclear fusion research -- though the odds are long, the potential payoff is huge.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">All this talk about IQ leads me to ask the question, what about other outcomes? What about annual income, marital status, number of divorces, and number of offspring? It is possible that IQ tests have succeeded in measuring a largely genetic quality, but other outcomes might be more affected by adoptive parents. For example, one twin might major in art and wind up being a waiter at $20K per year, while the other twin's adoptive parents might refuse to pay their college tuition unless they do something more practical, so that they wind up being an accountant at $120K per year. Neither Shenk nor anything else that I read on twin studies discusses this.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Genetics denialism has been with us for a long time. During the sixties the consensus was that genes were pretty unimportant, but studies kept showing otherwise. There are a few reasons people want to deny the influence of genes on the human mind:</span></span><br />
<ol style="font-family: times new roman;">
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fear of Eugenics</span>: Memories of the excesses of the Eugenics movement in the early 20th century, and the horrors of the Nazis, lead many people to fear that misapplication of genetic theories could be a Very Bad Thing.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Social Plans</span>: Many people have plans for the betterment of human society that rely on society's under performers being capable of better things under more favorable circumstances, and when science casts doubt on these pet plans, these people attack the science.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mysticism</span>: People want to believe there is something "magic" about the human mind, and breaking down the influences on it to things as vulgar as neurotransmitters and genes is just so -- <i class="moz-txt-slash" style="font-weight: bold;">unflattering</i>. For the same reason that many resist the belief that humans are descended from apes, many who accept the evolution of our bodies try to assert that it "stops at the neck", and our intellect is somehow above all that sordid business.</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-size: 130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">None of these are legitimate reasons to ignore or suppress the truth. As for the first: if you don't want to commit atrocities, then don't commit atrocities. It is my instinct that people in denial are </span><i class="moz-txt-slash" style="font-family: times new roman; font-weight: bold;">more</i><span style="font-family: times new roman;"> likely to do horrible things than people who aren't. Regarding the second, social plans that rely on flawed science in order to work aren't going to work -- time to develop new social plans. And the third reason is just inexcusable mush-mindedness.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">There is much in the book I haven't covered here, some of it quite interesting, but this review is pretty long as it is. I have focused on the evidence that Shenk has to refute to make his point, and it is there that Shenk is at his worst. I have been a bit vehement, because of Shenk's taste for lengthy anecdotes, his attempts to not admit what his thesis really is, and his dismissal of the whole concept of statistical evidence.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">If you want to read a book promoting genetics denialism, there is another, better book I recommend: "Intelligence and How to Get It" by Richard Nisbett. Nisbett claims to prove that normal variation in human genetics has little to do with intelligence. I wasn't persuaded by his arguments, and, like Shenk, he doesn't bring up all the evidence against him, but at least there isn't the double talk, the obsession with anecdotes, and the disdain for statistical evidence in general.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Sources:</span></span><br />
<ul style="font-family: times new roman;">
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Book: "The Genius in All of Us" -- David Shenk</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">One of dozens of papers on Bouchard's Minnesota Twin Study: <b class="moz-txt-star"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/yehoawp">here</a></b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Book: "Born That Way - Genes, Behavior, Personality" -- William Wright</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Book: "Intelligence and How to Get It" -- Richard Nisbett</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">"The Search For Intelligence" - Carl Zimmer, Scientific American, October, 2008</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">"Trends in Behavioral Genetics: Eugenics Revisited" - John Horgan, Scientific American, June 1993</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Book: "The Blank Slate" -- Steven Pinker</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">"Natural Levels of Similarities Between Identical Twins and Between Unrelated People" - Joseph Wyatt, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol 9, Fall 1984</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Turkheimer's Study on Socioeconomic Status Affecting the Heritability of IQ: <b class="moz-txt-star"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/455pbv">here</a></b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Statement by 52 scholars on intelligence published in "The Wall Street Journal", December, 1994: <b><a href="http://bluejacket7.com/wayback/iq_wsj_52_scholars.html">here</a></b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Longer statement by 11 scholars on intelligence published in "American Psychologist" in February, 1996: </span><a href="http://bluejacket7.com/wayback/iq_apa_11_scholars.html"><span class="moz-txt-star" style="font-size: 130%; font-weight: bold;">here</span></a></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Wikipedia on Heritability of IQ: <b class="moz-txt-star"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ycu2j7k">here</a></b></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: 130%;">Wikipedia on Heritability of Personality: <b class="moz-txt-star"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/ya25lkw">here</a></b></span></li>
</ul>
Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7199217912101324196.post-36108568043948688542010-03-07T21:50:00.010-05:002011-01-17T11:53:04.032-05:00What Are We To Make of the Tea Party?<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrw_RCLTvOG9inryGtSL7ODA7NdM30NojJurO-hOCgFzgIacel7WwZD7nchTx4q8PRssukWM-uiCDHxkDyVLrmjoiBFeQZy-bUKWOHDP0ypHmUEqk97QOH3vR3ODni5n3-nt59hX6VLG0/s1600-h/tea-party-signs.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446090008131405602" style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 300px; cursor: pointer; height: 225px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrw_RCLTvOG9inryGtSL7ODA7NdM30NojJurO-hOCgFzgIacel7WwZD7nchTx4q8PRssukWM-uiCDHxkDyVLrmjoiBFeQZy-bUKWOHDP0ypHmUEqk97QOH3vR3ODni5n3-nt59hX6VLG0/s320/tea-party-signs.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">I've been trying to understand the Tea Party Movement, and feel I've figured out a few things.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;">The Tea Party Movement is not a political party, it has no clear leaders, it is an amorphous grass-roots movement without a clear platform. The people in the movement dislike politics as usual and don't want there to be leaders or a platform. A few issues are central</span><br /></span><ol style="font-family: times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Fear that Obama, with the filibuster-proof majority he had (note past tense) in the senate, was going to take the country wildly toward the political left.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Objection, in principle, to the bailouts, particularly of Wall Street firms.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Concern about increased taxation and the growth of the federal government.</span></li></ol><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Because the movement has no leaders, it has no official platform. Because there is no official platform, there is no one to define what the Tea Party Movement is about and what it is not. Thus, many extreme right wing causes are trying to identify with the Tea Party, and there is no authority to refuse their entry into it. This makes the Tea Party look particularly frightening to outsiders. Side movements trying to capitalize on the movement include</span><br /></span><ul style="font-family: times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:130%;">The Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party is not entirely a side issue, in that it agrees with all 3 of what I have listed as the central concerns of the Tea Party. Most people in the Tea Party, however, would probably not agree with the Libertarians' advocacy of the legalization of prostitution, all drugs, and gambling.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">The John Birch Society, which espouses theories about communist conspiracies.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Various efforts to end the Federal Reserve, or undermine the independence of its monetary policy.</span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Advocates against illegal immigration. For 8 years, the Bush administration failed to take any serious measures on this issue, and some people are hoping the new movement will embrace it.</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Fear and anger are key emotions driving the movement. </span><b style="font-family: times new roman;">Fear:</b><br /></span><ul style="font-family: times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:130%;">The fear is generated by people seeing the values of their 401k's and their homes drop radically, at the same time, in 2008. This fear is compounded by the fact that few people understand the economics of what happened. Also there are many casualties who have lost their jobs and/or their homes.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Fear of a new black president who had the most liberal voting record in the senate.</span></li></ul><span style="font-size:130%;"><b style="font-family: times new roman;">Anger:</b><br /></span><ul style="font-family: times new roman;"><li><span style="font-size:130%;">There is great anger over the bailouts. Senator Diane Feinstein, for example, said that 90% of the phone calls and emails her office was receiving about the bailout were against it, yet she voted for it. The bailout of Wall Street was one of the most unpopular things the government has ever done. The fact that many Republicans, including Bush and McCain, supported the bailout, left many conservatives feeling betrayed.<br /></span></li><li><span style="font-size:130%;">Anger at the Democratic decision to stimulate the economy with increased government spending rather than via a tax cut.</span></li></ul><p style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><strong>Regarding issue #1</strong>, the desire to obstruct Obama in anything he was going to do, the Tea Party has had some success -- it helped elect a Republican to fill the position vacated by Edward Kennedy, ending Obama's filibuster-proof majority in the senate. But this could have been accomplished by just helping the Republican Party.<br /><strong>Regarding issue #2</strong>, anger over the bailouts, the Tea Party can do nothing. The bailouts are in the past. They can try to prevent more bailouts from happening, but that's about it.<br /><strong>Regarding issue #3</strong>, desire to shrink the government, the Tea Party can accomplish nothing. Republicans have a record, under Reagan and W, of cutting taxes without commensurate spending cuts. This was irresponsible and caused huge deficits. At some point, if this effort is to be successful, there needs to an agreement on what services will be cut and then a bill needs to get through congress. That's really hard, and to do it, you need to have an organization that can hammer out a specific platform -- there's no way that sort of difficult consensus can be formed by a leaderless, platformless, amorphous mob.</span></p><p style="font-family: times new roman;" align="center"><span style="font-size:130%;"><a href="http://tr.im/nytimesteaparty">http://tr.im/nytimesteaparty</a><br /><a href="http://tr.im/R0ZJ">http://tr.im/R0ZJ</a></span></p>Billhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07798060265728448086noreply@blogger.com2