Everyone finally got on the bandwagon to marvel at scrappy Baltimore, that lovable overachieving bunch winning games with Pluck despite their poor run differential. Except that's no longer true. That was true in May and June only. It was partly the case in April, July, and August, but not so you'd notice.
In September they've had a run differential over 50, and have picked up 10 more games over .500 in the W-L rankings. That's not can-do spirit, that's just beating the cookies out of people.
Baltimore manager of yore Earl Weaver used to say that "chemistry" in baseball was simple: GP + 3R = W. Good pitching plus 3-run homers equals wins.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
All-Fenway Team
The all-time All- Fenway Park Red Sox team was announced this week. It favors players in living memory of baby boomers or younger unless an earlier player was so ridiculously overqualified that we have to take the time to educate the younger generation about them, because they simply cannot be left off. Jimmy Foxx. Lefty Grove. Smokey Joe Wood. Dom Dimaggio. And of course, Ted Williams.
I get that. I even agree with it, because otherwise you start to get arguments for people who had two good seasons and were just sort of useful for a few others. I might think Mel Parnell should be on there, but even I don't want to get into discussing Pete Runnels, Ellis Kinder, Walt Dropo. Nobody cares.
Plus, I loved Reggie Smith and Trot Nixon, so it's great to see them remembered. I don't know if Nixon, especially, really was the 2nd best RF in Fenway history, but I'm not minded to quibble. You can make an argument for it.
I have only one problem with this. Tris Speaker. Yes, he only had four years at Fenway and most of his stats were amassed for Cleveland. But those four years included the inaugural year of the ballpark, which should count for something, and those four years were quite something.
I get that. I even agree with it, because otherwise you start to get arguments for people who had two good seasons and were just sort of useful for a few others. I might think Mel Parnell should be on there, but even I don't want to get into discussing Pete Runnels, Ellis Kinder, Walt Dropo. Nobody cares.
Plus, I loved Reggie Smith and Trot Nixon, so it's great to see them remembered. I don't know if Nixon, especially, really was the 2nd best RF in Fenway history, but I'm not minded to quibble. You can make an argument for it.
I have only one problem with this. Tris Speaker. Yes, he only had four years at Fenway and most of his stats were amassed for Cleveland. But those four years included the inaugural year of the ballpark, which should count for something, and those four years were quite something.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Post 3800 - The Preservation Of...
James's post about the collection of church taxes in Germany led me down interesting paths. Summary: C of E - what we would call the Episcopal or Anglican church here in North America, has been The great vessel of Western Civilisation these past three or four centuries. Yet it has not been an especially good bearer of Christianity. It has been one among many. It has had its moments and his shining stars, to be sure. But even terrible churches have produced Christians of stunning brightness, so that is not in and of itself evidence of spiritual strength.
Christians since the Roman Empire have believed that surrounding culture is important for the preservation of the faith, though there has always been a solid minority which has held it is irrelevant. I think the former idea is closer to the truth but fear the day that the latter opinion is no longer firmly, even fanatically espoused among us.
I will hold all posts for a few days. I would like my readers, a diverse and - really - quite brilliant bunch, to give their thoughts on this large issue. Some of you have your own sites, and I encourage you to link to same in the comments. But this is the sort of overview question that changes slowly in our lives, but has large effects down the road.
Christians since the Roman Empire have believed that surrounding culture is important for the preservation of the faith, though there has always been a solid minority which has held it is irrelevant. I think the former idea is closer to the truth but fear the day that the latter opinion is no longer firmly, even fanatically espoused among us.
I will hold all posts for a few days. I would like my readers, a diverse and - really - quite brilliant bunch, to give their thoughts on this large issue. Some of you have your own sites, and I encourage you to link to same in the comments. But this is the sort of overview question that changes slowly in our lives, but has large effects down the road.
Sperm Donor
Retriever sends along the most interesting stuff, and I don't always remember to politely give her credit. This one is about a rare genetic condition that a sperm donor has passed along to 5 of 43 children he has "fathered" - and I use the term loosely.
Caveat emptor, as in all else. Emphasising some characteristics, one could list me as an A-1 possible donor, whose genetics one would love to pass on to future generations. Looked at from another perspective, one could list me as a "Red Flag - Approach With Caution" donor. How my children have turned out would tilt the balance in favor of the former, and yet...
I am not sure why people are going in this direction to begin with. It seems like an inauspicious start for a child, to have a donor father. It would make me feel as if I were a bit of software. Note that I say this as one whose father was out of the picture from age six on.
Caveat emptor, as in all else. Emphasising some characteristics, one could list me as an A-1 possible donor, whose genetics one would love to pass on to future generations. Looked at from another perspective, one could list me as a "Red Flag - Approach With Caution" donor. How my children have turned out would tilt the balance in favor of the former, and yet...
I am not sure why people are going in this direction to begin with. It seems like an inauspicious start for a child, to have a donor father. It would make me feel as if I were a bit of software. Note that I say this as one whose father was out of the picture from age six on.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
The Undecided Voter
My brother sent along this demographic research firm's discoveries about the undecided voter. He points out one difficulty - that small differences are given equal play in the narrative with larger ones.
I would add that the Undecideds are not a single population, as the wording here would suggest. They are likely two or more separate style of folk who have some overlap. Also, the indecision of voters that is more key to politicians are those who are undecided whether they are going to bother to vote, not who they are going to vote for. The latter exist, but don't offer as much payback. Of that group, the only ones you can get any sort of intellectual handle on are those who are moving from one political or social persuasion to another.
I would add that the Undecideds are not a single population, as the wording here would suggest. They are likely two or more separate style of folk who have some overlap. Also, the indecision of voters that is more key to politicians are those who are undecided whether they are going to bother to vote, not who they are going to vote for. The latter exist, but don't offer as much payback. Of that group, the only ones you can get any sort of intellectual handle on are those who are moving from one political or social persuasion to another.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Gangnam Style
This is the current record-holder for most views on youtube. In the time that I watched it, clicked around to some related videos for a few minutes, and composed this post it added 3 million hits.
South Korean. PSY. In addition to this one at 235 million, there are others to this music with 86 million, 47 million, 18 million and lesser hits. As American culture fades and the Third World slowly becomes first, they are going to take our culture and reinvent it.
We aren't going to like it. Think how the Europeans have looked at us. That's our future.
There's an even bigger phenomenon - in numbers at least - called Girls' Generation, sort of a Koren Spice Girls thing, clearly aimed at the 12-16 y/o crowd. I think there used to be groups like this in Japan as well - groups of 10 dancer-singers. Same switching back and forth between their own language and English; importing American iconography and styles - in this case even importing black people for effect.
I'm planning some serious posts. I think I'm ruining the mood here.
South Korean. PSY. In addition to this one at 235 million, there are others to this music with 86 million, 47 million, 18 million and lesser hits. As American culture fades and the Third World slowly becomes first, they are going to take our culture and reinvent it.
We aren't going to like it. Think how the Europeans have looked at us. That's our future.
There's an even bigger phenomenon - in numbers at least - called Girls' Generation, sort of a Koren Spice Girls thing, clearly aimed at the 12-16 y/o crowd. I think there used to be groups like this in Japan as well - groups of 10 dancer-singers. Same switching back and forth between their own language and English; importing American iconography and styles - in this case even importing black people for effect.
I'm planning some serious posts. I think I'm ruining the mood here.
Dental Floss
Inmates at a NY jail are suing because they don't get to have dental floss. The jail's position is that floss can be used as a weapon.
In case you are quick on the bandwagon that the jail is being ridiculous here, we have had suicide attempts with dental floss at our hospital, and no longer allow patients to have it unless supervised.
In case you are quick on the bandwagon that the jail is being ridiculous here, we have had suicide attempts with dental floss at our hospital, and no longer allow patients to have it unless supervised.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Gospel People
The long intro is what we hurry away from on Youtube, but it's part of the genre. Whether you think it's a southern thing, a black expression, a quartet standard, or a revival form, it's still just not optional. You have to take the extra minute or two to adjust your mind to the slowness and the build.
It's probably good for you, believer or not.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Train Song
I grew up on the Kingston Trio version, but rapidly grew tired of the oversweet, drain every tear covers by PP&M, the Journeymen, Brothers Four, etc. I thought that was all that was out there, and I was just throwing this into the collection for sake of completeness.
When I listened to the different versions I found I liked Roseanne Cash's lush and heavily backed interpretation and Hedy West's arrestingly simple one. I eventually chose this one, even though it's a bit uncomfortable and stretches the song's meaning. There's something compelling about it. And it's got great trains.
When I listened to the different versions I found I liked Roseanne Cash's lush and heavily backed interpretation and Hedy West's arrestingly simple one. I eventually chose this one, even though it's a bit uncomfortable and stretches the song's meaning. There's something compelling about it. And it's got great trains.
Had It
My wife was quite upset this morning, and talking about "fasting" from the news - interesting phrase, that. She has been listening to the reporting about whether Romney's "47%" comment was accurate, and how the fact-checking has gone, etc. But it has not been the content of the discussion that has upset her. Good points on both sides, there. It is the sneering, condescending, openly-siding-with-Obama's-interests tone that has infuriated her.
We have been comfortable enough with Romney, though not especial fans. We seldom put up signs in our yard anyway. But we're getting a Romney/Ryan sign.
These reporters don't hear it. They really have no idea how much they telegraph what they believe is the proper view for you to take. And a lot of Americans remain heavily influenced by these tones, while congratulating themselves that they are actually responding to content. The media is not always intentionally trying to manipulate them. Some are. But this is part of our social wiring, to speak and respond in certain ways in order to get our way; forms of bullying and wheedling. Fish. Lure. Automatic unless you fight against it. But those who insist it's not happening will never fight against it.
Conservatives use these tones without realising it as well - I have heard them from Christians, I regret to report - but not on the news.
We have been comfortable enough with Romney, though not especial fans. We seldom put up signs in our yard anyway. But we're getting a Romney/Ryan sign.
These reporters don't hear it. They really have no idea how much they telegraph what they believe is the proper view for you to take. And a lot of Americans remain heavily influenced by these tones, while congratulating themselves that they are actually responding to content. The media is not always intentionally trying to manipulate them. Some are. But this is part of our social wiring, to speak and respond in certain ways in order to get our way; forms of bullying and wheedling. Fish. Lure. Automatic unless you fight against it. But those who insist it's not happening will never fight against it.
Conservatives use these tones without realising it as well - I have heard them from Christians, I regret to report - but not on the news.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Christian Culture
The perennial disagreement about whether a sympathetic surrounding culture is better for the spreading of the Gospel or whether culture is largely irrelevant has suddenly shown up in three unrelated discussions in my life. Odd, that. I don't seek that one out, particularly. Yet I think it is worth some comment.
I note that whichever side is being put forward with vigor tends strongly to accuse its opposition of being absolutist. Those who say that cultural support is largely irrelevant, because all is the work of the Holy Spirit, seem quite certain that the rest of Christianity is just chockablock full of folks who insist that political power is necessary for the spread of the Gospel.
I have never met or read any Christian who maintains it is absolutely necessary. None. Who are these opponents they rail against? Similarly, those who advocate that creating cultural support for Christian living is a good thing and means we should vote for people who will by-golly do that seem to also claim that those Other Christians who don't get on board care nothing for our supportive American culture and are willing to just let everything go to hell. (There's a subtler liberal version of this, but for this discussion it's simpler to just stick with the unsubtle conservative version.)
Yeah, I don't know any of those, either.
Everyone knows that the work of thoughtful believers and the work of the Holy Spirit are not easy to separate even in theory, let alone in real time. All that remains is to examine ourselves for which way we lean and see if our actions do indeed accord with our theology on the matter.
Some points of interest: CS Lewis notes that England maintained Christian forms for over a century past identifiable markers that it had largely ceased to believe central Christian doctrines. In Dickens's A Christmas Carol, there is only one fleeting mention of Christ, and that not even by name. Some Christian virtues are applauded, particularly generosity, but the whole charming tale revolves around very English pagan spirits convincing Scrooge not to be miserly. Ebenezer's redemption seems to be that he is generous to one employee's family and becomes jolly, full of bonhommy (French word meaning "bonhommy.")
It was not merely that literary figures were playing with such secularised faiths, but that their works were so entirely acceptable and popular. The culture embraced this, swallowed it, without noticing their religion had been drained of its most important meanings. It marks a culture Christian more in name than practice. And yet - Christian virtues were not abandoned, many are still not abandoned, even unto the present day.
It is widely claimed that the Church grows under persecution, its members particularly strong and productive. The earliest Church is given as an example, but I don't think the evidence is strong. The Church grew greatly at first in each new place it was introduced - from 0% to a few percent right off the bat. If we move from those numbers to the percentage who were Christian just before the persecutions ended in the early 4th C and compute backward, we see that the Church in the Roman Empire grew at about 1% a year. The miracle of compound interest and all that. But not much of an advert for persecution being a strategy. It might be good for us personally, but there's no evidence it's good for numbers.
Nor do the modern examples of Russian Pentecostals and Romanian Baptists offer much evidence. The Church survived in those countries, but not everywhere. When the walls came down, there were whole regions in Russia with no evangelical believers anywhere, and not many even of the Orthodox Church, with its solid historical roots. There is no cultural support for Christianity in Japan, and there are no Christians. There is cultural support in South Korea and there are lots of Christians. China had an underground Church that seemed to have grown greatly. But they've also got well over a billion people there and everything grew greatly.
Sometimes when governments get rid of the Christians they are just gone. Sometimes God chooses to do something miraculous instead. Mostly, it's a mixture of the two. I don't see that the Scriptures promise one thing or the other. In some places we are told that the governments and powers are rather irrelevant. But God also addresses groups - cities, tribes, nations - as often as he addresses individuals, or more.
I note that whichever side is being put forward with vigor tends strongly to accuse its opposition of being absolutist. Those who say that cultural support is largely irrelevant, because all is the work of the Holy Spirit, seem quite certain that the rest of Christianity is just chockablock full of folks who insist that political power is necessary for the spread of the Gospel.
I have never met or read any Christian who maintains it is absolutely necessary. None. Who are these opponents they rail against? Similarly, those who advocate that creating cultural support for Christian living is a good thing and means we should vote for people who will by-golly do that seem to also claim that those Other Christians who don't get on board care nothing for our supportive American culture and are willing to just let everything go to hell. (There's a subtler liberal version of this, but for this discussion it's simpler to just stick with the unsubtle conservative version.)
Yeah, I don't know any of those, either.
Everyone knows that the work of thoughtful believers and the work of the Holy Spirit are not easy to separate even in theory, let alone in real time. All that remains is to examine ourselves for which way we lean and see if our actions do indeed accord with our theology on the matter.
Some points of interest: CS Lewis notes that England maintained Christian forms for over a century past identifiable markers that it had largely ceased to believe central Christian doctrines. In Dickens's A Christmas Carol, there is only one fleeting mention of Christ, and that not even by name. Some Christian virtues are applauded, particularly generosity, but the whole charming tale revolves around very English pagan spirits convincing Scrooge not to be miserly. Ebenezer's redemption seems to be that he is generous to one employee's family and becomes jolly, full of bonhommy (French word meaning "bonhommy.")
And for ever afterwards, it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well - as well as any man has ever kept it.Well, there you are then. What more does Christ ask of us, eh? Lewis traces this back further, to Sir Walter Scott and others.
It was not merely that literary figures were playing with such secularised faiths, but that their works were so entirely acceptable and popular. The culture embraced this, swallowed it, without noticing their religion had been drained of its most important meanings. It marks a culture Christian more in name than practice. And yet - Christian virtues were not abandoned, many are still not abandoned, even unto the present day.
It is widely claimed that the Church grows under persecution, its members particularly strong and productive. The earliest Church is given as an example, but I don't think the evidence is strong. The Church grew greatly at first in each new place it was introduced - from 0% to a few percent right off the bat. If we move from those numbers to the percentage who were Christian just before the persecutions ended in the early 4th C and compute backward, we see that the Church in the Roman Empire grew at about 1% a year. The miracle of compound interest and all that. But not much of an advert for persecution being a strategy. It might be good for us personally, but there's no evidence it's good for numbers.
Nor do the modern examples of Russian Pentecostals and Romanian Baptists offer much evidence. The Church survived in those countries, but not everywhere. When the walls came down, there were whole regions in Russia with no evangelical believers anywhere, and not many even of the Orthodox Church, with its solid historical roots. There is no cultural support for Christianity in Japan, and there are no Christians. There is cultural support in South Korea and there are lots of Christians. China had an underground Church that seemed to have grown greatly. But they've also got well over a billion people there and everything grew greatly.
Sometimes when governments get rid of the Christians they are just gone. Sometimes God chooses to do something miraculous instead. Mostly, it's a mixture of the two. I don't see that the Scriptures promise one thing or the other. In some places we are told that the governments and powers are rather irrelevant. But God also addresses groups - cities, tribes, nations - as often as he addresses individuals, or more.
Weight Loss
My wife wondered if I might put this Sparkpeople article on weight loss up: What Quick-Fix Weight Loss Solutions Have You Fallen For? It's got overlap with a few of our topics here, so I thought it might please. The author has a weight-loss team, Slowest Loser, that highlights his views on long-term maintenance.
Mostly, I've never done anything, just slowly gotten fatter. I did do something called the Rotation Diet years ago a few times, which seemed to sorta work, but i never stuck with it. Recently I've done dieting because I have to, and had several sources, including bsking, mention the Gary Taubes method with at least mild approval, so that's what I do, in simplest form. I greatly reduced concentrated sugars, which were never much of an issue anyway, and grains, which were an enormous problem. I don't worry much about fats, but these went down when the french fries, butter, and pizza went away. I eats more nuts and cheese, and more raw vegetables sort of in self-defense. I keep them lying around so that bread/rice/corn/donut/potatopuff cravings do not overwhelm me.
It seems to work some. His point about optimism, even false optimism, driving both diets and progress seems mostly true: if we assessed the odds correctly, no one would diet, start a business, get married, etc.
Mostly, I've never done anything, just slowly gotten fatter. I did do something called the Rotation Diet years ago a few times, which seemed to sorta work, but i never stuck with it. Recently I've done dieting because I have to, and had several sources, including bsking, mention the Gary Taubes method with at least mild approval, so that's what I do, in simplest form. I greatly reduced concentrated sugars, which were never much of an issue anyway, and grains, which were an enormous problem. I don't worry much about fats, but these went down when the french fries, butter, and pizza went away. I eats more nuts and cheese, and more raw vegetables sort of in self-defense. I keep them lying around so that bread/rice/corn/donut/potatopuff cravings do not overwhelm me.
It seems to work some. His point about optimism, even false optimism, driving both diets and progress seems mostly true: if we assessed the odds correctly, no one would diet, start a business, get married, etc.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Advice
In college I worked briefly at a better restaurant in Williamsburg. Most of the waiters were black men in white jackets who at been working the Inn or the Lodge or one of the colonial restaurants for decades. They were quite skilled at quiet service of rich white men, and knew how to play of their egos to get bigger tips. The younger black men found this demeaning, wouldn't do it, and made less money.
I can see both sides of this conflict pretty easily. But one old waiter, Ben, tipped me over to his side by the force of his argument. Not that he ever spoke to me directly, of course. He hated white people and wouldn't give me the time of day. But the other white college busboy and I were at least allowed to listen in. Ben attempted to explain his reasons, but the younger black men did not merely disagree with the ideas and reject them, they simply wouldn't listen. They just walked away, leaving the old men shaking their heads. "If you cain't be told, you cain't be taught," Ben would say. I didn't follow the meaning of that immediately. It took some thinking through. It may not really have sunk in until later that year, long after I had left the place.
Sometimes you just have to be told: yes is yes, seven is seven, green is green. If you can't deal with that, then ultimately, you can't be taught very much. It takes both courage and humility to be told.
Perhaps it appealed to me because I am neither very courageous nor humble, but I at least have the sense to admire those traits and wish I had them. If you cain't be told, you cain't be taught.
I can see both sides of this conflict pretty easily. But one old waiter, Ben, tipped me over to his side by the force of his argument. Not that he ever spoke to me directly, of course. He hated white people and wouldn't give me the time of day. But the other white college busboy and I were at least allowed to listen in. Ben attempted to explain his reasons, but the younger black men did not merely disagree with the ideas and reject them, they simply wouldn't listen. They just walked away, leaving the old men shaking their heads. "If you cain't be told, you cain't be taught," Ben would say. I didn't follow the meaning of that immediately. It took some thinking through. It may not really have sunk in until later that year, long after I had left the place.
Sometimes you just have to be told: yes is yes, seven is seven, green is green. If you can't deal with that, then ultimately, you can't be taught very much. It takes both courage and humility to be told.
Perhaps it appealed to me because I am neither very courageous nor humble, but I at least have the sense to admire those traits and wish I had them. If you cain't be told, you cain't be taught.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Spammers
I had spam comments on every single one of my ABBA posts over the last four years today. Usually, the big spam attractors are Daywalkers and Black Vocalization Style. Two atypical posts for me but ones I like.
I can't figure what word in the text is attracting the spam.
I can't figure what word in the text is attracting the spam.
600 Aubergines
Those recipe online features that recompute ingredient amounts? You may want to be alert about those.
3 chilies, 6 cloves garlic, 2 stalks lemongrass... check, check, check.
600 aubergines, quartered lengthwise, then halved? These people really like eggplant. And not very spicy eggplant.
This is why estimating is a useful mathematical skill.
3 chilies, 6 cloves garlic, 2 stalks lemongrass... check, check, check.
600 aubergines, quartered lengthwise, then halved? These people really like eggplant. And not very spicy eggplant.
This is why estimating is a useful mathematical skill.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Spinning Plates
Bethany over at Bad Data, Bad put up an xkcd cartoon which made me immediately think, "Yeah, that's like the guy who has too many plates spinning" when I realised that the image might be entirely unfamiliar to her. And most other people.
This used to be a frequent entertainment, children, this spinning plates or other novelty acts which involved a high degree of skillful manipulation of everyday objects for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
No, actually I don't know why we were so fascinated. No video games, perhaps, to distract us from higher pursuits.
It gets better. No, really. Consider the Baronton Sisters.
Or Marvyn Roy
This used to be a frequent entertainment, children, this spinning plates or other novelty acts which involved a high degree of skillful manipulation of everyday objects for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
No, actually I don't know why we were so fascinated. No video games, perhaps, to distract us from higher pursuits.
It gets better. No, really. Consider the Baronton Sisters.
Or Marvyn Roy
New Theory
New to me, anyway.
I think people who read about events rather than participate in them are prone to wanting them regulated and controlled. If you read (or watch or hear about) any industry or activity, what will be reported will be what is going wrong. So you will just naturally want to make some kind of rule or set up some kind of consequence about that, so you can have done with it and move on. Kids singing in the halls? Thai immigrants being snubbed? Hot dogs too long for the buns?
More seriously, when NPR or the NYT, or even more conservative outlets like (I've heard) Fox News or WSJ, run a front page story about an industry, it's because someone cheated, or lost money, or broke laws, or fired a lot of people, or poisoned the wells or something. If that's what you read, that's what you will think the world is, and you will want to fix it in similar ways each time: make a rule so that Bernie Madoff or Google or the State of Indiana can't do that anymore.
The attitude comes from sampling current events without depth. Seeking information in a certain way or receiving it in a certain way - via front page, or news hour, or other "selected bursts," may make one tend rather automatically to favor government intervention. The medium is the message.
I think people who read about events rather than participate in them are prone to wanting them regulated and controlled. If you read (or watch or hear about) any industry or activity, what will be reported will be what is going wrong. So you will just naturally want to make some kind of rule or set up some kind of consequence about that, so you can have done with it and move on. Kids singing in the halls? Thai immigrants being snubbed? Hot dogs too long for the buns?
More seriously, when NPR or the NYT, or even more conservative outlets like (I've heard) Fox News or WSJ, run a front page story about an industry, it's because someone cheated, or lost money, or broke laws, or fired a lot of people, or poisoned the wells or something. If that's what you read, that's what you will think the world is, and you will want to fix it in similar ways each time: make a rule so that Bernie Madoff or Google or the State of Indiana can't do that anymore.
The attitude comes from sampling current events without depth. Seeking information in a certain way or receiving it in a certain way - via front page, or news hour, or other "selected bursts," may make one tend rather automatically to favor government intervention. The medium is the message.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Zero Point
On the Dinocrat site, via Maggie's
One of my favorite deceptions to point out WRT graphs. As we are talking about millions of people and long-term trends, this drop in participation may indeed be alarming. It is a four-point drop in how many of us are gainfully employed, after all. But the zero-point of this graph is 63.5, and the hundred-point is 67.5, exactly the size of the change, not 0-100 percent. Visually, it tells us that nearly everyone worked twelve years ago and now, no one does.
Naughty, naughty.
Why do the Muppets endure?
50 years later, why do the Muppets endure? It's quite simple... they rock.
Suspicion
Of every hundred facts upon which to reason, ninety-nine depend on authority...I am told that there are still Logical Positivists out there, who believe if a thing cannot be measured, it cannot be discussed intelligently. That formulation is much better than the "if you can't prove it, I don't believe it" that it grew out of. In the early part of the 20th C it was a popular philosophy, especially among those in the hard sciences, and I suspect that is where it may still hang on. It has strengths. It does promote a certain clarity in argument and reasoning.
For example, few of us have followed the reasoning on which even ten percent of the truths we believe are based. We accept them on authority from the experts and are wise to do so; for though we are thereby sometimes deceived, yet we would have to live like savages if we did not. C.S.Lewis "Why I Am Not A Pacifist" 1940.
My objection to it is not so much that I don't believe it, but that I suspect its adherents do not. They are like all of us, not only believing a thousand things we have never quantified and subjected to hard thinking, but a hundred things which we would continue to believe even if we had. Not all things admit of easy measurement, fewer still admit of proof even in theory, but we often have to believe some thing to cross the street, do laundry, sing a song. My suspicion is that the Logical Positivism is sometimes convenient, to get one off the hook having to think about something. I am hinting at religious questions here, but there are many other things in the mix: some questions are too painful, but most are simply too inconvenient to reexamine. So we go on believing what we did before.
Similarly, there is a belief gaining traction from neurological research which is based on older ideas questioning Free Will - that our reasoning is only approximately correct, useful rather than reliable. (Philosopher Eddy Nahmias challenges that, as I previously linked.) It may be a true idea. Our reasoning, pace Thomas Aquinas, may not only not be divine, but merely cleverly animal. It may be good enough to get us by, no more. Yet I suspect that the proponents of the idea don't believe that particular bit of reasoning is only approximate. They believe it is true. Lewis wrote frequently of the self-refuting aspect of that strict naturalism. It saws off the branch it is sitting on, for if our thoughts are not reliable, neither is that thought reliable.
That is usually waved off with a smile that yes, technically, it is an inconsistency, but what can one expect with such flawed reasoning as ours? So it may be. But I would be much more sympathetic to the idea if it were not only trotted out at convenient times, rather than when it is inconvenient specifically to the Approximate Believer.
Accusations of bad faith are not the most powerful of arguments, I admit, and that is what I have done here. Nonetheless I do not rescind it. I think it is what is happening, whether it is possible to measure or possible to rigidly prove or not. My painfully inexact animal cleverness encounters it too often to ignore, if that suits you better.
New Manager
The Red Sox need a Dick Williams - not someone who can keep a bunch of high-priced stars all happy with each other, but someone who can figure out who can play this game and who can't. If the Red Sox buy three top-flight players, that will not get them over the top. They need to also find another five doubles, twenty points of batting average, or 20 extra innings pitched in every slot.
If a new manager could evaluate only pitchers or position players, I would prefer pitchers at this point. We need someone who sees clearly. Boston, Oakland, Montreal, Williams identified the players in the high minors who should come up and many later became stars.
I don't know who does that now, but that's who we need.
If a new manager could evaluate only pitchers or position players, I would prefer pitchers at this point. We need someone who sees clearly. Boston, Oakland, Montreal, Williams identified the players in the high minors who should come up and many later became stars.
I don't know who does that now, but that's who we need.
Friday, September 07, 2012
German Pagan All-Natural Origins.
Earlier related posts: Natural Vs. Artificial and Natural.
There's a lot of fun stuff here and it is link-heavy. You could browse for hours. I had known about Wandervogel, though I had forgotten the name, but I had never heard of Lebensreform, literally "life-reform," until I did this research. It gives better evidence for my point than anything I had thought of on my own. Even I didn't think the connection to German paganism was that strong. I found more here, at the Children of the Sun.
There's a lot of fun stuff here and it is link-heavy. You could browse for hours. I had known about Wandervogel, though I had forgotten the name, but I had never heard of Lebensreform, literally "life-reform," until I did this research. It gives better evidence for my point than anything I had thought of on my own. Even I didn't think the connection to German paganism was that strong. I found more here, at the Children of the Sun.
I’d like to just flesh out that German pagan background to
the all-natural movement. But I will first note the other side - first, that there was a British and
American strain of this thinking which was only incidentally German. Only
insofar as people read Kant, Schopenhauer, and Fichte in general was that strain a Teutonic movement, for the
intelligentsia of the day also read other Europeans and Americans who were more
direct influences
Second, the line from Rousseau, Emerson, Tolstoy, and Thoreau through the
Fellowship of the New Life and the Fabian Society looks at first much more direct
in influencing the modern pacifist, simple-living, vegetarian culture and
exaltation of Nature. Third, there were
American utopian back-to-the-landers who had nothing German about them –
Shakers, Brook Farm, Oneida - I don’t know how we measure who is more
influential than whom, but it’s at least there and deserves mention.
I also note some things which are definitely German but
don’t seem to be especially influential in pagan roots. I have said before that the Germans were only
a partially converted country to begin with, and I still think that’s true, but
that doesn’t imply that everything in their culture is suspect thereby.
So fourth - you can trace those German philosophers, especially Fichte, and their
fascination with will as having provided a foundation for German nationalism
and ultimately, Nazism, but not necessarily pagan revival and natural living. That came later, when their descendants
decided that, as their superiority could not rest on their Christian culture,
shared by others in Europe, it must reside in some previous underlying advantage –
genetic, cultural, or both. Strong and adventurous gods and heroes naturally
suggested themselves as causes. That everyone
else in the world also had traditional gods and heroes who were strong and
adventurous was somehow not noticed.
Perhaps because they felt very deeply – there’s the romanticism
and sentimentality piece – that they were strong and quite special, that was
enough. Human beings are like that, not just Germans.
Fifth, German religious groups coming to America also provided more
than their share of utopian back-to-the-landers – Amish, New Harmony,
Mennonites, Moravians, Hutterites – who settled in the Midwest because that was
the next “open” spot in European settlement.
Yet even if these groups carried the traces of paganism in their
cultures that all Christians do, it would be hard to level much accusation
against them for strong influence in that direction. Genesis and much of the OT carries the theme
that living in cities causes spiritual decline while the rural life improves
character – from Cain to Daniel it shows up, and is echoed in the NT with John
the Baptist. The idea that things in general are deteriorating and can only be
fixed by getting out into the country is recurrent in western thought. It’s one of our panaceas. Rousseau wasn’t the
first.
Thus I don’t think it accidental that Seventh Day Adventists
had a lot of that healthy eating idea right from the start and grew in
midwestern soil. It was in the air;
Graham and Kellogg might not have been so prosperous in other regions. In New England that energy went into the
mind-body-spirit split of the Christian Scientists, not natural versus
artificial.
Was that enough qualifiers? It's a terrible thing to see many sides of an issue.
All those qualifiers in place, here is that introduction to
the Wandervogel movement. (Same link)
There’s simple living and harmony with
nature; there’s nudism (then called naturism); natural foods and strong
tendencies toward vegetarianism; natural medicines, with an emphasis on
remarkable powers of the body to heal it self or be healed with fairly simple
regimens such as clean water, exercise, or herbals found locally; hiking and
camping and getting out of the unhealthy cities; conservation of wilderness and
even some proto-Gaia Worship, though under other names; they read Hesse, and
Nietzsche; they eschewed the commercial music scene and favored performers from
The People – many of whom went on to become commercially successful,
certainly. There is, in fact, just about
everything you need philosophically to leave “the rat race” in northeastern
cities and start an herb farm in Vermont or a commune in Tennessee. There's a hippie museum there if you ever get the urge.
When you click together the pieces that the Nature Boys were
largely German, and in specific Gypsy Boots’ parents were Wandervogel,* there’s some
founder effect in hippie culture, far more than from old Pietist Christian
groups.Grace Slick, Brian Wilson, and Donovan headed for Southern California, not Pennsylvania Dutch country.
It may seem strange that such a movement would penetrate
Christian circles at all, but there were important points of contact: the early
movement was connected to scouting in both England and America and retained
that even in dark eras. The adventurous visit other areas, and when they did,
would share trails, shelters, and equipment.
More important, however, was that the older Christian groups tended to
do the type of farming that the hippies were moving into: small farms and local
crafts rather than agribiz. Mother Earth News found itself rubbing up against such
folks from earliest days, even though it was initially quite hostile to
religion. The hippies settled on being
against organised religion, which was just enough stretch to accommodate
everyone. Many of the Christian groups
were bent on removing themselves from The World – varying degrees of paranoia
here – which the freaks could identify with, though they had different reasons. Both were ultimately defining themselves as
counterculture.
The early Jesus people were more a hippie movement than a
church movement as well – They had not merely a preference but an actual
disdain for the mainstream and institutional churches – which had like opinions
about them. It is ironic that mainstream
denominational hierarchies have lots of folks tending toward these ideas
now. Ironic, that is, until one
recognises that these were semi-hippies who were never able to make the break. They like the overlapping fashionableness
that the Church should withdraw from the world and stand against the corporate,
consumerist culture of America. It
preserved their counterculture bonfides in both directions. Two birds with one stone. Wankers.
That the Jesus Movement led more directly to independent churches that
are now more conservative seems another irony, but it's not. It’s not just
that homeschooling and back-to-the-land, overlaps with that 70’s secular
culture. It’s that this particular
Romantic Vision is flexible and can be called into service for various
causes. The plaid shirt, voluntary
poverty, wood-chopping, vegetable growing guy fits into a lot of small slots in
this culture. Hard to peg those guys - and their lovely granola wives.
Finally, some people that Dubbahdee referred to who come much earlier in this whole Vitalism, life force, Natural Cure Movement. Germans Benedict Lust and John Scheel (naturopathy), their predecessor Sebastian Kneipp and their follower, exercise guru Bernarr McFadden. An excellent history of 19th C natural cures here.
*The movement spread quickly among Central European Jews,
and the purification and germanisation of the movement was a rationale for the
Hitler Youth. It does give evidence that
whatever the later connection, Wandervogel was not inevitably an expression of
Aryan superiority. How Jews got by that
“Teutonic roots” part I don’t know, but I imagine that as with all broad
movements, there were different emphases in different areas, and we all usually
ignore a problem or two for the sake of larger agreements.
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Voice Vote
Lot's of discussion over at Grim's about the three tries at a voice vote at the DNC. It sounded even to me all three times. However, as there were two items voted on at once, we don't know what the breakout would be.
There is much speculation how this will play among the electorate, that the Democrats "voted against God." Which they sorta did, but not really. There are lots of possible explanations behind both the aye and nay votes, but they didn't get to say those, just the single syllable. However, if it's an unfair question, I certainly didn't ask them to answer it. They did that to themselves.
I am more curious how it will play to loyal Democrats, who watched non-democracy play out in front of them when the chair called it a two-thirds vote and motion carried when it clearly wasn't. Certainly the losers must have had at least a momentary twinge, wondering if they were in some sort of corrupt organisation where their opinion didn't count and their betters made choices for them. But I would hope even the winners would pause and realise that they won unfairly, by cheating. In both cases, I hope for the scales to fall from some eyes: "these people aren't...aren't honest, honey. We have to get out of here."
I wonder who in the national media will press the issue of a clear 50-50 split among the delegates and the dishonest response to that.
Nah. Lost my head there for a moment.
There is much speculation how this will play among the electorate, that the Democrats "voted against God." Which they sorta did, but not really. There are lots of possible explanations behind both the aye and nay votes, but they didn't get to say those, just the single syllable. However, if it's an unfair question, I certainly didn't ask them to answer it. They did that to themselves.
I am more curious how it will play to loyal Democrats, who watched non-democracy play out in front of them when the chair called it a two-thirds vote and motion carried when it clearly wasn't. Certainly the losers must have had at least a momentary twinge, wondering if they were in some sort of corrupt organisation where their opinion didn't count and their betters made choices for them. But I would hope even the winners would pause and realise that they won unfairly, by cheating. In both cases, I hope for the scales to fall from some eyes: "these people aren't...aren't honest, honey. We have to get out of here."
I wonder who in the national media will press the issue of a clear 50-50 split among the delegates and the dishonest response to that.
Nah. Lost my head there for a moment.
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Core Europe
The new post at Bad Data, Bad! reminded me of the site "Strange Maps," which eventually got subsumed under bigthink.com. The earlier posts tend to be more fun, I have found. #22, Core Europe, has always been a favorite of mine. It's certainly what many Americans think is really Europe, rather than a hanger-on; apparently many Europeans think so too.
Yet I wonder...did they really mean to include so many Italians? I mean, there's the Renaissance and everything, but are we still giving them credit for that?
As infuriating as this map may be to many people, the CIA World Factbook, Eurovision contests, and most modern lists put the number of European countries around 50, including Azerbaijan, for pete's sake. When I write or say the word "Europe," there is no one who immediately has a picture of Cyprus come to mind. They're not Asian, I suppose. Have to put 'em somewhere.
Yet I wonder...did they really mean to include so many Italians? I mean, there's the Renaissance and everything, but are we still giving them credit for that?
As infuriating as this map may be to many people, the CIA World Factbook, Eurovision contests, and most modern lists put the number of European countries around 50, including Azerbaijan, for pete's sake. When I write or say the word "Europe," there is no one who immediately has a picture of Cyprus come to mind. They're not Asian, I suppose. Have to put 'em somewhere.
Natural Vs. Artificial
I speculated a few weeks back that the idea of natural things being better because they were made directly by God, while artificial things were inferior because they were touched by sinful man, owed more to German paganism than to Christian thought, however common it has become in Christian circles. Refresher: I am referring to foods, medicines, tourist spots, and the like. There seems to be a subset of Christians who believe that natural is closer to what God wants. They sometimes add in that corporate entities are more from the culture of materialism (and hence less holy), while natural things bring us closer to the simpler lifestyle God points us to.
My hunch was based on these strands of knowledge:
The Nature Boys of the 40's - 60's, who built many of the first California health food stores and were influential in counterculture, alternative medicine, and especially H-A hippie culture, were themselves descended from the early 20th C German youth movements. While these movements were characterised by hiking, camping, healthy living, and self-reliance, this was closely tied to ideas of German superiority and return to Teutonic ideals. They read Hesse and Nietzsche, listened to Wagner, and stressed personal will. Many were quite specific in their return to German pagan roots. (The relation of this to later Nazi developments are not inevitable, but pretty clear.)
The American versions of this all-natural approach came from the Midwest, especially upper Midwest, which were largely German, Dutch, and Scandinavian settled.
The earliest naturopathic, homeopathic, and related alt-medicine practices came a century before that from other Germanic sources, from a philosophical ferment which focused on life-force, and gods from nature. Though of course, that last is hardly unusual, as most cultures drew their gods and goddesses from what we would today generally call "nature."
I also had a vague idea that the Puritan strain of reading from the Book of Nature as well as the Bible, and the relation of that both to earlier Germanic outlook and later Unitarian beliefs, seemed to suggest a continuity from those Teutonic thoughts to modern nature-emphasisers and Gaian thinking. Even then I thought it was tenuous, but something might be made of it.
My hunch prover to be more correct than not, but I got some things wrong. For example, I thought I would get to ruin the song "The Happy Wanderer" for you, as it seemed clearly tied to the late 19th C Wandervogel movement of strong young Germans hiking, breathing fresh air, eating vegetables, and enduring hardships. And where that led. German evangelicals* were especially big on this, which was one of their reasons for supporting Hitler in his first few years. We have always fallen for movements that get the teenagers to be polite and get focused, I'm afraid. They got off than bandwagon, but a lot of the damage had already been done.
But the song has only the most distant connections to such things, having been written in 1954. I'm not going to hold hiking in general against the Germans. The craze had always been British and American as well, and now everyone is getting into the act.
In my research on the song, however, I came across this, which illustrates that the Germans are still not quite like us. They were not known as stern and emotionless until the mid-20th C. They were regarded as hopeless oversentimental romantics (see Literature, German, 18th-19th C) who might burst into tears at old songs or go off and believe anything. Perhaps that gives us a better understanding of why they went insane.
Details to follow.
*Evangelical had somewhat different meaning in that culture, as it primarily meant Lutherans and Calvinist groups.
My hunch was based on these strands of knowledge:
The Nature Boys of the 40's - 60's, who built many of the first California health food stores and were influential in counterculture, alternative medicine, and especially H-A hippie culture, were themselves descended from the early 20th C German youth movements. While these movements were characterised by hiking, camping, healthy living, and self-reliance, this was closely tied to ideas of German superiority and return to Teutonic ideals. They read Hesse and Nietzsche, listened to Wagner, and stressed personal will. Many were quite specific in their return to German pagan roots. (The relation of this to later Nazi developments are not inevitable, but pretty clear.)
The American versions of this all-natural approach came from the Midwest, especially upper Midwest, which were largely German, Dutch, and Scandinavian settled.
The earliest naturopathic, homeopathic, and related alt-medicine practices came a century before that from other Germanic sources, from a philosophical ferment which focused on life-force, and gods from nature. Though of course, that last is hardly unusual, as most cultures drew their gods and goddesses from what we would today generally call "nature."
I also had a vague idea that the Puritan strain of reading from the Book of Nature as well as the Bible, and the relation of that both to earlier Germanic outlook and later Unitarian beliefs, seemed to suggest a continuity from those Teutonic thoughts to modern nature-emphasisers and Gaian thinking. Even then I thought it was tenuous, but something might be made of it.
My hunch prover to be more correct than not, but I got some things wrong. For example, I thought I would get to ruin the song "The Happy Wanderer" for you, as it seemed clearly tied to the late 19th C Wandervogel movement of strong young Germans hiking, breathing fresh air, eating vegetables, and enduring hardships. And where that led. German evangelicals* were especially big on this, which was one of their reasons for supporting Hitler in his first few years. We have always fallen for movements that get the teenagers to be polite and get focused, I'm afraid. They got off than bandwagon, but a lot of the damage had already been done.
But the song has only the most distant connections to such things, having been written in 1954. I'm not going to hold hiking in general against the Germans. The craze had always been British and American as well, and now everyone is getting into the act.
In my research on the song, however, I came across this, which illustrates that the Germans are still not quite like us. They were not known as stern and emotionless until the mid-20th C. They were regarded as hopeless oversentimental romantics (see Literature, German, 18th-19th C) who might burst into tears at old songs or go off and believe anything. Perhaps that gives us a better understanding of why they went insane.
Details to follow.
*Evangelical had somewhat different meaning in that culture, as it primarily meant Lutherans and Calvinist groups.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Twin Studies
Reading the Ron Unz essay from July (via Steve Sailer) was interesting enough in itself, pointing out the rural/urban split in IQ scores worldwide that seems to disappear quickly when the country mouse becomes a city mouse.* But it included, almost in passing, a weakness in twin studies I had never noticed. And I should have.
Much is made of the fact that identical twins reared apart have IQ's much more similar to each other than to the others in the family they grew up in. This has been solid evidence for the "hard-genetic" folks for decades, and I have relied on it myself at times. Yet it neglects the evidence that the separated environments are still quite similar in most cases. We can note that one family has many books, the other few; one family is composed of garrulous researchers while the other of silent, morose, neglectful unemployed - but the children were the same age and grew up in the same country. Their media exposure and general stimulation might have been similar, the same popular songs, popular TV shows, even same school curriculum. Ideas would have been introduced at the same age. From within our own culture, the homes might appear divergent. But imagine running into an an age-mate from rural Laos and trying to find a point of connection in childhood reminiscence.
I have switched to soft-to-medium-genetic pretty quickly. Certain minima of stimulation and ideas introduced at critical periods must be present before we are comparing apples to apples. I still believe that some of the apples will tend to be bigger because of their DNA, year after year, and differences will remain no matter how equally all are tended and fed. But the comparisons can only be made within certain parameters.
BTW, Unz kicks Stephen Jay Gould pretty hard, which is always fun.
*It's more complicated than that, as it doesn't seem to always work and especially not always work fully; and expanding media culture available to rural areas seems to have dampened the effect - yes, yes. But the effect is still dramatic in comparing say Greece 1961 to Greece 1979, a span that should certainly not show any genetic effect.
Much is made of the fact that identical twins reared apart have IQ's much more similar to each other than to the others in the family they grew up in. This has been solid evidence for the "hard-genetic" folks for decades, and I have relied on it myself at times. Yet it neglects the evidence that the separated environments are still quite similar in most cases. We can note that one family has many books, the other few; one family is composed of garrulous researchers while the other of silent, morose, neglectful unemployed - but the children were the same age and grew up in the same country. Their media exposure and general stimulation might have been similar, the same popular songs, popular TV shows, even same school curriculum. Ideas would have been introduced at the same age. From within our own culture, the homes might appear divergent. But imagine running into an an age-mate from rural Laos and trying to find a point of connection in childhood reminiscence.
I have switched to soft-to-medium-genetic pretty quickly. Certain minima of stimulation and ideas introduced at critical periods must be present before we are comparing apples to apples. I still believe that some of the apples will tend to be bigger because of their DNA, year after year, and differences will remain no matter how equally all are tended and fed. But the comparisons can only be made within certain parameters.
BTW, Unz kicks Stephen Jay Gould pretty hard, which is always fun.
*It's more complicated than that, as it doesn't seem to always work and especially not always work fully; and expanding media culture available to rural areas seems to have dampened the effect - yes, yes. But the effect is still dramatic in comparing say Greece 1961 to Greece 1979, a span that should certainly not show any genetic effect.
The Power of Habit
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg.
Halfway through this book, I was still going to give it four stars. There is some good science in the first section, explained in a way you can make use of. I dropped to three stars, and maybe to two, by the end.
Perhaps it was when he listed, on page 59, health habits we needed to acquire.
Except, of course, that all six are questionable. Even the strongest of them, the vegetables, is a statistical average, not a given for everyone.
Or it may have been when he lauded Rhode Island Hospital for showing its commitment to safety by sending everyone to a day-long workshop on teamwork. I felt sorry for the poor bastards - I've been to that sort of thing for thirty years, but have never seen one stray number to suggest that the method works. A psychiatrist friend who got a special fellowship to study and teach teamwork was among the worst at actually listening to team members I have ever seen. Perhaps he wrote the curriculum for Rhode Island Hospital, eh?
But by the time he was quoting Rahm Emanuel's comment about never letting a crisis go to waste, noting approvingly all that Obama had been able to accomplish, I realised that Duhigg just believes the conventional wisdom of what people in his circle tell him, without stepping back in any way. That might not invalidate his understanding of how the power of habit was important at Alcoa, or Montgomery Alabama, or the London Underground, but it certainly calls all these examples into question.
He likes a nice, tight narrative where the example he chooses illustrates his point about habit without loose ends. He occasionally mentions that it's more complicated than that, but... And the "but" is always that his little anecdote about the power of habit is the overwhelming factor. Regarding Montgomery and the boycott, no less an authority than Thurgood Marshall said it was unnecessary, but Charles Duhigg dismisses that.
Experimental evidence - now including fMRI's! - suggests that you have a better chance of losing a bad habit if you replace it with something else. Sometimes it's hard to find what you are really craving and what a good replacement would be, but think about it hard and try some different things. Next, It helps if you have a plan what you will do when the hard times come, as they inevitably will. There. That's the book. The rest is cheerleading for people who like anecdotes aimed at a somewhat higher educational level than an Amway speaker. There's no hint of firing you up, here, just patient explanation.
Get it from the library, as we did, and read the first 150 pages. It will inspire you to try a few things, and give you good tools for getting started. Maybe that is worth four stars.
Halfway through this book, I was still going to give it four stars. There is some good science in the first section, explained in a way you can make use of. I dropped to three stars, and maybe to two, by the end.
Perhaps it was when he listed, on page 59, health habits we needed to acquire.
We should watch our salt and drink more water. We should eat more vegetables and fewer fats. We should take more vitamins and apply sunscreen. The facts could not be more clear...
Except, of course, that all six are questionable. Even the strongest of them, the vegetables, is a statistical average, not a given for everyone.
Or it may have been when he lauded Rhode Island Hospital for showing its commitment to safety by sending everyone to a day-long workshop on teamwork. I felt sorry for the poor bastards - I've been to that sort of thing for thirty years, but have never seen one stray number to suggest that the method works. A psychiatrist friend who got a special fellowship to study and teach teamwork was among the worst at actually listening to team members I have ever seen. Perhaps he wrote the curriculum for Rhode Island Hospital, eh?
But by the time he was quoting Rahm Emanuel's comment about never letting a crisis go to waste, noting approvingly all that Obama had been able to accomplish, I realised that Duhigg just believes the conventional wisdom of what people in his circle tell him, without stepping back in any way. That might not invalidate his understanding of how the power of habit was important at Alcoa, or Montgomery Alabama, or the London Underground, but it certainly calls all these examples into question.
He likes a nice, tight narrative where the example he chooses illustrates his point about habit without loose ends. He occasionally mentions that it's more complicated than that, but... And the "but" is always that his little anecdote about the power of habit is the overwhelming factor. Regarding Montgomery and the boycott, no less an authority than Thurgood Marshall said it was unnecessary, but Charles Duhigg dismisses that.
Experimental evidence - now including fMRI's! - suggests that you have a better chance of losing a bad habit if you replace it with something else. Sometimes it's hard to find what you are really craving and what a good replacement would be, but think about it hard and try some different things. Next, It helps if you have a plan what you will do when the hard times come, as they inevitably will. There. That's the book. The rest is cheerleading for people who like anecdotes aimed at a somewhat higher educational level than an Amway speaker. There's no hint of firing you up, here, just patient explanation.
Get it from the library, as we did, and read the first 150 pages. It will inspire you to try a few things, and give you good tools for getting started. Maybe that is worth four stars.
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Saturday, September 01, 2012
You Didn't Build That
(Not Quite Top Shelf)
I would like to start where I ended my GDP post, with Justice Hand, because I think something in here is the dividing line between liberal and conservative views of individuals and government.
Justice Learned Hand in 1934 when he was on the 2nd Circuit
I would like to start where I ended my GDP post, with Justice Hand, because I think something in here is the dividing line between liberal and conservative views of individuals and government.
Justice Learned Hand in 1934 when he was on the 2nd Circuit
Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.
The courts ruled “over and over again” because over and over
again, government reaches, believing that the money actually belongs to
“society” and thus to it. It treats tax avoidance
as equivalent to tax evasion, as if money is being stolen from The
People. Liberals are absolutely on board
with this idea, believing that there is indeed something sinister, something
unpatriotic, about sending your money away from the tax bite, to Switzerland or
the Caymans. They simply don’t get that theirs
is the unamerican idea. The People
is not Society is not The Government.
These are not interchangeable concepts, however blurry the lines between
them are. Red is not blue is not yellow
just because green and orange exist.
***
But more foundationally, there are only a few roads that can
lead one to a place where one thinks that it is sinister and
unpatriotic. You either have to believe
that the money ultimately belongs to the government and/or you have to believe
that the money was acquired by luck, help by others, or exploitation. Those seem like extreme claims, I
acknowledge. But there aren’t any other
paths there. All other arguments eventually
resolve themselves into one of those positions. If you disagree, try it. Look for the excape hatches, most of which
will start with a claim that these things are partially true but needn’t be
carried to their end, and see if they don’t all have no stopping point which
prevents this.
Obama says “You Didn’t Build That,” and he is expressing
quite forcefully the idea that everyone who makes money had help, and therefore
does not have an absolute claim. Well of
course. As I said before, someone can
always say that you couldn’t have grown the crop if they hadn’t sold you the
seed, or scored 47 on the Lakers if they hadn’t turned on the arena
lights. Every action is most certainly
in a context. But Obama’s comment is slyer.
He is saying “without laws, and markets, and enforcement – that is,
without government – you couldn’t have made this money. So we deserve some, and we’re taking
it.” But that is true in any country,
under any government. Afghanistan’s got
a framework. Denmark’s got a framework. Somebody built the roads for delivery,
somebody printed the currency, somebody posts a set of rules for buying and selling.
Again, of course.
But such systems have a practical claim on us only insofar
as they are themselves practical, and have a moral claim on us only insofar as
they are themselves moral. The questions
are “How practical is this system you’re charging us for, Barack? And how moral
is it? And come to think of it, how
did it get that way?” Ah but the mask is off then, isn’t it? If we’re being charged rent for using the
system because it’s a really good one for making money, what are its good
features and who built them? If there’s
a fee charged for having justice, who’s responsible for that? And what did Barack Obama have to do with
it? It is fair to turn and say “Barack,
You Didn’t Build That.”
I’m quite grateful that I live under a system where it’s
possible for me to make a living and have confidence that most people are
treated decently. But I am more grateful
to those who came before me and built this place, plus my fellow-citizens who
go about doing their jobs, than I am to Barack Obama, or even to government
in the sense of everything it wants to do.
I am grateful for some parts of the government, not so grateful for
others, and expect we will not all agree on those parts. Putting up with paying
for government stuff I think is useless or even pernicious is an expected
cost. I don’t mind paying it. But I don’t define that a good. It’s an
unavoidable friction, to be minimised, not praised.
My uncle sent me a Paul Krugman essay about why we should
tax the 1% more. The claim was that we
could get X trillions in revenue, as opposed to the woefully inadequate Y
trillions in cuts proposed by Paul Ryan.
I’m not even fussing about his numbers at this point – it’s his
assumptions that I’m taking issue with.
It was clear throughout the essay that Krugman has default positions
based on sliding definitions:
Krugman assumption that society owns it. That they can
charge money for the
privilege of living here that is unrelated to the ability to make money. A society can physically do that - hell societies can require you to go to a particular church or wear certain clothes if they want. They have the power to do that. That doesn't make it moral. If you can make 10x in society A and 3x in society B, and A will charge you 70%, while B will charge you 20%, you still might go with A, just because your net is greater. Even if A does stupid or immoral things you might go there. It's power. They make the rules.
But when A declares that the stupid things are actually morally superior,
and you are cheating the populace by trying to minimise the take, there is
no foundation for that.
privilege of living here that is unrelated to the ability to make money. A society can physically do that - hell societies can require you to go to a particular church or wear certain clothes if they want. They have the power to do that. That doesn't make it moral. If you can make 10x in society A and 3x in society B, and A will charge you 70%, while B will charge you 20%, you still might go with A, just because your net is greater. Even if A does stupid or immoral things you might go there. It's power. They make the rules.
But when A declares that the stupid things are actually morally superior,
and you are cheating the populace by trying to minimise the take, there is
no foundation for that.
Offhand
I get the impression that Obama thinks he's sort of a Jackie Robinson character in American history, because he's a First Black Something. That he might actually be a Tom Yawkey, impeding progress because of his prejudices, does not seem to occur to him.
Well, I don't know what occurs to him, so that's not quite fair. His statements suggest an amazing narcissism, but I suspect I'm really thinking about his supporters' attitudes and projecting those onto him. But there you have it: it would never occur to anyone to switch races in that myth. Obama has to be the black guy because he's a black guy, deeper analogies be damned.
Well, I don't know what occurs to him, so that's not quite fair. His statements suggest an amazing narcissism, but I suspect I'm really thinking about his supporters' attitudes and projecting those onto him. But there you have it: it would never occur to anyone to switch races in that myth. Obama has to be the black guy because he's a black guy, deeper analogies be damned.
The Danger of Thinking in GDP
(Not Quite Top Shelf)
The statistic Gross Domestic Product encourages us to think in a governmental, especially liberal way. It paints a picture that there is this huge pile of money, albeit in many different forms, that resides in a country and somehow belongs to it. The GDP of Finland or Tanzania we just think of as belonging to Finland or Tanzania as a whole. However they divvy it up, there’s this number, the boundaries of the country contain it, and heck, it’s not ours, it’s not China’s, so it must be theirs.
The statistic Gross Domestic Product encourages us to think in a governmental, especially liberal way. It paints a picture that there is this huge pile of money, albeit in many different forms, that resides in a country and somehow belongs to it. The GDP of Finland or Tanzania we just think of as belonging to Finland or Tanzania as a whole. However they divvy it up, there’s this number, the boundaries of the country contain it, and heck, it’s not ours, it’s not China’s, so it must be theirs.
It’s because we don’t know Finns or Tanzanians as
individuals. It’s a convenient storage
for a big idea, but it misleads, because that value is not owned by Finland,
but by individual Finnish people. We do
it with The GDP of the US quite a bit.
But we only do it at a national level, when we want to compare how much
“we” spend on eyeliner rather than restrooms for the transgendered. No one talks about the GDP of Goffstown, or
NH, because when it gets down to that level it dawns on us. That’s not the town’s money, that Charlie’s
money. GDP is a fiction. It’s a statistical construct that helps us to
understand certain movements of goods and services, but it’s not really a
thing, an object.
It seems like such an exaggeration to government types, and
to liberals when conservatives grouse that “they think it’s their money and
they want to take it from you to do what they want with it..” Nonono.
We know it’s your money. But you
made it in a certain interdependent context. It’s only fair that people pay for
the privilege of being in that context.
We all live here. We’re all in
this together.
Wait. Are you
charging me rent for using the system or asking me to share? I might be glad to do either, but it sounds
like the ideas are combined here.
You should want to share. So it’s the same thing.
No, actually, that’s where it starts to get scary. Because “sharing with society” has come to
have “giving it to the government” as its synonym.
Well sure, that’s just more efficient. Societies designate people to do this work
for them. And we have to do it that way,
because it didn’t work when we left it to individuals, so the government has to
do it.
It doesn’t work this way either.
But it works better.
And we can keep trying and do better and better still.
Actually, we don’t know that. We know that private charity was inadequate,
but we don’t know that this way is any better.
Oh come n -
No really, we don’t.
We’ve spent a lot of money, and it’s done some good things, but we also
have measurably worse family arrangements.
We may have worse individual character as well, though we can’t measure
that either.
****
Justice Learned Hand in 1934 when he was on the 2nd
Circuit
Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.
The courts ruled “over and over again” because over and over
again, government reaches, believing that the money actually belongs to
“society” and thus to it. It treats tax avoidance
as equivalent to tax evasion, as if money is being stolen from The
People. Liberals are absolutely on board
with this idea, believing that there is indeed something sinister, something
unpatriotic, about sending your money away from the tax bite, to Switzerland or
the Caymans. They simply don’t get that theirs
is the unamerican idea. The People
is not Society is not The Government.
These are not interchangeable concepts, however blurry the lines between
them are. Red is not blue is not yellow
just because green and orange exist.
More on this tomorrow...
More on this tomorrow...