OT28: Where In The World Is Comment Sandiego?

This is the semimonthly open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. Also:

1. After reading one of my past posts, probably The Right To Waive Your Rights, someone mentioned that they’re no longer willing to see a psychiatrist for their suicidal thoughts because they interpreted me as saying psychiatrists always (usually?) involuntarily commit people with suicidal thoughts. So just to clear this up for anyone else with the same misapprehension: THAT IS NOT WHAT I SAID. I said that it sometimes works that way in hospital emergency rooms, where there are special incentives to be risk-averse and where the patients are usually very ill. This is NOT THE CASE if you just make an appointment in your average outpatient psychiatrist’s office. Most outpatient psychiatrists are comfortable with people who have occasional suicidal thoughts as long as they say they don’t immediately plan to act on them. Please do not let fear of being involuntarily committed prevent you from talking about your problems with an outpatient psychiatrist.

2. Comment of the week is Gwern’s reanaylsis of the cost-benefit ratio of some of the low-specificity suicide biomarkers I talked about last month. But also, Steve Sailer talks about who supported Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam.

3. Some corrections from the last links post: the Japanese may not be moving quite as fast to cut down on humanities education as previously reported; Vox may be prematurely hasty in dismissing police shootings/subsequent riots as related to recent urban crime upticks.

4. There’s been some discussion of x-risk charity recently, and a lot of people have mentioned that preventing pandemics is a pretty important underserved area. I agree. Are there any good organizations working on the problem that accept donations?

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1,162 Responses to OT28: Where In The World Is Comment Sandiego?

  1. Redtube says:

    Does your browser automatically delete local storage data when you close it? Because that’s where, I think, the script stores the date of your last visit.

  2. Zanzard says:

    I Just want to comment that I really, really liked the title and the image in this post, referencing Carmen Sandiego! 😀

  3. Paul Brinkley says:

    [One of the threads got a whole of lot subthreads slammed up against the indent limit, so I’m gonna see if I can turn one of them into a new tree.]

    Me: “In what sense do you say libertarians believe everyone’s interests are aligned?”

    Mark: “I mean that libertarians believe that the interests of both workers and capitalists are aligned in *having* a capitalist market system. If they don’t believe this I am puzzled as to how they think they could operate the system without organized force (government).”

    Ahh, okay. …Well, I believe they should be aligned as far as what economic system is used, and that it ought to be capitalist… but I believe a lot of people seem to have different ideas of what capitalism is. To wit, Mark’s next:

    “I think it is clear that historically (within mixed economies) there has been a great deal of democratic demand for welfare systems that refuse to allow capitalists exclusive use of the machinery and productive capital they “own”, instead putting this to general social use.
    Now, I don’t think there is any knock-down evidence that this has been disastrous – if anything the opposite – so it is unlikely that workers will abandon their desire for this kind of welfare.”

    It doesn’t look disastrous because the disaster isn’t a decrease in quality of life, but rather a failure of quality of life to increase, which doesn’t look like anything to people who expect nothing better.

    Suppose a group of tailors has been producing garments by hand, when along comes an entrepreneur with a room full of sewing machines capable of producing garments at many times the speed of the tailors. Those tailors are forced to either take an employment contract with the entrepreneur, continue selling handmade garments to whomever’s left (possibly competing on quality), or finding another trade.

    This looks unfair at first glance, but only because we assumed the entrepreneur and his capital (the roomful of sewing machines) appeared out of thin air. Most free market advocates believe that’s the wrong way to look at it. That capital had to be acquired, ultimately by saving money on the part of one or more people. One of the main reasons to save, in fact, is to someday spend accumulated money on capital that will yield a dividend.

    If the tailors are able to insist on a rule that all profit from those sewing machines is to be shared among them, than it utterly negates all incentive to save for those machines. The result is those tailors continuing to handmake garments, and garments being priced much higher than they would have been if they had been automatically produced. If *all* laborers are able to insist upon sharing capital gains this way, then there will be little or no capital, and all goods and services will remain at their non-automated prices. In other words, workers who see capitalism as exploitative aren’t taking the lower prices into account.

    Mark: “So how likely is it that workers will accept the pure capitalist system? It is only likely to the extent that very similar institutions can be established voluntarily – the final argument for libertarianism is that capitalists will voluntarily institute socialism. And what if they don’t?”

    Admittedly, some of those tailors would lose their previous labor, and they therefore have an incentive to insist on shared capital anyway. But then consider that all of them are presumably turning a small profit as tailors; if their profits are held in a bank which can then gather enough of those savings to fund an entrepreneur, then the bank is providing all depositors interest; even tailors who lose their jobs are benefiting from the entrepreneur’s profit. Even if their savings are not funding the sewing machinist, they are presumably funding other ventures improving their lives in various ways, and providing them a return.

    Furthermore, those tailors can presumably find other work, since labor is virtually always scarce; they suffer a setback from retraining costs, including the prospect of doing less skilled labor for consequently lower wages.

    Finally, any one of those tailors may have an idea to improve productivity, acquire capital to implement it, and benefit personally from the returns. That entrepreneur may have been one of them. Workers can be capital owners; indeed, the libertarian wants as many of them to become capital owners as there are ideas that require capital. There is no worker class and capitalist class; the libertarian rejects these as mere temporary adjectives.

    Interest on savings, scarcity of labor, and economic mobility, even so, do not obligate people currently performing physical labor to consent to incoming capital owned by someone else. But neither do their concerns obligate the entire population to consign itself to perpetually high consumer prices.

    Obviously, throughout all of this is the recognized fact that individual interests do not align. But to the libertarian, this is only in the sense that different people want different things from their exchanges; each wants the most, and to give up the least in return. Free market capitalism reminds people that exchanges must be voluntary, and that they have an interest in respecting the institution of private property. Meanwhile, at worst, objections to this system stem from a physical laborer incorrectly seeing himself as being in a class that will contain him forever, as someone who will never own capital.

    • Mark says:

      “There is no worker class and capitalist class; the libertarian rejects these as mere temporary adjectives.”
      I just can’t shake the feeling that if each worker can access capital, and to the extent that their ideas are good can become a capitalist, then we have essentially achieved communism. Not in the sense of everyone being equal, but in the sense that the means of production would have to exist in such abundance that capital would almost become an irrelevance, and people would be able to work however they wished.
      In which case the “capitalist” as you say, isn’t so much a class, but a role.

      • Paul Brinkley says:

        Hmm. Well, strictly speaking, it wouldn’t be communism – J. Random Laborer still wouldn’t be able to walk up to any ol’ lathe and make steel gears with it and assert a right to a share of the profits, without an arrangement with the lathe’s owner. Your sense sounds like JRL wouldn’t care – he’d save up, get a loan if he must, and buy his own lathe.

        But capital still wouldn’t be necessarily cheap. In fact, if worker demand for capital increased due to a renaissance of innovative ideas, the price of capital would rise, and so would interest. This would mean JRL’s profit margins would decrease unless he was able to save all the money himself. But at the same time, JRL’s savings would also be earning higher interest from all the other workers improving production. (That, or the bank is making a killing, and you can expect new bankers real soon.)

        Which is to say, it wouldn’t exactly be a worker’s paradise, but I’d expect life would be getting better and better in various ways, until the number of workers having to retrain is high enough to slow down the innovation surge again.

        Also, I would expect life to be more tumultuous than average for any worker who isn’t able to come up with the bright ideas, unfortunately.

    • David Byron says:

      There was a lot of false statements there but my favourite was, “since labor is virtually always scarce”. Of course in a Communist society that is actually true, but in a capitalist society a large number of unemployed people are kept unemployed to force the other workers to work for cheap or starve. Of course this is all part of the wonderful paradise of capitalism that works for everyone who is rich. Now why can’t the workers appreciate a system where a tiny minority rule and steal the bulk of the wealth created by others? Let’s simply pretend the workers love this system. And now we’ve pretended that, we can pretend that violence is not required to force this situation on the poor.

      > Those tailors are forced to either take an employment contract with the entrepreneur, continue selling handmade garments to whomever’s left (possibly competing on quality), or finding another trade.

      You forgot the option of telling the so-called “entrepreneur” that it is immoral to demand that you personally own the means of production and therefore to demand money from others why you are idle. In much the same way that if someone declared themselves a king people would have more options than to either accept it or move to another country. They can remind that “king” that they do not get to force others to do their will.

      Now in your mind of course the king would be entitled to demand service from his subjects because any of his peasants are perfectly free to set up their own kingdoms or move to another place. All they have to do is come by a lot of money and gather men of violence to enforce the rules, the same as the “entrepreneur”. How fair.

      > If the tailors are able to insist on a rule that all profit from those sewing machines is to be shared among them, than it utterly negates all incentive to save for those machines

      Like having a democracy fails to incentivize tyrants to save money to gather an army? That’s clearly a good thing. Perhaps you meant to say that under Communism there’s no incentive to invent? But that’s trivial to refute since the Soviets beat the USA in the space race (and the USA’s response was a command economy on space — not incentivizing private individuals or companies through capitalism).

      What is so hard to understand about this? Capitalism depends on the elite taking money from everyone else which is a situation only the rich like. Therefore it is a system that must be maintained through violence, and is maintained through violence. If you ask workers if they think the CEO should be paid 500 times more than them or maybe it should be more fair — and people have asked — the answer is obvious.

  4. Paul Brinkley says:

    David Friedman laments lack of diversity of perspective in academia above, and amusingly, I run across this on the very next day:

    http://www.joseduarte.com/blog/heterodox-academy

    More directly, I would like to hear people’s honest opinions on how diverse this list of contributors is:

    http://heterodoxacademy.org/about-us/

    To set the stage: I recognize three of those names by the drums I hear them beat, and I think they fit the theme. The danger I see here is actually over-emphasis on iconoclastic perspectives. Obviously, having a preponderance of establishment views would defeat the point, but I think an utter absence of them would also defeat it.

    What do people think? How round is this table?

  5. David Byron says:

    I’ve noticed there’s a lot of die hard anti-Communists here. So I’d like to repeat a question I saw asked elsewhere buried in a comment thread, namely, what is the probability that you’re wrong about Communism?

    • onyomi says:

      I’m about as sure I’m right about communism as I am that… evolution is broadly correct? That stealing is wrong? I feel like I need more than one comparison because communism is wrong on both practical and ethical grounds. And if it only has to be wrong on one or the other count for me to be against it, then I rate the probability of me being mistaken about both as incredibly low indeed… maybe as likely as the sun not rising tomorrow?

      Of course, if you define down what counts as communism, that could get me to improve my appraisal: maybe a very small town could function in a communist-ish way without doing any injustice to anyone or resulting in economic disaster. Doubtful, but certainly possible. But when most people denounce communism we are denouncing attempts to implement it at the level of a nation-state, as with the USSR, China, etc. That is very, very different.

      The probability of that being ethical is approximately equivalent to having everyone, without exception vote for the same presidential candidate in a US election (because only if everyone individually, unanimously agreed to the pooling of all resources would it not be stealing), and the probability of it being a practical success is about as likely as an old woman slipping on the ice and accidentally performing a perfect triple axel.

      The only thing that would make me adjust my appraisal would be if the communism could be administered by some sort of superhuman intelligence, like a super AI or alien. I would still have grave misgivings, but it’s conceivable that maybe a super intelligence could run the economy in a fair, just and super productive way without also creating some grave injustice (basically mass robbery at the very least), as all previous attempts at communism have necessitated. But once you introduce super intelligence to any hypothetical, I think pretty much all bets are off.

      • walpolo says:

        You really think “stealing is wrong” is a basic, no-exceptions ethical fact?

        What about the famous example where stealing is the only way to feed one’s hungry family?

        • FacelessCraven says:

          Sometimes the only options available are bad ones.

        • onyomi says:

          I noted that the type of stealing involved in implementing communism at a large scale is not the ambiguous type of stealing. It’s a very intentional, devastating, imo hard to justify kind of stealing. Like I said, I’d rather have my car stolen than my factory nationalized.

          But okay, maybe I’m wrong about that. Maybe there is a 2% chance that nationalizing all private property is ethically justifiable. There’s still the fact that nationalizing all private property in theory will produce an economic disaster, and that history has proven the theory correct. So, even if there’s a 2% chance that x might be justified on purely ethical grounds, when you factor in that “x, in theory will create tremendous human suffering,” and “x in practice, always has created tremendous human suffering,” suddenly the ethical hurdle becomes a lot higher, too.

          So now the hurdle is not “can we ethically justify nationalizing all private property,” it’s “can we ethically justify nationalizing all private property, given the knowledge that economic theory and history both make it extremely likely that doing so will result in massive suffering?” That I’d rate far below 2%.

          This is also why I get annoyed at people asking “what’s so bad about communism” in 2015: arguing for communism in 1880 does not strike me as crazy or irresponsible, at least not more than 98% irresponsible, because there were differing opinions on the ethics and economic theory and no practical history. There was say, a 2% chance in 1880 that it was the right thing.

          But in 2015 the hurdle is so high that I don’t think it’s any longer reasonable to “keep an open mind” about the virtues of communism, at least not as traditionally conceived.

          • David Byron says:

            > I don’t think it’s any longer reasonable to “keep an open mind”

            I agree that the so-called rational community simply isn’t capable of being rational on this topic. Obviously the question is designed to force that contradiction in rationalist thinking into the light.

            Your justifications clearly don’t even come close to your conclusions and I think you recognize this (others do not).

      • David Byron says:

        I’m looking for a percentage, like 20% chance you are wrong.

        • onyomi says:

          99.99999% chance I am not wrong on all counts (ethical, theoretical, historical).

          • David Byron says:

            So several hundred thousand times less likely than god exists for example (if that is taken as 5% as someone else suggested)? It seem like if god exists they could easily make Communism work so that doesn’t seem right. I think you might be vastly over estimating. Is there any basis for your number? Do you feel you could come up with 10 million comparable statements that were about as likely?

          • Nornagest says:

            The estimates I’ve seen around here for the probability of God’s existence differ by something like ten orders of magnitude. No exaggeration. It is not a very good idea to assume that one person’s opinion on that is representative of another’s.

          • onyomi says:

            I have no reasonable way of estimating the probability of God’s existence, and even if I could, it would be irrelevant.

            Assume, for example, that we know with 100% probability that God does exist and he can do anything. Then, axiomatically, God, if he wants to, can make communism work, 100%. But that still doesn’t tell us anything about the probability of it working minus divine intervention.

            And as I said at the beginning, my estimates were all predicated on the assumption that we don’t have a radically altered human race, a super AI, or some other “all bets are off” factor, such as, for example, an omnipotent god who intervenes in human political organization.

        • FacelessCraven says:

          we just had a post about people’s probabilities being too high, but… 99.9%? If a thousand countries embraced the ideals and theories of communism, I’d be surprised if more than one of them did well, relative to a thousand other identical countries that stayed with capitalism. Various claims that stalin, pol pot and mao don’t count as “communist” don’t hold any water; one of the obvious problems with communism is that its failure modes are both more likely and way worse than capitalism’s, including the failure mode of giving absolute, irrevocable power to monsters.

          [Edit] – Apologies for the slippery numbers, but it seems to me that communism has actually been tried in enough countries that the 5% estimate of it working is too high.

          • Nornagest says:

            An obstacle here is that most of the communist governments we’ve had have not been independent phenomena; most patterned themselves initially on the Russian or Chinese models, and diverged only later if at all. It’s not implausible that some of the common failure modes we observe were specific to those models.

            My estimate for it working in some permutation given present-day capabilities would still be pretty low, though.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Nornagest – “An obstacle here is that most of the communist governments we’ve had have not been independent phenomena; most patterned themselves initially on the Russian or Chinese models, and diverged only later if at all.”

            Were they patterned after the Russian and Chinese models, or are those models the only way anyone’s ever figured out to even attempt it? Communism is actually pretty good at repeatably triggering revolutions; infiltration, fomenting discontent, terrorism, sabotage and so on, and it seems to me that sort of revolution reliably creates unacountable dictators and strongmen in the Russian and Chinese mold. Marx wasn’t shy about his advocacy of revolutionary terror, so I don’t understand how he’s somehow off the hook for the obvious results when his ideas are implemented.

            [EDIT] – Marx claimed creation of a system that would overthrow the old order and put a new, better order in its place. What he actually created was a system to overthrow the old order. He fundamentally misunderstood both people and society, so his plans for what would come after the revolution were not even wrong.

          • John Schilling says:

            I count Russian communism, Chinese communism, Bolivaran (or perhaps Guevaran) communism, and American socialist utopianism as independent communist movements which had the opportunity to create multiple independent communist polities and failed across the board. Yugoslavia, Albania, Cuba, and North Korea all either broke from or outlived their patrons for at least a generation of independent communist existence and all failed or are failing (Cuba is maybe debatable). Single-state failures I count as half-tests because it is inherently ambiguous whether the failure is due to communism as a system or unique local conditions. So, effectively six out of six system-level failures.

            Add in a 50% probability that communism is fundamentally flawed on purely theoretical grounds; I and all of the other theorists who clearly understand why it can’t work are a priori at least as likely to be right as Marx and all the theorists who believed it would. And a 50% prior for Chesterton’s Fence being there for a reason, and a bit of Bayesian math gets me roughly 98.5% confidence that the next specific implementation of communism will fail, 97% that the next class of related communist implementations will fail across the board, and 94% that communism will generally fail unless enabled by novel circumstance outside the historic or present theoretical framework.

          • David Byron says:

            > we just had a post about people’s probabilities being too high, but

            Yeah that’s what makes this fun. Intellectually you know you can’t support such large numbers. In fact a rational answer might be closer to 50%. But you have a need to say “this is impossible”.

            OK so given that plenty of things that were about 1% or 0.1% likely ended up working after some trial and error (example flight, rocketry, space) doesn’t your figure suggest it would be a good idea to keep trying Communism?

          • Lupis42 says:

            Yeah that’s what makes this fun. Intellectually you know you can’t support such large numbers. In fact a rational answer might be closer to 50%. But you have a need to say “this is impossible”.

            That’s… insanely optimistic. Given the number of places communism has been tried, you’d need several examples of successes for that to be even remotely plausible.

            OK so given that plenty of things that were about 1% or 0.1% likely ended up working after some trial and error (example flight, rocketry, space) doesn’t your figure suggest it would be a good idea to keep trying Communism?
            No. Communism, like Heroin, offers a low probability of a radical improvement, with an incredibly high cost of failure. Not a good candidate for “just try it” experimentation.
            Taking the examples of flight and rocketry seriously, attempts at communism are like Franz Reichelt‘s attempt at parachuting. There’s been no successful tests yet, and you want to get on-board and give it a go?

    • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

      “So it does seem unfair for the newspapers to flash ‘Borgia Confesses!’ and ‘Borgia Burns!’ whenever a feminine mass poisoner has told all or has paid the penalty for her crimes. And they don’t mean Rodrigo and Cesare. They mean Lucrezia. But just try to convince any acquaintance chosen at random that Lucrezia was all right. He’ll only inquire, ‘Then what about all those funerals?’ There must be an answer to that if one could think of it.” — Will Cuppy, The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody

    • John Schilling says:

      Specifically, approximately 95% confident that any attempt to implement classic state-owns-all-means-of-production communism using present or near-future technology with a population of >10,000 random unmodified Homo Sapiens of any vaguely Western cultural heritage will end badly enough to negate any benefits of the attempt. Not necessarily “mountains of skulls” bad, but even soft economic collapses aren’t pretty from the inside and if that’s your best end state then what’s the point?

      This based on a sound theory, understanding of the relevant incentives, and the observed behavior of numerous communist experiments large and small. And if reason says that the best possible end state is a bad one, the morality of the thing hasn’t a leg to stand on.

      Relax the terms, and there’s a broader range of plausible outcomes. In particular, I am more open than I used to be to the possibility of communism working well in future engineered societies, though I think the requisite social engineering is well past the current state of the art and will be dangerous to experiment with.

      It will no doubt vex David Friedman that I came to this openness via one of his comments, and I’ll elaborate on that in a future open thread 🙂

      • onyomi says:

        Yes, put another way, it is the interlocking nature of the ethical, theoretical, and historical problems with communism that make me so sure it’s wrong:

        Theoretically, one can, and some did, predict why communism would fail. Not just that it would fail–that’s easy–but why and how it would fail.

        Historically, one can see that all serious attempts to implement communism have failed–and not just failed–but failed in a way that makes perfect sense given existing theories of economics, incentives, knowledge, and human behavior. When theory predicts x, and repeated practical trials result in x, one can be more certain of x than the sum of certainties theory and history would alone provide.

        Ethically, it is prima facia wrong because it involves stealing. And not just the arguably “non-central” taxation is theft kind of stealing we discussed above. It’s really just totally stealing: I’d much rather have my car stolen than my factory nationalized. But let’s say I’m somehow wrong about the ethics of stealing or the categorization of nationalization of assets. Or let’s say that utilitarianism and/or consequentialism (which I don’t subscribe to) is the correct moral view. It’s still wrong because of the high probability of increasing suffering both theory and history predict.

        And sure, if you are dealing with a genetically enhanced race of cyborgs ruled by a super AI then maybe communism could work, but so too, might anything under such circumstances.

      • David Byron says:

        Well a lot of Communists would agree with you from the way you defined it because of course the imperialist-fascist capitalists would seek (as they always do) to exterminate the civilians in any Communist state. The question isn’t “would capitalists murder enough people to make Communism stop working”, or something similar. Or are you saying that you think Communism would end badly under it’s own merits even if fascists didn’t attack with 95% likelihood? Despite their being no example of that?

        Also are you saying that if there’s a chance that Communism might work then people still shouldn’t try because it might fail a few times? That doesn’t make sense to me. If someone had said that building a rocket to space was going to fail 19 out of 20 (which is probably about right) would it have been a good idea to never try? Surely instead you try 20 times and then when you get it right you build on those advances.

        • John Schilling says:

          Or are you saying that you think Communism would end badly under it’s own merits even if fascists didn’t attack with 95% likelihood? Despite their being no example of that?

          Yes.

          First, there are plenty of examples of communism not being attacked by fascists, unless you are using the mindkilled “anyone to the left of Karl Marx” definition of “fascist”, in which case we’re done here.

          Second, the Soviet Union didn’t collapse when it was under attack by (actual for real) fascists. The zenith of Soviet Communism (and the crisis of confidence of Western Capitalism) was the immediate aftermath of that attack. Maoism didn’t collapse under Japanese or KMT attack, Cuba didn’t collapse after the Bay of Pigs, etc, etc, etc. One of the few things communism actually does well is withstand outside attack. Then, a generation or two after the attackers back off and settle for containment and harsh language, communism collapses into ruin.

          And third, you can’t create a new nation or radically transform the social order of an existing one without someone, “fascist” or otherwise, trying to see if a whiff of grapeshot might restore the status quo ante. If the best you can say of communism is that it would work just fine except for inevitably collapsing into ruin under even Bay-of-Pigs-level attack, it’s still an abject failure. I can say even better things of communism, and have, and still count it a failure.

          Also are you saying that if there’s a chance that Communism might work then people still shouldn’t try because it might fail a few times?

          You’re paying an awful lot for those failures, and you don’t seem to have learned anything from them. At least when I build a rocket, I don’t put anyone more than a test pilot or two on it, if that, and I give them ejection seats.

          And, as noted cross-thread, that 95% (well, refined to 94%) is the probability that communism will always fail, except perhaps under freakishly unprecedented conditions.

          Knock it off, already. Or at very least, if you insist on trying it again, explain what you think is going to make it different this time, and do it with a group of 100% informed volunteers.

          • onyomi says:

            What continually surprises me is not just that some people still think communism might work, but that there is this continual draw to the idea if only there is any tiny chance it might work.

            Like even if I estimated there were a 10-20% chance it would work I wouldn’t want to try it since I don’t see equality for equality’s sake as intrinsically desirable. Whereas most communist sympathizers seem to take it as almost a given that we would want to keep trying if there is any reasonable chance it might work.

            And what’s weird is, while communist sympathizers tend to point to inequality as the injustice they’re attempting to redress, they are seemingly not in favor of massive wealth redistribution from the 1st world to the 3rd world, which is where the real disparity exists. Instead, it’s *intragroup* inequality which really bothers them, which strikes me as either pure envy, or else a weird, frankly kind of child-like impulse to live in some kind of John Lennon-eque giant family.

          • Mark says:

            I think that equality for its own sake is actually somewhat tangential to communism: the real goal of communism is a social structure in which individuals can be free.

          • onyomi says:

            Free of what? By my reckoning I’m pretty darn free living in the US right now–certainly a heck of a lot freer than almost anyone living in any historically communist country. And to the extent I’m not free, it’s mostly because of regulations emanating from the US federal govmt.

            And this points to one of the other bizarre things about most communists and so-called left wing anarchists like Chomsky: there is a notion that the pathway to not needing any government at all is one which somehow involves a huge increase in the role of government in everyone’s life.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @onyomi:
            I am going to make an assumption here, that on various measures of competence (you are a university professor, right? Might be confusing you with someone else) you are a couple of standard deviations above normal. Your freedom isn’t really at issue. Forbidding of rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges and all that.

            One might say that in a very, very broad idealistic sense communism cares far more about those two standard deviations below the normal than it does about those 2 SD above normal. Capitalism is roughly the opposite.

          • onyomi says:

            So it IS about equality, after all?

            The poor in more capitalistic countries are always better off than the poor in communist countries. The only count on which say, Cuba, one of the more relatively innocuous communist countries by communist standards, is better, is arguably that of equality, not absolute living standards. Seems a good time to link this great Margaret Thatcher spiel:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdR7WW3XR9c

            So again, I say, it can’t be about absolute freedom from the exigencies of life (the need to procure food, shelter, medical care, etc.), since capitalism wins every time on that count, and even for the poorest members of society on absolute terms (being in the bottom 10% of income in the US is a much more comfortable life than being in the bottom 10% in Bangladesh), but about freedom from feeling envious of your neighbor.

            Unless Mark means some other sort of freedom, like “freedom to follow your passion,” but again, there are at lot more artists in the capitalistic nations than the communist nations because capitalism is better at producing the material stuff which forms the base of the hierarchy of needs and frees people up to think about things other than where their next meal will come from.

          • Mark says:

            @onyomi
            Let’s say that someone is sick. We want to treat them. Does it make sense to say that medicine is all about equality?

            “The poor in more capitalistic countries are always better off than the poor in communist countries. ”
            What happened to the poor in Russia after the implementation of free market reforms and capitalism?
            Might it not be the fact that the capitalist countries have extensive welfare programs that makes the poor better off, rather than some feature of the free market?

            Anyway, re: freedom – it’s about understanding the extent to which social relationships/ social structure determine what we must do to live – how can an individual exist when he depends upon the community. The true individual can only emerge and form real relationships (not of necessity) with the community when productive capacity is sufficiently advanced.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @onyomi:
            I’m not arguing in favor of communism. I don’t think it is workable in anything resembling a populous nation, state, or even a moderately sized town. Communism seems like the default mode for small communities of isolated, mostly self-sufficient hunter gatherers, and that’s about it.

            Just pointing out that the way you were using “freedom” is full of inherent contradictions.

          • Cauê says:

            Mark and HBC, care to define this word you’re using, “free”?

          • Mark says:

            freedom: I think we all have our own conception of what human nature fundamentally *is*, and we can then imagine societies in which that nature is subverted by social pressures. In order to be free we must live in a society that supports this true human nature.

          • onyomi says:

            A communist who wants the individual to be free not to have to depend on other people?

            And again, if this is about the material resources necessary to liberate people from material exigency, capitalism’s track record at doing it is far, far superior to any other historical system.

            And if it is the welfare systems in capitalistic countries which makes their poor better off (I don’t think it is just that, but if), than so be it. Capitalism is still better at producing the wealth necessary to fund social welfare programs.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @onyomi:
            “if it is the welfare systems in capitalistic countries which makes their poor better off (I don’t think it is just that, but if), than so be it.”

            Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it?

            Is the social welfare state part of capitalism? Or antithetical to it? Or something else entirely?

            There are those who will claim that existence of a “social welfare state” means we are socialist and therefore headed down the slippery slope to communism. I think that is absurd, but it is certainly promulgated by those who identify as “pro-capitalist”, especially those who are libertarian.

            It seems a little disingenuous to simultaneously be willing to claim the benefits of a social welfare state as accruing to capitalism and also decry it as a threat to greater good.

          • Cauê says:

            HBC, I don’t think onyomi is crediting the welfare state for the better situation of poor people under capitalist than communist societies.

            Mark, this reads to me like an attempt to give unearned support to your concept by using a word that earned its status with a different meaning.

          • David Byron says:

            I got to laugh at this pseudo-math. Let’s look at some real math. If you have a hypothesis that a Communist state is less than 50% likely to work and wanted to test that vs a null hypothesis of 50% you still couldn’t show that. That’s 50% not 1 in ten million or whatever some people have suggested. To get a significant result at 50% you’d need 5 to 7 cases and all failing. You don’t have that. I’m not sure most people could even name 7 attempts at Communism regardless of results. They really seem to base their intuition that “Communism always fails” one precisely one case.

            And if you point out that quite a few Communist states are doing just fine it gets a lot worse. China for example is the largest economy in the world. So if that’s a “failure” I have to question the definition of failure. Cuba is doing fine too. Just two successes mean you’d have to have a much larger number of failures than just five, six or seven to get a significant case against the null hypothesis. The data just isn’t there.

            And that’s without taking account of any reasons for failure due to externals. In other words even if we accept the ridiculous anti-Communist fetish concept of Communism the data still isn’t there. The data to prove Communism is less than 50% isn’t there. Not 1% or 0.1% or 0.00001% It’s not there to show < 50%.

          • onyomi says:

            China is communist in name only right now, and has been for 30 years. The only time they even attempted actually implement communism (the Great Leap Forward), it created one of the largest (the largest?) famines in human history.

          • onyomi says:

            @Heelbearcub,

            Having a monopoly government at all (which I personally think is a bad idea, and not morally justifiable) is, in some sense, socialism, because it means people are being forced to pool at least some portion of their property in some way to fund something perceived as being for the common good.

            I do think once you have any government at all, there is a pernicious tendency for it to grow and grow to extract as many resources from the population and arrogate as many powers to itself as it reasonably can. That said, some slopes are a lot slipperier than others, and I don’t think it’s a straight line from Scandinavian-style welfare programs to communism.

            I’m not sure whether the most important difference is the practical question of to what extent private property is allowed (I lean towards this one) and to what extent the ruling ideology is individual focused as opposed to group focused (on this latter count, fascism has more in common with communism than it does with capitalism, and communism more in common with fascism than it has with Scandinavian-style socialism). But either way, this slope does not seem to be very slippery: most of the places which have tried “government owns the means of production”-style communism have been relatively undeveloped and with large rural, agricultural populations, whereas I can’t think of any examples of 1st world democracies gradually sliding from “lots of welfare programs” into “government owns the means of production.” I am no fan of the former, but I think the latter is much worse.

            And I don’t think there’s anything inherently contradictory in a view which says “pure, unfettered, free market capitalism is the greatest generator of wealth and innovation, but has an unfortunate tendency to let some people fall through the cracks, and/or to create socially corrosive wealth inequalities over time; therefore, the best system is capitalism but with taxation of the wealthy to pay for a social safety net and/or other programs designed to reduce inequality.”

            In fact, I think that is the mainstream position in most of the US and Europe today, though I think a better case can be made for the “fall through the cracks” part than the “free markets tend to create ever growing inequality” part (basically Piketty’s claim).

            I am an anarchist and don’t think we need government at all; however, I’d much, much rather have a free market system with some kind of ideally minimally disruptive sort of tax (I think a consumption tax is better than an income tax on this count, as it discourages consumption rather than saving and investment) in place to provide some minimum income for the poorest members of such a society than to just say “screw it, capitalism is evil; we’re confiscating all the means of productions and running things according to ‘science’ or ‘each according to his need…'” etc. The former is arguably better than what we have now, while the latter has been proven disastrous time and again.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @David Byron – “To get a significant result at 50% you’d need 5 to 7 cases and all failing. You don’t have that. I’m not sure most people could even name 7 attempts at Communism regardless of results.”

            Russia tried communism, killed a ton of people, tried a weaker version and just made them poor and miserable and terrorized. FAIL.

            China tried communism, killed more people than can be easily imagined, tried a weaker version and made them poor and miserable, then abandoned communism in all but name and became wildly successful. FAIL.

            Laos tried communism, managed not to kill many of its people other than some troublesome ethnic minorities, and its people stayed poor and miserable. FAIL.

            Cambodia tried communism, killed one in four of its population, and eventually became so disfunctional that its government had to be deposed by force via a neighboring communist country. FAIL.

            Vietnam tried communism. It helped them win a brutal war for independence, but then led to the killing of an awful lot of people, and the death of a whole lot more as they tried to flee the disaster by boat. The rest poor and miserable until the leaders abandoned it. FAIL.

            Hungary tried communism, it made its people poor, miserable, and terrorized. Uprisings had to be put down with tanks. FAIL.

            East Germany tried Communism. That close to the west, they didn’t want any unsightly political violence out in public, so instead they built an indescribably orwellian survielance state and used Zersetzung to secretly poison the lives of anyone who resisted. Their people were kept poor, miserable and paranoid, and what was East Germany is still poorer and generally worse off to West germany, even decades after reunification. FAIL.

            North Korea tried communism. I think we can all see how well that went. FAIL.

            Romania tried communism, and made its people so poor and miserable that they spontaniously rebelled, murdering their supreme leader and overthrowing his government. FAIL.

            Ethiopia tried Communism, and a bunch of its people died in unspeakable famines and civil war. FAIL.

            There’s lots more countries in the ComBloc to go. Should I list more?

            “China for example is the largest economy in the world.”

            And it got that way by abandoning its communist principles. Under Mao’s tender guidence, it had the worst artificial famine in human history. Fail.

            “Cuba is doing fine too.”

            Cuba is a place people flee on home-made boats to escape. That is an odd definition of “doing fine”. If you’d prefer living there, though, you’re more than welcome to emigrate.

            You are clearly playing definition games about what counts as “communism” and “failure”. Name a communist country and a decade where you’d rather live than in the West.

          • Mark says:

            “Mark, this reads to me like an attempt to give unearned support to your concept by using a word that earned its status with a different meaning.”

            Which word would you recommend I use?

          • David Byron says:

            @onyomi If you think communism is almost impossible to work and you prefer capitalism to communism then I’m sorry to inform you that you are not an anarchist. Words have meanings. “Anarchist” means you believe that a Communist society can and should be created immediately, through violent revolution in all likelihood, without the need for a Socialist government and vanguard party to prepare the way and get society ready for the anarchist society. So Communism is strictly more likely than Anarchism, since it’s more or less a subset that believes no transition government is necessary.

          • David Byron says:

            @FacelessCraven

            Wow this comment system sucks doesn’t it? You know I started something about this over on the Reddit site for this place.

            Yeah you got a good start. What was that maybe a dozen states you named. I wont bother pointing out your errors here at the moment I’m trying to demonstrate that you’re wrong even if you accept all the facts you believe.

            So you actually had the most sensible estimate of I think only a 95% failure for communism as opposed to the others who had 99.9% to 99.99999% failure. But even at 5% you need a lot more cases to make the math work. As i said elsewhere it’s ln(.05)/ln(p) where p= .95 in your case so that works out to 59 cases you need and all failures. So yes please you need about another thirty or forty examples of failed communist states. fifty nine altogether. Go for it.

          • onyomi says:

            @David Byron

            Yes, words have meanings, and I am familiar with the history of the term anarchist.

            The fact is, many libertarians including Murray Rothbard and our own David Friedman have, imo correctly, described themselves as “anarchists” since the days of the molotov cocktail tossing left-wing anarchists.

            Based on the etymology, “anarchist” just means someone in favor of no rulers. Despite the earlier history of the term, no violent left-wing revolution is necessarily implied. Anarcho-capitalists are perfectly justified in their use of the term, since they are, in fact, advocating abolishing the government, either quickly or gradually (yes, it is also possible to be a conservative anarchist).

          • David Byron says:

            @onyomi

            Anarcho-capitalism isn’t a form of anarchism. By definition of the word “capitalism”, capitalism requires one class to rule over the majority in order to exploit their surplus labor value. Therefore as a form of communism, an anarchist cannot be a capitalist.

          • onyomi says:

            By your Marxist definition which not everyone shares.

          • Cauê says:

            Everybody please take some time to read Eliezer’s sequence on words. This discussion in a rationalist site is making me sad.

            Mark, use whatever words you want, just try to speak in a way that the thing people understand is the thing you meant.

          • Mark says:

            @Caue
            “Mark, use whatever words you want, just try to speak in a way that the thing people understand is the thing you meant”

            I think I actually gave a fairly broad and good definition of political freedom! Unfortunately, I think the word refers to concepts that are complex enough that we will probably never know exactly what we are talking about when we use it.
            Anyway, I shall redouble my efforts to be clear and concise.

            (freedom: I think we all have our own conception of what human nature fundamentally *is*, and we can then imagine societies in which that nature is subverted by social pressures. In order to be free we must live in a society that supports this true human nature.)

          • onyomi says:

            Eliezer won’t be able to fix this, Caue,

            Vague, slippery, confusing use of language is pretty much fundamental to Marxism, as a reading of nearly any Marxist cultural critic (except maybe Bourdieu–he’s pretty cool) reveals. If this makes you sad, try Adorno…

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            “Vague, slippery, confusing use of language is pretty much fundamental to Marxism…”

            For this thread, I say “meh” to that. It’ll mean we’ll have a hard / amusing time interpreting Marx, I suppose, but Mark by contrast seems to have an interest in keeping terms consistent, so progress is possible here.

      • FacelessCraven says:

        @David Byron – “Well a lot of Communists would agree with you from the way you defined it because of course the imperialist-fascist capitalists would seek (as they always do) to exterminate the civilians in any Communist state.”

        It is not possible to arrive at that conclusion from an honest reading of history. I’m sorry, but at some point facts are facts.

        “Or are you saying that you think Communism would end badly under it’s own merits even if fascists didn’t attack with 95% likelihood? Despite their being no example of that?”

        Please list the countries with established communist governments that were subsequently invaded by non-communists. Vietnam doesn’t count, because we fought them before they went communist, and afterward left them alone. China doesn’t count either. Russia does for WWII, but capitalist countries helped save it rather than siding with the fascists. Maybe by “attack” you mean retricting diplomacy and trade? But why should that matter? Communism restricted diplomaticy and trade to the capitalist powers as well, and those capitalist powers ended up better on every axis we can measure. Sabotage doesn’t count, because Communism tried that in non-communist countries as well, and it didn’t work. The best you can get out of this argument is that Communism is too fragile to survive organized opposition, which seems like a pretty bad quality in a political system.

        “Also are you saying that if there’s a chance that Communism might work then people still shouldn’t try because it might fail a few times?”

        And by a few times, you mean every time it’s been tried, on every continent and across every culture extant?

        “That doesn’t make sense to me. If someone had said that building a rocket to space was going to fail 19 out of 20 (which is probably about right) would it have been a good idea to never try? Surely instead you try 20 times and then when you get it right you build on those advances.”

        We build rockets because the potential upside of getting to space is big enough to compensate for any number of rockets. You are arguing not that Communism might be a workable political system, but that it has a practical chance of introducing Utopia.

        We’ve tried communism. There is no evidence that it can ever, under any circumstances distinguishable from magic (superadvanced aliens, FAI) produce even semi-Utopian outcomes. Humans spent a hundred years on several continents trying to do that, and they all failed, over and over and at an unprecedented cost in human lives, misery and wealth.

        • Mark says:

          Fromm:
          “There is no greater misunderstanding or misrepresentation of Marx than that which is to be found, implicitly or explicitly, in the thought of the Soviet Communists…The truth is that for Marx the situation of a worker in a Russian “socialist” factory, a British state-owned factory, or an American factory such as General Motors, would appear essentially the same.”

          Anyway, lets just accept for the moment that the Soviet Union *was* communism. Where are the historical “capitalist”countries? (As opposed to various shades of democratic socialism and corporate government.)
          As far as I’m concerned the *real* lesson of the 20th century was that one variant of government organised production with social welfare programs was better than another variant of government organised production with social welfare programs.

          And the successful variant was more likely to give the powerful explicit numbers?

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Mark – “Anyway, lets just accept for the moment that the Soviet Union *was* communism. Where are the historical “capitalist”countries?”

            If you’d prefer we didn’t call 19th-21st Century America and Western Europe “Capitalist”, that’s no skin off my nose. I’d put forward at that point that I have no real idea what your position is.

            Collectivism, central planning, revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the vanguard of the revolution, the iron laws of history, and on and on, those are ideas we have tested. A whole lot of people spent a whole lot of time reading Marx and trying to implement his teachings. Their outcomes were catagorically worse. I don’t particularly care if that’s because Marxism is too complicated to be practical or if it’s just uncompatible with human nature. Marx’s ideas are harmful, not helpful.

            Meanwhile, whatever you call the American/European system has generated stupid levels of wealth even for the poorest citizens, and is on track to give us robot cars, VR, replicators and possibly space colonies sooner or later. And this is supposed to be a contest?

          • Cauê says:

            As far as I’m concerned the *real* lesson of the 20th century was that one variant of government organised production with social welfare programs was better than another variant of government organised production with social welfare programs.

            The difference between a market economy and a command economy is vast enough that I find it hard to see this category meaning anything.

          • Mark says:

            I don’t think anyone really wants to own the command economy these days, just like “capitalists” would rather draw a veil over the slavery and land grabbing that existed in the most capitalistic historical states. Personally, I’m fully on board with having less than total central planning – I just don’t think that is necessarily an anti-communist position. After all, you can obviously participate in markets without personally owning the means of production – that is what the vast majority of people do. So why not communism with a market mechanism to determine what should be produced?

            Anyway, I really feel that all of this “99% sure that communism will kill everyone” stuff is terribly overwrought. The real objection to collective ownership of the means of production is that people like private ownership of the means of production. Its fun to see your numbers on the screen and offers a relatively harmless mechanism for people to prove themselves better than their compatriots.
            The arguments regarding the efficiency of privately owned capital become less convincing as the scale of the operation increases – why should administrators working for private owners (with no individual power) be any more efficient that administrators working under public ownership? Ask Royal Bank of Scotland about that one.

            **In the interests of fairness to the command economy I’ll say this – 1) it is a good thing if you want to organize society in some specific direction that you believe is more important than immediate individual concerns (Soviet Union getting its war economy going) 2) that some degree of planning is necessary for any project 3) and that even in the capitalist nations planning is always done by the government (it isn’t normally possible to separate government from business in the capitalist nations.)

          • onyomi says:

            What I wish were a sticky in all discussions of “capitalism vs communism” is “define your terms.” I don’t think communism really needs much explaining, yet I still specified what I meant by it.

            But critics of capitalism say things like “well, we don’t want the slavery that went on in the most capitalistic countries either” as if that were self-explanatory? By my reckoning slavery is quite anti-capitalist, since strong property rights begins with strong property rights in one’s own person. Yet maybe you’re working with a different definition.

            Unfortunately the term “capitalism” is used in an almost uniquely murky way: I don’t think anyone can take for granted that people know what they mean when they say it.

            And I can never link this clip from Roderick Long enough:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QsbvE_0Kpc

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Mark – “Personally, I’m fully on board with having less than total central planning – I just don’t think that is necessarily an anti-communist position.”

            If your definition of Communism doesn’t involve central planning, I put forward that it may not match the standard definition.

            “Anyway, I really feel that all of this “99% sure that communism will kill everyone” stuff is terribly overwrought.”

            What is your confidence level that Fascist government can’t be made to work? Because as near as I can tell, Fascism has actually been tested far less, and arguably failed less badly. You are correct, communism doesn’t always kill people. Sometimes it just uses Zersetzung to secretly ruin the lives of anyone who resists it. Sometimes it just makes everyone really, really poor for the next century or so.

            At any point at all, feel free to start listing the countries where the Proletariat threw off their bonds, slaughtered the capitalists, siezed the means of production and founded durable, humane societies of peace and plenty. Name even a single decade in any communist country where you’d rather live there than in Britian, France or America. I will wait here for your reply, in my air conditioned office, seated in my comfortable chair, connected to my global information network via my luxerious three-foot-wide moniter, enjoying my delicious dinner, all the products of a system that David Byron describes as monstrous and exploitative toward people like me.

            “…and that even in the capitalist nations planning is always done by the government (it isn’t normally possible to separate government from business in the capitalist nations.)”

            I hope someday soon to make my own video games and sell them on steam. Please explain to me what part of that goal involves Government planning.

          • Mark says:

            @onyomi
            “By my reckoning slavery is quite anti-capitalist, since strong property rights begins with strong property rights in one’s own person.”

            Well yes, that’s exactly my point. I’m not going to ask that advocates for some form of theoretical capitalism answer for slavery if they don’t want to – they are more than welcome to denounce it.

            “Unfortunately the term “capitalism” is used in an almost uniquely murky way: I don’t think anyone can take for granted that people know what they mean when they say it.”

            This is why I asked: “where are the capitalist countries?” By capitalism do you mean: 1) a load of fairly horrible 19th century countries 2) fairly nice social democratic countries with mixed economies 3) some kind of theoretical capitalism that hasn’t been tried.
            If it is the third, wouldn’t you say its a bit of a double standard to advocate for a theoretical capitalism without the nasty bits while denying anybody the right to do the same for communism?

          • Mark says:

            @FacelessCraven –

            “If your definition of Communism doesn’t involve central planning, I put forward that it may not match the standard definition.”

            I don’t think Marx really said very much about planning or how the economy should be managed, and there have been attempts at socialism with varying degrees of markets. Must communism=1930’s Stalinism?

            “What is your confidence level that Fascist government can’t be made to work?”
            Not high. I object to Fascism on grounds of taste rather than functionality.

            “Sometimes it just makes everyone really, really poor for the next century or so.”
            OK… though living standards increased in socialist countries.

            “Name even a single decade in any communist country where you’d rather live there than in Britian, France or America. ”

            I would certainly rather live in the West, but I’m not sure if that is due to who owns the means of production, or because the West has always been at a higher level of economic and social development.

            “I will wait here for your reply, in my air conditioned office, seated in my comfortable chair, connected to my global information network via my luxerious three-foot-wide moniter, enjoying my delicious dinner, all the products of a system that David Byron describes as monstrous and exploitative toward people like me.”
            Yep, we are materially wealthy – I agree – but I also think that people are alienated by the economic system, and the extent to which they are not is the extent to which there are social welfare programs and safety nets for them. Perhaps we are currently living in some kind of half way stage between capitalism and communism? I believe that Marx was open to the possibility that in countries such as Britain or America communist revolution could occur peacefully because of the high level of capitalist development and liberal traditions. Perhaps that is what we are seeing?

            “I hope someday soon to make my own video games and sell them on steam. Please explain to me what part of that goal involves Government planning.”
            Government can’t be separated from business – that doesn’t mean that the opposite isn’t possible – some small scale business might not be involved in government.
            (Leaving aside all the “you didn’t build that” stuff)

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Mark – “Must communism=1930’s Stalinism?”

            No indeed. But what DOES it equal? Communism without revolution, without rule by the proletariat, without central planning starts to sound suspiciously like not-communism. Point to a specific country that exemplifies the system you’re in favor of.

            “Not high. I object to Fascism on grounds of taste rather than functionality.”

            I humbly submit that political systems should prioritize function over form.

            “OK… though living standards increased in socialist countries.”

            Increasing slower than your non-communist neighbors isn’t good enough. Also, most of the countries I’ve looked at in detail increased their standard of living immediately after abandoning core marxist/communist economic theories.

            “I would certainly rather live in the West, but I’m not sure if that is due to who owns the means of production, or because the West has always been at a higher level of economic and social development.”

            Lots of places were at a lower level of economic and political development than the west a hundred years ago. All the ones that went communist stagnated, while a bunch of the ones that went capitalist boomed. Some of the ones that went communist abandoned communism, and boomed to a greater or lesser extent afterward.

            “Yep, we are materially wealthy – I agree – but I also think that people are alienated by the economic system, and the extent to which they are not is the extent to which there are social welfare programs and safety nets for them.”

            Not to be rude, but have you personally experienced poverty, or is this all theoretical to you? I was raised in poverty, and I’ve actually lived a few years as an illegal immigrant, dirt poor and working under the table. The worst part is not being in control of your own life, and welfare programs and safety nets make that worse in my experience, not better. Being dependent, having no connection between your effort and your outcomes, these things are poison to the soul. Encouraging people to live that way long-term is extremely harmful.

            “Perhaps that is what we are seeing?”

            Well, if capitalism is by all the bad things in the world, and communism is by definition all the good things, and we’re moving toward a world of good things, maybe so. In which case Marx and everyone who followed him clearly were capitalists, while the people he claimed should be murdered were the true Marxists all along. Irony!

          • Mark says:

            @FacelessCraven
            Um… I think that in order for it to be communism, the productive capacity of society must be used for society at large to ensure a humane economic/social system for all, with coerced labor reduced to an absolute minimum (or eliminated), all based upon democratic principles.
            Sounds good to me… I suppose the closest thing is Denmark?

            “I humbly submit that political systems should prioritize function over form.”
            Surely highly efficient and effective evil is worst of all?

            “Increasing slower than your non-communist neighbors isn’t good enough. Also, most of the countries I’ve looked at in detail increased their standard of living immediately after abandoning core marxist/communist economic theories.”

            OK… that isn’t my understanding of what happened in Eastern Europe/Russia, but my major question is… why? Is it markets? Is it private ownership of capital? Is it even counter to Marxist theory for pre-capitalist nations to have to go through a capitalist stage of development before they can become socialist?

            “Not to be rude, but have you personally experienced poverty, or is this all theoretical to you?”
            I’m basically a normal working class person. I’ve certainly never experienced poverty, but I have extensive experience of being a put upon worker.

            “The worst part is not being in control of your own life… Being dependent, having no connection between your effort and your outcomes, these things are poison to the soul. Encouraging people to live that way long-term is extremely harmful.”
            What you have described there is work in the capitalist system… In my opinion it isn’t really enough to have done bad work. You only really get it when you realize you’re going to have to do it until you die…

            “In which case Marx and everyone who followed him clearly were capitalists, while the people he claimed should be murdered were the true Marxists all along. Irony!”

            Exactly! (though replace “Marx” with “Stalin”)

          • Doctor Mist says:

            @Mark:

            Sounds good to me… I suppose the closest thing is Denmark?

            Wait, whut? Your example of a working Communist country is Denmark?

            Well, now I understand why this argument has gone on so long. Somebody is confused.

          • Mark says:

            @Doctor Mist
            I don’t think Denmark is a communist country, I think it is the closest thing to a nice communist country that we have.
            If Denmark maintained its democratic institutions but replaced private ownership of large business with some kind of public ownership, would everyone die?

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Mark – “Exactly! (though replace “Marx” with “Stalin”)”

            Yeah, let’s address that.

            “…the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terrorism.”

            “Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions (e.g. bourgeois democracy).”

            “The Communists support everywhere every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order (e.g. including in established democracies).”

            “[The working class] must act in such a manner that the revolutionary excitement does not collapse immediately after the victory. On the contrary, they must maintain it as long as possible. Far from opposing so-called excesses, such as sacrificing to popular revenge of hated individuals or public buildings to which hateful memories are attached, such deeds must not only be tolerated, but their direction must be taken in hand, for examples’ sake.”

            “In reality the state is nothing more than a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and this holds for a democratic republic no less than for a monarchy.”

            Please square these quotes with your positive description of Marxism and Communism.

            Marx was not a nice person. He was not interested in peace and negotiation. He wanted the violent destruction of what he claimed was an oppressive system, and the death of those administering it. He was not interested in democracy or compromise, except as a means to an end, and that end involved everyone he didn’t approve of getting murdered. Lenin carried out what Marx taught him, and that system created Stalin.

            “Um… I think that in order for it to be communism, the productive capacity of society must be used for society at large to ensure a humane economic/social system for all, with coerced labor reduced to an absolute minimum (or eliminated), all based upon democratic principles.”

            You are directly contradicting the founder of Communism. Democracy was only to be tolerated until it got in the way. Communism was not a humane social system for all, because the bourgeoisie, the lumpenproles, the capitalists and the counterrevolutionaries were all going to be killed. There’s lots of creepy sections where Marx and Engels talk about how entire ethnic groups are counterrevolutionary, and will need to be destroyed to secure the glorious future of the proletariat.

            Marx thought humans were a blank slate, and could be reshaped to any desired form. He wanted to destroy the world and the people we know, and make a new, perfect world with perfect people. He was dead wrong, and millions of people died. He lied to himself and others, he encouraged the worst in all of us, and he left the world a legacy of torment and decay. The respect with which he and his disciples are treated by the Left speaks very poorly about their judgement.

            “OK… that isn’t my understanding of what happened in Eastern Europe/Russia…”

            Feel free to lay out your understanding, then.

            “but my major question is… why? Is it markets? Is it private ownership of capital? Is it even counter to Marxist theory for pre-capitalist nations to have to go through a capitalist stage of development before they can become socialist?”

            Russia and the rest of the european communist states industrialized well past the level of 1800s europe easily enough, so it can’t be that they were missing the industry or worker base. You can’t claim it was the civil institutions, since those are the institutions Marx explicitly set out to destroy. It’s just another case of Marx being wrong.

            “What you have described there is work in the capitalist system…”

            No, it isn’t. Being dependent and having no control over my life destroyed my mental health. Working a legit job in a factory was miserable, backbreaking work, but it helped me put myself back together again.

            “In my opinion it isn’t really enough to have done bad work. You only really get it when you realize you’re going to have to do it until you die…”

            When I reached that point at the factory, I trained myself for a new career instead. It worked, and now I won’t be working in a factory till I die. Maybe that’s not something everyone can do. Maybe the HBD people are right, and some people are just genetically too stupid. I don’t believe that, though. My shifts for much of that time were twelve hours long. I trained when I woke up and on my breaks, I got good, and I got out.

            “Surely highly efficient and effective evil is worst of all?”

            I’m assuming “not being evil” is part of what it means for a political system to work. What’s your probability that Fascism can create a stable, just, humane society of peace and plenty? I think it’s more likely that fascism could do that than Communism; fascism is closer to older forms of government that were reasonably stable, it’s been tried fewer times and in fewer contexts, and its failures were less worse than Communism’s. Should we start expirimenting with Fascism again?

          • Mark says:

            @Faceless Craven
            Marx:
            “… we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same. You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries — such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland — where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.”

            Marx argued for violent revolution where he deemed it to be a practical necessity for change. What is your view of the revolutions of 1848? Isn’t there a case to be made that if institutions allowing for peaceful change don’t exist then the only way remaining is to fight?

            I also think you have been a little disingenuous with the quotations you have provided in that the additional information provided in parentheses has been included within the quotation marks, but it has been added in and is not actually a quotation of Marx. In fact, if viewed in the context in which they were used, these quotations actually somewhat undermine your point.

            Communist Manefesto:
            In Germany, they fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy, the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie…But they never cease, for a single instant, to instill into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat… In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things… they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries … The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”

            “In reality the state is nothing more than a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and this holds for a democratic republic no less than for a monarchy.”
            Not an unreasonable idea.
            Engels:
            “In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the [Paris] Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible until such time as a generation reared in new, free social conditions is able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap heap
            So its actually a anarchist-like call to be rid of government.

            Engels, Principles of Communism:
            “Will it be possible to bring about the abolition of private property by peaceful means? It is to be desired that this could happen, and the Communists certainly would be the last to resist it…But they likewise perceive that the development of the proletariat is in nearly every civilised country forcibly suppressed, and that thereby the opponents of the Communists are tending in every way to promote revolution. Should the oppressed proletariat in the end be goaded into a revolution, we Communists will then defend the cause of the proletarians by deed as well as we do now by word.”

            “You are directly contradicting the founder of Communism. Democracy was only to be tolerated until it got in the way.”

            OK… I think it would be better to say that democracy was to be tolerated until it was no longer needed: his ultimate goal was a stateless society.
            Dictatorship of the proletariat:
            “Marx did not use this concept to refer to the extra-legal and generally violent rule of one man or a small group of men. Before Hitler and Mussolini, the meaning of “dictatorship” was strongly influenced by its use in ancient Rome, where the constitution provided for the election of a dictator to carry out certain specified tasks for a limited period, generally in times of crisis…by it he meant the democratic rule of the entire working class (including farm laborers), which made up the large majority of the population in all advanced countries.”

            Marx:
            “We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. There certainly are some communists who, with an easy conscience, refuse to countenance personal liberty and would like to shuffle it out of the world because they consider that it is a hindrance to complete harmony. But we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.”

            “Communism was not a humane social system for all, because the bourgeoisie, the lumpenproles, the capitalists and the counterrevolutionaries were all going to be killed. “

            Really? Seems like a grotesque and unnecessary addition to his program?

            “Marx thought humans were a blank slate, and could be reshaped to any desired form. He wanted to destroy the world and the people we know, and make a new, perfect world with perfect people.”
            I don’t think that is true: Marx thought that it was in the nature of humans to create their own environment, to desire to create their own environment. He believed that many problems were caused by social constriction of individual freedom – so I suppose he would have viewed the nature of man as to be free.

            “Feel free to lay out your understanding, then.”

            That living standards declined dramatically after the introduction of market reforms and private capital.

            “No, it isn’t. Being dependent and having no control over my life destroyed my mental health. Working a legit job in a factory was miserable, backbreaking work, but it helped me put myself back together again.”
            I suppose it all depends on the story you tell yourself, doesn’t it. When I had to go to work every day I felt as if I had no control over my life. Now that I live on welfare, I can go and play tennis, swim, read, drink wine etc. etc.
            I feel far more in control.

            “Should we start expirimenting with Fascism again?” I think that fascism is a collective political system antithetical to individualism/freedom in a way that communism (fundamentally) isn’t… should we try it? I don’t know… it doesn’t really appeal to me… perhaps we’ve passed the stage at which it can be useful? Which particular aspect are we proposing to introduce and for what purpose?I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand and without any consideration of the circumstances.

          • onyomi says:

            How is fascism antithetical to individual freedom in a way which communism isn’t? They are both, fundamentally, collectivist ideologies.

            And I think all this talk of what does or doesn’t appeal on aesthetic grounds is very revelatory. People who are still sympathetic to communism nowadays usually have some element of the starry-eyed dreamer. And I honestly think that was why a lot of the intellectual classes once supported it: oh, those fascists are just so… ick. Our revolution of the people is just so much more… romantic!

            But as Faceless Craven says, politics should privilege function over form and aesthetics. Hey, I think the Nazi uniforms designed by Hugo Boss were pretty awesome, and I kind of like Norse mythology, but that doesn’t mean I think we should try fascism again (and yes, we did try fascism lite in the US; his name was FDR).

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            If I steelman the intuitive appeal of any collectivist economic system, the best I come up with is the feeling of camaraderie, combined with the obvious advantages of cooperation over individual action. This is consistent with nearly all of the sentiments I hear from the blue tribe.

            I find it sympathetic as well; if I didn’t recognize the existence of individuals who simply disagree too much on how something should be done to be able to cooperate, I think I would be a collectivist, too.

            I see less awareness of this form of disagreement in the blue tribe. At best, they appear to accord it less importance. I’ve seen them opine or imply that people should put such disagreements aside in favor of a deeper agreement to let voting or expertise resolve such disputes. (Consider how they, or anyone, discusses voter fraud, or expert consensus.) In general, all decisions are better made as a group, they will argue.

            I can think of only one general exception to this right now (feminism’s tendency to “let the woman decide”); there might be others.

          • Mark says:

            @onyomi
            “How is fascism antithetical to individual freedom in a way which communism isn’t? They are both, fundamentally, collectivist ideologies.”

            The terminal state for fascism is a strong state used to limit the ability of various classes in society to pursue their own interests for the sake of some arbitrarily defined racial, cultural or national whole.

            Marxists view the state as an instrument of oppression that can only be eliminated once there are no classes and everyone essentially has the same interests. They believe that until you reach the point where everyone’s interests are aligned, the state will be a necessary evil.

            Libertarians believe that the state is an instrument of oppression but that everyone’s interests *are* aligned and that if we get rid of the state everyone will get along.
            Libertarians = lazy Marxists.
            Perhaps freedom isn’t possible, but at least the Marxists are making some effort to think about the conditions under which it might be achieved.

            “And I think all this talk of what does or doesn’t appeal on aesthetic grounds is very revelatory. ”
            I don’t really understand this – surely you have to have some idea about what you want before you attempt to achieve it? Fascists believe that some abstract group achievement is more important than individual actualization – I’m not sure there is anything you can say to that except I don’t share the same aims. (There might be some situations where you have to look out for the group before the individual (like when other fascist groups are intent on killing you))

          • onyomi says:

            “Libertarians believe that the state is an instrument of oppression but that everyone’s interests *are* aligned and that if we get rid of the state everyone will get along.
            Libertarians = lazy Marxists.
            Perhaps freedom isn’t possible, but at least the Marxists are making some effort to think about the conditions under which it might be achieved.”

            Libertarians are putting a ton of effort into thinking how freedom might be achieved. That’s pretty much what they do. The only difference is they don’t think the path to freedom is less freedom. How on earth would society develop the institutions and habits necessary to function well without a state by making the state bigger? People adapt to circumstances. Making the state role in human life bigger only increases the distance from the point at which people can live without the state.

            Citizens of East Germany, for example, though they don’t usually want to go back to the way things were, are generally more statist in their views than West Germans, because those are the habits of thinking they have developed. If you look to the state to solve every problem leading up to utopia, why are you going to forget it once you get there? A (purely theoretical) utopia achieved by state action is going to need a state to keep running.

            Whereas if we eliminated or drastically scaled back the state, it might cause some upheaval, but non-state institutions and practices would grow to fill the vacuum. Even if one argues that the end state of such a society would still be inferior to a society with a monopoly government, it seems pretty uncontroversial that a society without a state will get better at functioning without a state.

            That Marxists, in fact, are the lazy libertarians, because they think they can develop the institutions which will support a free society sitting in an office or debating in a committee. Such institutions can, and only ever have arisen, however, through the free interactions of millions of people.

            Though they claim to want a world in which everyone does their fair share, in their desire to achieve that world through top-down action, rather than letting free people actually go to work at developing those institutions, the Marxist platform ultimately boils down to:

            https://artfulanxiety.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/pdvd_056.jpg

            (and works about as well as it did then).

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            Mark: “Libertarians believe that the state is an instrument of oppression but that everyone’s interests *are* aligned…”

            True on the first point, but… extremely false on the second. Not only do libertarians believe interests are *not* aligned, they put virtually all their effort into figuring out how to accommodate this.

            I’m thinking you had another sense in mind. How did you figure that libertarians think everyone’s interests are aligned?

          • Lupis42 says:

            Libertarians believe that the state is an instrument of oppression but that everyone’s interests *are* aligned and that if we get rid of the state everyone will get along

            Very much not true – I would say rather that everyone’s interests are not, and will never be, aligned. The state is simply an instrument that is used, by those who control it, to advance their own interests, at the expense of other peoples interests.

            Put more succinctly:
            Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.
            ― Terry Pratchett, The Truth

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            I’m guessing that Mark got the “everyone’s interests are aligned” stuff from Rand, who did in fact make that unlikely claim. Not many “rrright-ving hippiess” have made the mistake of following her in that.

          • Doctor Mist says:

            @Mark:

            I don’t think Denmark is a communist country, I think it is the closest thing to a nice communist country that we have.

            And that doesn’t tell you something?

            If Denmark maintained its democratic institutions but replaced private ownership of large business with some kind of public ownership, would everyone die?

            That’s the figure of merit we’re going for? Good to know.

          • Mark says:

            I mean that libertarians believe that the interests of both workers and capitalists are aligned in *having* a capitalist market system.
            If they don’t believe this I am puzzled as to how they think they could operate the system without organized force (government).

            I think it is clear that historically (within mixed economies) there has been a great deal of democratic demand for welfare systems that refuse to allow capitalists exclusive use of the machinery and productive capital they “own”, instead putting this to general social use.
            Now, I don’t think there is any knock-down evidence that this has been disastrous – if anything the opposite – so it is unlikely that workers will abandon their desire for this kind of welfare.
            So how likely is it that workers will accept the pure capitalist system? It is only likely to the extent that very similar institutions can be established voluntarily – the final argument for libertarianism is that capitalists will voluntarily institute socialism.
            And what if they don’t?

          • Mark says:

            @onyomi
            “How on earth would society develop the institutions and habits necessary to function well without a state by making the state bigger?”

            Is this necessarily an anti-Marxist position?

            “In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy; and at best an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat, just like the [Paris] Commune, cannot avoid having to lop off at once as much as possible until such time as a generation reared in new, free social conditions is able to throw the entire lumber of the state on the scrap heap”

            You might be able to get away with a gradually shrinking state – but until such time as the social structure doesn’t contain competing interest groups, you can’t be without it.

          • Mark says:

            @Doctor Mist

            “And that doesn’t tell you something?”
            Socialism works?

            would everyone die?

            “That’s the figure of merit we’re going for? Good to know.”

            This is actually a point of contention.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            Blah. get too busy to check in here, and the conversation runs away without me.

            @Mark – “I also think you have been a little disingenuous with the quotations you have provided in that the additional information provided in parentheses has been included within the quotation marks, but it has been added in and is not actually a quotation of Marx.”

            My apologies, I should have checked my sources better. Your quote from Marx about peaceful revolution being perhaps possible in America is a solid counterargument. Thank you for providing it.

            “Not an unreasonable idea.”

            I would disagree. He seems to be saying that the bourgeoisie and the proletariat cannot coexist, and that the bourgeoisie must be “forcibly overthrown”, and warns that they should “tremble” at the fate awaiting them. But his model of Bourgeoisie inevitably oppressing Proletariat seems completely falacious to me, and the conflict he describes seems unnescessary. That makes the violence he encourages (and yes, it seems pretty clear to me that he is calling for violence) unnescessary and evil. Even the passages you’re quoting that state that a peaceful transfer might be possible seem to presume that the Bourgeoisie somehow step out of the picture; maybe they are converted to Proletariat peacefully? But the real world does not seem to work that way. The Bourgeoisie seem to perform a nescessary role by taking on the risk of organizing and bankrolling labor in a profitable direction. Removing this function, which Marx seems to ignore in his theory of exploitation, seems to me to be where Communism gets the central planning from. Without the Bourgeoisie to organize labor profitably, the State must do the job.

            “So its actually a anarchist-like call to be rid of government.”

            Unlike the Anarchists, Engels is calling for a single, rigidly defined system. Democracy is treated as an enemy for the obvious reason that it suggests diverging viewpoints, and he accepts only one viewpoint: that of the Proletariat. Read that quote, and ask yourself, “What about the people who don’t want to be Communist?” Engels and Marx seem to view the class struggle as an actual fight, and they want to see their side win. What happens to the people not on their side? I’ve already given the quotes where Marx rejects the idea of mercy for beaten opponents, and argues that restraining violence only prolongs the misery. Combine that merciless quality with a penchent for assigning guilt by social group rather than behavior, and I find the quotes you gave less than reassuring.

            Again, the central point: what happens to those who disagree?

            “Engels, Principles of Communism:”

            Engels notes that the proletariat is repressed. Might that have something to do with Socialism organizing the proletariat with a stated goal of rebellion against the existing social order? Near as I can tell, Socialism was intensely hostile to Capitalist society from the start, and in some cases with good reason. But again, his vision seems to me to make compromise impossible and violent confrontation inevitable. Meanwhile, conditions have only improved, to the point that organized labor is now dying off.

            “Marx argued for violent revolution where he deemed it to be a practical necessity for change. What is your view of the revolutions of 1848? Isn’t there a case to be made that if institutions allowing for peaceful change don’t exist then the only way remaining is to fight?”

            The other way to secure shange is, of course, to wait. Everything changes in time. Some changes we should push, of course, but doing so is always dangerous, and the bigger the change the greater the danger. Once in a very long while, the change is worth it. I don’t think Marxism was one of those times.

            as for the revolutions, they failed. Speaking specifically to the French one, the revolutionaries seem to have been idealists, quick to blame other groups for the failings of society but with no real solutions of their own. Once in power, they failed to restore order, and they failed to improve much on their predecessors, and so were swept aside. More generally, the idea that “you have nothing to lose but your chains” is a dangerously foolish one. People were not in actual chains, and they had their lives, so that’s two things to lose. There seems to be a presumption that fixing the world would be easy, if only the evil people would get out of the way. That is never, ever a sign of a healthy political philosophy.

            Were the horrors of the pre-revolutionary countries really bad enough to justify getting a whole mess of people shot? Were those sacrifices worth the results they obtained? I lean toward no. Democracy was already on its way, and I see no solid evidence that the revolution did much to hasten its arrival.

            “OK… I think it would be better to say that democracy was to be tolerated until it was no longer needed: his ultimate goal was a stateless society.”

            …Of the Proletariat. Everyone else?

            “Dictatorship of the proletariat:”
            Yes, I agree that pre-Fascism, Dictatorship didn’t have the ugly connotations that we attach to it now. The ancient roman implications are why Mussolini and Hitler chose the terms “Fascism” and “Dictator” in the first place. What I don’t see is any indication that Marx saw the terms any differently than the Fascists in Italy and Germany. Why would Marx’s dictatorship end up any different? And in fact, near as can be seen, it didn’t end up different at all.

            “By it he meant the democratic rule of the entire working class (including farm laborers), which made up the large majority of the population in all advanced countries.”

            Inserting “Democratic” there seems a bit dishonest of your source. Marx sees the Proletariat as essentially united in purpose, so of course they’ll all agree on the correct course of action. And of course they’ll outnumber any opposition. But our concept of democracy is supposed to be more than two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Marx’s concept of a stateless polity suggests no system for conflict resolution because he sees no ground for conflict at all. And again, here are the seeds for all the horrors of the Russian experience: if Marxist theory says the dictatorship of the proletariat should be a stateless, conflict-free utopia, than any conflict must mean the revolution is still in progress. If the revolution is still in progress, then the tool Marx recommends is force, and without mercy.

            “We are not among those communists who are out to destroy personal liberty, who wish to turn the world into one huge barrack or into a gigantic workhouse. There certainly are some communists who, with an easy conscience, refuse to countenance personal liberty and would like to shuffle it out of the world because they consider that it is a hindrance to complete harmony. But we have no desire to exchange freedom for equality. We are convinced that in no social order will freedom be assured as in a society based upon communal ownership.”

            What freedom? What liberty? This sounds good, but where are the specifics? What is allowed, what is forbidden? What are the strictures of this society? This quote seems to me to say very little, and what it implies is directly contradicted by the specific points above.

            “Really? Seems like a grotesque and unnecessary addition to his program?”

            I agree that the quote you provided about peaceful revolution being maybe possible offers a way out here, but we both agree that Marx and Engels saw violent revolution as necessary in much of Europe. And on that point, they were certianly wrong. The revolution in russia was not nescessary, nor good. The takeover of much of eastern europe by “communism” caused vast harm. You argue that when economic systems were loosened, the countries got much more prosperous, and that is true. But why was the tightening nescessary in the first place? Why could they not have rolled into the modern era the same as the non-communist countries?

            “I don’t think that is true: Marx thought that it was in the nature of humans to create their own environment, to desire to create their own environment. He believed that many problems were caused by social constriction of individual freedom – so I suppose he would have viewed the nature of man as to be free.”

            Define “free”. He viewed all social classes but one as corrupt or obsolete and to be eradicated. He didn’t seem very interested in people being free to chose their beliefs via religion. Free to travel? What use is that when everyone is the same everywhere you go? Free to speak? What is there to say, when the only acceptable idea has already been declared?

            “That living standards declined dramatically after the introduction of market reforms and private capital.”

            Aren’t Market reforms and private capital Bourgeoisie? How can the reintroduction of the Bourgeoisie be consistant with Marxism?

            “I suppose it all depends on the story you tell yourself, doesn’t it.”

            Perhaps so. But at some level, you recognize that everyone can’t be on welfare, yes? Some people actually have to produce, yes?

            “I think that fascism is a collective political system antithetical to individualism/freedom in a way that communism (fundamentally) isn’t…”

            I see it pretty much as the opposite. Fascism seems essentially about apportioning power, and there is at least theoretically room at the table for all classes. Power may not be shared equally or even at all, but at least the purpose of the different social classes is recognized, rather than collapsing all of humanity into an ideologically rigid monoculture.

            In case I miss the next exchange, I’d like to thank you for your gracious and thoughtful replies. You’ve given me a lot to think about, and I greatly appreciate you taking the time to lay your thoughts out.

          • Lupis42 says:

            @Mark
            I mean that libertarians believe that the interests of both workers and capitalists are aligned in *having* a capitalist market system.
            If they don’t believe this I am puzzled as to how they think they could operate the system without organized force (government).

            I don’t believe that ‘workers’ and ‘capitalists’ are distinct groups with homogenous interests. I believe that class, like race, is ultimately only useful for understanding D&D, not for understanding actual people.

            Is the person who runs the checkout counter at Whole Foods, and pays into a 401k in the hope of living off the returns in retirement, a capitalist?

            Is the dentist, who works long hours to pay off debt incurred in schooling, and derives income from labor alone, a worker?

          • Nita says:

            @ FacelessCraven

            our concept of democracy is supposed to be more than two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner

            Note that back when Marx was writing the Communist Manifesto (1848) and Das Kapital (1867), “democracy” didn’t mean what it does now. Germany implemented full male suffrage in 1871, the USA in 1870, the UK in 1918.

            The first parliamentary elections in Russia were held in 1906, and the first two parliaments were dissolved by the Emperor after 85 and 103 days, respectively. After that, the electoral law was modified to give more voting power to owners of land and real estate.

            So no, it wasn’t two wolves and a sheep — it was two wolves and ten sheep, but the sheep don’t get a vote.

          • Mark says:

            “I’d like to thank you for your gracious and thoughtful replies.”
            Thanks for the discussion!

        • David Byron says:

          Again I think your arguments here are best seen as an example of how badly you desire to twist the facts to find any sort of justification for a prejudice. You just claimed that in trying to establish if a system of government is good or bad, externalities ought to be ignored. So let’s test that. Let’s say the USA is invaded by aliens who either occupy in part or split up and then isolate parts of the US territory so they cannot trade with the rest of the world or each other. The aliens also put a great deal of military or other stress on the remaining governments. And let’s say as a result the US government/s fail.

          In your view were this to happen this would show capitalism is a failure as a system.

          Somehow i think that I’m going to hear a whole lot of special pleading now. Oh gee when externalities cause capitalism to fail that doesn’t reflect on capitalism. It’s only when externalities cause Communism to fail that it reflects on Communism.

          This is the sort of mental gymnastics you have to leap through to get the results you want. Rationalism gets thrown out the window.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @David Byron – “Let’s say the USA is invaded by aliens who either occupy in part or split up and then isolate parts of the US territory so they cannot trade with the rest of the world or each other.”

            Capitalist countries aren’t aliens. They had no innate, overwhelming advantage over the Communist countries, other than the fact that they were wealthier and more orderly than their opponents. They got richer and more orderly by *inventing capitalism*, and two world wars evened things out about as much as possible. Russian grain was equivilent to American grain, while russian tanks were arguably better for much of the period, and certianly more numerous. They got all the developments of industrial civilization handed to them, and they had uncontested control of a massive, contiguous chunk of the planet. They had natural resources out the wazoo, and loads of population. Russia was not “isolated” from China or Albania or Romania or Laos or Vietnam or Cambodia. We didn’t build the iron curtian, they did. We didn’t have to build walls around our countries to keep the people in, they did. “Externalities” didn’t cause the slaughter in Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge closed their borders and refused all foriegn aid while they slaughtered and starved their population.

            History does not remotely resemble your description.

          • David Byron says:

            @FacelessCraven you appear to be refusing to answer my question / scenario. Would it be fair to say that is because you realise your mistake? That you see that it doesn’t reflect on the system of government when a country is overwhelmed by superior military force?

    • FacelessCraven says:

      Seconding Schilling’s estimate. Anything larger than a small town seems pretty inevitably doomed, and the larger the country is, the worse the outcome is likely to be. Convincing evidence to the contrary, at this point, would be on the order of a communist bloc outperforming the rest of the world by a very large and highly visible margin for a century or so.

      Show me an actual communist Utopia, and I’ll happily update.

      • David Byron says:

        As I asked him, if you think there’s a 5% chance of success then logically you’d just do it again and again until you get it right. So are you saying there’s a 100% chance Communism will work after a little trail and error?

        • FacelessCraven says:

          “As I asked him, if you think there’s a 5% chance of success then logically you’d just do it again and again until you get it right. So are you saying there’s a 100% chance Communism will work after a little trail and error?”

          It isn’t a 5% chance “communism will work”. It’s a 95% chance that communism will be worse than capitalism,, and possibly a LOT worse, and a 5% chance it will be the same or better. Communism recieved “a little trial and error” for much of the last century, and killed more people faster than any other system the world has ever seen. If you want to balance out that overwhelming downside, you need not just “Communism Works” but “Communism introduces heaven on earth”. The probabilities of that, I think are a lot worse than 5%.

          What’s your probability that Fascism can’t produce a workable society? Empirically speaking, Fascism failed less badly than communism, and has been tried far fewer times and in a far smaller range of sociopolitical conditions. Should we expiriment with Fascism more?

          • David Byron says:

            So a 5% chance Communism better. Back to the question I asked please.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Byron – “So a 5% chance Communism better.”

            No, a 5% chance that it’s not worse. I actually explained in some detail how the two concepts differ. Of that 5%, some percentage is that it does roughly the same, and some percentage is better. Neither are high enough to outweigh the far more likely damage.

            Do you play Russian Roullette? If not, why not?

            “Back to the question I asked please.”

            I answered your question. Twice now, in fact. Now you answer mine: what’s your probability that Fascism can succeed as a form of government?

          • onyomi says:

            Let’s say there really is a 5% chance communism will work and we just haven’t tried it enough times yet. Does 1 utopia justify 19 genocide/famines?

          • David Byron says:

            @onyomi

            Just to clarify the level of your “facts” here, are you saying that famine and genocide only happen under Communism and never otherwise? Or are you saying they always happen under Communism with no exception? Or are you saying you’ve calculated the odds of them happening under Communism and believe they are more likely? And would you like to give me a rough probability that you are wrong about those “facts”?

            It’s the sort of ill considered statement born from prejudice that I was trying to highlight with this question.

    • Paul Brinkley says:

      The certainty I have about Communism – a system that requires ownership of means of production by everyone, in presumably equal share – being inferior to a free market is contingent on the incentives I observe wherever materials and privileges are owned privately, and shared publicly.

      Children seem to learn ownership and sharing at roughly the same time. “This is mine” means “I can do what I want with it”. “This is shared” means “I can do what I want with 1/Nth of it, or with all of it for 1/Nth the time”. A little later, they learn the catch: “this is mine” means “if I lose it or break it, no one will help me replace or fix it”; “this is shared” means “if I lose it or break it, (N-1) people will help me replace or fix it”. They also learn about entropy in various ways: things break or get lost on their own, even through normal “correct” use.

      Children, and people in general, appear to not quite grasp the incentives that obtain here. The catch to “this is mine” forces the owner to be very guarded around their property, for fear they’ll have to replace it. And because of entropy, they’ll expend extra effort to maintain that property. The catch to “this is shared” makes shared resources less of a worry; the part-owner needn’t try but about 1/Nth as hard to guard shared property against their own mistakes, or wear and tear, because they internalize the sense that it will be mostly covered ((N-1)/N) by other people. This makes the shared property approach instantly more appealing at first glance, because people aren’t innately disposed to thinking about how those N-1 other people will also be relaxing their guard around that shared property.

      So that’s part 1: communism is outrun by private property regimes due to the incentives that necessarily derive.

      In fact, those incentives inexorably lead to even more undesirable incentives. People noticing this “tragedy of the commons” naturally seek to offset them; some wish to continue to reap the benefits of shared property. The most conscientious (IMO) try to find people who believe in the benefit of shared production so unshakably that they will maintain it even without compensation. The less conscientious find people whose faith in sharing is less pristine, and bridge the gap with something else – carrot or stick. The unshakables are necessarily fewer in number, and they’re empirically not enough. Consequently, a communal system eventually turns into one where people are compensated unequally for maintaining the society’s production, whether it’s through perks, force, or a combination.

      So again, my conclusion that communism is less preferable than a free market is contingent on the following observations:

      1. production must be either privately owned or publicly – no third option exists
      2. ownership means rights to use, and also responsibility to maintain
      3. people are not innately disposed to consider other people’s incentives – they have to learn that
      4. people willing to maintain production are too few to actually do it
      5. the remaining maintenance ends up done only through unequal compensation from some part of that production, or through threat of force.

      Now, there’s always

      0. the following conditions are sound and complete

      but I’ve thought about this for so long (literally on and off for decades, including comparing it to scores of real-life scenarios) that I doubt I’ll see any significant flaws on my own; the burden of proof at this point must necessarily fall to others. Especially since I haven’t even gotten into issues of allocating product to people who have unequal abilities to convert products into more production.

      I note that, to me, the weakest apparent approach involves #4. What if enough people are convinced of the value of shared production that there’s always enough of them to maintain it? Information doesn’t seem to follow the same scarcity rules as material goods, after all; maybe we could duplicate it faster than people come online. (I see this as essentially the hypotheticals FC and others above refer to – enclaves where communism appears to do just fine, often by dint of small size.)

      That doesn’t bother me, for a reason that puts one of the final QEDs in the proof tree for me: the incentive for people to see sufficient value in shared production to both maintain it and to signal that value to others would exist in both a communal and a free market system, since a free market system permits cooperation as well as competition. Which is another way of saying that any system that provided objectively preferred results for all participants by sharing resources as opposed to owning them privately, would emerge in a private ownership system anyway.

      • David Byron says:

        > contingent on the incentives I observe

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

        https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-motiv

        http://www.forbes.com/2010/04/06/money-motivation-pay-leadership-managing-employees.html

        > So that’s part 1: communism is outrun by private property regimes due to the incentives that necessarily derive.

        And yet they won the Space Race, which is the only real test of which system had better innovation. At any rate I’m not interested in debunking your fetishes about Communism here. You didn’t use reason to get those opinions and reason won’t get you out.

        What I asked for is a probability you’re wrong. Would you say it’s zero?

        • FacelessCraven says:

          @David Byron – “[various links on motivations]”

          Well, the first one doesn’t seem to support your point at all, near as I can tell. maybe you could spell it out more explicitly? To be specific, money doesn’t let you purchase innovation directly, but people observably do innovate in order to get more money, and the most innovation-rich places on earth are awash with money. All the nice crowdsource examples he lists come from capitalist countries, not communist ones.

          “And yet they won the Space Race, which is the only real test of which system had better innovation.”

          …Remind me again who made it to the moon? And we did it while generating vast, unbelievable prosperity and freedom for our population, while theirs suffered poverty and terror.

          “At any rate I’m not interested in debunking your fetishes about Communism here. You didn’t use reason to get those opinions and reason won’t get you out.”

          true, kind or nescessary?

          • David Byron says:

            I’m not going to get into a debate here about why you’re wrong. I’m fine with that but it’s a big topic and bound to be very frustrating so I’m looking at a smaller thing here.

            I’m really more interested in seeing how blatantly dogmatic you all are, and how quickly you throw the principles of rationalism out the window when it comes to a topic you obviously have a fixed view on.

            So I really should have resisted the temptation to reply to that guy since his answer was basically “zero”. At least it sounded like he was saying zero. I guess I should have just asked him if he meant that, and not said anything else.

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            What I posted was a diagram of the propositions on which my belief about the success rate of communism was contingent. The work was shown. It even came with suggestions of weak points from which to search for counterexamples.

            There is an implied probability there; it’s the probability that at least one of those five propositions is false, or that there is at least a sixth proposition that would be needed, that was false. The probability of all of the first five being true, or at least sufficiently close to true, in my opinion, is roughly close to onyomi’s: 99.9999%. The probability of a sixth (ignoring the relative informality of the argument) is quite low, but only by my estimate. I explained how I had trod this ground so many times before; that implies that I wouldn’t be able to supply an objective probability for the existence of a #6.

            “how blatantly dogmatic you all are”

            Neither true, necessary, nor kind. I would consider this strike two.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @David Byron – “So I really should have resisted the temptation to reply to that guy since his answer was basically “zero”. At least it sounded like he was saying zero. I guess I should have just asked him if he meant that, and not said anything else.”

            Based on observed evidence, 99.999% confidence is too high. But we don’t just have observed evidence, we have that evidence, plus pretty solid mathematical theories, plus what we know about human nature from a wide variety of interactions, plus other things.

            You are claiming his percentage is based solely on direct observation. It isn’t, and you fail to address the difference.

            You asked for our assessments. We’re giving them, and showing our reasons for them. You are ignoring the reasons you don’t like, misinterpreting the ones you think vulnerable, refusing to answer contrary evidence, and declaring victory. If you aren’t interested in a debate, maybe don’t stake out a super-controversial position and declare that everyone who disagrees is an idiot.

          • David Byron says:

            @facelesscraven

            > But we don’t just have observed evidence, we have that evidence, plus pretty solid mathematical theories, plus what we know about human nature from a wide variety of interactions, plus other things

            Well I just demonstrated you do NOT have the observed evidence, but whatever. What on earth do you mean by, “pretty solid mathematical theories”?

        • Cauê says:

          And yet they won the Space Race, which is the only real test of which system had better innovation.

          That’s not so much innovation as “achieving a specific goal”. Innovation is more like the millions of things capitalist societies created that people didn’t expect to exist before they were invented, while communist societies were struggling to catch up in the production of things people already knew of.

    • Linch says:

      I actually think (~80% confidence) that Communism is viable if we had cornucopia machines, so in that sense Marx isn’t totally wrong. (Think Iain M.Banks)

      Was Communism a disaster historically? 99.999% probability.

      If we have the political will to do so, will it be a good idea to enact Communism now? 99.5% no, and most of the remaining uncertainty comes from the specific parameters that will make people want to enact Communism now suggesting that my model of reality is different from the majority (and thus somewhat more likely to be wrong).

      Assuming growth trends continue but we do not invent superintelligent AI and cornucopia machines, do I think Communism will be better than modern democratic capitalism with socialistic characteristics? I’m 90% confident that Communism will continue to be a worse governmental system than what we have right now in the next 100 or so years without a near-total scarcity in scarcity. That said, I’m in favor of increased redistribution, esp. as the world gets richer and richer, and it’s quite possible that in 100 years we’ll see substantial changes in our politics, mostly for the better.

      • onyomi says:

        I’m assuming a “cornucopia machine” is basically a machine which produces anything you want in unlimited quantities with no inputs?

        In that case, sure communism can work with the cornucopia machines because communism is a way of organizing an economy and the cornucopia machine denecessitates the economy.

        It’s like saying, “flapping my arms is not a very successful mode of flight, but I think it could work if I had a helicopter.”

        • Paul Brinkley says:

          Or to paraphrase: if we had a cornucopia machine, any economic system would be highly likely to succeed.

          • David Byron says:

            Oh you’re trying to get me banned? I didn’t understand what you were saying. I tend to assume that calls for censorship like yours are the equivalent of admitting an inability to articulate a response.

            It’s a rather obvious black mark against you, not that I would ever call for you to be censored.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @David Byron – “Oh you’re trying to get me banned?”

            No, he’s pointing out that you’re acting like a jerk. If you continue to do so, people will stop trying to talk to you.

          • Cauê says:

            This is just the kind of situation that makes me wish SSC had downvotes.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Caue – Just responding calmly and honestly is better in the long run.

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            I don’t know how that “get me banned” comment even applies to my comment about cornucopias.

            That said, I’m having little trouble sympathizing with a call for downvotes. For now, I prefer the calm, honest response approach even so; I think it’s good practice for us.

        • Nita says:

          So, if someone invented a cornucopia machine, would you endorse nationalizing it, or would you be OK with the owner, say, demanding a large piece of land for every dose of life-saving medicine?

          • FacelessCraven says:

            If it’s a real Cornucopia machine, nationalizing it or leaving a single-owner in control are irrelevent, because scarcity is over. What you are describing is a limited cornucopia machine that can give one person whatever they want, within the bounds of time and effort. We already have that machine. It’s called “being a billionaire”, and evidence suggests that it’s better to let that version of the machine stay privitized and hope it reproduces naturally.

          • Nita says:

            No, it’s a machine of cornucopia-on-demand: the owner can choose to end scarcity, selectively lessen the scarcity of some things, or to keep scarcity intact for his own amusement.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Nita – in that case, sure, nationalize it. The owner has no reason to care, other than sadism or villiany. If on the other hand the machine has an output rate, or orders have to be keyed in one at a time, or any other limit on the immediate gratification of all material desire, we’re back to the billionaire version.

        • Linch says:

          cornucopia machines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_assembler

          The general case will be any technology, or series of technologies, that makes scarcity conceptions of economics less applicable to civil society. We already are starting to have something similar in the information sector.

      • David Byron says:

        > 99.999% probability

        OK let’s do the math. If you wanted to prove a hypothesis of p = .00001 at 5% significant you just need to solve .99999 to the power of n smaller than .05, right? So that’s what? n = ln(.05)/ln(.99999) or n = 299572.

        So that means you are claiming you have watched 299572 attempts at Communism and every single one has failed. So no country like China for example. About three hundred thousand revolutions, and not a single success. That’s the math.

        Please name three hundred thousand failed revolutions.

        Honestly you really need a far higher significance level for a claim like that, which would raise n into the millions, but let’s go with 5% for demonstration purposes.

        • onyomi says:

          Linch didn’t say “does communism fail?” 99.999% probability. (At risk of putting words in his mouth, but I don’t think I am) he said, “are we correctly evaluating the history of communism up to this point as a failure?” 99.999% probability.

          That is, he was evaluating the probability we are gravely mistaken about the history of such nations as the USSR, PRC, DPRK, et al, not the probability that future attempts would meet with similar results.

          • Linch says:

            Correct. Note that my other probability bounds were lower.

          • David Byron says:

            Honestly that interpretation sound even worse. At that point you are basically saying “I have a controversial opinion on a largely subjective topic where many very smart people disagree and I claim the chance of me being wrong is 10 in a million.”

            Or to put it another way if you made one such opinion every day for 300 years you’d expect to be wrong only once.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            Good lord David Byron, we’ve seen Communism tried over and over and it just results in massive amounts of human suffering. If someone said “I have a 95% prediction that Hitler was a bad person” would you be challenging them over that?

            Like, this isn’t a controversial opinion in this day and age unless you want to say that vaccinating your kids is a controversial opinion; there are holdouts, but society has larger moved on.

          • Linch says:

            Held: That’s not a very fair analogy to David Byron. A 1-in-20 chance of being wrong is quantitatively VERY different from a 1-in-100000 chance of being wrong.

            My probability bounds DO seem overly high, coming to think about it. I have no idea how to incorporate model uncertainty in this or in general.

            Also, I don’t know how high a likelihood I should assign for “any individual American should vaccinate their children”, but it’s probably significantly smaller than 99.999% (free-rider benefits, etc)

            OTOH, calling my opinion (other than the probability bounds)”controversial” does seem a little bizarre.

        • Paul Brinkley says:

          Other comments echo what I would say in response to China. China is succeeding to the extent that it’s moving away from communism.

          I’ll cheerfully admit that if we choose to view capitalism / communism as a spectrum, and evaluate societies according to the degree to which property is privately / publicly owned, then no nation AFAIK has ever been all the way on either end of that spectrum, and that there might exist nations that would plot on the communist half of that spectrum that appeared to last a long time. However, I’m also compelled to remind everyone of the microeconomic forces at work – namely the incentives I mentioned earlier – and how they’ll make any coerced collective approach less likely to meet typical metrics of success. That is, any nations on the communist half of a spectrum are succeeding despite forced collective ownership, not because of it.

  6. Looking at the source, it appears that each page has a comment RSS feed accesible by appending /feed, e.g. https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/09/18/ot28-where-in-the-world-is-comment-sandiego/feed/

    I’ve tried out subscribing to a digest for certain posts using a service like https://blogtrottr.com/, hopefully it polls often enough that comments don’t slip through the cracks.

  7. (Been lurking here for a while but only decided to post now…)

    Have you ever considered writing a book, Scott?

    I feel like the posts you have on coordination problems are some of the most interesting political analyses that I’ve ever read. You might be able to combine them into one book and try to publish it without having to do too much work.

    You basically could have the first chapter be “Meditations on Moloch”, the second/third/fourth chapters be about different ways coordination problems apply in our real lives (toxoplasma of rage, why science/the education system is bad, probably some other examples I couldn’t think of).

    Then you could do a complete 180 and talk about Elua – i.e basically Niceness, Community, and Civilization, and how somehow “liberalism and civilization” still seem to win a good percentage of the time.

    After that, maybe some policy prescriptions? I’m really curious as to what you think a civilization that overcomes Moloch would need to do (without the deus ex machina of a FAI).

    If you ever have some spare time on your hands, could you look into this? I would love to have a hard copy book about this subject that I could just give to my friends.

  8. Anon says:

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/business/a-huge-overnight-increase-in-a-drugs-price-raises-protests.html

    So, what the hell is up with Daraprim and Turing Pharmaceuticals? Normally this sort of thing seems like sensationalist bullshit, but even the news runs into genuinely outrageous things every once in a while. What should we be setting our ‘angry Internet mob’ levels at?

  9. Wrong Species says:

    Is Donald Trump doing Marco Rubio a favor? In the summer, Bush, Rubio and Walker were considered the front runners. Walker just dropped out, Bush has been pummeled and Rubio has shot up in the polls. And it does seem like Trump has attacked Rubio far less than everyone else…

  10. Shmi Nux says:

    From https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/09/21/what-a-massive-sexual-assault-survey-showed-about-27-top-u-s-universities/

    Full report can be downloaded from http://www.aau.edu/Climate-Survey.aspx?id=16525

    > Twenty-X percent rate of undergraduate women said they were victims of non-consensual sexual contact through force or in situations when they were incapacitated and unable to consent. (X varies somewhat between universities)

    > The survey response rate was around 25% (varying between 13% and 53%)

    > between 8 and 13 percent of undergraduate women said they suffered incidents involving non-consensual sexual penetration.

    I wonder how much of this is representative of of all students’ experiences, and how much is the selection effect (more/less likely to respond if something did or did not happen to them)?

    There are likely other issues with the survey, but that’s the one that jumps to mind.

    • Cauê says:

      Also,

      Twenty-X percent rate of undergraduate women said they were victims of non-consensual sexual contact through force or in situations when they were incapacitated and unable to consent.

      The presentation of these two things as a single number is what usually jumps at me, especially given the large variations about what is considered “incapacitation” when alcohol is involved.

      All in all, I find it best to ignore the numbers shown in media articles until I can get a proper look at the criteria they used.

      • gbdub says:

        Not sure this is allowed in OT, being a gender issue, so I’ll try to keep focused on the survey itself.

        There’s usually a lot of ground covered in “unwanted sexual contact” – everything from PIV to a passing ass-grab. Common failure mode is for reporting outlets to reduce this to “rape”.

        The most famous / original “20%” survey also had the problem of, as you mentioned, defining “non-consensual” in a broad way, to the point that ~half the assaults it counted were not considered such by their victims. Not sure this has been corrected.

        I do think selection bias is probably an issue, since victims are going to be much more motivated to respond to such a survey. Also, I suspect the number of respondents motivated to lie/stretch the truth on such a survey are almost exclusively on the “yes I was assaulted” side. I don’t know how you design around such issues in a survey like this.

        • AJD says:

          I suspect the number of respondents motivated to lie/stretch the truth on such a survey are almost exclusively on the “yes I was assaulted” side.

          Why?

          • Zorgon says:

            Why would you respond to a survey to lie that something didn’t happen, when you could simply not respond?

            Lying that something happened is a significantly more active form of lying than lying that something didn’t happen. You can’t really fabricate by omission.

          • John Schilling says:

            We know that about 5% of the population will answer “yes” to any damn fool question you put on a survey. Beyond that, any question that can be interpreted as “Do you agree with the Red Tribe framing of this high-profile issue, or the Blue Tribe framing”, will be so interpreted by probably a majority of respondents without regard to the specific framing. Usually not to the extent of outright lying, but certainly to the extent of misremembering, exaggerating, telescoping, etc.

            For comparison, there have been multiple studies conducted with far greater rigor than Carey et al, which grossly suggest that gun-owning Americans repel anywhere from two to five million violent assaults every year. Yet the FBI records only about one million aggravated assaults, robberies, rapes, and attempted murders per year.

            Perhaps we have found the answer to the question of what caused the enormous drop in American crime rates over the past few decades. The American people collectively developed a keen understanding of who would and would not be targeted by criminals, most of the future targets bought guns to drive off their attackers and considered this not worth mentioning, and everybody else is oblivious to this. Seems unlikely.

            Perhaps almost all of the survey respondents are also coordinated liars, following orders handed down from the National Rifle Association’s super secret Department of Messing With Survey Results. Also seems unlikely.

            Or perhaps the respondents are misremembering, exaggerating, telescoping, etc. And indeed, if you do things like ask one group “have you in the past five years…” and another “have you in the past year…”, you find that the responses do not come in a 5:1 ratio. If you call some of the respondents for detailed follow-up questions, you evoke a story inconsistent with their earlier quick response, or at least with that early response having been based on carefully listening to the details of the question.

            And serious researchers who give a damn have tried to do these things to correct the gross response rate and estimate the actual rate with which Americans use firearms to defend themselves against real and serious violent assaults – which looks to be a few hundred thousand times per year, not the few million in the raw data.

            I suspect that if someone were to do the same w/re college rape statistics, a similar reduction would be observed. But I still haven’t seen anyone make the effort.

          • gbdub says:

            I’m not saying there were necessarily a large number of people who lied on the survey – all I’m saying is that, to the extent there are any non-truthful, exaggerrated, or “telescoped” answers, they are probably biased towards “yes I was assaulted”.

            However, there are clearly a lot of on-campus activists with an agenda that includes advocating the position that sexual assaults are a real, common, serious problem on campuses. They’d be motivated to fill out the survey, and having filled it out, are likely to fill it out in a way that maximizes the “yes I was assaulted” answers. Or, if they would normally fill out the survey but have nothing to report and don’t want to lie about it, they’d intentionally ignore it. Either way the organized groups would probably go out of their way to encourage victims to fill out the survey.

            Meanwhile, what possible motivation is there for someone who was assaulted to lie and say they weren’t? Certainly there may be some who don’t want to talk about it at all and ignore the survey. To the extent that there is a such thing as anti-anti-assault advocacy, I don’t think it’s nearly as well organized, and even if it is, to skew the results they’d need to make a massive push to get non-victims to fill out the survey, which seems unlikely without evidence.

            Finally, assault victims are a 1/4 or 1/5 minority even with the highest estimated numbers. So if both victims and non-victims are equally truthful, there would still be many more people lying to say “yes” than lying to say “no”.

            I have no idea how to quantify this, and it may well be a small effect. But I’m fairly confident in which way the bias would point.

    • Pku says:

      The report summary was “victims of sexual assault or misconduct” (lumped into one), and went on to mention that the main reason people tended not to report was that they didn’t consider the case serious enough.

  11. Derelict says:

    I’m wondering about people’s opinion on this: http://betagoogle.com/

    • Saal says:

      Edit2: Oh dear. It appears that both I and my antimalware have been a bit overzealous. Inspecting the page element didn’t turn up anything blatantly suspicious, so I guess I owe everybody a *sheepishgrin*

      • FacelessCraven says:

        Wat. More details please? I clicked the link, loaded the page, then closed it without interacting further.

        Also, hasn’t Derelict been around here a while?

        [EDIT] – “Oh dear. It appears that both I and my antimalware have been a bit overzealous. Inspecting the page element didn’t turn up anything blatantly suspicious, so I guess I owe everybody a *sheepishgrin*”

        That sounds just like what a virus would have you say. I bet you’d LIKE me to click that link again, wouldn’t you.

        • Derelict says:

          Basically it’s a clickbait-and-switch website, with a Google search page that tells you it can tell you your future, then replaces your search term with stuff that a refugee from Syria might ask about theirs.

          It then admonishes you for being so interested in your future without caring at all about the futures of those refugees. Of course, when you share the page, it reveals nothing of the trick because it wants to be clickbait.

      • Derelict says:

        I’m terribly sorry, I completely forgot that Chrome had that site marked as potential malware.

        I promise you there’s nothing harmless on that page; it was just a bait-and-switch clickbait campaign that Google reacted to in that way because it was an impersonation.

  12. Zorgon says:

    I feel it would be remiss of me not to introduce the recent allegations that UK Prime Minister put his penis in a dead pig’s mouth into the open thread.

    (At least partially because I want to post that absolutely everywhere across the entire Internet forever.)

    What’s really interesting about it is the difference between this and the endless media attacks on Jeremy Corbyn in the past week. The whole media has been lapping up every single last thing anyone said about the new Labour leader – true or not. Meanwhile the BBC are only now starting to very vaguely allude to the allegations against Cameron, and most of the (less salaciously-oriented) media are studiously ignoring it.

    Of course, social media has gone COMPLETELY HATSTAND over this, as it inevitably was always going to.

    Also, it appears Charlie Brooker needs to be told about prediction markets.

    • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

      I don’t have much contact with the british media, but most criticism I heard of Corbyn was directly related to his political stances and was plausible sounding, neither of which applies to Cameron’s alleged reenactment of Vase De Noces.

      I mean, everything about Corbyn could be false while simultaneously this Cameron thing could be true and I still wouldn’t fault the news media, and I love faulting the news media.

      • Zorgon says:

        It says something that non-Brits respond to “PM put his cock in a dead pig” with disbelief. Most British people just assumed it must be true. Toffs do that sort of thing…

        • Deiseach says:

          Well, Zorgon, it was only oral necrophiliac bestiality, what’s everyone getting so worked up about? 🙂

      • Zorgon says:

        Also, I should probably note that criticism of Corbyn has included, amongst other things, having a shirt button undone and riding a “Mao-style” bike.

    • Adam says:

      Well, if it was already dead, no harm, no foul.

    • Deiseach says:

      I feel it would be remiss of me not to introduce the recent allegations that UK Prime Minister put his penis in a dead pig’s mouth into the open thread.

      I’m not entirely sure I believe it; it sounds more like one of the American fraternities’ initiation rituals. Then again, “Call Me Dave” was a member of the Bullingdon Club, a bunch of gussied-up Hooray Henrys who made Wodehouse’s Drones Club sound like Wittgenstein setting in for a serious bout of hard study, so who knows?

      • gattsuru says:

        It seems slightly too convenient that this both the first time we hear that Cameron was associated with the Piers Gaveston Society, and the first time that we hear the Piers Gaveston Society practiced necrobestiality (as opposed to long-present lurid tales of drug abuse and public humping), and the first time that we hear about Cameron humping anything that was in another man’s lap.

        It seems /far too/ convenient for this to come from a man who, among other bones he had to pick with his opponent, opposed the push for legalization of gay marriage.

        • Deiseach says:

          Well, memoirs (particularly the political kind) are the vehicle for score-setting and axe-grinding of all kinds.

          If Lord Ashcroft is inventing or lying or misrepresenting, doubtless Mr Cameron will be instructing m’learned friends (I believe Carter-Ruck are the terriers of choice for these cases).

          It will be enormous fun to watch the development of this: whatever move Cameron makes (either keeping schtum or threatening legal action) is going to keep the story alive and embarrassing 🙂

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            What about Cameron’s friends muddying the water by a barrage of stories not mentioning Cameron but attaching the porcinephilia to his rival? “Cameron? Naw, that was Jones.”

    • Linch says:

      Yeah Charles Brooker seems ridiculously prescient (see also Waldo/Trump).

      • Deiseach says:

        What is even more delicious (if one is inclined to gloat at the discomfiture of a Tory PM, and why not? Though I’m not at all sure he is discomfited; he may well have the brazen cheek to think that what he did in uni is nobody’s business but his and his chums), is that this was all apparently part of an initiation ritual for the Piers Gaveston Society, a club for enabling even more debauchery amongst the gilded youth than the Bullingdon, and named in honour of the alleged lover and definite favourite of Edward II.

        It doesn’t have to be true, because it is so in the spirit of the 80s and “Loadsamoney” Toryism and the posh element of the Conservative Party that it seems feasible. Truthiness, if you will 🙂

        • FacelessCraven says:

          clicking through the links, I find a previous member named “Darius Guppy”. Consider my day improved.

          • Deiseach says:

            Fascinating fact: when using Wikipedia to refresh my memory of the scandal Darius was involved in (back in the 90s) it turns out he is a descendant of Robert John Lechmere Guppy, after whom the fish is named.

            Instead of taking to natural philosophy and discovering new species of fish like his forebear, Darius made a fraudulent insurance claim from Lloyds after a fake jewel robbery. As revenge because of his father’s ruin in the Lloyd’s crash:

            James Curtis, for the prosecution, described how, in March 1990, Guppy and Marsh paid a security expert, Peter Risdon, £10,000 to pretend to be a gunman in a fake robbery of emeralds, sapphires and rubies insured for £1.8 million. In room 1208 of the Halloran House Hotel in New York, the pair drank champagne before Risdon tied them up and fired a bullet into a mattress.

            Earlier the pair had called on Fifth Avenue gem dealers, including Tiffany’s, deliberately asking far too much money for the precious stones. ‘They wanted to be able to tell their insurers they had tried to sell them,’ the court was told.

            Oh, and he did some gold smuggling on the side, but that was for “adventurousness”, not money:

            Gems dealer Darius Guppy and business associate Benedict Marsh admitted spinning a ”web of deceit” to claim falsely nearly £200,000 VAT on a large consignment of gold bullion that was later smuggled to India, a court heard yesterday.

            When he was questioned by investigators, 28-year-old Old Etonian Guppy — best friend of the Princess of Wales’s brother Earl Spencer — told them that money had not been the motive.

            ”The main incentive was adventurousness. It was stupid,” he admitted.

            Guppy, watched by his pregnant wife, Patricia, whom he had not seen since being convicted of a separate £1.8 million gems insurance swindle 20 days ago, pleaded guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court to three charges relating to the illegal VAT claims between October 1989 and July 1990. Marsh admitted one of the offences.

            The best part is that all these types hung around with, in Darius’ and Dave’s time at uni, people like Count Gottfried von Bismarck (yes, that Bismarck) and in George Osborne’s case Count Lupus von Maltzahn, no. 4 in this photograph, who actually does look like someone who would be called “Lupus von Maltzahn”.

            And you thought J.K. Rowling was exaggerating the names of the pureblood families in Harry Potter.

            Honestly, the British TV political drama series are not making things up, even when they’re ostensibly “this is adapted from a novel/I dreamt this up on my own, I swear”.

          • The VAT scam isn’t that impressive.

            As part of research for an article I read a book on corruption in modern China. One of my favorite bits involved an area with a very corrupt officialdom. China had a VAT; if you exported goods you got a refund on the VAT you paid.

            The officials created the paperwork documenting the creation, VAT payment, and export of imaginary goods, then collected the refund of the VAT they hadn’t paid.

            They also eventually got caught.

  13. onyomi says:

    Any opinions on the Yi-fen Chou thing?

    Basically, a white, male poet attached a Chinese female’s name to a poem which had been rejected several times and suddenly it wins an award at a prestigious literary magazine or something. My academic friends are all up in arms over this, and I’ve seen it justified saying that “when there are far too many qualified works, diversity becomes a desirable additional factor to consider.”

    But can we just admit that the flipside of promoting diversity is discriminating against white men? I mean, I’m sure many people are genuinely okay with that, but I don’t think many have even really considered it. If it does, it tends to be in a “oh, cry me a river, mr. privilege,” sort of way, but for a poet, this could make the difference between being able to make a living doing what you love and not. Not insignificant.

    • Ever An Anon says:

      I’m curious as to whether the poem was billed as a “translation” of Chinese poetry or an original English work by a Chinese poet.

      If the latter then it’s probably standard Progressive Stack nonsense. But if it’s the former I would bet that the judges cut the flaws which led to the original being rejected slack. Translation glitches or unusual foreign styles are less aesthetically offensive than ordinary ineptitude.

      • Adam says:

        The poem isn’t a translation and isn’t political and doesn’t have anything to do with being Chinese. It’s just a dude ranting about how he’s disappointed himself since graduating college.

        I don’t think it’s any kind of explicit affirmative action, either, just the unconscious biases of the editors. Chinese dude goes on OkCupid, chicks ignore him. White dude tries to get poetry published, editors ignore him. Both win. Both lose.

        • houseboatonstyx says:

          @ Adam
          It’s just a dude ranting about how he’s disappointed himself since graduating college.

          Even what you just said, would improve the poem to me. Obviously the speaker is disappointed — but who is zie, and in what? You just provided something to tether it to — a handle on the poem.

          In an older English tradition, there were lots of poems with titles like “The something Lover to his something Mistress”. They gave a tether — but without bringing in the whole real life of the real author, which was probably quite different.

          Such titles are out of fashion, and the title used gave nothing like that. But the addition of a by-line that sounded like a Chinese person, would provide it (for me, anyway). It fits with the hints of ESL. The disappointment would be the contrast between what the speaker had hoped from a position in the West, and what the position actually amounted to. That fits with a traditional theme of old Chinese poems: someone has left home, traveled far away, to an official position that he is stuck in long-term, and is pining for his distant past hope.

          That’s my association. Different versions of the Chinese connection might be, still literally at home in China but stuck in a study that reminds him of the tour-guide job he had in the summer.

      • Deiseach says:

        I Googled the damn thing. Take a gander at the title: “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam, and Eve”.

        To which my reaction is “Holy Mother of God”.

        Did the anthologist(s) not suspect this thing had to be a leg-pull by the title alone? Is it a serious genuine poem? Is Michael Derrick Hudson actually running a double bluff, where not alone does he prove that ethnic/minority status gets you ahead (as long as you are assuming that status to game the system of liberal guilt but are in actuality in possession of white privilege), but that any old guff will get published as “modern poetry”?

        Here is the thing in its entirety, and may the Muses atop Helicon forgive me this trespass against the art:

        The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve

        Huh! That bumblebee looks ridiculous staggering its way

        across those blue flowers, the ones I can never
        remember the name of. Do you know the old engineer’s

        joke: that, theoretically, bees can’t fly? But they look so

        perfect together, like Absolute Purpose incarnate: one bee
        plus one blue flower equals about a billion

        years of symbiosis. Which leads me to wonder what it is

        I’m doing here, peering through a lens at the thigh-pouches
        stuffed with pollen and the baffling intricacies

        of stamen and pistil. Am I supposed to say something, add
        a soundtrack and voiceover? My life’s spent

        running an inept tour for my own sad swindle of a vacation

        until every goddamned thing’s reduced to botched captions
        and dabs of misinformation in fractured,

        not-quite-right English: Here sir, that’s the very place Jesus

        wept. The Colosseum sprouts and blooms with leftover seeds
        pooped by ancient tigers. Poseidon diddled

        Philomel in the warm slap of this ankle-deep surf to the dying
        stings of a thousand jellyfish. There, probably,

        atop yonder scraggly hillock, Adam should’ve said no to Eve.

        I’m fairly sure Poseidon never fucked Philomel. Deliberate error (“dabs of misinformation”) or genuine mistake?

        • Doctor Mist says:

          @Deiseach:

          “Holy Mother of God”

          Holy. Mother. of God.

        • houseboatonstyx says:

          Hey, I kind of liked that! Once I got the Zoom far enough out to hopefully get rid of the unintended line breaks. Doesn’t sound very modern though, except in the sense of Modern American Poets c. 1920, which I adore.

        • Winter Shaker says:

          To which my reaction is “Holy Mother of God”.

          Actually, I’m not sure that calling it ” “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam, Eve and the Holy Mother of God” would have been an improvement 🙂

          Also, as a serious obscure musical instruments geek (and not deeply immersed in Classical mythology), the idea of muses atop a helicon generates an amusingly silly image in my mind.

      • vV_Vv says:

        The magazine editor who approved the poem commented that he believed that it was sent by a Chinese American, and he let that consideration influence his decision to publish it.

        He said that it was “racial nepotism”, but it’s ok because everybody in poetry circles is doing some nepotism of some sort.
        It seems to me that “racial nepotism” is an euphemism for “racism”, but hey, who am I to teach English to the editor of “The Best American Poetry”?

    • nil says:

      I support affirmative action, but I’ve definitely considered the fact that it constitutes discrimination. My conclusion is that diversity is not a good enough reason to discriminate against whites, or Asians for that matter. But the only reason we talk so much about diversity is, in my opinion, an accident of legal history. Originally, the intellectual underpinnings of affirmative action were mostly about correcting for past discrimination; under that basis, I think it’s entirely justified and will continue to be for at least another 1-2 generations. Diversity was also an interest in the people promoting it, but it was very much a secondary one.

      However, when affirmative action was challenged in the courts, a combination of the particulars of how SCOTUS concurrences are interpreted and the particular biases of the judicial community (in short, American courts are myopically fixated on individuals’ rights and interests at the expense of multi-generational communities but are also very credulous towards the valuations of formal institutions acting in non-legal fields) caused the obvious and practical “remediation of past wrongs” justification to be rejected, while the nebulous interest in diversity was upheld. Any institution that wanted to preserve an affirmative action program had to then mime SCOTUS’s reasoning if they wanted to stay on firm legal ground. I wasn’t around at the time, but my money says that while this was originally just a performative recital, and that most of the people involved still subjectively considered it to mostly be repairative, after some time passed everyone started to believe the words that were coming out of their mouths: that diversity actually WAS that important.

      Usually, the legal world’s effect on the wider culture is more of a tinkering with the edges, but Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, I think, did a lot of the work in introducing “diversity” as a new core value in our culture–and it did so haphazardly and for barely rational reasons.

      • dndnrsn says:

        Just thinking about it briefly, isn’t diversity easier to measure, so to speak, than historical wrongs?

        That is, it’s simpler to just look at a boardroom or a classroom or whatever and say “well, the percentages here don’t look like a pie chart of society by whatever demographics we’re considering”, than to quantify how much a given person or a group has suffered due to past wrongs, which presumably one would want to do in order to determine the degree of affirmative action warranted.

        • nil says:

          Definitely easier. From a legal perspective, though, courts are mostly happy to delegate the particulars in achieving diversity to academia; there’s no reason they couldn’t do the same for a reparative system.

          Also worth noting is that there’s a huge constituency for the current system–recent immigrants and, for the most part, minorities who aren’t Native or African-American.*

          * While I know there was certainly de jure discrimination against Hispanics and Asians in our history, it wasn’t really at the same order of magnitude as what was done to black and native people–especially if you exclude the Japanese internment, which you probably should since the victims of that already received direct reparations as individuals.

          • gbdub says:

            Far from a “constituency for the current system”, Asians are actually discriminated against in most affirmative action systems, often more severely than whites. And witness how often West Coast tech firms are criticized for being lily-white, when they are chock-full of East Asians and Indians.

            Honestly I find the idea of “affirmative action to correct historical discrimination” horrifying in a way that’s typical of a lot of progressive policies that I don’t like: in theory, it operates on large social/racial groups and seems to be just in a certain way. But in practice, at the cutting edge, it has massive impacts on individuals, in ways that are massively unfair.

            We have a long legal history of not visiting upon people the crimes of their fathers. And I think that’s a good thing. Even if you make damn sure you only offer AA slots to descendants of slaves, and only take slots from descendants of slave owners (and that’s basically impossible – very little but a sense of decency prevents most white kids from checking the “African” or “Native” boxes (*cough* Liz Warren *cough*)), you’re still going to end up with some cases of favoring private schooled lawyers’ kids getting in ahead of poor Mississippi farm boys. “Historical Injustice” looks compelling on a macro population wide level, but there’s just too much individual variation to make any system that doles out major benefits (and prestigious college admission certainly is one) anywhere close to fair.

            Honestly I think 99% of any actual benefits of AA could be just as easily implemented with an economic based AA system. And “favoring poor kids from crappy schools” is a lot more palatable to the vast majority of Americans than “favoring kids with a certain melanin level”. The fact that more progressives don’t support such a thing makes me think that, like you, they really believe in “correcting historical injustice” but are willing to argue “diversity” to get racial preferences throught the back door.

          • Cauê says:

            Honestly I find the idea of “affirmative action to correct historical discrimination” horrifying in a way that’s typical of a lot of progressive policies that I don’t like: in theory, it operates on large social/racial groups and seems to be just in a certain way. But in practice, at the cutting edge, it has massive impacts on individuals, in ways that are massively unfair.

            I have a strong, visceral reaction to these as well. What I identify as the common thread among them is treating people as pieces of groups rather than individuals.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Cauê – “What I identify as the common thread among them is treating people as pieces of groups rather than individuals.”

            This. Justice is necessarily individual.

          • nil says:

            @gbdub Yeah, I’m aware of how “diversity” works against Asians. It’s fucked up, and progressives need an answer for it. This is mine, FWIW–at least it would put Asian kids on an equal footing with whites rather than giving administrators an explicit ground to tinker with all racial ratios.

            Otherwise, your point is well taken, and there was a time when I would have entirely agreed with it. I’ve changed for a couple reasons:
            – I’ve learned that white supremacy was a lot more than slavery and drinking fountains, and that the benefits accrued to the white working class no less than everyone else. This is even more true when it comes to NAs–poor whites benefited enormously from Native land dispossession.
            – My experiences in post-secondary schools that use diversity as an admissions metric makes me disagree that the harm to whites is terribly significant. Even with AA, there’s just not that many of these folks, which means they’re only pushing out a small number of whites who were at the very bottom of the admission window. IMO, the harm is therefore less “excluded from school” and more “being treated as if their SAT were about three-four points lower than it actually is.” This is something of a semantic point, granted, but I can’t help rolling my eyes at anyone who was that close to the dividing line acting like they were entitled to a slot–what they had for breakfast the morning they took the ACT/SAT probably made more of a difference to their college admission than AA did.
            – Finally, I just think it more accurately describes merit. One of my grandfathers owned a car dealership, while another was a bank president. Even though my parents weren’t wealthy (or even close to it) that legacy both material and non-material did a lot of good in my life. Most of the whites I went to school with came from an even more privileged background than I. If your grandparents were sharecroppers and you match my grades and standardized test scores, I don’t really think we should be considered equivalent applicants–we achieved the same thing, but you did it with a handicap. Certainly, there are exceptions (there was a black professional class under Jim Crow) but at a certain point the transactional costs of inquiring into individual social histories outweigh the benefits.

            The above reasons, among other less rational ones, are why I am not a full-throated supporter of economic-AA. That said, it does seem to be a reasonable compromise–but only if we were in agreement that AA was about reparation rather than diversity as an end-in-itself.

          • Cauê says:

            Point 2 is… well, if not getting in isn’t a big deal, then it isn’t a big deal to the ones benefitting from AA either.

            As you formulate it, point 3 (and 1 insofar as its relevance comes from the effect on 3) seems to be screened off by wealth. A wealthy black student wouldn’t have been affected by it, and a poor white one would.

          • nil says:

            @Cauê Only to the degree that wealth captures the legacy. I think it’s a big, important part, but not the whole story.

            I’ll have to think more about your rebuttal to #2. My initial thought is that AA beneficiaries probably gain more than a couple points, but something seems off about that.

          • Not Robin Hanson says:

            I’ll have to think more about your rebuttal to #2. My initial thought is that AA beneficiaries probably gain more than a couple points, but something seems off about that.

            By this reasoning, the logical conclusion is to admit people with the lowest SAT scores, in order to maximize the number of points gained. Say Super Elite U has a SAT cutoff of 2390. Two students apply, one with a 2400 and one with a 600. By admitting the 600 student instead of the 2400 student, the 600 student gains 1790 points, and the 2400 student loses 10 points, for a net gain of 1780 points!

          • Earthly Knight says:

            IMO, the harm is therefore less “excluded from school” and more “being treated as if their SAT were about three-four points lower than it actually is.”

            Note that your estimate is off by two orders of magnitude: affirmative action for blacks is equivalent to an SAT score boost of 300 or so points versus whites, and 400 or so versus Asians.

            (This is on the old 1600-point scale, presumably it is larger now).

            I have mixed feelings about affirmative action, but it’s fairly nauseating to think that a black guy exactly as smart and as educated as I am could have walked into the test center, spent most of the allotted time drawing pictures of unicorns, and waltzed out with a scholarship to Harvard.

            I should add that your conclusion that the rhetoric of diversity surrounding affirmative action can largely be traced back to Powell’s opinion in Bakke comports with my understanding of the history.

          • Linch says:

            @Earthly: I’m pretty sure 3-4 points is too low an estimation as well, but all else being equal, the benefit to African Americans from AA should be significantly greater than the loss to whites/Asians from AA, just because of the percentages involved.

            If I were to guess, 50 is probably closer.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            I’ll look for the study tomorrow (if I remember), but the California system basically had AA be a transfer from Asians to Black/Hispanic students; whites were pretty close to a wash (very small loss)

          • brad says:

            I have mixed feelings about AA in higher education too, but I’m actually much more open to the diversity rationale than any of the others.

            I think in some of the answers, part of the visceral dislike comes from the idea that college admissions is a rank and select game rather than a matching game. But if you talk to college administrators, and leave aside race altogether, they will tell you that they don’t want a class with the maximum possible SAT average (or some fixed linear combination of SAT and HS GPA). Given that college isn’t just a MOOC that happens to have physical classroom space, I think it makes a lot of sense to have more complicated preferences than that.

            For example, you can go read plenty of stories about the distorted social life of an insular community that has a heterosexual gender ratio that isn’t close to 50:50. Now you might think a college shouldn’t care about distorted gender ratio, but why shouldn’t they? It impacts the happiness of their students and how they will look back on the experience (which impacts donations). Likewise they want some people who are going to found or lead ultimate frisbee teams, play the violin in the orchestra, bring a rural southern viewpoint to classrooms filled mostly with suburban northerners, children of alumni who were born cheering for the school football team, and so forth and so on.

            When you see it more like dating where there is no strict ranking, but rather compatibility is an all important factor* it seems far less unfair that a school would have a preference for a little racial diversity along with the other class design goals they have.

            Finally, re: pluarity decisions, I couldn’t agree more. What a pain in the neck. Whenever I see one, I blame the CJ. It is his institutional role to do his outmost to prevent things like that. The best CJs managed to get unanimous decisions on important cases. Ah well, at least we don’t have seriatim opinions anymore.

            *When I was going through and re-reading this comment, I realized that given the discussion below re: “game” this is probably controversial in this crowd. But just go with it for the sake of argument.

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            >I have mixed feelings about AA in higher education too, but I’m actually much more open to the diversity rationale than any of the others.

            Critics of AA often have no issue with wanting more diversity, the problem they see (rightly or wrongly) is that AA (promoting racial diversity) isn’t particularly conductive to promoting the type of diversity you describe in your post.

          • Glen Raphael says:

            @Linch

            the benefit to African Americans from AA should be significantly greater than the loss to whites/Asians from AA, just because of the percentages involved.

            Are you sure there is a benefit to African Americans from AA in college admissions?

            Colleges use the SAT in the admission process because SAT scores predict academic success. Arbitrarily giving some group a BIG boost – adding a few hundred or more SAT points – qualifies group members to get into tougher colleges and majors than they are prepared for where they face tougher competition from the other students which makes them far more likely to fail and drop out than had they been redirected to more forgiving academic environments.

            (aka the “mismatch problem“)

          • Linch says:

            @Raphael: Yes, I was using benefit/harm in the same sense as the OP, and not in terms of an explicit utility calculation, especially since the impact of an elite education on your career prospects is *way* lower than is generally assumed.

          • Earthly Knight says:

            @Earthly: I’m pretty sure 3-4 points is too low an estimation as well, but all else being equal, the benefit to African Americans from AA should be significantly greater than the loss to whites/Asians from AA, just because of the percentages involved.

            This depends on what counterfactual we’re evaluating, which is underspecified. The average cost of affirmative action to Asians is going to be at least the penalty they have relative to whites, or 150+ points. You’re right that the cost to whites may be significantly smaller, both because of their larger numbers and because they take some spots from Asians.

      • Cauê says:

        Oh, I always wondered about the focus on “diversity” in the US when discussing affirmative action. Makes more sense now.

        Also, I’m adding the concept of a “rationalization treadmill” to the list of things to think about.

      • Douglas Knight says:

        Thinking that everyone secretly agrees with you is a dangerous road to go down. How sure are you? How can you tell?

        Maybe school administrators have their hands tied by legal precedent and have to lie and pretend to care about arguments that will hold up in court, but they are only a small portion of the people who talk about affirmative action. What about the rest? Why don’t they talk about their real reasons?

        • Cauê says:

          What about the rest? Why don’t they talk about their real reasons?

          Seeing people give a succession of different justifications for the same position is a flag for me (especially when a justification is given in support of something that only makes sense given a different one). I take it as a clue that their “real reason” is more of a System 1 thing, and that (honestly!) talking about it often turns out to be an exercise in rationalization.

          (the process of shifting justifications reminds me of Haidt’s comments about moral dumbfounding)

        • nil says:

          Well, that’s my broader point. I think that two generations of important institutions professing diversity rather than reparations for legal reasons led to a very genuine embrace of diversity throughout society. I doubt it took that long, either.

          As for why I think that diversity was initially secondary, I look to the lower court opinion and the concurrences. If I were writing for a law review, I’d also dig up the briefs and the amicus briefs and try to analyze them in some sort of quasi-quantifiable way. Of course, I’d be very, very surprised if this hadn’t already been addressed in legal scholarship, which is drawn to controversial Supreme Court cases for obvious reasons and due to the nature of law journals is much more comprehensive than it probably needs to be.

          • Douglas Knight says:

            Yeah, I guess I misread you pretty badly. I think this theory is also 90% wrong.

            FWIW, google ngrams shows the popularity of “diversity” increasing about 50% very quickly 1985-1995. But it also increased that much from 1960 to Bakke.

          • What most upsets me about “diversity” in the academic context is that it’s a lie. The form of diversity that matters to the academy is diversity of ideas, not of skin color. But schools that are strong on “diversity,” at least at the higher levels, are pretty close to ideological monocultures. My evidence for that is from visiting schools and talking with students when our kids were looking for schools, and the reports later of the kids.

            My standard gedankenexperiment:

            A department is considering two candidates for employment who appear about equally well qualified. They discover that one of them is an articulate defender of South African Apartheid. Does the chance of hiring him go up or down?

            If intellectual diversity is considered desirable, it goes up—few of us have ever been exposed to that point of view, but it was sufficiently defensible so that quite a lot of intelligent people held it. In fact, at any elite school, it goes down, probably to zero.

      • stillnotking says:

        American courts are myopically fixated on individuals’ rights and interests at the expense of multi-generational communities

        You talk like that’s a bug, when it’s obviously a feature. No remotely honest reading of the Constitution could understand it as privileging the interests of “multi-generational communities”, a term that doesn’t appear even in paraphrase, over individual persons.

        • gbdub says:

          And given that thinking in terms of “multi-generational communities” is pretty much the core feature of all history’s very worst nasty, genocidal, discriminatory societies, I’m glad the US generally has a built-in aversion to it, even when the intentions are good.

        • nil says:

          I view it as a flaw, because I think it gets human nature wrong. I think it led to a result I certainly consider to be at least a little absurd in this case. But, yes, it’s also an intentional flaw, not only stemming from the US Constitution, but from notions of rights and civil procedure that substantially predate it and from a broader ~classical liberal ideology which is deeply embedded in, at the least, Anglo-American law.

          Also, FWIW, the end result of cases where you have a series of concurrences (with a plurality agreeing on one thing but only able to reach a majority by signing onto an opinion that only one or two centrist judges actually believe in) is widely regarded within the legal community as being clunky and weird. That’s secondary to my main critique, though, plus no one can think of a much better idea.

        • Douglas Knight says:

          The Constitution has almost nothing to do with individual rights and interests. That’s the Bill of Rights. The Constitution is all about the rights and interests of multi-generational communities: the states.

      • Doctor Mist says:

        @nil:

        …did a lot of the work in introducing “diversity” as a new core value in our culture

        About the biggest laugh I ever got at the all-hands for a large unnamed Silicon Valley company was when the head of HR was talking about his need to deal fairly with everybody’s individual situation: maybe you’re an engineer, or you’re a secretary, or you’re diverse.

        He was not making a joke.

      • From the standpoint of your justification for affirmative action, is the relevant unit the individual or the group? If, as I suspect is the case, affirmative action by Stanford Law School or the equivalent benefits the smart kids of black lawyers and physicians, people who are already well above the median in terms of advantages, does it still count as correcting for past discrimination?

        And if it’s the individual, don’t you think there are better proxies for disadvantaged than race?

        • nil says:

          The group, and yes. I believe America is a multinational state that has always housed, among others, a Black nation. Especially after Reconstruction but to some degree from the very start, that nation has had an internal class structure including professionals. That class structure means that some black professionals were typically better off than white working class people–but the Black nation continued to be oppressed as a whole to further the interests of the White nation (I know who usually talks about that nation, but whatever disagreements I have with them I don’t think they’re wrong in identifying its existence). I therefore think it is just to compensate the Black nation (as well as the various Indian nations, although that is to some degree already being done through various benefits, exceptions, and an entire body of specialized law) at all levels of its society.

          • Cauê says:

            This is collective guilt and collective entitlement, where what one person owes and another is owed is completely independent of what they do, choose, or experience. This is using Alice’s money to pay Bob for what Charles once did to Daniel. “I’m innocent” isn’t a defense because “Charles was white too”, and it doesn’t matter that Bob and Daniel have absolutely nothing to do with each other, they’re both black, what more relation do you need?

            This is what interventions on groups look like when you see how they actually work (they work on individuals, there’s no escaping that). Maybe you wouldn’t use this framing, but is this accurate? If so, I find it repugnant.

          • nil says:

            @Cauê It’s accurate enough, although I would omit the experience part–I think my ongoing experiences as a person benefiting from America’s history of white supremacy are a critical part of the picture, as are the related experiences of a black person suffering from the same. If it weren’t for those experiences–if I didn’t see that legacy getting passed down through the generations (via wealth, skills, stress, housing and possibly epigenetics) then I wouldn’t support any reparation regardless of how awful anyone’s ancestors had it. It’s not about punishment, but rather an equitable adjustment: while I, personally, didn’t do anything wrong, I received substantial benefits from my nationality and race for reasons that have nothing to do with anything I chose or accomplished. It is only fair and just that I therefore incur some appropriate liabilities in the same way.

            A question: would you be as repulsed if we were talking about full-on states? War reparations owed to a state that was attacked, occupied, and exploited by another? Debts owed by a state to the IMF? What about tithes given by Catholic parishioners going to sex abuse victims?

          • onyomi says:

            I am actually very disturbed by how much the blue tribe especially and most people in general really subscribe to the notion of collective guilt: I once heard a very nice, empathy-driven, liberal professor put forth the argument that Germany had some nerve refusing to continue to bail out Greece, considering all they had done in WWII. Hearty nods from all the other professors in attendance.

          • nil says:

            @onyomi The left is, pretty much by definition, an ideology that views a society as a discrete and persistent entity.

            Can’t say I’m disgusted or disturbed by the inverse, but it does seem very naive to me.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @onyomi:
            You seem to be confusing “collective guilt” with “ancestral guilt” or the like. The collective guilt is of the nation and involves harms that continue to perpetuate. You personally didn’t do anything wrong. Tha nation did, and the nation is liable.

            If a corporation sold something with a 100 year warranty, even though none of the original people are still employees of the corporation, the warranty should still be in effect. (Yes, I understand that a warranty and liability are different, but I would hope you would grant that their shouldn’t be any principle against 100 year old liability).

            In fact all of the stock-holders may have turned over as well, and they are surely “harmed” by these 100 year old warranty claims. “I wasn’t even born when this warranty was issued.” isn’t a cogent reason for the stockholder to view their losses as unfair, though.

          • Cauê says:

            Nil, I question some of your factual premises but to be honest I don’t feel like going there. I’d only ask you to reassess how much of the problem as it exists today is screened off by wealth, and whether that wouldn’t be a more productive criterion – if the goal really is to get people back to a level playing field, that is.

            A question: would you be as repulsed if we were talking about full-on states? War reparations owed to a state that was attacked, occupied, and exploited by another? Debts owed by a state to the IMF? What about tithes given by Catholic parishioners going to sex abuse victims?

            Sorry, my answers won’t be of much use. I don’t want to talk about states, my answer would be too large and only marginally relevant (“is it right for this government to take my stuff to pay for something that a previous government took my stuff to do?”)
            Also, I’m not religious and I don’t know the nature of the obligation Catholics believe they have in paying tithes.

            HBC, when you buy stocks you are voluntarily accepting preexisting liabilities. It’s a completely different situation.

          • onyomi says:

            @Heelbearcub,

            First of all, in the terms of surrender for WWII, I’m pretty sure no mention was made of bailing out the rest of Europe for all eternity.

            Secondly, whatever government made that deal no longer exists. I’m pretty sure Angela Merkel and those who voted for her don’t see her as holding the same position in the same organization Hitler once held. Unless just by virtue of being A government in the geographic territory called Germany one is on the hook for any and all crimes ever committed by any government occupying the same space.

            And therein lies the problem with comparing the government to voluntary organizations like companies and homeowners’ associations: governments are not something most people buy into (unless they are among the very small minority who apply for a new citizenship as an adult): instead, they are just the lawmaking monopolists of a geographic territory. Most people never sign up to be part of them, nor explicitly agree to hold any share of any financial burdens the government may theoretically incur on their behalf.

            So by this logic maybe the Greek people aren’t responsible for the debts incurred by their own government? Maybe not. I’d have no problem with them repudiating those debts and leaving the Euro. Other than maybe voting poorly, the average Greek didn’t really choose to take on the debts his government took on on his behalf; but by the same token the average German has no responsibility pay the average Greek for responsibilities his govmt took on (and that would be assuming the German govmt agreed to keep bailing out Greece, which they did not: the question here is really a moral one: are the current citizens of Germany, almost none of whom were adults when the Nazis came to power, morally indebted for all eternity to the rest of Europe because of crimes their ancestors committed under the aegis of a different govmt?)

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @onyomi:

            I find it interesting that you switched to Europe, rather than sticking with whether US governments (local, state and federal) have incurred liabilities for actions taken in the past that continue to harm black people today.

            Sticking in the US (and intra- rather than inter- nation), I presume that if the federal government seized your land illegally 40 years ago, you would not consider that the fact that the Ford administration was long gone to change one whit whether a USOC finding in your favor should be binding.

          • onyomi says:

            I’m not sure how I “switched” to anything? The example I began with was someone saying that citizens of today’s Germany should feel morally obligated to help out the rest of Europe because of what their ancestors did during WWII.

            This is a more extreme example than supporting affirmative action today in the US would be, given that many people alive during Jim Crow are still around, and some level of discrimination arguably continues, but that’s why I picked it. I’m saying, even when everyone responsible for a bad thing is dead (and while one may argue that discrimination continued long after Jim Crow, there’s no arguing that WWII continued (in Europe) long after 1945), many, many people still ascribe a collective responsibility to their ancestors to keep paying back.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @onyomi:
            Sorry, I was a little unclear (both in my statement and in my reading of your comments.)

            First, broadly this is a conversation about affirmative action within a field.

            Second, I think inter-nation and intra-nation issues are different (for a variety of reasons, but the biggest being that a national government has no intrinsic ongoing contract with the citizens of any other nation to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty”. I don’t think an international example really applies to AA within a field.

            Third, as far as your specific example, war reparations really are a thing, and to the extent that they are never addressed, they are outstanding, internationally. But I agree that the specific example you give sounds a lot more like (in my framing) ancestral guilt than collective guilt. However, if Greek economic problems could be traced to problems caused by German actions in WWII, that were never addressed, then Germany would bear a measure of responsibility.

    • NZ says:

      White guy name: “Thanks for submitting, but try again next year.”
      Asian name: “We’ll publish you right away!”

      And Asian writers are angry because somehow this is evidence of…white privilege!

      • Brian Donohue says:

        The NPR contortions reporting on this were breathtaking.

      • Derelict says:

        It could be because the white person is painted as seeing no shame in adopting a Chinese name for his convenience, while a Chinese person adopting a white name is painted as being forced to adopt it just to have a chance at success elsewhere.

        • Urstoff says:

          But that ignores the context of poetry vs. other areas of success. Having a Chinese name seems to be a boon in poetry, and having a plain white male name is a hindrance. The white males are in the same place as the Chinese workers in other areas in the past (present?). The source of the bias is just different. Why would it be immoral for a white person to adopt a Chinese name in submitting poetry, especially in this case when the poem clearly has nothing to do with being ethnically Chinese or anything of that sort, versus a Chinese person adopting a white name in some other area?

          • Derelict says:

            Ostensibly because the advantage of having a Chinese name is “relegated” to something “economically unpopular” like poetry, while the white name has more opportunity elsewhere by default.

            Note, I don’t actually think any of that myself; I’m just relaying what I’d be saying if I were thinking like one of them.

          • NZ says:

            @Derelict:

            Right, and if I were arguing against “one of them” I would offer that the white name does not have more opportunity most other places. Exceptions stand out because this is true.

        • NZ says:

          If the white guy in question is a poet by trade, then getting published is not a convenience, it is a career essential. As I understand it, rejection is common and getting published is rare. So each instance of publication is hugely important for success.

          • Douglas Knight says:

            He isn’t a professional poet. There are two things you might mean by that phrase, and he isn’t either. One is someone who gets paid for published poems. There are virtually no such people these days. Magazines pay virtually nothing. He didn’t publish that poem to make money. In theory he could build up the pseudonym to be one of very few superstars who sells books direct to consumer (or at least to poetry classes), but if he was going to try that, he’d publish more poems under the name and certainly not reveal the hoax as soon as he won a prize! (I suppose he could try to ride the hoax to notoriety and fortune, but that’s very different than caring about each publication.)

            The other thing you might mean by a “professional poet,” the thing that is common, is an English professor who is hired on the basis of publishing poems. This guy does not seem to be such a person. Such people do care about the rare acceptance letters. But they care about them to impress the hiring committee, from whom they cannot hide their identity, so this is a really lousy strategy.

          • NZ says:

            My understanding is that the guy considers his trade poetry. I have no idea whether he knows that is not viable or whether he actually has some other job just to support poetry.

            I suppose my point is that (again, as far as I know) the guy writes a lot of poems and submits them to publications, thus he takes poetry seriously and it’s something he cares about. Getting published isn’t just a convenience. It’s not like getting a few thumbs up on your Facebook page.

      • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

        >honest

        I know I should do better than to try to guess someone’s motives when not explicitly stated, but that reads like the biggest, most blatant attempt at saving face that I’ve ever seen.

        • HeelBearCub says:

          Do you believe that he knew of the deception before the work was published and in time to pull the poem from the anthology?

          Because, if that is true, it is a huge piece of evidence that argues against your viewpoint. If it isn’t, when then he has dug himself an even bigger hole.

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            I believe he could’ve known, I don’t believe his statement that he’d be able to keep it under wraps (and therefore, his allowing it to go through was a big gesture of him).

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            Update: Rereading through the post, the way it is written suggests to me that this guy is either super genuine or ultra cynical, so I’ll admit that there’s probably a pretty good chance that he’s being honest.

          • Douglas Knight says:

            HBC, to answer your question: Alexie knew the truth before publishing. He published the truth. The anthology contains authors notes, which is where the hoax was revealed.

        • Urstoff says:

          Given how many people are angry with him for not removing it from the anthology altogether, it doesn’t seem much like saving face. It just seems like a straightforward explanation to me. The poem probably made the cut because of the Chinese name, but he likes the poem so he’s leaving it in there; he’s unsure what this means vis-a-vis race, privilege, etc.

      • Comments on Alexie’s post are closed. What I wanted to ask him was whether, given his explicit policies, the title of the anthology is a lie, and if so whether that bothers him.

    • Douglas Knight says:

      The numbers here are important and belie the word “suddenly.” It was rejected 40 times under the real name and 9 times under the fake name. I imagine that magazines are biased, but that doesn’t sound like a statistically significant sample. There is a huge amount of randomness in the system, or at least inconsistency between judges. If the judges were consistent in their judgement of poem+author, it would not take 10 tries for the “best poetry” of the year to be published.

      But also, the very fact of the huge amount of noise makes it easy to hide bias.

      PS – not very relevant, but I have to mention Sonnets from the Portuguese.

    • Who wouldn't want to be anonymous says:

      I am actually confused why this is such a big deal. Damn near every author or artist, it seems, uses a nom de plume. From Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Seuss; from Steven King to Emily Bronte; from Lewis Carroll to Robert Jordan; and from Hokusai to Banksy.

      • onyomi says:

        Because you’re not supposed to use your nom-de-plume to try to claim sweet, sweet diversity points that don’t belong to someone of your background.

        Although I do think it’s kind of funny that, in the same world where, experiments supposedly show, people with “black-sounding” names on their resume are less-likely to get a call-back or interview, having an “Asian-sounding” (and, I’d bet, “black-sounding”) name increases your chances of getting published in an obscure literary magazine.

        It’s almost like the heterosexual, white patriarchal elite loves you if you’re applying for the job of “sing to us eloquently the sad song of your people so that we may wallow in how awful we are (or how much better we are than others like us),” but not if you want to do their taxes or fix their computer.

        • I suspect the answer is that literary magazines are largely under the control of blue tribe people.

          • onyomi says:

            Oh, definitely. I’m just pointing out that it’s interesting how our society has worked out this way: either blue tribe people gravitate toward academia and the arts and/or being in academia and the arts makes you blue: the result is, the people who want to bend over backwards to give opportunities to minorities are mostly in a position to give them platforms to continually air their grievances, but not necessarily the economic opportunities to put their grievances in the past.

            Of course, there are many blue tribe businessmen, but the not unjustified stereotype is that the businessworld is relatively red, and the academic and artistic worlds blue.

            I’m also suggesting that maybe keeping historically aggrieved parties feeling aggrieved, and, further, giving them platforms to express those grievances may be in the political/cultural interests of the blues.

      • Douglas Knight says:

        One of these things is not like the others.

        • Who wouldn't want to be Anonymous says:

          I assume you mean Emily Bronte.

          The list is just examples I thought of offhand to covers a variety of motives. But the point is that all of them provide some advantage to the artist: from the plausible deniability to viciously slandering your friend and mentor in every newspaper in the country, to getting your works published at all, to anonymity for its own sake. If I wanted to research the subject, it wouldn’t be hard to come up with a more broadly representative list.

          [Edit] Eh, I don’t feel like getting into a discussion.

          • Douglas Knight says:

            The example of Emily Bronte is unique on your list in being similar to the example at hand. Yes, there is a difference between choosing a pseudonym for the sake of anonymity and taking advantage of the opportunity to optimize an unconstrained name, but I think the two naturally group together against falsifying a particular aspect of one’s identity. The latter is about caring about a lot about a small amount of information, while the former are about caring about a large amount of information.

    • Deiseach says:

      I know I’m drawing down the lightning on my head with this, but that is rather the point the Sad Puppies were making: diversity is so desirable a value (or so big a signalling device) that flawed work gets promoted as long as it can be pointed to as being diverse.

      I haven’t seen any of the poetry, so I don’t know if it’s unusually bad or just what passes for poetry nowadays, but it seems to be: white male can’t get his stuff printed because it’s not up to snuff. White male re-submits with ethnic minority and female (two for the price of one) name attached, gets snapped up for anthology.

      It looks awfully like tokenism. It’s on the same grounds as I was criticising The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere – why did this win a Hugo for Best Short Story in 2014? Strip away the magic water – which is very easily done, since it is only a McGuffin – and what you have is a standard coming-out-to-the-parents story, one of a dime a dozen such slight literary confections you could read anywhere, and the only thing that makes it stand out is that the protagonist is Chinese and worried about his traditional parents. What’s the SF/Fantasy element there? The magic water, which has little or nothing to do with the story as such. If the protagonist had been White Biotech Engineer Guy with his white personal trainer boyfriend instead of Chinese Biotech Engineer Guy with his white personal trainer boyfriend, would it have won on its merits?

      It’s not a badly written story (it could use some editing and some development) but what’s SF/Fantasy about it? I really think it only won on the “Ticks the diversity boxes: gay AND ethnic” basis. I’d like the story better if (a) the character of the sister got some development (b) the parents were allowed to speak for themselves rather than Sonny doing all the talking (c) we got some gorram discussion of this magic water – what is the ongoing research? theories? is it the basis of a new religion? have old religions adopted it? are physicists tearing their hair out because New Agers are in their faces about magic, man, look the cosmos is full of it? (d) perfect boyfriend was a shade less perfect, he’s too good to be true (e) needs some pruning – heck’s sake, fanfic writers get hauled over the coals by their betas for using phrases like “hard blue eyes”, you’re supposed to be a professional!

      Having ignited the blue touch paper, I now retire 🙂

      • Urstoff says:

        It’s not tokenism, but it is bias. Even the publishers and editors admit that (and embrace it). What’s interesting is that the debate among the (presumably incredibly tiny) poetry sphere is whether the author did something wrong in using a Chinese name and whether it should have been rescinded from the anthology, not whether favoring people with ethnic names is a questionable practice.

        And yeah, this is sort of like the sad puppies, except even smaller. Whereas the nature Hugo’s are important for a few thousand people, the nature of contemporary poetry is important for a few hundred English professors (who are pretty much the only authors and consumers of modern poetry).

        • Douglas Knight says:

          The author in question is a librarian. Why did he bother to submit the same poem 50 times? Is he hoping to transition to professor at age 50?

          • Urstoff says:

            Hence “pretty much”. Alexie states that 99% of the authors are professors. It’s probably somewhat less in regular publications, but that still seems to be the major producers and consumers of modern poetry.

          • Douglas Knight says:

            Uh…yeah, sure whatever. But why did he bother submitting it 50 times, rather than, say, putting it on his blog?

        • Deiseach says:

          If the poem was so bad it couldn’t get accepted for publication, then publishing it under a fake name is incredibly patronising: “Yeah, it’s a crap poem but maybe English isn’t her first language? Anyway, she’s Chinese and female, that over-rides her bad writing!”

          Talk about being patted on the head for your attempt to walk on your hind legs!

          I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: “Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

      • Curmudgeonlypoet says:

        This is a slight derail, but does anyone know why modern poetry is so bad, and when it became so?

        I went and read the poem in question and some of the others from the anthology, and to me they are just… boring.
        All bland and pointless,
        with no decent rhyme, rhyme or meter
        like prose but ju-
        st cut up randomly with line
        breaks, for no apparent reason
        and unbalanced lines which look ugly and arbitrary but which might serve
        as an artistic statement
        for less of a philistine than
        me
        why did it become like this anyway?
        Is it a signalling spiral of rebellion
        against the constraints of
        form, gone wrong;
        Or
        perhaps, something else entirely?
        And does anyone write oldschool rhyming poetry
        anymore, which is actually good?
        because I liked that.

        – “Kimitake Yamashita”

        I eagerly await my place in the next best American poetry anthology.

        • Whatever Happened To Anonymous says:

          In my (uneducated) opinion, this happened to poetry and visual arts when they started prioritizing substance over style a bit too much.

        • Urstoff says:

          I think poetry is very heavily informed by the history of the form. Most poets are academics, and academics know lots and lots of past poetry. They don’t want to write something that’s basically 21st century Tennyson. If you want that, just go read Tennyson. So they want to do something new, which means it’s going to be fairly inaccessible for the lay reader. Much like visual art. The popular form of poetry is just songwriting.

          • Nornagest says:

            Mmm. That’s certainly the charitable way of putting it, but in an art form with a 2500-year history by the narrowest definitions, I find it implausible that we’d have reached the point where original stuff has to be inaccessible to laymen only ~60 years ago.

          • Linch says:

            “The largest employer for poets is Hallmark”

          • John Schilling says:

            I can’t read Tennyson’s poetic take on recent events the way his contemporary audience could read his take on Balaclava. I’d actually like to, but he died about a hundred years too early for that and several generations of academics have been working to convince anyone who might take up his torch that this would be beneath them and they should instead focus on twaddle that only a handful of academics will ever care about. That, and whine about how society doesn’t support the arts the way it used to.

          • Curmudgeonlypoet says:

            I suppose my point is why can’t “literary” and “lay” poetry coexist like they do in many other art forms. Take fiction more broadly – there you have people writing both literary and genre fiction. It’s not like no novels are published except highly experimental literary fiction and then when nobody reads modern fiction and people wonder “where did all the genre stories go like science fiction or murder mystery or whatever”, they get answers like “most writers don’t want to write something that is basically 21st century Heinlein or Agatha Christie. If you want science fiction with aliens and spaceships, or a tightly plotted and relatively formulaic murder mystery, then go and read Heinlein or Agatha Christie.”, which is what the world of poetry seems to be today.

            I’m also not convinced the popular form of poetry is songwriting. To me, “popular” poetry means something like The Lays of Ancient Rome or Kipling’s poems which, while not necessarily pinnacles of literary excellence or daring experimentation, are fun, memorable, and actually became quite popular.

          • Linch says:

            FWIW, Brian Patten, Shel Silverstein and Billy Collins are very readable. So was Maya Angelou and Robert Frost.

            So while the quality of popular poetry may have decreased, I think the lack of popular interest in poetry is quite complicated and it will be inaccurate to blame just the academy’s inaccessibility.

            Also, slam started off in blue collar parts of Chicago. It’s very progressive at points and SJy, but I think it’s pretty far from academic poetry.

        • Who wouldn't want to be anonymous says:

          Any theory, I think, would have to explain why all the arts started sucking at the same time. Not just poetry and fine art. Orchestra? I’ve heard it described as a “fire in the pet store.” Opera? There is a reason the Met is losing money. Ballet. Same. Fashion. Same. And so on, and so on. Even architecture. The only quote I know from the Prince of Whales is something to the effect that “are least when the Luftwaffe knocked down our buildings they only replaced then with rubble.” I would posit that the purpose of insane zoning rules and getting every building you can designated as historic is so modern architects can’t inflict there horrid designs on people, not because the current ones are actually worth keeping.

          You can get good folk art and vernacular or whatever. But the second it gets noticed by an academic, the form is pretty much fucked.

          • onyomi says:

            It’s funny: I teach Asian literature and poetry, and one of the fallacies we enlightened Western critics routinely shake our heads at is the traditional East Asian inability to dissociate the work from the poet: traditional literary criticism tends to read the poem as a key to understanding the poet’s life and vice-versa, whereas we, who understand art-for-art’s-sake, know better.

            Yet the latest trend in art is that it’s ALL about who you are.

          • onyomi says:

            Re. everything getting bad at once, I think maybe we can blame a kind of overbearing self-consciousness that typifies postmodernism. Creating art that is merely “good” is seen as facile, naive, commercial, etc. Worrying about this last part has a long history in Asia, however (denigration of the commercially viable as not “real” art). What’s funny, though, is that the commercially viable art of the 16th century, say, often ends up being the art 21st century critics agree is the best art of the period, whereas the art 16th century people thought was tasteful is revealed to be super boring and pedantic by the standards of any other age.

            I don’t know if music critics 500 years from now will think Lady Gaga was a good songwriter, but I do know that critics of today cannot say so, since her work is currently far too accessible to signal elite status by its appreciation.

        • I write old fashioned rhyming poetry, almost entirely in the context of the SCA where poetry is still valued as entertainment. Other people in the organization do too.

          Most of my SCA poetry, with the exception of a few recent pieces, is at:

          http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Misc_Poetry_Contents.html

      • BD Sixsmith says:

        It’s also a bad poem.

    • rmtodd says:

      My first thought when seeing this was noting the “Chinese female” bit and wondering how many editors are likely to know what Chinese names are traditionally female and which ones are traditionally male. Not sure how you can discriminate in favor of Chinese females if you don’t know which names are female and which are male.

      Which in turn led me to a couple of thoughts, both curiously enough related to one of my favorite written science fiction series, the long running German SF series Perry Rhodan.

      1) In the early days of writing PR, one of the authors (either Scheer or Ernsting, not sure which) had to come up with names for several Japanese characters, and (so the story goes) went about this by getting ahold of a Tokyo phone book and randomly picking names out of it. Reportedly, for those who know enough about Japanese to know which names are traditionally female and which are traditionally male, the results are rather amusing, since of course Scheer/Ernsting didn’t know which was which.

      2) It occurs to me that Walter Ernsting got his start in SF writing doing much the same stunt as the guy mentioned above. Back in the 1950s, Ernsting was an SF fan who wanted to get into writing, but he faced a problem: the German SF publishers at the time believed there weren’t any good German SF authors, good SF authors only come from the US or Britain. Ernsting could (and did) get work doing translations of foreign SF, but not writing it himself. So he resorted to the trick of inventing a fictional new British author “Clark Darlton” and claiming to be just offering German translations of this fine author’s work to be published. (Fortunately, Ernsting was lucky enough to have done this decades before Google or Wikipedia would have made the hoax obvious.) Eventually the publishers found out, but Ernsting/”Darlton”‘s work was selling well enough to make them accept him as an author anyway.

      • onyomi says:

        I think the “Asian-ness” of the name was more important than the female-ness in this case, though googling the name “Yi-fen,” minus “white man,” “white poet,” “white guy,” etc. largely produces pictures of Asian females.

        To Chinese speakers the name codes more specifically as an oddly-spelled Taiwanese name, as someone with the same name in China today would probably spell it Yifen Zhou (but someone using the older, Wade-Giles Romanization, as the Taiwanese are wont to do, would spell the first name “I-fen”). But it’s also not wrong enough to see extremely strange to me, a Chinese-speaking American, as Asian Americans spell their names all kinds of ways.

      • Deiseach says:

        Not sure how you can discriminate in favor of Chinese females if you don’t know which names are female and which are male.

        Presumably Mr Hudson provided a fake potted bio to go along with his offering.

    • vV_Vv says:

      SJWs are mad because a white man posing as a minority woman breaks their narrative that women and minorities are discriminated against by the Great White Phallus conspiracy.

  14. Mike Johnson says:

    Was at a party last night where someone was sneezing up a storm, now I’m sneezing up a storm. This inspired the following thought:

    If you’re an Effective Altruist, one of the most straightforward, high-leverage things you can do is not get other people sick.

    In particular, the amount of negative utility produced by going to a crowded party of other EAs and sneezing for hours is substantial!

    • Winter Shaker says:

      I seem to have been getting colds much less often than I used to since I started using nasal defence spray (I assume there are equivalent products on the USA market). Of course, I am a sample of one, adn this may be actualy just statistical error, but assuming it does work like it seems to (and note that it’s a preventative, not a cure), maybe you should try it out, and if you reduce the infection rate in the community, you can hail it as an Elixir of Effective Altruism 🙂

      • Pythagoras says:

        Increasing the sample size: among endurance athletes in the UK nasal defence spray has a reputation for effectiveness, as prophylaxis against catching a cold just before your target race.

    • Matthew says:

      Substitute “workplace,” particularly where the workplace is involved in food preparation, for “party,” and you’ve just discovered one of the big reasons liberals advocate for mandatory paid sick leave.

  15. Decius says:

    Consider a person who has depression but is functional enough to get by. They have heard stories or known somebody who was incorrectly involuntarily hospitalized, or they might have been themselves.

    They might know intellectually that a therapist will not overreact, but in order to talk to a therapist they must go through the work of deciding what is safe to say to whom, while dealing with a new person, with the very real and justified fear that if they say the right thing to the wrong person they will be imprisoned for a subjective eternity. They already might have low bandwidth to handle stress in general, so handling high-stakes decisions where the correct choices are not even retrospectively apparent might be very difficult for them.

    In other words, police, ER, and social workers (et al) who take actions that result in an involuntary commitment contribute to an environment in which more people are unable to seek treatment because of the fear of negative repercussions- regardless of whether or not the people they commit need it or benefit from it.

    Open communication might help… but I feel like no therapist would have a session that could have notes notes like “pt asked if dr-pt conf. would protect desire, planning, and preparation but not intention to kill supervisor and frame coworker; advised pt that confidentiality did not cover actions taken in preparation to harm others; pt said ‘never mind’ and canceled remainder of appt.” and maintain confidentiality. Generally speaking, it’s impossible to ask about a sufficiently edge case and get an answer without causing belief that you are that edge case.

  16. BBA says:

    As a child I auditioned for “Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?” but didn’t make it on the show. I passed the knowledge test with flying colors, but failed the interview and improv games that screened for telegenic, outgoing kids. Just as well – it wasn’t nearly as good as “Where in the World?”

    On that topic, a fan of “World” has managed to get references to a supposed unaired episode he appeared in placed in a few reputable internet sources, despite being quite obviously made up. There are few enough people who care about 20-year-old children’s game shows that it hasn’t been brought to anyone’s attention.

    • Urstoff says:

      I didn’t get on College Jeopardy for the same reasons. Passed the knowledge tests with flying colors; I just wasn’t a good person to put on TV, I guess.

      Addendum: I consider this the greatest failing of my life.

  17. Outis says:

    I think Gwern’s re-analysis has a serious flaw in its estimation of the costs of possible actions.

    Giving a monetary value to a human life, whether it’s $10M or another value, only makes sense in utilitarian ethics. In utilitarian terms, the value of a human life includes contributions from such factors as the enjoyment the person itself derives from being alive, the enjoyment people around them derive, and of course their economic output. All of these factors clearly depend on the length of time the person stays alive. It is useful to assign a specific value to a generic human life, but it should be clear that this is an average across all individuals. Therefore, it can be as-is only for situations that apply to a sufficiently representative sample of the population – not just in terms of the utility that can be expected from their lives overall, but, crucially, how long they have left to live.

    Suicidal patients are representative enough for the former criterion, but clearly not from the latter. This makes a big difference. If you save the life of an average 30-year-old, you have saved ~45 years of life. But if you have a suicidal 30-year-old, with a 7% chance of committing suicide each year, and you keep them from killing themselves for a year, you have not saved 45 years of life, you have saved less than 13, because they still have a 7% chance of killing themselves each year once they get out.

    • gwern says:

      not just in terms of the utility that can be expected from their lives overall, but, crucially, how long they have left to live.

      Sure. QALYs are a useful refinement. But this doesn’t undermine the basic point about VoI: you can calculate the value of a clinical suicide-prediction scale by comparing the expected loss when you use it with the expected loss when you don’t use it. (Imagine the least convenient possible world: it would be entirely possible for a particular set of patients to be young enough and the value of a QALY to be set right to emit exactly the same number as I used as the expected loss. Is the analysis still wrong? No, of course not. So you’re just arguing over the value of a particular parameter – what is the expected loss per patient if not $10m – and you are in violent agreement about all the rest.)

      What one shouldn’t do is eyeball a number or apply an arbitrary threshold like p=0.05. That’s not optimal except under the most narrow & unlikely of circumstances.

      But if you have a suicidal 30-year-old, with a 7% chance of committing suicide each year

      My understanding is that many suicides does not work that way, and are not like cancer or heart attacks, but are rare acute things which tend to pass. If you tackle someone about to jump off a bridge, they aren’t going to just come back the next day and jump once no one’s looking.

  18. Marc says:

    Why don’t you use the Reddit/LessWrong comment system with up and down voting?

    • stargirl says:

      In theory people are supposed to upvote/downvote comments for “quality” In practice a huge part of why people up/down vote a comment is whether they agree with the comment. Implementing voting in practice discourages people from posting comments that go against the prevailing views of the community. Many people have mentioned that on lesswrong their controversial posts got relatively low karma regardless of how much effort they put in to them.

      This topic has come up alot and the community consensus seems to oppose up/down votes.

      • Urstoff says:

        Upvoting only seems to serve a useful purpose for root posts on content aggregator sites like Reddit. For comments themselves it always seems to be universally terrible, just amplifying echo chambers.

      • Marc says:

        Thank you for the thoughtful comment

  19. WJR says:

    Looks like the National Review has embraced (Deebo’d?) Scott’s Thrive/Survive Theory of the Political Spectrum. From their magazine: Why Zombie World Is Conservative (https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/423487/why-zombie-world-conservative).

    It’s behind a paywall, but some of the more colorful quotes include:

    “To be fair, zombie fiction would be boring indeed if the first undead outbreak were promptly squashed by a squad of bureaucrats from the Centers for Disease Control. Yet even relatively government-friendly fiction, such as the bestselling book World War Z, features a series of catastrophic mistakes before the ship of state finally rights itself. In brief, in zombie world, the man who relies on the government for his safety will be zombie chow in short order.”

    “So who lives? Well, it’s not Pajama Boy. In zombieland, there are three kinds of people: those who know how to use guns, those who learn how to use guns, and zombies.”

    “Oh, and the zombie universe has no use for idealism. Indeed, TWD has made a cottage industry of finding and destroying tiny post-apocalyptic utopias.”

    “Where are the think pieces demanding to know why the government failed so miserably? Where’s the 8,000-word essay describing how Cambridge, Mass., would ride out the storm with technocratic efficiency while Mississippi crackers would aimlessly wander around the Delta, munching on each other?”

    “Perhaps it’s time for a bit of self-reflection from liberal zombie fans. Why is it so darn believable that the government would go belly-up so quickly? . . . When liberals watch the government collapse, they’re watching with their last trip to the DMV in mind, or their frustrating encounters with public schools, or — heaven forbid — any form of contact with the Department of Veterans Affairs. When they watch the utopias burn, they’re seeing the will to power in their own colleagues, the way that even like-minded people will so quickly turn on all but their closest friends (and sometimes even their closest friends) when they sense the possibility of personal advantage.”

    “It is said that the facts of life are conservative. And so are the facts of fiction — especially zombie fiction. So, if you can handle the gore, watch The Walking Dead unreservedly. You’ll find that its diverse cast is governed by an unseen code: Live by conservatism, die by liberalism, and the only way you give up your Smith & Wesson is if someone pries it from your rotting, zombified hand.”

    • Deiseach says:

      Is anyone else completely bored with zombies? I really don’t get the current craze for them (or even back in the day).

      Vampires were always my monster, until they got overdone to the point of parody (“Twilight” was just the final stake through the heart here). Werewolves I can take or leave. Zombies – sure, the classic version, as in “I Walked With A Zombie” (or even “White Zombie”) but not the modern ones.

      I can’t wait for the new monster, whatever it may be, to come along because I am really fed up to the back teeth with zombies, no matter how well done or what incisive social commentary is hidden under the metaphor or how much gore you can get away with on TV nowadays.

      • Linch says:

        Probably old news, but Scott’s pretty bored with zombies too:

        https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/07/a-story-with-zombies/

      • Alraune says:

        Is anyone else completely bored with zombies?

        Zombies are like Zelda games: one every five years is fine, binging a bunch in a row will spoil your appetite.

        If you’re after recommendations though, I Am A Hero manages to make them interesting again. It takes a whole book to even show you a zombie, however.

        • Deiseach says:

          I can tolerate the older zombies because (a) original folk lore origin (b) there’s a supernatural mythos going with them (I know the modern zombies have their own mythos but I react differently to horror stories that have natural versus supernatural causes, the latter give me pleasurable shivers while the former may be disgusting and gross and evoke raw physical fear but, eh, mundane basically) (c) restraint – they were not brain eaters and because it was the Bad Old Days you couldn’t show guts’n’gore anyway.

          Modern zombies bore me because there’s no explanation for them – they’re the walking dead because, um, a virus or something (and no attempt at an explanation as to how, exactly, a virus makes a rotting corpse ambulant?). Going back a bit, the modern wave of zombie movies did try to give some kind of colourable reason (military science experiments gone wrong etc.) but pretty much zombies nowadays are just a guilty pleasure: they’re a threat so they need to be dealt with, you can’t reason or bargain with them so they have to be straight-forwardly exterminated, there isn’t any religious/ethnic/racial profiling (anyone can be a zombie and it’s not tied to ‘zombie armies for voudoun takeover of the world’ for example), they’re not conscious (we may assume) so you have the guilt-free pleasure of being able to blow human-shaped enemies away with shotguns, swords, anything and everything to your murderous little heart’s content.

          I know the interest, when it’s not “how high a body count can I rack up?”, is in the society of the survivors and how humans react under extreme stresses and the politics of post-apocalyptic rebuilding, but that isn’t very intriguing to me either beyond a certain point.

          I’m very shallow: I like horror fiction and movies for entertainment so keep the philosophy down to a minimum level 🙂

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            Thanks to this comment, I now have this scene in my head of old zombies sitting around reminiscing* about how zombies used to shamble around with class, dammit, not loping along like wolves. “We used to be a force of nature!” one would rant. “We didn’t have to chase you down; we just wore you down, slowly. We were a metaphor for entropy, by jove!”

            Then another one – wearing a hat, this one is – nods and adds, “and what’s with all these survivalists, racking up body counts with shotguns and axes and whatall else… as if it matters a damn. As if they won’t run out of bullets and food some day, and our generation won’t just suck ’em dry like we’re meant to. Always looking for their happy ending. Silly reactionaries, all of ’em.”

            Then the rest of them just sorta nod in sympathy and quietly slurp the guts beside them on the rotted veranda.

            *Subtitled of course.

          • Deiseach says:

            They don’t make zombie movies like this anymore 🙂

          • Doctor Mist says:

            Deiseach:

            They don’t make zombie movies like this anymore

            That was great.

            Damn, now I have to see a zombie movie.

        • dndnrsn says:

          I have been pleasantly surprised more than once by audiences who you would expect to MST3K it responding favourably/getting spooked by the original Night of the Living Dead – which is usually considered the first “zombie movie” although I’m pretty sure nobody ever says the word “zombie” in it.

          My personal theory is that on the one hand the really simple nature of it makes it harder to pick holes (why are the dead returning to life? I dunno, something something maybe RAYS FROM SPACE), and on the other the low-res black and white has aged well because it’s harder to see when the effects are crappy: I remember a classroom getting grossed out by a shot of the zombies eating “human flesh”, and someone I was dating jumped when a zombie’s fingers were smashed off with an axe – even though it was just a mannequin hand and some chocolate syrup or something.

          • Deiseach says:

            Oh, the original “Night of the Living Dead” is a decent movie, and there’s just enough spookiness in it mixed with a very odd matter-of-factness (the sheriff? deputy? on the TV news report advising people what to do while he’s at the head of a posse of zombie hunters) to make it uncertain just what is happening. Supernatural/paranormal? Government experiment gone wrong? Alien virus infesting Earth? You never get a reason pinned down as to why the dead are walking and attacking the living.

            It’s definitely the first of the new zombie movies in that it doesn’t bother trying to explain why this is happening; zombies are out there, now go get ’em. It also has the microcosm of human society under stress in the besieged group holed up in the farmhouse trying to make it out and how they turn on one another despite themselves.

            Later movies just got made in colour, bigger and gorier 🙂

      • NZ says:

        I had a theory about why zombies are having this big resurgence (and I mean really big–it’s been going on since the early 2000s with “28 Days Later”, “Resident Evil”, and the “Dawn of the Dead” remake). It wasn’t an Occam’s Razor explanation and it wasn’t meant that seriously, but it had to do with the rise of secularism.

        Basically, zombies represent a (mostly unarticulated in the polite society residing inside the Overton window anyway) anxiety about human society minus God and religion.

        • DrBeat says:

          That’s way, way, way more complicated than you need to get to explain it.

          Zombies are popular because they allow characters to engage in heroic and/or exciting action in a familiar environment, without requiring any outside knowledge beyond what the layperson knows (as with a modern military kind of thing) and without introducing a bunch of new rules (as with an alien invasion or “secret world hidden within ours” kind of thing). If you live in the modern world, you know everything you need to know to make zombies exciting.

          • dndnrsn says:

            Zombies have also generally been portrayed as “lower power” than, say, werewolves or vampires. They make better mooks: the heroes can shotgun and machete their way through hordes of zombies.

            Despite the fact that these are fictional creatures, I think most people would not find the same being done to hordes of vampires or werewolves or whatever believable.

          • NZ says:

            The problem with that explanation is that it’s always been true, yet zombies have not always been popular. Something about society or people must have changed that made zombies popular again.

            If you look at the timing of zombie crazes (the late 60s-early 80s, then again in the early 2000s-now) they follow the boomers’ disenchantment with “the establishment”, then the boomers’ kids’ (Gen Y’s) entry into adulthood.

          • vV_Vv says:

            There are other issues at play:

            Zombies are the only things left that it is politically correct to shoot at: you can’t anymore have heroic characters mass killing foreigners, members of any particular religion/ethnicity/ideology, animals, or even aliens, robots, vampires or other sentient monsters, without presenting at least some some case for the enemies.
            Zombies, on the other hand, are mindless and don’t have any natural ecological niche, they can’t be reasoned with or coexisted with. Therefore, you can kill them with no regrets.

            Then there is the collapse of civilization theme common to all modern zombie fiction. It’s a survivalist fantasy: Every man for himself, scavenging resources while fending off zombies and marauders.
            Probably fits with the modern generalized alienation and dissatisfaction with government and society.

          • NZ says:

            @vV_Vv:

            OK, but then why did the zombie craze show up in the late 60s, and why did it go away in the 80s and 90s and then reemerge in the 2000s?

            BTW, James Bond mindlessly kills legions of foreigners all the time and nobody seems to complain. Though I do think that your theory helps explain why the bad guys in the new Mad Max movie were all painted white with shaved heads and black eye shadow: to make them look more like zombies (they literally used Max as a blood bag) so we’d be more at ease with Mad Max & friends killing them by the dozens.

          • vV_Vv says:

            James Bond movies are a genre on their own and follow their own conventions.

            In the new Mad Max movie the enemy minions are humanized to some extent, since we get the PoV of one of them who later switches sides. They are portrayed more as victims of a cruel society rather than complete monsters.

            You get a similar treatment of enemies in war movies. In older movies, the Germans/Japanese/Vietnamese/etc. were just things to shoot at before they shot at you, in more recent movies you will always have a scene with the enemy soldier dying before he could send a letter to his family or something like that. You can’t portray them as “orcs” anymore.

            As for the timing, the late 60s – early 70s were a time of social unrest in most Western countries, with student protests against the government and against “the establishment” in general: “The Times They Are a-Changin'”, “Make love, not war”, etc.

            In the 80s and 90s Westerns were mostly content with their governments and general social structure, movies of that era mostly revolve around fears of foreign invasion (e.g. Independence Day), natural catastrophes (e.g. Deep Impact/Armageddon) or man-made catastrophes (e.g. The Terminator, The Matrix).

          • Cauê says:

            You can’t portray them as “orcs” anymore.

            You can’t portray orcs as “orcs” anymore.

            This is about racism in Shadow of Mordor: http://archive.is/nnV7k

            The concept of this game is shocking when you think about what’s actually happening. As an ultra-powerful white dude, you use fear and extreme acts of violence to manipulate an enemy’s behavior, destroy its militaristic structure, and ultimately gain control of it in the form of living bondage despite being outnumbered by the thousands. Really, chew on this: This is a video game about a spurned man terrorizing an entire foreign culture, literally killing, branding, torturing and enslaving hundreds of living beings. And really they’re only tangentially connected to the man’s real enemy: another ultra-powerful white dude.

          • DrBeat says:

            People do still get sick of things and regard them as played-out.

            In this case, I think that applies to the producers and directors just as much as the viewers.

            And the reason for the resurgence of zombies in the 2000s is really simple: zombies make the PERFECT enemy for video games, video games advanced to the point to really use them effectively, they came back to the public cultural consciousness.

      • Wrong Species says:

        I think your complaint is a few years out of date. Zombies aren’t really as big right now as they were 5 years ago.

      • NZ says:

        I have just developed an alternate theory:

        The first zombie craze (from approximately the late 60s to the early 80s) was inspired by the fall of traditional American hierarchies (see my other theory) and anxiety about what hoardes of Godless people would mean, but then it fizzled out when the 80s rolled in and people saw “A lot of us have ditched God, moved to cities, and lost our survival skills, but we have lots of money now and everything seems fine.”

        Meanwhile, video games became popular in the 80s but the graphics couldn’t handle visual themes that weren’t highly abstracted (Pong and Tetris being extreme examples). By the late 90s, however, video games had become visually complex enough to make first-person shooters and third-person strategy games with believable humanoid characters. After the Fall of the Wall, shooting armies of commies didn’t make that much sense, and shooting swarms of alien-beasts was kinda nerdy. Video game manufacturers needed something to appeal to the new demographic of non-nerds who were into video games. Zombies was cheap genre real estate.

        Then, after a few years of zombie video games, people wanted zombie movies, then TV shows, then internet memes and zombie-themed food trucks and zombie-themed 5Ks.

      • FacelessCraven says:

        @Dieseach – “I can’t wait for the new monster, whatever it may be, to come along because I am really fed up to the back teeth with zombies”

        I prefer Lovecraftian Elder Gods. Kaiju are acceptable as well; I guess the main difference between then is the dificulty level and whether or not you get a huge robot suit to fight them in.

    • Adam says:

      This is a strange take. Frankly, the quick collapse of the government and easy defeat of the military is not actually believable. We accept it because it’s necessary to introduce the post-apocalypse, which is interesting to watch. Watching the Joint Chiefs planning conference is not interesting.

      Also, the post-collapse scene favors country boys over city boys and the tough over the weak, but there’s nothing inherently conservative about being a tough country boy or liberal about being a weak city dweller. Racists and religious have suffered mightily in TWD, and the people who have made it have made it by sharing resources, cooperating with each other, while tolerating and overcoming group differences in culture and temperament. Those who have tried to hoard resources and monopolize power in a community ended up destroying the community and dying for it.

      If anything, the takeaway is the value of adaptive, agile leadership lacking any sort of political ideology at all. If what you’re doing works, keep doing it. If it isn’t working, try something else, regardless of what your theorizing and interpretation of history tells you is the optimal way to live and govern. The characters still alive are nothing like what they were when they started.

    • stillnotking says:

      I’ve often said that fiction is far too willing to posit near-future collapses of civilization — Mad Max is probably a worse offender than TWD, which at least gives its characters the excuse of being embroiled in a literal fight for survival against an inhuman horde, but in neither case do I think it plausible that the norms of civilized society would simply vanish overnight. Adult 21st-century Westerners are no more likely to regress to complete savagery than to spontaneously recapitulate the society of ancient Rome, Fallout-style. Once we adapted to a lower standard of living, which people generally do pretty quickly, we’d be establishing town councils and community ordinances, not lining up to follow some crazed warlord.

      • Urstoff says:

        That’s one of the reason’s that I liked Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station 11”. The end of the world looks more like the early 19th century than it does the stone age.

      • Nornagest says:

        Well, warlordism really is a recurring feature of societies in the wake of major collapses, and some real warlords were crazy enough to give Immortan Joe a run for his money. I don’t think there’s anything magic about Western civilization that makes us immune to that. The bigger obstacle to believability, for me, is that post-collapse media often treats patchworks of small-scale bandits and warlords as a stable state lasting sometimes hundreds of years, whereas most of the real-life parallels I can think of progressed into semi-functional states within years or decades. Oftentimes those states go on to feud with each other for a century or two, but that’s still not exactly shiny and/or chrome.

        It’s pretty forgivable, though. At the risk of repeating the obvious, it’s more fun to watch a post-collapse story about Lord Humongous than it is to watch one about Billy-Bob the corn farmer.

      • John Schilling says:

        When you say “Mad Max”, do you mean “Road Warrior, and I vaguely remember there was a sequel with Tina Turner”?

        Because the movie actually called “Mad Max”, was I think the opposite of what you are criticizing. It took place in an Australia which had cities and hospitals and a police force and all that this implies, an Australia in which taking a relaxing vacation in the country was still a reasonable proposition. But an Australia whose economy had seen better days and wasn’t likely to see them again, for vaguely-specified external reasons that may have involved Australia’s former trading partners being slightly radioactive. An Australia where the police were no longer as effective as they used to be at breaking up criminal gangs, and so an essentially neo-Comanche culture was forming on the fringes of civilization.

        The second movie, perhaps a decade later, has the Outback wholly abandoned to the savages but hints that things may be better on the Northern coast, and the third shows large-scale civilization absent everywhere but people starting to rebuild. Not spontaneous, and not overnight, and IMO as reasonable and plausible a depiction as you are likely to get in mainstream entertainment.

      • vV_Vv says:

        Adult 21st-century Westerners are no more likely to regress to complete savagery than to spontaneously recapitulate the society of ancient Rome, Fallout-style. Once we adapted to a lower standard of living, which people generally do pretty quickly, we’d be establishing town councils and community ordinances, not lining up to follow some crazed warlord.

        There are people who are lining up to follow crazed warlords right now, including some second generation immigrants who were born and raised in Western countries. As for mainstream Westerners, as recently as 1939, the Weimar Republic, one of the most culturally advanced countries of its time, ended up following en masse a crazed warlord after a financial collapse.

        Ancient Rome didn’t spring into existence after a major collapse, it was slowly built the over centuries, and it eventually collapsed into a crazed warlords scenario with Christianity being for centuries the only glue that held Western culture together.

        It seems to me that peaceful and well-organized civilizations aren’t necessarily that stable.

        • stillnotking says:

          The Weimar Republic and Taisho Japan are textbook examples of societies that didn’t have deep democratic roots. I don’t think the potential Hitler-affinities of Weimar Republicans and 21st-century Americans are even close to comparable.

          • vV_Vv says:

            If I understand correctly, Germany had a parliament elected by universal male suffrage since 1871, and since the establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1918-1919, it was elected by universal suffrage. By the time the Nazi took over, Germany had had many decades of substantial democracy. A similar observation can be made for Fascism in Italy.

            I don’t know if present-day Americans with centuries of democratic history have been immunized against autocracy, but given the sort of authoritarian stuff that the highly educated, upper-middle class SJWs spew in a still very prosperous society, I’m inclined to think otherwise.
            If some major crisis that put people day-to-day subsistence in jeopardy occurred, and some self-appointed savior offered a quick solution (possibly involving killing lots of people and grabbing their land and stuff) I doubt that many would bother about democracy, the Constitution or human rights. These are luxuries you can afford when your belly is full.

  20. vV_Vv says:

    What is the most likely cause for the murder rate increase in cities where there has been a police shooting and subsequent riot?

    I can think of two hypotheses:

    – After a riot, the police in that area becomes more lenient, which causes criminal activities increase. This would explain the crime rate increase in St. Luis after Mike Brown’s shooting, but not the crime rate increase in Baltimore before Fred Gray’s death. Unless the Ferguson riot had nation-wide effects on the police, but this should have caused a nation-wide increase in crime rates, which, if I understand correctly, didn’t happen.

    – Crime rates, specifically the activity of black gangs, increased in St. Luis and Baltimore due to some other causes. Black (and non-black) people happen to be killed by the police all the time, and in most cases nobody cares, but when there is increasing competition between the back gangs, they have an incentive to play the holier-than-thou signaling game, so they generate a lots of disorders in the form of ostensibly spontaneous demonstrations which degenerate into riots. The media parasitically amplifies the effect.

    • Pku says:

      Third theory: the media focus on crime causes crime to happen. There’s a documented phenomenon of reports about suicide causing an increase in suicide, for example. Even more specifically, I think they showed that a big boxing match between a white boxer and a black boxer increased white-on-black violence if the white guy won, and black-on-white violence if the black guy won. Could be a contributing factor here.

  21. CB says:

    Well, whatever else his qualities may be, Richard Dawkins is pretty good at getting people to continue having opinions about Richard Dawkins:

    http://gawker.com/priorities-confused-1731919698

  22. merzbot says:

    So I’m writing a “media analysis” paper for some silly class I have to take for my CS major and the issue my group chose is AI risk. We have to choose a nonfiction film or book to analyze. Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom is the obvious choice here, right? I can’t think of any films or any other books on the subject.

  23. Elliot Woods says:

    I am a person who wants to commit suicide but has chosen to live because reasons. Not being able to trust psychiatric help has kept me away from them; if I am open and honest about what I’m feeling it puts me at huge risk, and if I hide that then there’s no trust and what’s the point

    I wish there was a better solution than going to close friends when I need counseling, but I can’t find it

    • merzbot says:

      >if I am open and honest about what I’m feeling it puts me at huge risk, and if I hide that then there’s no trust and what’s the point

      That’s black-and-white reasoning. If your suicidal thoughts are caused by depression, for example, they can still treat your depression even if they don’t know you’re suicidal. It’s sub-optimal, but sub-optimal help is better than no help.

      (Data point: I’ve mentioned my suicidal thoughts to various psychiatrists and psychologists and none of them even mentioned institutionalization. Like Scott said, you’re not going to be institutionalized unless you go to them and say, “I’m going to kill myself.”)

      • Limi says:

        To add to what’s been said, remember that they will only institutionalise you if you are at immediate risk – ie planning on doing it soon. You can tell them you don’t want to do it because reasons and you will probably be fine.

        To add another data point I was institutionalised when I was younger, but it was because while I went in for depression and talked at great length about my suicidal thoughts, even explaining how I would do it, on the third visit I told my psych about the voices I heard and I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. And for the benefit of anyone who is terrified of being a ward of the state, while the first twelve hours were absolute hell, after that I think it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. It’s not as bad as you might think is what I’m trying to say.

        • Jiro says:

          What does “when I was younger” mean? Is it young enough that you didn’t have a job to be fired from, or obligations that you couldn’t meet because you were stuck in the hospital?

          • Adam says:

            Of course, if you really do commit suicide or even just have a psychotic break, you’re not going to keep your job or meet those obligations anyway.

    • Autonomous Rex says:

      That’s how a depression-occluded mind reasons.
      It might help to personify “the disease” as an agentic parasite intent on keeping you from finding any solution that promises do away with it.

  24. Deiseach says:

    Apparently the potato is in danger of falling out of fashion in Ireland!

    Yes, matters are at such a pitch of urgency that the government (well, the state body responsible for promoting the sales of Irish produce domestically and internationally) has decided to launch a campaign to promote it as tasty, healthy and just as trendy as your fancy foreign “rice” and “pasta”.

    The dreadful news is that “shoppers under 45 (account) for just 33pc of potato sales” and as this is the rising generation of Future Mammies of Ireland (the daddies of Ireland don’t seem to get a look-in as apparently they neither shop nor cook; this campaign is aimed at women aged 22-44), that means that in a few short years potato sales will plummet to near-nothing – a worrisome idea for the horticulturalists and market gardeners of Ireland (fair enough, if the crop loses value, this will lead to job losses, I’m not arguing that point).

    Indeed, we have already reduced our consumption over the years – seemingly we are down to:

    In 2015, the average consumption of potatoes by adults is 85kg/capita, compared to the 1970s when Irish people consumed 140kg/capita

    Now, unless I’m getting this badly wrong (and you all know maths is not my strong point), this seems to mean that the average Irish adult eats something like 13 stone* of spuds a year or – and I have no idea what Scott’s actual weight is, but his photo looks like he’s a fine tall healthy man – the equivalent of an entire Scott Alexander (or more!) per year.

    And this is reduced from our parents and grandparents in the 70s. Truly, we are not the men our fathers were 🙂

    *Then again, that breaks down to 1 stone of potatoes per lunar month, and if that contains various forms of potato – including not alone the traditional boiled spuds for the dinner, but crisps and chips – then yes, that seems perfectly doable. That would be around 6.5 kg per 4 weeks, or roughly two-thirds of this bag per person per week, more or less.

    • Montfort says:

      For reference, the 140kg/year figure comes out to slightly more than one “large” russet potato (~13 oz uncooked) per day – and that’s for each man, woman and child on the island.

      What’s more, Slate makes the seemingly outlandish and definitely unsourced claim that in 1844 Irish potato consumption was up to 9 pounds/day per capita – or 1490 kg/year! T.C. Foster, writing in 1846, gives an estimate for ’44 at 5 pounds/day per capita (~830 kg/year) which seems more reasonable but is still about 10 times the current figure. Today’s Irish just can’t compete.

      • Winter Shaker says:

        I remember reading somewhere that potatoes are one of the few foods you can live on exclusively for long periods, but that to get enough trace minerals and vitamins, you need to eat a hell of a lot of them. Presumably as globalisation increases your access to other foods, fewer people needed to eat large amounts of potatoes to stay healthy? But I don’t know much about Ireland’s agricultural history – the stereotype we have is that back then they were basically growing little else but potatoes, but I have no idea if that’s remotely accurate.

        • Murphy says:

          Yep, add a little milk and you’ve got a surprisingly good meal in a potato.

          Prior to the famine Ireland had a remarkably low infant mortality rate vs the rest of europe and where other countries had regular small famines Ireland had none for decades right up until the potato crop failed.

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      I always feel the potato is underrated. Potatoes are very versatile and can be used as a base in many dishes. I think there’s a niche in the US Fast Food industry for a potato-restaurant, like Noodles and Company.

      • Stefan Drinic says:

        I can actually name one such restaurant in the city I live in, though I’ve never went there. Maybe I should do so and return for a report.

        • A Definite Beta Guy says:

          Yes, please do! I would love some feedback on this idea!

          Not so much for implementation, but more curiosity…

          Thanks in advance!

          • Stefan Drinic says:

            False alarm, they just sell fries from local potatoes and put a lot of care into preparing them. I got fooled by their windows being lined with stacks of potatoes.

            Still, they were some really good fries.

          • I don’t know about restaurants specializing in potatoes, but I’m pretty sure I can remember one or more restaurants that offered a range of “baked potato with something interesting over it” dishes. I can easily imagine versions with chili, curry, meat sauce, … .

            Rather like doing the same things with rice.

          • nil says:

            There are a number of resteraunts in Canada that are dedicated to poutine, which pretty much qualifies them as potato-restaurants. I went to http://labanquise.com/en/, it was glorious and very, very busy.

      • roystgnr says:

        The “Potato Club” in my local mall doesn’t appear to be a major chain, but a few others are:
        https://potatopia.com/
        http://www.spudulike.com/

    • John Schilling says:

      I have it on good authority that the Martians will take up the slack from Ireland on the potato-eating front, as soon as we get around to settling Mars. Possibly this calls for an Irish-American space program.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      >> Yes, matters are at such a pitch of urgency that the government (well, the state body responsible for promoting the sales of Irish produce domestically and internationally) has decided to launch a campaign to promote it as tasty, healthy and just as trendy as your fancy foreign “rice” and “pasta”.

      Haha, if I didn’t have personal experience I would have said you were joking. But I stayed at a bed and breakfast in Mallow one time, and I made some pasta for dinner, and I asked my hosts (~60 year old Irish couple) if they wanted any, and they looked at it suspiciously and told me that they weren’t into all the exotic foreign foods.

      Also, giving weight in stone when you’re talking to Americans is a classic mistake.

      • Deiseach says:

        In my childhood, garlic was a foreign herb or vegetable of the devil and good plain Irish cooking should have nothing to do with it.

        Vegetables were peas, turnips, carrots, parsnips, onions, cabbage and potatoes, with Brussels sprouts for Christmas and maybe you’d have cauliflower instead of cabbage for a change some weeks.

        Spring/summer you had the salad vegetables – lettuce, tomatoes, scallions. The first time I ever had cucumber was when I swapped sandwiches for lunch with a girl from school (her family were vaguely posh/English, which was more or less the same thing).

        Honestly, the change in the past twenty-thirty years in attitude and diet and all the rest of it has been amazing. A comedy routine about pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland that is all too true: the worst sin you could commit was leaving the door open so the heat got out, the second worst was leaving the immersion on.

        • onyomi says:

          Food culture can change more rapidly and with less fanfare than almost any other culture I can think of: my grandfather considered tacos and chips and salsa to be exotic, and I still remember a time when sushi was quite exotic.

      • Deiseach says:

        If American mass media from novels to television expects me to understand what (pulling examples off the top of my head) “Keds”, “three strike rule”, “batting a thousand”, what are the values of nickels and dimes, etc. are without translation or footnotes for the bewildered foreigner, then they can darn well look up how many pounds in a stone on the Internet 🙂

        • Who wouldn't want to be anonymous says:

          To be fair, I have no idea what keds are, either. And I still haven’t figured out if literally batting a thousand is supposed to be good or bad so, because AFAICT the phrase is used figuratively for both, I have no idea which is supposed to be heavily laden with sarcasm.

          But I do keep a ballpark conversion rate [see what I did there?] for a few currencies in my head, including the euro and GBP (and could even figure out what the hell was going on with the shillings and pence pre-decimilization). You’ve got no excuse there!

          In my experience, though, when trying to understand prices in literature &c, inflation is more important than exchange rates. Nothing worth reading is modern, after all. You could do worse than assume that prices double every 20-30 years, and go from there.

          • Aegeus says:

            For the record, “Batting a thousand” means perfect accuracy (a batting average of 1.000). Your batting average is hits/times at bat, so it ranges from 0.000 to 1.000.

            I haven’t heard “keds” either. Google only turns up a brand of shoes.

          • Urstoff says:

            Keds are shoes; not as famous as they used to be, but they were basically universally worn by American pre-teens/middle schoolers in the 80’s/90’s. I can’t think of any other reference for that name.

            They were famous enough that you might encounter some saying that they “put on their Keds” or something like that. I imagine that’s the situation in which Deiseach saw the usage.

          • Deiseach says:

            A Stephen King novel, from the days back before the Internet was everywhere, so I had to figure it out from context instead of being able to look it up 🙂

            The annoying thing is that Brit novels etc. get changed for American consumption, because oooh that foreign exotic slang how is anyone supposed to know how much that is in real money? The most egregious example would be “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone”, which by its American title completely wrecks the reference she is making to the legendary talisman. But American novels don’t get changed in translation the same way when they cross the Atlantic (realistically, I suppose because for a print run of however many hundred thousand you’re doing for the US market, it’s easier to run off a few extra thousands of copies for the Irish/British market than do a complete new edition).

          • Deiseach says:

            But I do keep a ballpark conversion rate [see what I did there?] for a few currencies in my head

            In my defence, having been raised on Old Old Money before the New Old Money (that is, pre-decimal coinage and then the punt before the euro), American coinage was too logical for me to wrap my head around.

            “So… you’re telling me a dime is called a “dime” because it derives from Latin via French for “ten” and a dime is worth ten cents? Okay, that sounds fake but okay” *internally* Oh come on, everyone knows real money is measured in how many farthings to the thruppenny bit!

            🙂

          • John Schilling says:

            If it helps, there’s always “bits”, 12.5 cents. Those are pretty much vestigial these days, but they tie traditional US, Mexican, Spanish, and Piratical currencies together in an etymologically interesting way.

            Specifically, proto-dollars derived from a silver coin minted at the mines of Joachimsthal were a common continental European coin for many centuries, with regional variations. By the later Age of Exploration, Spain had determined the standard Thaler/Dollar was too large to be the base unit of currency, but for back-compatibility made their new “Real” (from “royal”), exactly one-eighth of a standard thaler and minted a lot of eight-thaler coins. Designed so you could easily snip out wedge-shaped bits of one (or two or three..) Real each. In Spanish lands where the Real was the unit of currency, nobody much cared about Thalers and the big coins were “Pieces of Eight (Reals)”.

            Arrr.

            The early British colonies in America used an awful lot of these coins, often crowding out proper English currency. Spain was minting them right next door, and there was plenty of local trade, whereas Pounds and Shillings (misspelled, damn it!) and Pence had to be imported from London. But American usage followed continental Europe, where the big silver coin was the Thaler/Dollar or in its New World incarnation the “Spanish Dollar”. And the wedge-shaped bits, nominally one Real but nobody in the English-speaking world cared about Reals, was informally just the bit. Eight bits to the Spanish Dollar.

            Which was adopted outright as the U.S. Dollar, for lack of available minting capacity at the start. And while the US currency was decimalized right off the bat, 25-cent coins were colloquially “two bits” for about two centuries. There were even occasional 12.5-cent “one bit” coins, IIRC, in places where there was a lot of trade with the Spanish colonies.

            Mexico, and several other Spanish colonies, mangled “Piece(s) of Eight” into Peso, decimalized it, and as far as I know forgot all about bits and Reals.

            So, it’s all logical a few layers down, but should be sufficiently quaint and esoteric for someone accustomed to pre-decimalization British coinage.

          • Nornagest says:

            And that’s why one of Terry Pratchett’s parrots squawks “Twelve and a half percent!”

          • AJD says:

            mangled “Piece(s) of Eight” into Peso

            Peso is Spanish for ‘weight’. It’s like calling a unit of currency “pound” or “lira” or “shekel”. It is not derived from English piece of eight.

  25. Pku says:

    I’ve been playing around with the idea of designing a great chess game by getting the world’s grandmasters in on a betting market (Let’s pretend we can’t just use a computer). At first I thought it was impossible – we can bid on what the next move will be, but there’s no way to tell if it’s actually a good move until the game’s over.
    But the stock market seems to make bets several steps in advance all the time, by betting on futures and such. Can anyone think of a way to make this work?

    • Anonymous says:

      How about a two way market of bets of the form “White to win/lose/draw if they play move X” for all values of X each turn?

      Then play the move with the best odds, with all other move bets for that turn called off.

      • Pku says:

        Unless I’m missing something, that still doesn’t solve the verification problem that you can’t actually tell which move was better until the end of the game – you can pay out the last move, but how would you decide who was right about white’s second move, sort of actually playing out a betting market for each possible move (at which point we might as well just iterate through all the moves in the old-fashioned style).
        You could partially solve it by getting a pair of grandmasters to play a game based on each move at each stage and paying the money out by who won at each move – but that still reduces you to relying on the skills of the players you got (and their possible biases – one of them might be unusually bad at a certain type of opening, for instance). Ideally, a betting market should be able to outperform any individual in a bias-free way.

        • Aegeus says:

          The bets don’t pay out until the end, but you can still use their information before that. You lock in the bet once the move is made, and pay out at the end of the game once you have the verification.

          Now, it’s not going to give you perfect information. Even if pawn->E4 is an optimal opening move, you still need a dozen other moves to make it a win. So most opening moves will have a probability of 50%. However, this makes sense – there are many viable openings in chess and your odds of winning against a good player are about 50-50 at the start. The market would still be able to winnow out stupid moves – nobody will bet on moving the rook-file pawn for your opening.

          You could also bet on sequences of moves, like “White to win if he follows the Sicilian Opening,” which might give you more clarity on the opening moves.

          And I think that market forces do apply to this the way they apply to a prediction exchange. If there’s an unconventional move that would eventually lead to a win, you’ll get good odds, you can bet on that, and when that move gets chosen you’ll turn a profit.

          The real trouble is that there’s no way you could get enough liquidity in the market to drive all these weird if-else-maybe bets. If you see an unlikely but viable move and nobody else does, odds are your bet won’t pay out either way because the move won’t get executed. You’d need to invest a tremendous amount of money to actually shift the odds enough that your chosen moves get executed. As the saying goes, the market can remain irrational a lot longer than you can remain solvent.

          • Anonymous says:

            So put all your money on the tricky move while you can get a good price, then publish your analysis of why it wins, after which everyone else will pile on.

      • roystgnr says:

        This sounds like roughly the way that Robin Hanson’s “futarchy” markets are supposed to work. It sounds like a great idea to try them out with chess games before governments…

  26. Will S. says:

    Scott, have you heard of Max von Pettenkofer and his ground water theory of cholera? He was a 19th century scientist who worked to prove an incorrect theory about the spread of cholera. He went so far as to drink a vial of cholera bacteria to prove they didn’t cause the disease, and his studies were very rigorous and it looked for a while like his theory explained everything. He was, of course, entirely wrong.

    I thought it was interesting how someone could, in good faith, devote himself to proving something so wrong, and to do it so scrupulously. There’s a Yale lecture about it on Youtube.

  27. ialdabaoth says:

    Thing I’ve been pondering that I would like futurist input on:

    Fun Theorists seem to converge on an idea that the future should be full of people whose goals and values tend to align with their behaviors.

    Cryonics advocates seem to agree that people currently alive should continue living into the far future.

    Once you implement a properly Fun universe, what do you do with all the minds that developed in a pre-Fun environment?

  28. Pure-awesome says:

    Something I’ve wondered about recently: Has there ever been a study done testing the effectiveness of effervescent placebos vs pill-based placebos?

    I’m more curious than anything, but this could potentially have ramifications if e.g. a drug company does a test for an effervescent medicine, but uses a pill-based placebo (and decides not to mention this fact), though I expect that a) any study worth its salt should be controlling for a variable like that regardless of whether they know if it has an effect and b) this is probably the least of our worries as far as drug trials are concerned (in terms of confounders).

    P.S. My prediction is that effervescent placebos would do very marginally better – they seem more ‘active’ to me

    P.P.S. Why is it only medicine that’s in effervescent form? Do you get e.g. effervescent drink flavouring? Might be a viable marketing idea if only simply for the novelty.

    • Seth says:

      With respect to “effervescent drink flavouring”, I was just reading the following bizarre story:

      “Wine bar fined after woman’s stomach removed following liquid nitrogen shot”

      http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/17/oscars-wine-bar-lancaster-gaby-scanlon-stomach-liquid-nitrogen

      “… she described feeling agonising pain and was forced to loosen her clothing as smoke billowed from her mouth and nose.

      Preston crown court heard on Thursday that she was left close to death after experiencing “an explosion” in her stomach four seconds after the cocktail was poured for her.”

      There’s something almost SF or fantasy-novel-like about a substance that makes a drink toxic in a spectacularly painful and gruesome way, yet becomes harmless after a brief time, and is being used for entertainment. Would anyone believe a scene where a character said “Yeah, add some N to your cocktail, it looks really cool – but careful, drink it too fast, your innards explode in a smoking wreck and you probably die slowly and painfully – no lie, real deal.”

      • Who wouldn't want to be Anonymous says:

        What did I just read??

      • bluto says:

        It’s a neat way to make a smoking drink, and flash chill the drink, but you need to wait until the smoke stops as the Serbian bartenders would soberly inform you as they handed customers each drink.

        • Seth says:

          Yeah, but what happens if you don’t wait until the smoke stops? It’s very easy to see that happening, for multiple reasons. Suppose the bartender is very busy, and forgets to warn? Or your prankster supposed “friends” say the bartender is wrong, and drinking it while it’s still smoking is the best part? Or maybe you’re distracted and don’t register the warning. Perhahs you’ve already had a few drinks, so you don’t take the warning seriously. Or someone makes an understandable but wrong generalization from hot coffee, and decides to take a sip anyway.

          I found another case:
          http://www.medicaldaily.com/toxic-cocktail-made-liquid-nitrogen-sends-florida-woman-emergency-room-282514

          Kaufman went on to order one at the Miami Beach Botanical Gardens, where a bartender handed her the beverage without saying a word. “One would assume if you are handed a drink, or handed something to eat or whatever it is, that you could at that time drink it,” Kaufman told WPLG. After a sip of the “toxic drink” Kaufman collapsed on the floor unconscious. “From what I was told, smoke was coming out of my nose and my mouth,” Kaufman explained.

          I keep thinking some sort of urban-fantasy: “We add a bit of captured frost elemental into the cocktail. The exposed elemental can’t maintain itself long on the solid plane, so quickly disappears. But while it’s present, it converts anything it touches into frost. Careful now, drink your cocktail too soon, and your guts will be spectacularly shredded by the elemental’s passage. It’s excruciating and basically fatal if you’re not immediately treated with Major Healing. But wow, look at that cocktail smoke and freeze at the same time. Isn’t modern magic wonderful?”

        • youzicha says:

          Wow. I’d imagine lab safety rules would say something about not handling hazardous substances while drunk.

    • roystgnr says:

      Carbonated water is “effervescent drink flavoring” minus the flavoring. You’re right that this “soda” stuff might be a viable marketing idea; someone should look into that. 😉

  29. ernesto anastasio says:

    If the prostate orgasm is regarded as one of the peak physical experiences a male can have (better than a penile orgasm), why are they so unpopular? Do you foresee a scenario in the near future where they gain widespread acceptance? Furthermore, what is keeping us from actually becoming open to the idea of prostate orgasms?

    • Ever An Anon says:

      You mean aside from the obvious reason? You have to put something up your ass, that’s not exactly a trivial hurdle.

      Beyond that, pursuing greater and greater highs is not the type of behavior that characterizes a healthy person. That is the trajectory of an addict. If you are so in thrall to sexual stimulation that you’ll do that, then r/nofap is probably going to be much more helpful.

      • ernesto anastasio says:

        Your response really baffles me.

        First, whether or not pursuing pleasure is healthy is completely irrelevant to this discussion.
        Second, what you said is incorrect. Pursuing pleasure is definitely within the boundaries of a healthy person… and not indicative of any sort of addiction.
        Third, using the theory that utility must be greater than weirdness for innovation to take place, the reported pleasure > weirdness of sticking something up your butt.

        • Ever An Anon says:

          I’d say it has a great deal of relevance actually: if we assume that most guys, while fairly unhealthy on the porn front, are still somewhat in control of themselves then it would follow that they wouldn’t feel compelled to seek out new more extreme forms of masturbation. Generally you don’t see people chasing more intense experiences unless they’re burnt out already, which you have to admit is a bad sign even if you endorse hedonism in theory.

          Your third point seems to refute itself. Straight guys have not “innovated” with regards to prostate stimulation / recieving anal sex despite knowing about the supposedly more intense orgasms. That is in itself strong evidence that we don’t actually think that the utility is greater than the disutility.

    • FacelessCraven says:

      “If the prostate orgasm is regarded as one of the peak physical experiences a male can have (better than a penile orgasm), why are they so unpopular? ”

      Lack of the internet until relatively recently.

      “Furthermore, what is keeping us from actually becoming open to the idea of prostate orgasms?”

      More time with the internet as a thing.

    • Acedia says:

      I don’t think porn has popularized anal play to quite the degree commonly believed. A lot of people are still grossed out by butt stuff, or only enjoy it in fantasies and not reality.

      • Deiseach says:

        I think it’s been popularised from porn to real life for women. Most straight guys, I imagine, still think it’s too gay to put anything up their bottom but I saw an article in “Cosmopolitian” quite a few years back now about girls, how to get ready for when you’re letting your guy in the back door, and see this from Heartiste’s horrifically amusing* quiz dating market value test for women:

        31. Do you do anal?

        Yes, and it makes me come to know how much it pleases my man: +1 point
        Only when I get really drunk: 0 points
        Never. It’s an exit only: -1 point

        So I think it’s another in the list of things that have gone from “you wouldn’t even ask a whore to perform this**” to “expected that women will routinely perform in a sexual relationship” acts. I’d have no objection if there were reciprocity, but I think asking men would they be willing to let their girlfriends peg them in return would meet with rejection and horror.

        *I can’t take this as seriously meant; it’s some kind of deliberately being as enraging and outrageous as possible to make women’s heads explode trolling, right***? Because if I thought this was half-way genuine, I’d be invoking the Morrigan to behead him or something. Things like this make me very glad to be aromantic and that romantic/sexual relationships are something I know about only in theory and by second-hand accounts.

        **e.g. one of the ways the Marquis de Sade got in trouble, if I remember from a biography I read ages ago, was forcing prostitutes to perform anal sex; the women were neither prepared nor willing to provide such a service, but once he’d got them tied up or unconscious (seemingly he liked drugging women) he’d do it against their wishes. And certainly part of Byron’s very messy divorce, along with accusations of incest with his half-sister, was his wife accusing him of forcing her to give him anal sex.

        ***I mean, look at this question:

        11. Where is there hair on your body?

        My head and pubic area only: +1 point
        I have to shave my legs daily and wax my bushy eyebrows: 0 points
        I have dark forearm hair and a mustache: -1 point
        Nipples, asscrack, and that giant mole on my back: -2 points

        Now, the idea seems to be that a ‘real’ woman only has hair on her head and mons, but if you’ve got pubic hair, you’re past puberty, and if you’re past puberty, you also have underarm hair, leg hair and hair on your forearms (to mention only those areas).

        So for a woman to only have head and pubic hair, she must be shaving. But a woman who has to shave is a hairy goat, apparently, who has to shave her legs daily (there is nothing in the first answer about ‘I shave once a week or less frequently’).

        So the ‘real’ or ‘most sexy’ or ‘ideal’ woman is, quite literally, unnatural, she cannot physically exist (okay, if we’re talking European ancestry; I don’t know anything about African or Asian ancestry in re: body hair, so if Asian women don’t have hair except on their head and pubes, that’s what he’s looking for, but again there’s nothing about ethnicity here). The way this question is phrased makes it sound like a ‘natural’ genuine real sexy feminine woman doesn’t have to shave her legs or underarms, she only has hair on her head and mons Veneris. Nothing about “Unless you’re European or Turkish (they like women with strong eyebrows)”.

        That’s why this has to be a fake joke outrage-generation machine, not meant seriously.

        • Ever An Anon says:

          I’m not sure that’s true. You can generally get women to do things they’re not otherwise interested in (presumably including anal sex but I’m

          • Ever An Anon says:

            Important lesson: don’t comment while your cellphone is charging. Can’t even edit the damn thing.

            not interested in testing that one) particularly in the early phase of a relationship before you’re offical. I don’t think that’s particular to anal sex though.

            The girls I’ve met who were most enthusiastic about it were nominal virgins, typically protestants but one coptic girl. They tend to treat it as a way to compete in the dating market without technically having sex.

            As for hair, Asian women are generally pretty hairless. A white or Indian woman who shaves is often hairer than an unshaved Asian girl. One reason some guys like me prefer them.

        • A Definite Beta Guy says:

          Roissy is deliberate outrage, but he doesn’t make his views up. This is an exaggeration of his general point.

          Men prefer women with minimal body hair, generally speaking. This is an agreed-upon preference among most men I speak to, and has been since puberty.

          Men prefer hairless bodies in the same way that they prefer “natural looks.” Men do not understand what they ask for, but they have an impression of what they like, and women who can mimic that impression have an advantage in initially attracting a man.

          HOWEVER!
          There is a distinction between issues that arise in the long-term and create long-term happiness and what attracts partners in the short-term.

          None of male friends have ever expressed concern specifically about hair care, and have never demanded daily visual perfection in their long-term mates.
          What I do hear, consistently, from every man, in every relationship, and yes this is my own narrow sample:
          1. My wife/gf doesn’t dress up for special nights. My Best Man says if he is dressing up and putting on cologne, his girlfriend should NOT be comfortable in jeans or sweat pants.
          2. My wife/gf dresses better for Girl’s Night Out than she ever dresses for me. This is extremely offensive to a husband or boyfriend.

          These are the primary concerns my male friends express in long-term relationships.

          HOWEVER: This is a narrow sample. I travel in a high-class, yuppie group of men that takes fashion and looks semi-seriously. If you listen to Mother Dearest and my Aunt, who have husbands from a blue collar background, the complaints are exactly reversed. They can’t take their husbands anywhere! They would wear blue jeans to a wedding if they could!

        • Stefan Drinic says:

          Are we really going to use Chateau Heartiste’s female test as some kind of gauge to see how mainstream anal sex is? Really?

        • Adam says:

          I’m going to go a bit against what Ever An Anon just said because my experience has been drastically different, but granted, I’ve only ever had sex with one virgin and only one religious person (not the same woman). Although it hasn’t been a huge number (maybe 30%), the women who have consistently performed anal sex may have initially done it because they were enraptured and I was nice about asking, but they kept doing it because they actually enjoyed it. At least two, a longtime girlfriend from many years ago as well as my actual wife, were disappointed their previous boyfriends wouldn’t do it and were excited that I would. I’ve had women express surprise that they used to think all porn stars were just faking enjoyment, and no doubt, some of them are (particularly the ones who quit), but not all of them are. It is a pretty damn nerve-rich area, part of the rectum is separated by nearly nothing from the interior vaginal wall, and the rectum itself can fit a penis easily. Anal-only orgasms even for women are a real thing. It tends to take some practice runs and you need to go slowly at first to get the outer sphincter to relax, but once it does and the pain of that resistance is gone, there is no further pain and you can just enjoy yourself. If you already get off on the psychological enjoyment of being dominated in the first place, and many, many women do, then all the better.

          Which is just to say, I’m big on the idea of ‘pleasing your man’ and I think the best way to get what you want from a woman is to find a woman who wants the same things in the first place, avoiding the hassle of coercion games.

          • Saal says:

            SSC has become surprisingly titillating O.o

          • Adam says:

            I fucked that up, too, and now can’t edit. I meant to say I’m not big on the notion of ‘pleasing your man.’ Not to say partners shouldn’t please each other, but a partner shouldn’t do something they dislike because their partner likes it. People should instead find partners who like the same things.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            I think the optimal scenario is of course to find someone with the same sort of kinks as you, but that’s only a small part of a relationship. The thing is, most people in solid relationships are happy making their partner happy, so even if X isn’t fun for me, the fact that it is fun for you makes the whole endeavor enjoyable.

            Plus it’s fucking Cosmo and Cosmo styled shit we’re talking about. Low bar here for self esteem.

          • Deiseach says:

            I’m okay with reciprocation, as I said (e.g. Joe wants Sally to try X out, Sally gets Joe to try Y out) but I do wonder how much is the assumption that “everyone else is having fantastic sex” and, seriously, how much is influenced by porn (after all, missionary/vanilla sex is considered boring even for ordinary couples, as witness the interminable articles that regularly pop up in women’s weeklies about ‘spice things up in the bedroom’, never mind lad’s mags).

            How many straight guys who want their partners to try anal sex are willing to give quid pro quo when it comes to their own persons?

            I would definitely second Adam, though: if you’re going to try anything, don’t go at it like a bull at a gate* 🙂

            *Not speaking from any personal experience here other than the experience I mentioned before of a gynaecological exam where the doctor went at it like he was footing turf. Delicacy and patience, gentlemen! That is the key to success!

    • LTP says:

      So, there seems to be a minority of guys who get really really awesome prostate orgasm from prostate play and they’re pretty vocal online. However, I think many if not most men cannot achieve prostate orgasms even if they tried. I’ve personally devoted time and money (in the form of a toy) to trying to achieve prostate orgasms, and while prostate stimulation was nice, penile stimulation still has it beat and I never had one of the fabled prostate orgasms.

      I suspect this is a case where the people with positive experiences are really motivated to speak up and those with mildly positive to neutral experiences aren’t motivated.

  30. Shmi Nux says:

    Scott, have you read Brandon Sanderson’s humorous “Alcatraz and…” YA series? It reminded me a lot of your sense of humor (including the puns).

  31. Wrong Species says:

    Is there ever a good reason to tell your therapist that you’re feeling suicidal? They already know you’re depressed so it’s not like they will change the therapy. While I’m sure there is a low chance of them commiting you to a mental hospital, i wouldn’t want to take the chance.

    • Saal says:

      Let me begin by qualifying that, based on my discussions with other people, I seem to have seen an above-average number of over-zealous, trigger-finger mental health professionals.

      With that out of the way, no. I’ve been to a lot of psychiatrists/psychologists, and haven’t noticed any significant difference in the treatment prescribed upon them receiving a complaint of:

      A) “I’m super depressed.’
      or
      B) “I’m having thoughts of suicide.”

      …other than the aforementioned involuntary hospitalization. Now, obviously, if you’re feeling suicidal to the extent that you may actually act on it, and you suspect that this may not be in line with your notDepressed!preferences, you may wish to go ahead and use the inpatient option; in fact, I suspect a lot of involuntary hospitalization is a result of precisely this going on subconsciously, leading people to be very explicit in their confessing to suicidal ideation.

    • anon1 says:

      It could make sense early on if you’re having trouble getting them to believe you’re actually depressed, which I hear happens sometimes.

      • Protagoras says:

        I wouldn’t say it’s especially difficult, but more often than not therapists don’t want to hear the word “depressed,” they want me to say something more detailed and less clinical about how I’m feeling. And in general talking about how I’m feeling is hard for me, and of course when I’m depressed things that are generally hard for me become harder, so I have found it to be a bit of an annoyance when I’m seeing a new therapist. Still, I’ve never had a therapist just be stubbornly unconvinced, I’ve just had it occasionally be a somewhat unpleasant process convincing them.

  32. Linch says:

    What were people’s thoughts on the latest Republican debate? I don’t normally keep up with news/politics for garden variety rationalist reasons (plus I can’t legally vote in the US), but I watched the latest debate while procrastinating. Here are my thoughts:

    1) I was object-level very impressed with Rand Paul. He acted cool, collected, and intelligent. He actually seemed relatively sane about international interventions and a genuine libertarian about the War on Drugs, etc. He also told Jeb Bush to check his privilege, which is an interesting ploy since I somehow doubt that there are a lot of SJ people voting in the Republican primaries.

    2) I was meta-level very very impressed with Trump. He managed to make the “all surface and no substance” strategy work very well for him, and set the tone of the debate so that, for example, Bush sunk to the level of calling Trump out on whether could set a casino in Florida. 😀 The most beautiful thing to happen in the debate though was when Trump was asked a tough question and he immediately turned it into a non sequitor about Rand Paul being on the debate. See, the debate was set up in a way that if a candidate mentions any other candidate by name, the other candidate gets a chance to respond. In other words, the debate was structured in a way that whoever gets called out gets more air time. So to avoid actually answering difficult questions, game theorist Trump turned the spotlight on candidate #11 (who, remember from the outside view will have the least probability of dethroning Trump). This was so beautifully done and yet so transparent that only Trump could have pulled it off. Of course, the tactic might backfire on him, see point 1). ^.^

    3) The biggest gaffe to me was when Chris Christie argued against recreational marijuana *because it robbed employers of productive labor.* While I could sorta see his point economically, this *seemed* like a ridiculous thing to say in the current political climate and I’m surprised that the media circus aren’t having a field day with it.

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      The Fiorina media circus saddens me. She had a moderate level of research, but her answer “I just won’t talk to Putin” is childish, despite sounding strong. As Rand Paul noted, Reagan talked to the USSR throughout the 80s, which is how we achieved a number of breakthroughs.

      Chris Christie stood out to me as a possible candidate, but I doubt he has much poll movement.

      Rubio looks like the most likely candidate, and not because Republicans want to appeal to the Latino community. He has a vision, speaks well, and comes across as a strong supporter of traditional conservative values, who isn’t crazy.

      • nydwracu says:

        Rubio? He looks gay, and so does his campaign logo. He even sounds gay. In this sort of popularity contest, that’s a major setback.

        • A Definite Beta Guy says:

          I am not sure “gay” is what I am looking for. He definitely looks young and not stereotypically manly. I call him “Church Boy” to my Wife.

      • Gbdub says:

        Well, Fiorina is posturing relative to the Obama philosophy of “talk to the Russians and give them a bunch of concessions” (e.g. Abandoning the Polish missile defense sites, mostly ignoring invasions of Georgia, Crimea, and Ukraine proper) and getting nothing of value in return.

        Reagan talking in the 80s made sense – the USSR was moving towards collapse, and towards the west. Reagan also backed it with strong rhetoric and strong investments in military supremacy to back it up. He message was, “we’d prefer to negotiate, but if you push us, we’ll make sure you regret it”.

        Putin wants to move in the opposite direction, and it’s not clear that negotiating with him will give us anything better than the status quo. Obama has done absolutely nothing to indicate we’ll do anything but bluster if Russia keeps doing aggressive stuff. Not to Godwin it, but Putin seems more like Hitler in the 30’s – he’ll happily come to the table, accept our concessions, and then go on doing whatever it was he wanted to do, until someone makes him stop. Obama certainly lacks the will, and quite possibly the ability, to make him stop. If you have no leverage, and the guy across from you isn’t negotiating in good faith, there’s no point going to the table.

        • Scott Alexander says:

          I think if I had a foreign policy, it would be “try to keep everyone from killing each other while our enemies collapse on their own”. Russia is demographically doomed right now, plus economically doomed as long as the price of oil stays low. They are Wile E. Coyote who has just walked off a cliff but hasn’t looked down yet. China is not as bad, but they have their own demographic and economic catastrophes looming, plus I think if they get their act together they could be a mostly positive force for world peace. In a situation like this, I think keeping everything quiet and not giving your enemies a chance to lash out before they fall apart is probably what’s called for, and Obama’s pursuing the policy well.

          • Samuel Skinner says:

            Wait for everyone else to die from natural causes is a consolation prize- it isn’t a plan.

          • Barry says:

            I think that make sense from a Wargaming perspective but is not an actual viable strategy in the real world for a bunch of reasons.

            1) It’s not very moral. Putin’s Russia is causing pain and suffering right now to millions of people and seems set to keep doing so for the forseeable future.

            2) You can’t sell it as a policy. Most Americans believe that the US has both the ability and a certain level of responsibility to protect innocent people around the world from mass-murdering dictators and terrorist groups, and telling them that it’s better to just wait it out will not go over well.

            3) Other strategies have been proven effective. For example, the USSR probably would have held on for another 40-50 years if not for sustained US pressure.

          • Gbdub says:

            But if “wait around for them to self-immolate” is your policy, why give them concessions at all? Sure, if it results in them calming down, but instead it seems to have emboldened Putin to be even more aggressive. As for keeping everyone from killing each other – Russia straight up Anschlussed chunks of two sovereign nations and is engaging in an ongoing bloody war with one of them.

            Meanwhile, we bombed the hell of Libya and it went from an unpleasant but contained dictatorship to an unstable hellhole. We rushed out of Iraq to score domestic political points and now it’s back to being an unstable hellhole. We set and then ignored a “red line” in Syria, and it’s the least stable nastiest hellhole of all, unleashing a massive refugee crisis.

            We cut a toothless “peace in our time” deal with Iran, the geopolitical advantage of which for the US I still can’t work out, even in theory. The only people it seems to benefit are the Iranian government and Obama, who can now claim he fulfilled a campaign promise (again, sacrificing geopolitical capital to score some domestic policy points).

            If this is what pursuing the policy well looks like, I’d hate to see the poor version!

            And of course the cherry on this crap sundae is that the Dems are probably going to nominate the architect (or at least executor) of this stunningly successful strategy for the presidency.

          • Nicholas says:

            So far as I can tell, the primary advantage is that mean and Iraq are currently allies pretty much only because of Iran’s unhappy relationship with the US. So, the thinking goes, if we can throw a jog in putins “I am the enemy of your enemy” plan, Russia won’t be able to move as freely in the Middle East, without actually having to commit to stopping him. In this view, aggressive Russian moves are actually a mistake, an overcommitment the Russians can’t back up.

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            Scott,
            Compare the demographics of Russia to its near neighbors, not to the world as a whole.
            Russia: 1.59
            Poland: 1.3
            Estonia: 1.55
            Latvia: 1.44
            Lithuania: 1.6
            Romania: 1.53

            Russia has a higher birth-rate than all of its neighbors, except Lithuania. Russia also has higher base population.

            When you factor in immigration, the situation is even worse. Russia has net immigration, all of its neighbors have net outward migration, as Schengen essentially depopulates Eastern European states and moves their populations to wealthier Western states.

            Why do I mention only the Eastern European states? Because that’s all that matters. The Untied States is not mobilizing left and right to reassure allies because Poland is convinced, THIS TIME, that Britain and France are finally going to protect them.

            The US has changed its entire European posture in order to convince Eastern Europe we won’t abandon it. But we will. Alliances like NATO don’t last forever.

            This is also why Sweden is entering a mutual defense agreement with its Scandinavian neighbors and Poland, and not NATO. Because NATO is a historical oddity, and Sweden wants to ally with nations that are actually in the region and have a permanent interest in the region.

            Russia isn’t screwed, it’s less screwed than all the other nations there.

            Also, keep in mind, Russia is NOT isolated. China laughed at Crimea and gave Putin a pat on the back. Japan put in place trivial sanctions because Japan doesn’t want Russia to ally firmly with China. Even Israel regularly meets with Russia, in fact Israel is helping Russia with its nuclear reactors!

            Russia today has many more allies than the old Soviet Union, which practically every industrialized nation hated. Also, factor in the reaction to the Iran deal, and the general trend is most nations gradually losing faith in the US and gradually liking Russia more.

          • Randy M says:

            “try to keep everyone from killing each other”
            This seems to be the part where your tactics and strategy needs more clarification. Does that mean threaten force? Offer incentives? Form alliances? Encourage migration? Support strong borders?

          • John Schilling says:

            try to keep everyone from killing each other while our enemies collapse on their own

            My particular area of foreign-policy expertise is Korea, and I’ve been hearing for over thirty years now how North Korea was economically, demographically, socially, and politically doomed, and was going to be collapsing Real Soon Now. Yep, probably next year.

            Always probably next year.

            Our enemies have policies and plans of their own, and those plans don’t involve collapsing. They almost certainly don’t involve collapsing politely, dismantling all the nuclear weapons and establishing a stable caretaker government. And their plans do not involve simply sitting around and waiting.

            So, whatever it takes for Russia or China or whatnot to avoid collapse, assume that they are planning to get hold of it by fair means or foul. More people, more money, higher oil prices, whatever – all these things can be arranged. If your counterplan is to sit around and wait for them to collapse for lack of whatever, I think I’m going to bet on them managing to hang around for at least as long as the Kim Dynasty has managed. And on e.g. oil prices being higher than you might have expected.

            And then there’s all the new enemies that we will manage to acquire, who are also not effectively countered by the “wait until our enemies collapse” plan.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            So this might be a rediculous question, but… Why exactly is it super unacceptable to cooperate with Putin? He doesn’t seem like a madman, and he has a hell of a lot more leverage over and investment in that part of the world than we do. Why can’t we figure out terms that involve him getting more or less de facto control over eastern europe the way we have significant control over western europe, and then we go from there? Does this just inevitably lead back into the cold war and bitter animosity and swimming pools full of blood? If so, why?

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            Why can’t we figure out terms that involve him getting more or less de facto control over eastern europe the way we have significant control over western europe, and then we go from there? Does this just inevitably lead back into the cold war and bitter animosity and swimming pools full of blood? If so, why?

            Your proposal doesn’t lead to Cold War, it will lead to Hot War. Russia enforces its will via force, if necessary. If Lithuania defies Russia and Lithuania is “de facto” in the Russian orbit, Russia will invade Lithuania.

            Lithuania is a NATO member and this will result in many, many glow-bombs sent towards Moscow.

            The only other option is kicking Lithuania and the like out of NATO, which essentially pisses on the entire European Project and everything the US has tried to accomplish since 1945.

            So it’s a non-starter. It’s an ideological surrender and admission of defeat. That’s a big, big blow to prestige worldwide, not just American prestige, but just the idea of pluralistic capitalism as a viable form of government.

          • Pku says:

            Lithuania and other NATO members have big red lines around them, though, for this reason.

          • John Schilling says:

            Lithuania and other NATO members have big red lines around them, though, for this reason

            Would that be like the big red line between Bashar al-Assad’s stockpile of nerve gas and the civilian population of Ghouta?

            Because, A: Vladimir Putin seems to be pretty good at manipulating that sort of red line to his advantage and, B: all of the red lines based on “nobody would ever do that because doing that would risk nuclear war with the USA and/or NATO” are more of a rapidly fading pink as it becomes clear that neither the USA nor NATO is going to show up to play their part in that little farce.

          • Wrong Species says:

            @John

            No doubt Obama messed up in Syria but I think Russia takes our commitment to Nato more seriously. Hopefully, Putin won’t push the line too far to find out.

          • John Schilling says:

            “I think…” followed by “hopefully…”, is very nearly the definition of wishful thinking. I, too, wish that all we had to do to preserve the security of Europe is promise to nuke anyone who attacks Europe even if they have nukes of their own, but I haven’t seen any evidence to support such a belief.

          • PGD says:

            Wow…a lot of mindless war mongering in this subthread.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @A Definate Beta Guy – “If Lithuania defies Russia and Lithuania is “de facto” in the Russian orbit, Russia will invade Lithuania.”

            Lithuania’s decision to defy Russia seems heavily influenced by their thinking we’ll step in if Russia responds. Why is getting them to believe that useful? Mexico and Canada don’t get to defy us, so they don’t try to, and things are generally pretty okay between us. Why should the situation be different for Lithuania and Russia?

            Like, I understand that the current situation has us locked in conflict with Russia. What I don’t understand what it is that Russia wants that’s so utterly beyond the pale that we have no choice but to oppose them.

            From the Russian perspective, we’ve been persuing a policy of encirclement since at least Clinton. Accepting that would be the death of Russia’s power and influence on the world stage, which is obviously not an acceptable outcome to Russia. I think the general idea was that they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it before we choked them out, but Putin seems to be showing that was wrong.

          • Jiro says:

            Mexico and Canada don’t get to defy us, so they don’t try to, and things are generally pretty okay between us. Why should the situation be different for Lithuania and Russia?

            Because the kind of things that Mexico and Canada don’t get to defy the US on are not the same as the kind of things that Lithuania won’t get to defy Russia on. Could you imagine the US claiming that Canada is run by fascists who are mistreating the Canadians of American descent, so the US will send in troops to enable them to secede from Canada and form the Autonomous Republic of 100 Miles from the US Border? That’s basically what Russia did to Ukraine, and what they will probably do to Lithuania if permitted.

          • Nita says:

            If you guys are planning to give Putin “more or less de facto control” over someone’s homeland as a gesture of goodwill, I suggest starting with FC’s home state. It can’t be that bad, right?

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Jiro – “Could you imagine the US claiming that Canada is run by fascists who are mistreating the Canadians of American descent, so the US will send in troops to enable them to secede from Canada and form the Autonomous Republic of 100 Miles from the US Border?”

            I sort of can, actually. We had a neighboring country that got super-friendly with people we didn’t like once upon a time, and we sponsored a sketchy revolution to try to overthrow their government, and seriously considered actual invasion. We didn’t actually follow through because our goals were secured by other means, not because invasion would be somehow unthinkable. If Canada and Mexico were hostile to us and friendly to Iran or even China, I think we’d decide there were serious national security problems that demanded a response.

            It’s not a cosmic accident that we live on good terms with Canada and Mexico. They don’t want to fight us diplomaticly, economically, or militarily, so they constrain their policies to the general bounds of our preferences. Over many decades, that shapes their society into one that has low conflict with us and we get along to the extent that we do.

            “That’s basically what Russia did to Ukraine, and what they will probably do to Lithuania if permitted.”

            I am aware of this. I’m also aware of the decades we’ve spent since the collapse of the USSR trying to make Russia’s neighbors our satelites rather than theirs. That’s not good for Russia diplomaticly, economically, or militarily. They’ve tried diplomatic and economic remedies, with limited success. Now they’re doing it militarily and it seems to be working pretty well. We’ve been expanding NATO into their immediate sphere of influence, but that strongly appears to have been a bluff. Europe isn’t going to fight Russia for Lithuania or the Ukraine, and neither is America. Putin’s called the bluff. Now what?

            And again, I understand that Putin is a machiavellian autocrat with no respect for the democratic process, but he’s not our creation and he seems to be a more or less rational actor. We took political action hostile to Russia, he’s taking political action to counter that. If he wins and we lose, what’s the damage?

            @Nita – “If you guys are planning to give Putin “more or less de facto control” over someone’s homeland as a gesture of goodwill, I suggest starting with FC’s home state. It can’t be that bad, right?”

            Can you name a Russian political leader from the last 50 years or so who’d be better? How confident are you that they wouldn’t be doing much the same thing?

            [EDIT] – Let’s say on the next Inaguration Day, Putin activates his nefarious Mind Transferance Beam, switching his own consciousness with that of our next president (the President’s mind, now in Putin’s body, is of course immediately imprisoned by the hunchbacked Medvedev.) Other than the evil cackle following the swearing-in, how would we even know?

          • Jiro says:

            We had a neighboring country that got super-friendly with people we didn’t like once upon a time, and we sponsored a sketchy revolution to try to overthrow their government, and seriously considered actual invasion.

            It’s true that the Russians are saying similar things when invading Ukraine to the things that the US said to justify the Contras or the Bay of Pigs, but the actual facts on the ground are not similar. Ukraine is a naked land grab with a thin veneer of “security threat”. The Contras or Bay of Pigs were in situations that were genuinely thought to be security threats.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Jiro – “It’s true that the Russians are saying similar things when invading Ukraine to the things that the US said to justify the Contras or the Bay of Pigs, but the actual facts on the ground are not similar.”

            Cuba and South America are not actually part of the US, but we regard them as our turf, and we react strongly when hostile foriegn powers meddle with them. Similarly, eastern europe is Russia’s turf, and we have been financing “color revolutions” and brokering military treaties since the 90s. As it happens, we are a free-market democratic power rather than a communist revolutionary one. Beyond that, what’s the difference?

            We wanted governments in our turf to be friendly to us, Russia wants governments in their turf to be friendly to them.

            “Ukraine is a naked land grab with a thin veneer of “security threat”. The Contras or Bay of Pigs were in situations that were genuinely thought to be security threats.”

            If the encirclement strategy we’ve been pursuing for decades now is successful, we’d be in a position to break Russia as a power for the forseeable future. How is that not a security threat?

          • Nita says:

            @ FacelessCraven

            How confident are you that they wouldn’t be doing much the same thing?

            I don’t understand what you’re saying here.

            Also, I’ve heard “they’re doing it too” as an excuse, but “we’re doing it too” is something new. How about both of you stop doing it?

            Alternatively, why not sign a little treaty to really cement friendly relations between the only two nations that matter? You might have to roll back some unfortunate earlier announcements that you care about “democratic freedom and self-determination”, but hey, at least you’d be honest this time.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Nita – “I don’t understand what you’re saying here.”

            I’m saying that there’s a difference between what we want and what we can get. From where I sit, it looks like Putin is responding rationally to the situation he’s in. Putin is more aggressive and ballsier than most, but it seems to me that the situation is being driven by actual strategic concerns, not one man’s mad ambition. We foiled his attempts to use diplomacy and economics to get what he wanted, so now he’s using force. His aims and methods in the current conflict seem pretty similar to our aims in previous conflicts, so accusing him of being the next Hitler seems a little hypocritical.

            “Also, I’ve heard “they’re doing it too” as an excuse, but “we’re doing it too” is something new. How about both of you stop doing it?”

            We don’t shoot up or invade Canada or Mexico any more. That’s because diplomacy and economics have alligned our interests sufficiently that our differences aren’t worth starting a war over. Russia is invading its neighbors because diplomacy and economics haven’t aligned their interests, and that hasn’t happened because we’ve expended a ton of our own diplomacy and economics with the explicit goal of keeping it from happening. I don’t think we should have done that. Having done it, I don’t think we should make the situation worse by sending troops.

            We used to oppose Russia because they were the head of the Communist octopus. Communism is dead now. We cooperate with Europe, we cooperate with China. Why can’t we cooperate with Russia?

            “You might have to roll back some unfortunate earlier announcements that you care about “democratic freedom and self-determination”, but hey, at least you’d be honest this time.”

            Democratic freedom? like how the political movements we finance and support crowd out other parties? Like how we influence other nations internal political processes with false promises about how it’s fine to snub their huge, heavily-armed neighbor, because he’s not actually so tough and we’ll totally protect them? The political situation in eastern europe didn’t spring fully-formed from the forehead of zeus five minutes ago. We expended a lot of effort to help foment this conflict. That was a terrible thing to do. Now that people are actually getting shot, the best way to make it worse would be to actually join the war ourselves, which is probably the only chance Russia’s neighbors have of being on the winning side. The next-worst thing we could do is help make the war longer, bloodier, and more expensive for all involved. Let’s not do that!

          • Nita says:

            @ FacelessCraven

            It’s one thing to say “I’m afraid our meddling would make things worse, so let’s stay out of it”. It’s a completely different thing to say “hey guys, let’s officially give Eastern Europe to Putin — after all, small countries should understand that their policies should be decided by their most powerful neighbour, not by their people”, which is what you are saying.

            Russia is invading its neighbors because diplomacy and economics haven’t aligned their interests, and that hasn’t happened because we’ve expended a ton of our own diplomacy and economics with the explicit goal of keeping it from happening.

            Has it occurred to you that these countries are inhabited by actual people, and that many of these people would like to live in a place that is a) more similar to Germany than Russia, and b) NOT anyone’s satellite state?

            Also, the West financed NGOs, so killing people is fair game?

            That’s like “well, he lost the argument, and he felt bad about it, so punching you in the face was a reasonable response”.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Nita – “It’s one thing to say “I’m afraid our meddling would make things worse, so let’s stay out of it”. It’s a completely different thing to say “hey guys, let’s officially give Eastern Europe to Putin — after all, small countries should understand that their policies should be decided by their most powerful neighbour, not by their people”, which is what you are saying.”

            I don’t think those are actually two different things. They might be if I were the God-Emporer of humanity and my whim could shift nations, but I’m not, and neither is Obama. Peace is a balance between what people want and the power they have to enforce their desires. If America traded it’s economic, diplomatic, and military power with Mexico’s, north america would look very different. You can call that evil if it makes you feel better, but I don’t really see how that helps. It is the world we live in, and there doesn’t seem to be any better system on offer.

            “Has it occurred to you that these countries are inhabited by actual people, and that many of these people would like to live in a place that is a) more similar to Germany than Russia, and b) NOT anyone’s satellite state?”

            I believe that easily. I also believe that Russia’s leaders and people don’t want to be Cuba. The part where they have the actual power to get what they want doesn’t make those preferences illegitimate. Underdog status does not magically convey virtue. Defending the Lithuanians’ preferences is not worth a hot war with Russia, and ending the global influence game seems likely to increase war, not decrease it.

            “Also, the West financed NGOs, so killing people is fair game?”

            We engaged in a decades-long policital and economic campaign with the goal of turning Russia into Cuba. People harmed by economic and political decisions are just as harmed, they will often fight however they can.

            You compared what I’m saying to the nazis in WWII, but I think a better comparison is to the Great Powers prior to WWI. Germany invaded Belgium, because that was the only practical way to prosecute their war with france. Britian sided with France, and we ended up with WWI, which then resulted in fascism taking over much of europe, the communist takeover of half the world, and WWII. And that was before everyone had nukes. Was Belgium’s neutrality worth it?

          • Nita says:

            @ FacelessCraven

            I don’t think those are actually two different things. They might be if I were the God-Emporer of humanity and my whim could shift nations, but I’m not, and neither is Obama.

            Right, you’re not the God-Emperor of anything. So don’t talk like you are. Stop thinking where to cut Europe in half for its own good.

            And “turning Russia into Cuba” is another American delusion. European countries have major trade relationships with Russia, and Russia is huge — no one here wants it destabilized. We do want it to grow economically, rather than via land-grabs.

        • My conclusion from the debate was that Fiorina will probably be on the ticket, although not necessarily at the top, for two reasons:

          1. She came across as the most rhetorically competent, the one I would want on my debate team.

          2. She’s a woman. If Hilary is the Democratic nominee, which still seems likely although not certain, having a woman on the team would be an asset.

          • onyomi says:

            Yeah, a lot of people say she’s running for VP, though she still (of course) denies that strongly at this point. I think she and Rubio are everyone’s top picks for running mate at this point. Fiorina because she’s female, a sharp debater, and has the supposed “business person/political outsider” cred desirable for all but Trump, and Rubio because he’s also articulate and can help deliver Florida and the Hispanic vote.

            My personal preference would be a Rand-Rubio ticket, but that’s looking increasingly unlikely. I’m very disappointed at how shallow the libertarian rhetoric of most GOP voters really is. It seemed Paul was in a good position to really expand on what his father did, but along come Trump and Carson and everyone jumps ship, even though they’re obviously not libertarian at all. It seems like all these people who were once supporting Rand really just wanted anyone “anti-establishment,” and Rand can’t compete with Trump for sheer pissing off the establishment quality.

            Personally, I wish he’d just go for broke: in such a crowded field, you’re not going to excite anyone by saying “I want to lower taxes to 14.5%” Say, “abolish the federal income tax and replace it with a consumption tax” (actually what Huckabee is saying), for example.

            Though this article summed up the sad reality pretty well:

            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-mullen/the-real-reason-rand-paul_b_8141032.html

            Unfortunately, I think we libertarians are still in a really bad place, coalition-wise: all the libertarianish things Rand could and did say to try to distinguish himself (drugs, war, etc.) do not push the GOP primary voters’ happy buttons. And even the most anti-war Democrat is unlikely to vote for Ron or Rand Paul for tribal reasons, if nothing else.

          • Gbdub says:

            I’d say she’d make a strong partner for Walker, who’d bring the political experience to the ticket. But he seems to have faded into obscurity as GOPers have flirted with Trump and Carson.

          • I don’t think Rand Paul is as able a demagogue as competitors such as Trump or Fiorina. That may be to his credit, morally speaking, but it’s a handicap in his present project.

            On the other hand, Ben Carson is an even less able demagogue, and doing pretty well so far.

    • HlynkaCG says:

      I went in to this debate with Walker and Fiorina as my top-picks and they still are. That said, Rubio and Trump both gained a lot of standing in my mind.

      As Beta Guy said, Rubio was eloquent and came across as a strong supporter of traditional conservative values. He’s a bit young and unseasoned at the moment but I suspect that he will be a serious contender in the years to come.

      Like you I was impressed by Trump’s performance, and have to admit that the prospect of him as president is becoming a lot less ridiculous in my mind. I still don’t think he’s a particularly good pick, but I am no longer convinced that he would be a bad one either.

      In regards to the other candidates, Carson had the same problem he did in the last debate, a lot of good ideas, but lacking energy. If it were up to me I’d pick him for VP or a high level cabinet position.

      I really like Paul but I’d almost rather have him on the debate floor than in the Oval Office. If I could, I would make him Speaker of the House.

    • onyomi says:

      Best responses that didn’t happen:

      Jeb Bush: One thing I know about my brother: he kept us safe!
      Anybody Else: Except for that whole 9-11 thing…

      Female on the currency?
      Ayn Rand. Hands down. I mean, who is a greater example of a female US citizen fleeing oppression and being a huge success in a very American way? And who loved the dollar more than her? http://progressivechristianity.ca/prc/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/ayn-rand-stare1.jpg

      Even if you don’t like her, it seems like a kind of poetic justice. People like Bernie Sanders could raise a $10 bill overhead and say “our democracy is being ruined by the power of THIS!”

      And it would also have been a great opportunity to point out how important her thinking was to the Reagan revolution, there in the Reagan library where everyone is falling over themselves to prove how much like Reagan they are while conveniently forgetting how relatively libertarian for the time he was.

      Of course, it would have been perfect for Rand to say this, though also would have made more sense than Bush’s Margaret Thatcher (I am floored by the number of people who apparently can’t think of one, prominent American woman), but he is playing it safe: probably playing it safe right into oblivion.

      • Scott Alexander says:

        Oh God, putting Ayn Rand on the dollar bill would be so great. I don’t even like her that much, I just think it would make her deliriously happy to learn that she had been turned into a unit of currency after her death. Like an Objectivist apotheosis.

        • onyomi says:

          Yeah, I just really want to live in the world where we have enough of a sense of humor and/or poetic justice about things to put Ayn Rand on the currency, whether because we love her, are subtly making fun of her, or some combination thereof. And yeah, I don’t think anyone’s atheist ghost would appreciate the honor more.

          • Deiseach says:

            Having looked up some images of Ayn Rand for a suggestion of what mght go on the currency, I imagine most people would assume she is some politician, if they didn’t think she was an early birth-control advocate or the like for Women’s Rights, and would generally go “Ayn who?”

            I don’t know if that would flatter her or not; on the one hand, she’s important enough to be pictured on the currency, on the other, her fame has not percolated through to the mass of mutton-heads so that she is instantly recognisable as the Greatest Philosophical Mind of the 20th century! 🙂

          • onyomi says:

            Ayn Rand’s face is probably not super recognizable to the average American, but her name is. Of course, that name tends to be somewhat unfairly associated with an ethic of unbridled greed, but that’s part of the fun of the idea.

            Depending on which Ayn Rand you pick, you could make her look like anything from hopeful young suffragette to brooding old dominatrix, but probably my favorite is this one:
            http://www.nndb.com/people/097/000030007/ayn-rand-wtl_big.jpg

            I feel like it would fit well on a bill and also has the interesting added feature of having her fist under her chin in a pose that suggests thought. Most ironically, she is almost everything a feminist could want in a candidate for such an honor: a woman known for her intellectual accomplishments who defied conventional feminine roles and wrote a book about an indomitable businesswoman. Oh, except, like Margaret Thatcher, she’s very deeply on the wrong side of the tribal fence from nearly all feminists and is therefore evil.

          • Science says:

            Ideologically opposite maybe, but she was that era’s equivalent of blue tribe culturally. She lived in LA and NYC. She went to dinner parties, not church. She appreciated architecture not monster truck rallies (or whatever the equivalent was — boxing?)

          • J says:

            Huh, looks like they’ve already done a stamp: http://uspsstamps.com/stories/how-they-collected-ayn-rand

        • BBA says:

          Rand wouldn’t like being on a bill – she was opposed to paper money and thought gold coinage was the only proper form of currency. Then again, we put the radically anti-bank Andrew Jackson on the $20, so…

      • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

        As someone who thinks every inconsequential decision should be based on maximizing the expected amount of impotent rage, I approve of this suggestion wholeheartedly.

  33. dndnrsn says:

    I am most of the way through “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and one thing I am thinking about is the bias towards being willing – irrationally – to accept a less-good deal in exchange for certainty in some situations. ie, most people will take a guaranteed 90 grand over a 95% chance at 100 grand, less than the gamble’s expected value of 95 grand.

    When I sit down and try to be rational, though, I find myself thinking that taking the 5 grand hit in exchange for a sure thing makes sense, given what I know about my thought patterns: if I was given that choice, went for the gamble, and lost, my reaction emotionally would be really negative, enough that to me it seems rational to take the sure thing to avoid the possibility of negative emotions, even if those negative emotions are themselves not consistent with rationality?

    That is, is it rational or irrational to basically budget for one’s own irrational but predictable and probably immutable emotional reactions?

    • Gbdub says:

      Why is it irrational to assign value to certainty? That to me is the problem with the construction of the hypothetical. The expected value of taking $90k is $90k + certainty. Maybe certainty is worth >$5k to you.

      Also, not every dollar is equal. $90k means a lot to me – it would be a substantial increase in my net worth and a huge increase in my liquid assets. It would be a substantial change in my immediate quality of life. Does an extra $10k on top of that mean so much? If I was already a multimillionaire, my calculus would probably be different – in that case I’d be more comfortable taking the “rational” gamble.

      What if I offered you a 10% chance of $500 million, at a cost of all your current financial/property assets? I’m guessing that results in an expected value substantially higher than your current net worth. If you’re broke, it’s a sweet deal, but if you own an average house, have a decent nest egg, a car, and a family, you’d probably at least hesitate and probably turn it down.

      Why? Well, the loss in quality of life if you lose everything is probably higher than the gain in quality of life if you suddenly get rich. Money does buy happiness, but there are dismissing returns. Security has value.

      Of course, the simplest answer is that if security had no value, no one would ever buy insurance.

      • Adam says:

        I think Gbdub is right here. Expected value is an ensemble average across many repeated trials. If you’re offered a 95% chance at $100,000 or a 100% chance at $90,000, over and over again, you should absolutely take it.

        Partly, that’s the problem with the set up. It’s not realistic to think you’re ever going to get that kind of a contrived offer more than once, and there’s nothing irrational about going for the sure thing. The thing that is irrational is this kind of bias toward certainty infects us even when we actually get many repeated trials. People are terrible long-term investors, for instance. Bonds make sense when you’re close to retirement, but there’s almost no reason to hold anything but small-cap value or even penny stocks when you’re 22, for instance.

      • dndnrsn says:

        I believe Kahneman does make some comments that could be seen as taking a dim view of insurance, or at least of some insurance.

        I’m not taking Kahneman’s side, necessarily. As I understand it his point is that it’s intuition that says “take the sure thing” instead of a favourable gamble and not rational thought.

        • Gbdub says:

          And I’m arguing that a calculus that ignores the value of certainty and downside risk is itself irrational. It’s literally assuming that raw quantity of cash (not even that – expected value of cash) is the only rational measure of utility for human wellbeing, which is simply not true.

          • dndnrsn says:

            I guess we’re on the same page there. The emphasis on money is understandable given that it’s economics.

            Even if money was the only measure of utility I would still be willing to pay for certainty, because I know my own emotions would mess with me more if I got nothing than the loss of five grand or whatever would.

    • rttf says:

      Money does not equal utility. Most people would have a logarithmic utility function in this situation. Using that, we observe:

      log(90 000) ~ 11.4

      0.95*log(100 000) ~ 10.9

      Hence, the “rational” choice is taking the 90 grand.

    • Deiseach says:

      Has any rationalist ever made such a gamble? And how do/would they react, if the spin of the wheel or the throw of the dice or the opening of the box came up with “Oh, I’m sorry – you get nothing”?

      Do they protest that it can’t be right, they worked the figures out perfectly and they have a 95 grand expected value? Or do they calmly accept the result because the risk, though small, was always there?

      • Richard says:

        People do these kinds of gambles all the time. The most obvious example is insurance, where you explicitly pay for someone else to take the risk. Since insurance companies are not going bankrupt, the expected utility of not having insurance is larger than having it.

        One reason to have insurance is when the consequences are beyond your means, even if the expected outcome is worse; I have third party damage insurance on my car because I can not afford to pay millions in damages if I run someone over. I do not have the car itself insured because if I wreck it I can afford to get it fixed or a new one and I expect the cost over time to be lower than the insurance premium.

        • Linch says:

          “Since insurance companies are not going bankrupt, the expected utility of not having insurance is larger than having it.”

          Correction: The expected monetary value of not having insurance is greater than having it.

          The expected utility of getting insurance is clearly higher than the expected utility of not having it. I submit as evidence the fact that people do indeed get insurance even when they’re not legally forced to.

    • Linch says:

      It’s been a while since I read his book, but if I recall correctly, one of Kahneman’s central theses was that humans were not so much risk-averse as loss-averse. Eg, most people would rather “take a guaranteed 90 grand over a 95% chance at 100 grand, less than the gamble’s expected value of 95 grand.” There are two classical explanations:

      1)Utility had a log relationship with money. The utility gained from 90K to 100K was much lower than the utility gained from 0K to 90K.
      2)Humans are naturally risk-averse and will pay a premium for certainty.

      However, many people with 105K in their bank account would, when faced with a certain loss of 45K vs. a 50% chance of losing 100K, take the latter. Neither the “log utility” nor the “certainty seeking” hypothesis will predict this outcome. Hence the contradiction.

      • suntzuanime says:

        Maybe this reflects a difference in the sort of person that ends up with 105 grand in their bank account. People who have a certain amount of money sitting around probably have that amount of money sitting around because that’s the amount of money they want to have sitting around – they’d rather take a 50% chance of not having the right amount of money than a 100% chance. Assuming they actually asked people for whom it was true, instead of asking people to imagine themselves in a situation.

        Honestly if they didn’t actually rob those people of their forty-five thousand dollars, I’m not sure I can believe it as science rather than make-believe.

      • HeelBearCub says:

        @linch:
        I think you have it backwards on this example.

        Real world example of the described phenomena is a stock market plunge. Plenty of people have 100K (and much more) in their fund.

        The impulse when the market is falling is to sell before the market falls further. (That’s locking in the 45K loss.) the rational thing to do is wait for the market to recover (50% chance you don’t lose anything).

        Even with much higher values than 50% on recovery and a much higher ceiling than zero on the bottom of the market, there are still way too many people who sell at the bottom.

      • Deiseach says:

        But that’s the difference between losing what you already have and gaining what you don’t have.

        In the “100k versus 95k” gamble, you don’t have the 90k to start with, so the chance of certainty is in your favour. Certainly if you go for the 95% bet, even if you don’t end up winning, you haven’t lost anything, but the chance of the extra 10k isn’t appealing enough to turn down the 90k.

        In the “100k versus 45k” gamble, you already possess 105k. This time, the certainty is against you; you will lose 45k and end up with 60k. Whereas the 50% chance is enough to risk losing 100k. Now, if the chances were “95% you will lose 100k”, I imagine people would take the 45k hit rather than run the risk of losing the 100k, but the two cases are just enough different: 50% chance of losing what you definitely have versus 100% chance of getting 90k when you have nothing isn’t enough to sway people’s intuitions.

        If you look at it the other way round: you start out with 0. You have 95% chance of gaining 100k. Most people would probably risk it if it were put in those terms: 0 versus 100k, even if you lose, you’re still where you started so you’re no worse off, take the chance.

        But when you change it from you start out with 0, you definitely 100% will get 90k, you may get 100k or you may get nothing, then the calculation is “90k versus 100k” and that looks less appealing. Then it looks like you start out with nothing, you take a gamble and you may lose 90k, you are worse off than when you started, take the sure thing.

        The same applies with the 105k: you will definitely be worse off if you take the 45k certain loss, while you have a reasonable chance (50% would strike most people as reasonable) of not losing anything by taking the gamble.

      • John Schilling says:

        Eg, most people would rather “take a guaranteed 90 grand over a 95% chance at 100 grand, less than the gamble’s expected value of 95 grand.” There are two classical explanations:

        And the third boringly practical explanation: Humans naturally assume that anyone offering them huge sums of money for playing a silly game are probably con artists, and if you let them get away with a mere 95% chance of payment they will almost certainly rig the dice/roulette wheel/whatever. An absolute promise is harder to weasel out of and easier to prove fraudulent if things get ugly.

        Humans also, aside from an insignificant number of logic-puzzle geeks, find little value in solving hypothetical logic-puzzle problems and if you get them to sit still long enough to cough up some answers they’ll just use the same well-tested heuristics they use when dealing with potential con artists. Even if you explicitly ask them not to do that, it’s just not worth the bother for them to do things the hard way.

  34. J says:

    How related are depression and bipolar? In my experience, professionals think of them as completely separate things. I don’t get anything like classic mania, but I find that opposite the peaks of my 6-12 month depressive cycle I get kind of jittery and overloaded with things I want to do.

    I ask because it sounds like moderating the manic phase is important for treating bipolar, and it makes me wonder if smoothing out highs would also help manage recurring monopolar depression. If so, what are effective ways to do that?

  35. onyomi says:

    I want to argue that “the worst argument ever” isn’t always bad: namely that arguments about definitions aren’t always pointless semantics and/or disingenuous attempts at emotional manipulation.

    I say “abortion is murder!” or “taxation is theft!” You say “well, technically, yes, but…” and then maybe we have to have a debate over definitions: is a fetus a person? Is the “taking without permission” part key to our moral revulsion against theft, or is it the disorderly, often violent part?

    This to me seems wholly reasonable. If I am a person who sees the distinction most people make between taxation and theft as being immaterial, then it is fair for me to say “taxation is theft” in the absence of a good argument for why it isn’t. So far as I’m concerned, it fits all the relevant definitions of theft and *most importantly* it has most or all of the aspects of theft that I think create our ethical intuition that theft is wrong, therefore, I feel justified in using it *with the intent of getting my interlocutor to apply his intuitions about theft to taxation and see if they fit.* If my interlocutor can think of a good reason why his intuitions about other instances of theft should not apply to taxation, then he should make that argument, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong to point it out.

    Arguments about definitions can take at least two forms: arguments in favor of more specificity, AND arguments in favor of more generality (that a distinction which is currently made is immaterial, deceptive, etc.). People tend to view the former sort as more valid, because knowledge seems to be a push towards ever increasing specificity. But I think breaking down misleading distinctions can be nearly, if not equally important. We used to think of humans as somehow fundamentally different from animals, for example, but thanks to Darwin, we eventually realized that humans are just really smart animals. So is the statement “humans are animals” misleading and pernicious or enlightening? Depends on your perspective, but there seems to be, at the very least, a very strong case for making it, even though people 200 years ago would have likely balked at that breakdown of distinction.

    Imagine a society in which there is a tradition of ritual rape. Every year a young virgin is selected by lot and forced to have sex with all the high priests in the temple. Some are glad to do this, but others are not very happy to be selected. Either way, however, sex with the priests is non-optional, as failure to do so could bring down plague and famine, they believe. But in this society they do not call this “rape.” They call it “the holy congress.”

    Now suppose an agitator in this society starts loudly proclaiming “the holy congress is rape!!” Is he or she wrong? Certainly people in this society could give you all kinds of reasons why it was not rape: it happens in an orderly fashion, it is vitally important to the survival of society, it is done in a respectful way, it is a civic duty and an honor, etc. But agitator would also be justified in saying: “what is the problem with rape? Is it the disorderliness or is it that it is forcing someone to have sex who doesn’t want to?” If the latter, then the holy congress certainly meets the definition, and the agitator seems totally justified to try to get people to extend their intuitions about rape to the holy congress. His interlocutors might say “yes, it’s rape, but that’s okay, because x,” or “no, it’s not rape, because we define rape as ‘violent, non-socially-sanctioned forced sexual intercourse'” etc., but that’s an argument they need to make.

    And the reason I especially don’t like the argument against “the worst argument in the world” is that it seems to me to be a way to justify utilitarianism by circumventing our ethical intuitions. People are comfortable saying taxation is good and theft is bad, but they are a lot less comfortable saying robbery is the bad kind of theft, taxation is the good kind of theft, or knifing someone in a dark alley is the bad kind of murder and abortion is the good kind of murder. This tends to create an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance, but it is something I think utilitarians have to live with if they want to say some kinds of theft are good. I don’t think we non-utilitarians are wrong to point out places where we think common distinctions are NOT morally relevant.

    As for the whole “Martin Luther King Jr. was a criminal!” thing, Scott points it out like that is an example of the evil “sounds good in a sound bite and can’t be easily refuted in 1 minute on tv” phenomenon, but I really don’t think it is. If you said “MLK was a criminal!” on TV, I think everyone would see the problem with that immediately, and if they didn’t, I think a debate opponent could easily handle that in 30 secs. Therefore, I also think it is not as pernicious in its potential as Scott thinks. If I say “abortion is murder!” and you are pro-choice then you have to be comfortable with saying “but fetuses aren’t people!” (which only takes a few seconds to say) or “yes, but certain kinds of murder are okay–like capital punishment!” if, indeed, you want to deny the claim that abortion is murder, or else make the case that our usual intuitions about murder should not apply.

    The default stance, it seems to me, should be “if x meets the definition of y, and we have a strong moral intuition about y, then our moral intuition about y should apply to x in the absence of a good reason why it should not.”

    • Pku says:

      This. I’ve always felt particularly bad about the argument that “soldiers are murderers” is a definitional trick – soldiers kill people, so I definitely think there is a burden of proof on the people who say they have good reasons for killing those people.

      • Jiro says:

        It’s easy to play reference class games to be able to describe two things in the same way. I could equally claim that murderers kill, and meat-eaters and plant-eaters both kill, and therefore not only “meat is murder” but also “plant-eating is murder” are not definitional tricks.

        It’s true that soldiers kill people, but your choice to generalize the “kill people” part rather than the “kill” part is arbitrary, and so can’t create a burden of proof.

        • onyomi says:

          But getting more specific about what, exactly, it is about a generally-viewed-as-immoral thing that we actually view as immoral seems a very useful exercise. Most definitions of murder include such specifics as “premeditated,” “killing of humans,” “malicious,” “intentional,” etc., and I think most people would also include “non-voluntary” (i. e. euthanasia=assisted suicide, not “assisted self-murder”).

          So we look into this question: is it just the killing part we react badly to? No, because our bodies kill viruses and bacteria all the time and that doesn’t seem evil. Is it the killing a human part? Probably not as we don’t call it murder when someone kills himself, etc. etc. until we get at what, exactly it is we find immoral. As it so happens, I think the commonly understood definition of “murder” already does this for us nicely, dividing the evil kinds of killing from the non-evil.

          If we then find that what soldiers are doing meets the definition of “murder” and not just the definition of “killing,” then it seems justifiable to try to get people to extend their moral intuitions about murder to what soldiers do.

        • Adam says:

          Soldiers are playing a game that they mostly all agreed to. Nobody calls it murder when a boxer happens to die in the ring, either. That isn’t broken moral intuition. It’s just a recognition that killing people who signed up to die and are also trying to kill you isn’t as bad as just going around killing people.

          • Pku says:

            First of all, there’s the obvious caveat that soldiers have a tendency to kill quite a lot of civilians, and not always in an easily avoidable way either: If you’re sneaking through enemy territory and an old farmer and his kid spot you, you have to either shoot them or hope they won’t notify their military and get your whole squad killed.
            There’s also quite a lot of question on what counts as consent here. If your country has conscription, if your country is being invaded by forces that are going to assume you’re with the enemy whether you want to join them or not; even if you’re just in a country with massive pro-military social and/or economic pressure, it’s hard to say if you fully consented to being in the military in the same way a boxer did. And if, say, you join the US military when invading Vietnam, you’re forcing quite a lot of vietnamese to make difficult choices with no easy outs, even if they’d rather settle with either the communists or their opposition over having to go to war against you.

            And tying back to the original discussion, I feel like this developed into a reasonably productive and meaningful discussion over whether the murder definition is correct, which brings us back to the original point that definitional arguments aren’t necessarily all bad.

          • Adam says:

            All of that is why I said ‘mostly.’ A soldier certainly can murder, but the very act of soldiering and killing people in the process is not murder. It really would be nice if we could figure out a way at some point to accomplish what we accomplish with war without having to kill anyone, but well, it’s been a long time, longer than there have been humans, and we haven’t figured it out yet.

            I feel a strange tension here because I’m fairly against war. I disagree with a crap-ton of our foreign actions and think the military should be drastically smaller than it is, and yet, I don’t think it should be nothing. I think even the hardcorest of hardcore libertarians would say a country should still have an Army. Maybe a private army, but still an army. So I volunteered because well, what the fuck? If I don’t do it, I’m just pawning it off on someone else and all those people overseas are just as dead either way.

          • Pku says:

            First I’ll mention that I grew up in Israel, and most of my best friends (including all of my immediate family) have been soldiers at one point. So I support the “soldiers are murderers” line, but in a very benevolent way (at worst, like the way catholics are theoretically supposed to talk about sinners, except that I find it hard to use a word as strong as “sinner” to describe my frontline-infantry vet uncle, who’s one of the most all-around decent people I’ve ever met).

            I think the issue here is that pacifism is pretty dependent on what agency you’re thinking as. If you’re thinking at the state level, that’s a good point (Iceland manages pretty well without a military, but they’re hardly a typical example). If you think at the individual level, pacifism is a lot more defensible (at that level, the generalization is “no one serves in a military and we have no wars” instead of “no one in my country serves in a military and we all get killed”).

            About the “soldiers are murderers” line, I like it because there’s two sides to that coin; it reminds us that we should be very careful about declaring war, because if we do it had better be worth all those murders (it’s easy to neglect them in calculations if you don’t think of them that way, to apply scope insensitivity to deaths when you look at war deaths as an entirely different category). And on the other hand, it reminds us that anyone who kills someone has reasons that seem good enough at the time, which are more complicated than just “they’re an evil murderer who is evil”.

            I’ll mention that my choice in this situation was to avoid conscription to the Israeli military (due to having medical issues at the time, I had the choice to either avoid it or volunteer). I chose not to go, on the basis that one person less in the conflict would make it one person smaller, which would probably be a net gain. Most of my friends who decided to go for reasons similar to yours (except in Israel it’s even tougher, since most people go and draft dodgers are seen as social leeches). I also had a couple of friends, who I have an immense amount of respect for, who decided to go serve in frontline units on the basis that those units need decent people in them, to avoid them being dominated by arab-hating far-righters who would take any excuse to humiliate or kill arabs. I also know people whose approach was that arab lives just aren’t worth as much as Israeli lives, and people who joined because they wanted a chance to beat up arabs.
            I don’t know if I made the right choice (though I’m pretty sure I’m better than the last group). I do know that in last year’s Gaza invasion, when I had a couple of friends who were in the operation, it kept me up at night wondering. Since not choosing is also a choice, I did the choice that seemed best. And if I’m not entirely sure it was the right one, I definitely think it should be seriously considered as a realistic choice for anyone, instead of automatically laughed off as hopelessly naive.

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      Doing things which go against the common moral intuition but are probably for the best anyway is kind of what utilitarianism is all about. Arguing that not using the worst argument in the world does that is true, if only because it’s true of more than just one utilitarianist position to take.

      Furthermore.. One very strong reason why such arguments are truly the worst is because the person making it tends not to want to actually foster a good discussion. This site has people willing to read and consider positions enough that I may be comfortable with saying that I’m alright with some amount of murder and theft for such-and-such reasons, but in mainstream media, going on a tangent how ‘murder is kinda okay in cases X and Y because of reasons Z’ is equivalent to social suicide.

      • onyomi says:

        “Doing things which go against the common moral intuition but are probably for the best anyway is kind of what utilitarianism is all about.”

        And this is one (maybe ironically utilitarian) reason why I am (generally) against utilitarianism: I don’t think following common moral intuitions about everything will produce the best possible results, but I’m much more comfortable with the implications of people adhering too strictly to common moral intuitions, or applying them too broadly, than I am with people being their own judge of when it is and isn’t a good idea to do something which goes against that intuition.

        • Stefan Drinic says:

          That implies you’re against practical utilitarianism, not against philosophical utilitarianism. Practical utilitarianism may end up in someone cheating on their spouse because they figured it’d make them happy and their SO wouldn’t ever find out, anyway; philosophical utilitarianism is anything out there which would increase net happiness in some way. Humans are flawed enough that you can make a strong case against practical utilitarianism and be right much of the time, but to discredit utilitarianism as a whole, I think you’ll need a stronger case.

          • onyomi says:

            I have had more detailed debates about philosophical utilitarianism ad nauseum in earlier threads, and am not interested in turning this into another “utilitarianism: yay or nay?” thread. I’m just pointing out one reason why I think people who incline toward utilitarianism are especially perturbed by this type of argument.

          • Stefan Drinic says:

            Oh. Well, fair enough.

          • Wrong Species says:

            Where is the line between philosophical and practical utilitarianism though? It’s not like we can trust people to make impartial judgements. If we can’t trust people to practically use utilitarianism then what’s the point?

    • TheAncientGeek says:

      Comvincing people that tax is theft is only half the job.
      Utilitarians can and should approve of robin hood style thefts that add to total utity.

    • Earthly Knight says:

      Forget about the “holy congress” hypothetical, raping your wife was not considered a kind of rape at all until recently, and still isn’t in many countries. This is probably the strongest case for the importance of semantic arguments.

      • Sastan says:

        Absolutely, and for one good reason. Marriage was viewed as consent! So you see, it wasn’t that everyone was very cool with the idea of rape, so long as you got married, it was that they defined marriage as consent to have sex with someone. A sort of life-long consent. And that rules out rape, which we define as sex without consent. Definitions always matter.

      • mca says:

        I think that can just as easily show the opposite. What if we argued about the definition of rape 50 years ago and concluded that indeed the word just didn’t apply to married couples? The act is exactly as bad either way, for reasons that in no way turn on the definitions of any words.

    • Sastan says:

      The rationalization of morality exists mostly to occupy people with too much time on their hands, or is motivated by the desire to convince someone (usually oneself) that something they know is wrong is actually right, and therefore ok to do. Or vice versa.

      One quickly notices this pattern, all the materialism, paternalism, conservatism and utilitarianism in the world is really “everyone should be vegetarian” and “I ought to be able to cheat on my SO without guilt”.

      Moral intuition is the whole of actual, practical morality. There is no logic to it, only feels. Systemization is always easily broken. Definitional games are useful in most arguments, but not so much in morality, because the only arbiter of morality is human emotion, in aggregate. If seven million Aztecs decide it’s moral to chop open a human ribcage and extract a beating heart every single day…….there’s probably no sure way of convincing them otherwise*.

      *Other than the way we used, of course. Which had its own moral problems.

      • Linch says:

        I don’t actually understand your point. Can you clarify?

        Are you arguing a)that people instinctively *know* right from wrong, and that the best clever rationalizations will just persuade people to make the wrong choices instead of the right ones, or are you saying that b) *in practice* rationality is whored out for rationalization rather than rationally changing your mind?

        Because if a) is correct, then it seems like people should stop arguing (or even thinking) about right and wrong and just go with their instincts. This seems (ironically enough) counter-intuitive to me.

        • Sastan says:

          I’m arguing that everyone *thinks* they know right from wrong. What we call morality is in reality (surprise!) an interaction between biology, chance and socialization.

          People don’t “know” right from wrong, they have emotional reactions to situations which they then attempt to fit into their moral worldview. This is why there is no consistent real-world morality. Moral inconsistency is the price of living.

          Abraham Lincoln said something to the effect of “When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad”. Lincoln then went on to send half a million men to their deaths. We know he didn’t feel great about that. Did he think it was wrong? Obviously not.

          Moral frameworks are always broken. There are sometimes principles or heuristics that work very often, and these serve us well (think “golden rule”), but these are incomplete and inconsistent too*! Human morality is and will always be mushy, shaded and arguable. It will change over time. And we will always mock the barbarity of yesteryear, and think of ourselves as the pinnacle of moral progress, but that is a delusion as well.

          *Think on how the Golden Rule works for Sado-Masochists!

          • Linch says:

            Hmm…I think I understand your clarification, but am now lost at the relevancy of your clarification as it applies to your original comment.

          • Sastan says:

            If, as I assert, all moral systems are incomplete and inconsistent in the real world, then arguing over which is the more consistent in the fantasy world of internet utilitarianism (or whatever) is even less productive. It’s a futile exercise. It might as well be called “Morals and Dragons”.

            Morality is pretty much whatever we can convince ourselves to live with and convince other people to agree with. Therefore, anytime people want to argue morality, it boils down to one of three things:

            1: I should be able to do this thing I want to do, but everyone will think I’m a bad person! Here’s why I should be considered a good person for doing what I want!

            2: Other people should stop doing that thing they like to do and everyone thinks is ok, but I don’t, because reasons!

            3: Behold the magnificence of my intellect as I grapple with these tough problems! First we assume a spherical chicken………

          • Linch says:

            I’m trying to see how your argument is useful w/r/t say, donating money to the local homeless man vs. Deworming the World, or choosing an ethical career that I enjoy vs. an ethically neutral career that I really enjoy.

            Also, restating your 2) a little makes it sound a lot more reasonable.

            “Even though this belief is commonly held, I think it’s a misconception because of these reasons. Further, I try not to be a hypocrite.”

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ Sastan
            If, as I assert, all moral systems are incomplete and inconsistent in the real world, then arguing over which is the more consistent in the fantasy world of internet utilitarianism (or whatever) is even less productive. It’s a futile exercise. It might as well be called “Morals and Dragons”.

            Or, “Tunnels and Trolleys”.

            If preaching egoiosm is practicing altruism, what may be the outcome of preaching utilitarianism?

      • onyomi says:

        I don’t think I agree, because this seems to imply that moral reasoning is always a fruitless justification for what one already feels. I don’t think this is true. I think there is such a thing as “moral progress,” even if morality is, at root, based in intuitions. Progress can be made by being more consistent and probing more deeply into why our intuitions are the way they are. For example, most early societies were okay with slavery. It isn’t that they thought about it very carefully and decided to be okay with it; rather, it seems to be a kind of default position. Gradually people started looking at the slaves and saying “are these people really fundamentally different from the owners? Is there a good justification for why we can buy and sell them, but not each other?” People tried to come up with justifications for the status quo: slaves come from an inferior race, etc. but these ultimately all fell flat and moral progress was made by extending the intuition that people shouldn’t be bought and sold to include all people, and not just people of your tribe, race, or social class.

        • Sastan says:

          Sometimes it is a fruitless justification against what one feels!

          One can think of it as a battle between Freud’s id and superego. Or, as we call them now, biology and socialization. Sometimes one wins, and sometimes the other wins. And the result we call morality.

        • Sastan says:

          As a complete aside, I have a theory on slavery, which is that the humanistic impulses of the early Enlightenment made slavery much worse than it had historically been, before it finally removed it in the end of the iteration.

          By expanding people’s concept of who they owed a duty to as human beings, rather than tribesmen, family or countrymen, enlightenment principles led to an expansion of humanism. Unfortunately, in the early days, the economic pressures created by this expansion in learning and science at the same time lead to a new form of slavery, chattel. Most slavery in history was of POWs and for debt, and wasn’t hereditary. Expanding the scope of “humanity” for a time excluded certain backwards groups, and justified their “subhumanness” in the thought of the day. This applied not only to africans, but to aboriginal peoples as well.

          Over time, the contradictions in this manifested themselves, and the whole institution was done away with. One might call this “worse before it gets better”.

          • Nita says:

            Most slavery in history [..] wasn’t hereditary.

            I don’t think that’s true.

            Expanding the scope of “humanity” for a time excluded certain backwards groups, and justified their “subhumanness” in the thought of the day.

            Tribal societies justified chattel slavery of people from other tribes centuries before this expansion:

            https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+25%3A44-46&version=NIV

          • Nornagest says:

            Most slavery in history was of POWs and for debt, and wasn’t hereditary.

            There have been a lot of slaveholding societies, and I can’t speak for all of them; but slavery in ancient Greece and Rome was hereditary, and it was also hereditary under some circumstances in the Islamic world. According to Wikipedia, the children of classical Islamic slaves were also slaves by default, but it at some point became customary for freemen to manumit their own children.

            As far as I know, though, the bit about most historical slaves acquiring that status as prisoners or war or for debt or criminality is accurate. It’s also historically common for slaves (or, at least, those with valuable skills) to have the opportunity to work towards their own freedom.

    • Fallacies are generally weak evidence, but are not water tight arguments. Fallacies aren’t dangerous because they are imprecise, they are dangerous because they are easy for motivated people to come up with . The worst argument in the world follows this trend. Saying X is a criminal and generally criminals are bad means X is more likely to be bad. The issue is that, as Scott has pointed out, it is very easy to label someone or something you disagree with as a bad thing. Now you just have to argue they are and don’t actually have to argue at a base level.

      The issue is that when groups and toxoplasma get involved it gets hard to get past the initial worst argument in the world to the actual issues. The issue with “MLK was a criminal” or is that the word criminal acts as a semantic stopsign; you need to taboo criminal in the discussion.

      • onyomi says:

        But Scott has also written that “extremism in thought experiments is no vice”:

        https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/26/high-energy-ethics/

        In other words, using intentionally emotionally charged examples are a way to prime our ethical intuitions to figure out what we really feel about something.

        Sure, one can use inflammatory language to trigger a negative emotional reaction to something that isn’t bad, but equally can one use obfuscatory language to mute or entirely circumvent an appropriate emotional reaction to something that is bad. This is the purpose of legalese: “give us some of your money so we can use it on things we think are a good idea or we’ll take it and/or put you in jail” sounds bad; “failure to remit sufficient funds to support public services may result in wage garnishment and/or incarceration,” doesn’t sound quite so bad. But which is closer to colloquial English? And is it a coincidence the government is especially adept at this type of language? Don’t worry, Shireen Baratheon, we’re just going to excite your molecules to a higher-than-average rate of vibration.

    • blacktrance says:

      From the original post:

      I declare the Worst Argument In The World to be this: “X is in a category whose archetypal member gives us a certain emotional reaction. Therefore, we should apply that emotional reaction to X, even though it is not a central category member.”

      Use of the non-central fallacy isn’t the start of an investigation (“Is it the bad kind of theft?”) but a conclusion (“It’s theft, so it’s bad”). There’s no problem with noticing that X belongs to Class Y, but there is a problem with the assumption that membership of Class Y automatically overrides other considerations. “Taxation is theft” is fine as a premise, but it’s not a whole argument, and that’s what “the worst argument in the world” is about.

      • onyomi says:

        It can be a whole argument in that the implication of saying “taxation is theft” is that even though most people don’t think of it as theft, the distinction between it and theft is immaterial.

        Or, put another way, though taxation is now viewed as a non-central member of category “theft,” that conventional wisdom is wrong because all the things that make us have a certain emotional reaction to more “traditional” theft also apply to taxation (not necessarily saying this is true in this specific case, but, for example).

        In the case of spousal rape, for example, people traditionally viewed it as either not rape at all, or else a “non-central” member of category rape. To say “spousal rape is still rape” is to point out that the distinction between this “non-central” type of rape and the more traditionally “central” types of rape is immaterial, and that our intuition about the latter should apply to the former. I don’t see why this is an inherently bad or incomplete argument.

        Sure, it would be a better argument if the speaker then went on to explain why the difference is immaterial, or why an adjustment in our definitions is warranted, but it is still an argument without that, and I think the burden is on distinction-makers, not non-distinction-makers.

        To take an extreme example, imagine there were two pieces of paper which appear for all the world to be the same color, but your friend insisted that one piece of paper is colored “red,” but the other is “aka,” which is a different color from “red.” They both look red to you and you even measure them using some tool and find out they produce the same wavelength of light, but he insists there is still some difference. Once you’ve said, “well, these both meet all the usual definitions of red,” there is no further argument you can make if your friend continues to insist that “red” and “aka” are different. At that point the burden is rightly on him to show how “aka” is different, or else accept your contention that “aka” in fact, is just another word for red.

        If I say “humans are animals.” And you say “no, they’re not,” or “technically, yes, but to say that is very misleading,” then I think you need to explain what makes them different from animals, or else explain why my saying they are animals is misleading. Implicit in my statement “humans are animals” is already the argument: “humans are animals (because they share most or all of the relevant characteristics of “animalness,” superficial appearances aside).”

        Of course, I may be missing something about what makes something an animal, or my intentions may be pernicious and misleading, but that doesn’t automatically make it a terrible argument, nor an incomplete argument.

        Put another way, saying “taxation is theft” is implicitly a demand that the interlocutor provide provide reasons why our intuitions about theft should not also apply to taxation, given all the similarities. In cases where this strategy is obviously disingenuous, such as “MLK was a criminal,” these reasons are easy to come up with and explain. If, on the other hand, most people cannot come up with any good reasons, then that tends to imply that maybe our reasons for making such a big distinction between x and y are not as strong as we thought.

        And this is also why I think this type of argument can be quite valuable: most people who are not political science or philosophy majors or SSC readers are not, in fact, aware of the things taxation and theft have in common, except in a very vague, unexamined sort of way. It’s not that they’ve thought about it and decided “yes, taxation has some things in common with theft, but not the bad things,” or “yes, taxation is a type of theft, but the good it does justifies the bad”; most people just haven’t really given it much thought at all. If they had, “taxation is theft” wouldn’t be such a shocking statement to most people.

        For most people, taxation and theft are different words; therefore, they’re different things. Our parents and teachers taught us theft was bad, but they never said anything about taxes. People are morally outraged by theft and and view taxation as an inconvenience or even proud duty; therefore, those are the appropriate reactions. That is the level at which most people are operating. Therefore, to ask those people to examine whether they may not be having arbitrarily different reactions to two different cases which actually have much in common seems entirely appropriate.

        • blacktrance says:

          It can be a whole argument in that the implication of saying “taxation is theft” is that even though most people don’t think of it as theft, the distinction between it and theft is immaterial.

          There can be such an argument, but just saying “taxation is theft” isn’t it. For example, if “theft” is interpreted as “taking someone’s money/stuff against their will and is necessarily morally wrong”, they may respond that taxation isn’t theft because it’s not necessarily morally wrong. For various reasons, people already don’t think that taxation is necessarily wrong, so they’ll either dispute that it’s theft or agree but say it’s a non-central and good instance of it.

          I agree that it’s interesting to talk about whether taxation is theft and what implications that has, and that it’s not something most people think about. But I don’t think you’re arguing against Scott’s point, which is that pointing out that something is in a morally/emotionally charged class doesn’t imply that the moral/emotional weight should transfer to the particular instance, because it may not be like the archetypal member of the class. As in the “genetic engineering is eugenics” example, it induces us to see eliminating diseases as morally similar to the Holocaust, which is fallacious. It’s epistemic Dark Arts.

    • FullMeta_Rationalist says:

      The default stance, it seems to me, should be “if x meets the definition of y, and we have a strong moral intuition about y, then our moral intuition about y should apply to x in the absence of a good reason why it should not.”

      Of course. If the negative valence of category Y is uncontested by the valence of instance X, then Y’s negative valence should transfer to X. I think the issue here is that “MLK” carries a positive valence greater than or equal to the negative valence of “criminal”. The reason non-central instances are non-central is precisely because the instances carry non-representative valences.

      The non-central fallacy is basically a criticism of shamelessly cherry-picking outliers. You seem to be arguing “but most things aren’t outliers” and then ignoring that the outliers carry connotations with a certain gravitas which the majority of data points lack. If I didn’t know who MLK was and you told me he was a criminal, I suppose I would justifiably believe he was evil. But I think it’s safe to assume everybody was familiar with the topics presented in the original non-central fallacy article.

      (for the curious and uninitiated: the non-central fallacy)

      I think there’s also a toxoplasmosis element. “Criminal MLK” seems oxymoronic. So his valence is (ostensibly) ambiguous and therefore contested, which we all know are the kinds of things that generate partisan link-bait.

      • houseboatonstyx says:

        Fwiw, a non-central fallacy that worked differently is “A kid got in trouble for bringing an alarm clock to school”. Technically, any device constructed to sound an alarm at a certain time can be called an ‘alarm clock’. But the central meaning or most common referent of ‘alarm clock’ is ‘a small object everyone has on their bedside shelf to wake them gently: common, small and neat, usually mass-produced and easily recognizable.’ The valence is positive: harmless, cosy.

        A jury-rigged, unfinished device in a too-large, suitcase shaped container is a far ‘outlier’ as an ‘alarm clock’. Even when finished, it would not be very practical to use for that function; so seeing the device without the verbal label, you wouldn’t predict its intended function as ‘alarm clock’ or ‘future alarm clock’. But when finished by adding a few parts and loading with explosives,* it could become a practical small suitcase bomb. So better to classify it as ‘purpose unknown, possibly malicious’ with a valence of ‘suspicious’ and a reasonable response of ‘call the police’.

        * After using its wall plug to recharge an internal battery, then closing the cord inside the container.

    • Aegeus says:

      The trouble is, if you’re making that argument to someone, it’s clear that they do think they have a good reason to ignore their moral intuitions on that front. Nobody in the world has ever said “I think that taxes are theft, and I hate theft, and I don’t see any reason to break my moral intuitions here, but I’m still going to support paying taxes.” The mere fact that you’re making this argument should tell you that it’s not going to stick.

      Also, it yanks on all the wrong emotional levers to have a useful debate. People take it personally when you imply that they’re thieves or murderers. “Taxes are theft!” will not be heard as “I want you to re-evaluate your moral code and see if you might have made a wrong turn,” it will be heard as “I want to make emotional cheap shots and personal attacks instead of debating the issue.”

      So if you really want to make this argument instead of stacking negative affect on someone, you should probably spell it out explicitly. “You seem to think taxes are justified on utilitarian grounds, but you still shouldn’t support them because…”

      • onyomi says:

        “it yanks on all the wrong emotional levers to have a useful debate…”

        I’m all in favor of niceness and civility, but aren’t there cases when strong language is called for?

        I mean, if you’re protesting Jim Crow, for example, it seems you have every right to use strongly worded slogans, at the very least:

        http://atlantablackstar.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/1948-RobesonWhitehouseAntiJimCrow-crop.jpg

        I mean, maybe you can sit down with these guys and try to offer them a nuanced ethical or practical argument why they should change their minds, but I somehow doubt you’ll get very far:

        http://www.altoarizona.com/images/little-rock-stop-the-race-mixing.jpg

        I feel like a lot of what people are objecting to about “taxation is theft” is not really the specific form of the argument, but that it’s short and pithy and therefore has the potential for abuse. Sure, all things equal, a long, nuanced, non-confrontational, rational discussion is better than a sign or a soundbite, but that doesn’t mean all poster slogans and soundbites are bad.

        • Cauê says:

          I mean, maybe you can sit down with these guys and try to offer them a nuanced ethical or practical argument why they should change their minds, but I somehow doubt you’ll get very far:

          Well, I’m immediately reminded of this:

          http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/the-audacity-of-talking-about-race-with-the-klu-klux-klan/388733/

          I had one guy from an NAACP branch chew me up one side and down the other, saying, you know, we’ve worked hard to get ten steps forward. Here you are sitting down with the enemy having dinner, you’re putting us twenty steps back.”

          I pull out my robes and hoods and say, “look, this is what I’ve done to put a dent in racism. I’ve got robes and hoods hanging in my closet by people who’ve given up that belief because of my conversations sitting down to dinner. They gave it up. How many robes and hoods have you collected?” And then they shut up.

          • onyomi says:

            I’m certainly not arguing that there is anyone so bad we shouldn’t sit down and talk with them if they are willing to talk. I’m just saying there’s a place for strong ethical statements. If you genuinely think a fetus is a full-fledged person, then abortion is murder, plain and simple. What good is it mincing words? I’m not saying that “abortion is murder” stands in lieu of a conversation, but that there is still a place for short, pithy slogans, and that they are not always dishonest or counterproductive.

            I am reminded of:
            http://i.imgur.com/E05yb2L.jpg

          • Aegeus says:

            What good is it mincing words? What good is not mincing words? Depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

            If you want a quick and easy emotional appeal, if you want to rile people up, if you want to rally support to your cause or shock people into paying attention, if you just want a slogan that fits on a placard, then by all means, use the noncentral fallacy. Heck, use any fallacy that you want! “Obama is a Muslim” fits on a placard just as well as “Meat is murder.”

            But most of the time, we’re not waving placards at each other, and we shouldn’t be. We’re on the internet, we’re always metaphorically sitting down and talking. There’s no excuse to play the “Taxes are theft” card in an argument on Reddit.

            So I can accept the general thrust of your argument – “There exist situations where the noncentral fallacy can be a short and effective way of expressing what you believe,” – but I’d still say that 99 out of 100 times that it’s used, it shouldn’t be.

          • onyomi says:

            I think there are times when shocking people out of complacency is very important and justified, especially if you’re not deceiving people to do it. There is a time to mince words and there is a time not to mince words. People here seem to be implying that nothing should ever be said if it can’t be extremely subtle and nuanced. But short and pithy=/=wrong.

            And yes, it’s not just about trying to get people to change their mind on an issue, but about getting them to feel the urgency of an issue. There are many issues of which I’m broadly supportive, but to which I am not currently donating my time or money to actively promote. But maybe pointing out how much taxation has in common with the more usual type of theft is exactly what I need to start donating to your anti-tax foundation, for example. Or having the stark reality of abortion shoved in my face is what I need to have happen for me to become a pro-life activist (I myself have views on abortion not easily classified as either pro-life or pro-choice, but I do think the videos coming out attacking planned parenthood have been legit forms of activism).

            And sure, when you call it “the non-central fallacy” it sounds like it must usually be wrong. After all, it’s a “fallacy.” But what should or should not be “central” to a concept is very debatable and constantly undergoing revision. I don’t see why 99% of attempts to effect such revision are necessarily done in bad faith, or constitute logical fallacies.

          • Aegeus says:

            Short and pithy =/= wrong, but it’s also =/= right. It’s entirely irrelevant to the question.

            As I said, there are lots of arguments that are short and pithy, but still unjustified. “Obama is a Muslim” fits on a placard. “All Muslims are terrorists” fits on a placard. And in the right crowd, they might be exactly the argument you need to get people on your side.

            This implies that we should have more standards for acceptable discourse than simply “is capable of convincing people.”

            As for your last point, if you want to argue that something is or isn’t a central example of the category, then make that argument. Saying “Taxes are theft” isn’t an argument, it’s an assertion.

  36. Pku says:

    It recently occurred to me that Eragon, as it is, doesn’t really make sense. They’re constantly fighting against a king who’s actually not too bad of a guy (their main complaint seems to be that he taxes them and fights terrorists, which is, well,what kings do), especially for a medieval ruler.
    But! It would make fantastic libertarian utopia book: They could present the age of the dragon riders as the time where the only law was that no one should use force, anyone would only be bound by any contract they had voluntarily entered into, and the dragon riders existed only to provide the minimal supervision required. Hell, they wouldn’t even need to tax, since they’re immortal superpowered people anyways. Galbatorix, on the other hand, would be the tyrant of statism, instituting public services, run by the Razac which both metaphorically and literally prey on honest citizens.

    • Barry says:

      So, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Eragon mentioned anywhere on the internet, which always surprised me given how popular it was for a time. It even had a horrifically bad movie that you would expect would show up on a “10 Worst fantasy movies of all time” list on Io9 or Cracked.

    • FullMeta_Rationalist says:

      Fwiw, I felt absolutely certain that the series was going to end the way EY’s Sword of Good ended. Eragon’s actual ending felt disappointing and anticlimactic.

      The ending also felt rushed. This leads me to believe that Paoloni originally had a larger narrative in mind, but didn’t want to extend the series to a fifth(!) book since it was originally supposed to be a trilogy.

    • Pku says:

      Yeah, I suddenly remembered it because I asked my Calculus class about their favourite books and a surprising amount mentioned Eragon (I think it was the second-most mentioned after HP). I was kinda tempted to take fifteen minutes off the next class to point out all the inconsistencies is Eragon (I liked it, but then again, this… http://impishidea.com/criticism/everything-wrong-with-eragon ).

  37. Alexey Romanov says:

    Problems with confidence intervals as an alternative to p-values (and in general): The Fallacy of Placing Confidence in Confidence Intervals

  38. walpolo says:

    Is the evidence that MSG is harmful any good? I keep hearing that it’s just a widely accepted myth and in fact there’s nothing unhealthy about it.

    • stubydoo says:

      The problem with MSG is the tendency of restaurants to combine it with other ingredients that are bad. It funges against general quality of ingredient selection, in the restaurant marketplace as it currently exists in many places.

  39. Wrong Species says:

    I just read The Game by Neil Strauss. I’m surprised more rationalists don’t talk about pick up. If you read the book, all the characters are similar to us in being nerdy white guys who try to break things down to their most basic level and use that to get girls. Has anyone here tried pick up?

    • Scott Alexander says:

      This has been talked about to death in other places and is not a great topic to have here. I will allow this one thread, after which I would prefer no further object-level discussion of PUA.

      • Wrong Species says:

        First there was that huge argument over gun control, now this. I seem to be unintentionally good at finding topics that end up getting banned.

    • LTP says:

      The funny thing is The Game is apparently anti-PUA in many ways, but a lot of people don’t read it that way. Strauss talks about how messed up many of the guys in it are, and how PUA and getting laid doesn’t help them overcome their mental health issues and for some of them it even worsens their mental health issues.

      (Disclaimer: I haven’t read The Game, but I’ve talked to people who have)

      • Wrong Species says:

        The people in the book are dedicating their entire lives to being PUA and like you said, had some really bad mental problems. I bet the average guy who successfully learns the techniques is probably better off.

      • Emily says:

        I’ve read it. That was definitely the impression I got. Or rather, I wasn’t sure if Strauss intended it to be read that way, but they certainly seemed troubled, sad, and unappealing to me.

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      Suppose one person were to say yes, what would you want to know? I’m not very sure what purpose you’d have for making this post other than maybe curiosity.

    • Pku says:

      Only in the sense that I’ve tried actively forcing myself to approach random people (mainly girls) to get over social anxiety (and hopefully get better with girls). I’ve had some friends who were into it and got me to read some Neil Strauss, who (for the reasons LTP mentioned) seems pretty sympathetic and reasonable.
      I also know a couple of PUAs who are absolutely the stereotypical douchebags a hypothetical feminist would describe them as. The depressing part is, they seemed to get along great (and sleep with) a lot of the most extremely radical feminists I know. (My conclusion from this was less “they’re actually right about women!” and more “here’s another piece of evidence that radical feminists are hypocritical”.)
      (dammit, googling “radical feminists on skateboards” gives me nothing. They’re really underusing the “radical” label here.)

      • Emily says:

        Why would you describe that as “hypocritical”?
        I would say that feminists are particularly vulnerable to PUAs relative to women with a more traditional theory of gender roles. They’re more likely to feel like they’re supposed to be cool with casual sex. They’re less likely to even have a concept like “men using women for casual sex,” because they deny that men are any more interested in casual sex than women.

        • Pku says:

          Sorry, I wan’t quite clear up there. The hypocritical part wasn’t quite about the feminists who slept with PUAs; it was about the ones who really like hanging out with them as people and have no trouble looking the other way, or laughing along, when they do incredibly douchey/sexist things.

      • A Definite Beta Guy says:

        I also know a couple of PUAs who are absolutely the stereotypical douchebags a hypothetical feminist would describe them as

        At one point, my Wife, a friend and I were walking home from dinner, and my Wife remarked she could never date a douchebag frat boy, and my friend and I had to remind my Wife that I am universally regarded as a douchebag frat boy that probably has undiagnosed narcissism.

        Sort of like how I like politicians who are smart and so I like Jeb! but my hind-brain REALLY likes Trump, a LOT, because he pisses off a LOT of people I hate.

        • Pku says:

          I think you’re implying that being douchey can be an effective way to get (certain types of) of girls? If so, I agree (though I still think it’s a poor long-term strategy).
          If you’re putting yourself in the same group as the guys I’m describing, two of the three pieces of evidence I have about you seem to disagree – for one thing, they would never in a million years refer to themselves as “beta guys”, and for another, you mention you actually married the girl you tried that stuff on, while the douchey guys I know have a tendency to get pretty harshly dumped by every girl they date within two months.

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            What people say they want is not always what they want. People generally like to be around the life of the party, and that can often be the douchey-frat guys.

            This isn’t unique to women. I am here commenting about PUA and Russian politics at 7:30 AM on a Sunday morning, when my Wife really just wants to go to Church and watch Girl Meets World. Back in high school, I cranked out 1,000 hours on Civ and she went to every Homecoming and Turnabout.

            There’s probably a few nerdy girls looking at me and what I said I wanted, and thinking “WTF? Stupid liar.”

          • Pku says:

            I agree that what people say they want isn’t necessarily what they want, and light-side PUA is probably a fairly good idea to get people interested (dark-side PUA might also work, but it still seems like a terrible idea).

            That aside though, douchey-frat guys spans a huge range of people; some of them are boring one-dimensional caricatures with no interesting properties, and I suspect those guys can get girls to go out with them but have a hard time maintaining a long-term relationship (this is backed by my admittedly small sample of two data points, and the evidence that scoring high on dark triad traits correlates with more sexual partners and less ability to maintain long-term relationships). I also know douchey-frat guys who are interesting people; all things considered you seem more like the second. (Either that or your wife is really bad at dealing with sunken cost fallacy).

            Also, regarding the life of the party: can be douchey frat guys, can be other types. Whoever it is, if they’re a boring or sucky person, they might be great at getting the party to happen, but it’s less likely to be enjoyable (the difference between addictive responses and enjoying things seems relevant here).
            (I’ll admit to biasing that last part on knowing a couple of frat boyish guys who threw a lot of parties and such, which were incredibly boring and led to a severe drought of interesting social events around me.)

        • stubydoo says:

          “my hind-brain REALLY likes Trump, a LOT, because he pisses off a LOT of people I hate”

          Sounds like Trump has found a way to hack your attractiveness function.

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            That was his goal, I believe!

            Fortunately, my hind-brain still likes Jeb! and Rubio better. Background functions say Trump is great if SHTF and great to have on the team, but Rubio and Jeb! can probably move society in a better direction if they win.

          • Kevin C. says:

            @A Definite Beta Guy

            “Rubio and Jeb! can probably move society in a better direction if they win.”

            [Citation needed].When have “conservatives” moved society in a better direction — or, for that matter, produced any movement of society other than just slowing the leftward movement — since the Glorious Revolution?

          • Adam says:

            I strongly doubt any president at all has much steer in the direction of society. Maybe they can push a law or two against the prevailing grain, but larger shifts in norms are a lot bigger than the government, more reflected by it than created by it.

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      If you read the book and your first instinct was to post here, you have the wrong mindset.

      If you want to test it out, test it out yourself in the field.

      I can say that Red Pill philosophy in general improved my life, but I used pick-up quite sparingly, due to a large number of mental blocks. Gotta have the right mindset to dabble in the Venusian Arts.

      I can also say that I had a bad time, decided “okay, let’s try this pickup stuff on the first girl I see,” which happened to be my current Wife. I can also say that any PUA would scream “one-it is” and probably call me an idiot.

    • zz says:

      An idea I’ve had kicking around in the back of my mind: light-side pickup is, in principle, aligned with feminism.

      I can’t find it, but Mark Manson (ex-PUA, endorsed by Ozy) has brought up what we might think of as the pickup paradox: shouldn’t women be in favor of a thing that makes men more attractive? (I guess lesbians might not like it, insofar as it might reduce their dating pool by causing bisexual women to tend to have more heterosexual sex/relationships, but the typical case should hold).

      For example, I’m given to understand that feminists have an issue with being constantly approached by men they’re not interested in. And then we have this guy who spends the better part of an hour-long presentation talking about how to only approach women who have signaled interest. A match made in heaven! It’s like how the right and left should be able to get together on criminal justice reform, since the left wants less prison time and the right wants to spend less on imprisoning people.

      And yet, most feminists don’t seem to be so much on board with pickup. Something’s up.

      First explanation that comes to mind is that most of pickup isn’t light side. I’m pretty sure the guy in the video linked above said a few sketchy things, and I recall him definitely saying some deeply sketchy things. And this compounds based on your background. If you’re me, raised in a society so liberal we don’t need feminism because equality of men and women is so well-accepted there’s no point to advocating for it, then you just kind of filter out the sexist crap for the obvious-in-retrospect insight you never learned as a kid because you hated everyone in your graduating class and thus never learned to pick up on a bunch of social cues that most people get so now you have to learn them explicitly. On the other hand, if you’re raised on the idea of rape culture, then you really notice the rapey stuff I ignore.

      Second explanation is that each woman has an attraction function, a fair bit of which is common to most women, and much of this overlap is super-hackable, but there’s something displeasing about this (I find myself unable to pinpoint what exactly), so a label of “manipulative” is put on any such hacking, because words have hidden inferences and calling something “manipulative” implies “if you do this, you are evil.”

      Related is what I assume red pill would say: women seek the highest-quality partners, hacking their attraction function causes them to prefer lower quality hackers to higher quality nonhackers, contrary to their goals, and thus, they oppose hacking.

      Explanations 4 through infinity are things I haven’t thought of yet.

      And, in case anyone was wondering, I’m not very confident in anything I wrote in this comment (please, do criticize) and I don’t pay attention to pickup itself anymore, because I don’t believe it provides me any insights I can’t get between Mark Manson and rationalist community with much better epistemic virtue and wheat:chaff ratio.

      • bartlebyshop says:

        “For example, I’m given to understand that feminists have an issue with being constantly approached by men they’re not interested in. And then we have this guy who spends the better part of an hour-long presentation talking about how to only approach women who have signaled interest. A match made in heaven!”

        Since this guy is selling seminars to men, it’s possible he tells them that the signals of interest are things men would like to believe are signals of interest, rather than things that actually are signals of interest.

        “Second explanation is that each woman has an attraction function, a fair bit of which is common to most women, and much of this overlap is super-hackable, but there’s something displeasing about this (I find myself unable to pinpoint what exactly), so a label of “manipulative” is put on any such hacking, because words have hidden inferences and calling something “manipulative” implies “if you do this, you are evil.””

        Undoubtedly by now you’ve heard the joke “I inserted friendship coins, why didn’t the sex come out” – people don’t like being treated like vending machines.

        There’s some population of women (feminist or not) who are attracted to men but find actually interacting with them romantically/sexually exhausting and not worth the effort. Maybe there are more of them who are feminists than in the general population of women?

      • Saal says:

        Is there pickup that doesn’t hold as an underlying assumption that the whole need for pickup is a result of feminism breaking the sexual/romantic market in severe and undesirable ways? I assume this is what you refer to as “light-side”. If not, then I suspect the feminist opposition to pickup is roughly similar to a given conservative religious community’s opposition to another conservative religion, even though they might have similar goals/ideas on what society should look like from a structural and moral standpoint. It’s hard to agree with the person saying “Well, I think you’re going to suffer eternal damnation/you broke everything and your ideology sucks, but we can still work productively toward goal X we have in common.”

        • Wrong Species says:

          That’s a common thought in the community(from what I can tell) but I don’t think it was originally meant that way by the guys who started it.

        • A Definite Beta Guy says:

          Is there pickup that doesn’t hold as an underlying assumption that the whole need for pickup is a result of feminism breaking the sexual/romantic market in severe and undesirable ways

          What’s wrong with this assumption? Phrase differently, it’s used all the time by practically everyone. “Women’s empowerment has changed the way the genders interact, and now men need to clean up their act and up their game to form good relationships with women. ”

          That’s so banal as to be non-trivial. I find this argument in economics articles discussing the decline of male wages, for instance. It’s The Truth.

          What’s the matter is when people take The Truth and spin it in ways that Our Society sucks. If I tell you that women’s empowerment, particularly in a world returning to Forager norms, involves more women going online and in bars than Churches, and that this is a comparative disadvantage for the normal guy, and will result in delayed marriage, fewer marriages, and less happy people….

          Well, damn, when did you become such a misogynist, ADBG? I feel the above is not a True statement, but neither is “printing more money causes more inflation” (if you assume there’s a 1:1 relationship over the short-run) or “raising the minimum wage helps the poor”.

        • LTP says:

          It depends on what you mean by pick-up.

          You have ex-PUAs like Mark Manson and Dr. Nerdlove, where the former is feminist-friendly and the latter is explicitly feminist (perhaps too much, at times, when he goes on social justice rants at times). There is some pretty good dating advice from both. However, both are mixed bags, though, for various reasons, though still totally superior to the anti-feminist PUA IMO.

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            I find Nerdlove distasteful. It was not hard to see why from his most recent blog post.

            EDIT: That posted too fast. Editing…

            Full Edit.
            This was the recent blog post:
            http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2015/09/ask-dr-nerdlove-am-i-too-vanilla/

            The only thing I would be careful about is how she treats your inexperience. You say that she teases you about being a “square”. As long as this is affectionate teasing, all is well; if she’s being mean about it or implying you’re a bad person for not being into the same things she’s into? That’s not cool and a pretty reliable sign that you should find someone who’s not an asshole about sex.

            I do find value in that this was mentioned, but this was after several paragraphs of “this is all in your head and you need to get out of your own way.”
            Which is also accurate, but my first instinct to someone teasing a partner’s sexual inexperience is “RED FLAG!”

            In most of his posts Nerdlove seems…ahhh…eager to signal loyalty to SJW in-group, and heap on plenty of criticism to relatively unfortunate folk. “Punch down,” I believe the lingo is.

            I don’t think his information is necessarily off-base, so I might need to correct hind-brain thinking here, but the young man’s story left an incredibly sour taste in my mouth and raised alarms in my mind. And my intuition tells me though should be immediately addressed.

          • LTP says:

            I don’t disagree with your general point nor with your point about the specific article. I can totally understand why some find him to be distasteful, as I myself have felt that way about him at times. I think Nerdlove is a lot harder on male letterwriters as opposed to female ones, and over the past few years he seems to be, as you say, getting increasingly concerned with signalling he’s in the SJ camp even to the detriment of his advice (it’s pretty obvious to me, as somebody who is a regular reader of his, that probably half his audience is feminist women who are there as much or more for the SJ stuff as the dating advice). He sometimes falls into giving vacuous “feel-good” (for feminists) advice that probably isn’t actually helpful or an accurate description of how dating works. I also think he’s sometimes overly and unnecessarily mean to the very kinds of inexperienced, fearful, low self-esteem, nerdy young men who are supposed to be his target audience. He’d probably say it’s something like “tough love”, but I think it goes beyond that to just making uncharitable assumptions.

            All that said, I still think his best stuff is some of the best dating advice for young men on the internet (not a high standard, but still). His recent book on online dating is a pretty good guide if you’re new to online dating and entirely eschews SJ stuff and the “tough love”. Also, a lot of his earlier articles (circa 2011-mid 2013) are pretty good.

        • Ever An Anon says:

          I have a translaton of a math textbook from the Soviet Union on my bookshelf. If you read it it spills a lot of ink talking about how and why only the materialist (i.e. Communist) interpretation of mathematics is correct, even to the point of snubbing Pythagoras. But the proofs are clear and instructive with helpful commentary so that even an innumerate biochemist can follow along.

          Pickup isn’t a science by any stretch, but I don’t think it’s inherently any more ideological than mathematics. Throwing away useful instructions on a procedure because of the ideology of its author doesn’t make sense. Why should a feminist ally throw away the advice in, say, Roosh V’s Bang because of his anti-feminism?

      • LTP says:

        I think a lot of people of both genders just find explicit discussions of social skills to be off-putting because it is something they view as “natural” and so talking about social skills explicitly, which doesn’t normally happen, can feel unsettling or even manipulative when it shouldn’t. This affect is probably doubly true for specifically dating advice because of the all the emotions and gender stuff built into it that isn’t in normal social skills advice.

        I also think your first reason has a lot of truth to it as well. A lot of PUAs advocate morally gray tactics at best, even if they’re mixed in with good stuff.

        • onyomi says:

          I think there is much to this. And somehow I think we can still usually detect when social skills and charisma are being “faked,” rather than coming naturally to a person (though I guess if someone faked it really well, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between them and a “natural”).

          Maybe it upsets our evolutionary sensors in the same way plastic surgery sometimes can: a man in China actually sued his wife, I believe, because his wife had what he considered to be an ugly child; only after this did he realize she had had extensive plastic surgery before meeting him. Of course, her genes didn’t change with her face, so he felt cheated.

          I think many PUAs, by attempting to “game the system,” end up falling into a kind of “charisma uncanny valley,” we might find unsettling.

      • TheAncientGeek says:

        A man hacking their social skills to appear attractive is the equivalent of a woman wearing cosmetics: discuss.

        • A Definite Beta Guy says:

          There’s no parallel. They serve different functions. “Increase attractiveness” means different things to women and men. Women also have a different social utility function than men.

          If a man practices PUA it means he can’t get laid. Which is probably true, because the vast majority of men can generate ~0 organic interest in the vast majority of women and rely entirely on luck.

          If a woman wears make-up it means she is conforming to social expectations, and also means she is trying to land a really hawwwwwwtttt guy. She’s not wearing make-up for you and me, bro. She’s wearing make-up for Ryan Gosling and so she convince all the other women that’s she part of the in-group and not a defector and they should really respect her and not try to steal Ryan Gosling away.

          If you and I practice PUA it means you can’t get laid. What are you, a loser? Hahaha, let’s all laugh at the losers! Hahahahahaha!

          • James says:

            She’s wearing make-up […] so she convince all the other women that’s she part of the in-group and not a defector and they should really respect her and not try to steal Ryan Gosling away.

            Wait, what? Can you explain this part?

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            Women are generally pressured to follow certain social norms. A lot of people suggest men enforce these norms, but women themselves are primary pushers of these norms.
            Make-up is just part of the whole suite of norms.
            Signaling defiance of the overall in-group invites mate-poaching.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            “Women are generally pressured to follow certain social norms.”

            Women and men are both expected to follow societal norms for their gender. Many norms for women and men are primarily enforced within gender. I’m sure you can easily think of male gender norms that women love to see a guy defect from.

          • Anonymous says:

            As a non-make-up-wearing woman, I have never experienced any kind of pressure or punishment from other women.

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            Women and men are both expected to follow societal norms for their gender.

            True, but different norms with different functions. The commenter asked specifically about make-up vs. pick-up. The two are not analogous.

            Man does not practice pick-up to signal alliance to the in-group. Man not practicing pick-up is not defiance of the in-group.

            Woman not wearing make-up signals many things.

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            As a non-make-up-wearing woman, I have never experienced any kind of pressure or punishment from other women.

            Perhaps you are in the minority, or perhaps you are mistaken. Neither my Wife nor my other close female friends have experienced direct sanction for not wearing make-up since high school, either, but they are still soaked in a culture where make-up=requirement.

            In the various women’s circles upon which I occasionally eavesdrop, “can you believe she wore that,” and “I can’t believe she didn’t wear makeup” are still common phrases, even though DIRECT chastisement does NOT happen.

        • Wrong Species says:

          It’s pretty much the same. The difference is that girls claim to like wearing make up outside of attracting guys and gaining status.

        • onyomi says:

          As I say above, it may in some ways be like plastic surgery.

      • A Definite Beta Guy says:

        This doesn’t fit the narrative of “men oppress, women oppressed.”
        Anything that breaks narrative gets challenged aggressively and almost always pitched with the evening trash, especially since PUA is almost exclusively practiced by skeevy, low-status men, and not by upstanding men like Ryan Gosling.

        That’s not unusual at all for PUA, go try to tell the American people that America has the most regressive tax system in the world and needs more regressive taxes, and they’ll throw an epic shit-fit. Even if I point out that Saint Reagan raised regressive Social Security Taxes.

        Also, alliance with PUAs accomplishes nothing for feminists. What possibly could PUAs add to the feminist movement? This is way different than an alliance between Red Tribe and Blue Tribe, which have roughly equal power.

      • TheNybbler says:

        “For example, I’m given to understand that feminists have an issue with being constantly approached by men they’re not interested in.”

        Well, my first explanation is simple enough: They’re not telling the truth. This certainly applies to feminists who claim to be constantly approached by _nerdy_ guys.

        My second explanation goes with the “hacking” explanation. There are certain guys they want to be attracted to, and they detect these guys by visible characteristics which are correlated with the real, unchangable (or at least hard to change), but not immediately obvious characteristics they are interested in. Ape the visible characteristics (as PUA advocates), and you fool them into being attracted to you when they’d rather not be, and that pisses them off.

        • Pku says:

          Another explanation is that PUA openly advocates approaching a lot of women awkwardly until you either develop skills or find a girl who likes your style; even if this causes more fun sexual tension overall, it lowers the overall percentage of high-chemistry interactions; for women who’s complaint is getting approached too much rather than not enough, this is a downside.
          (The less sympathetic way to describe it is that women would rather awkward guys just stay in the basement and never try talking to them at all, so they can more easily select the hot guys).

      • Nita says:

        light-side pickup is, in principle, aligned with feminism

        In principle, yes. In practice, you would have to call it something else to escape the negative connotations of classic PUA.

        (I imagine most feminists dislike classic PUA because it divides all women in the man’s chosen age bracket into “HBs” and “warpigs”, and encourages you to think of anyone who seems to like you with the amount of respect you would give a dog, to give just a couple of examples. Not to mention that one guy who bragged about choking random people…)

        shouldn’t women be in favor of a thing that makes men more attractive?

        Yeah, a thing like that would be nice. Alas, most of PUA is not that thing — the main effects seem to be making men more persistent and more contemptuous of women (well, that’s one way to increase confidence…).

        only approach women who have signaled interest

        That is not a typical example of PUA advice.

        each woman has an attraction function, a fair bit of which is common to most women, and much of this overlap is super-hackable, but there’s something displeasing about this

        Many people, including a lot of women, believe that attraction functions, if allowed to work without interference, will bring together compatible partners for a mutually satisfying relationship (see: “chemistry”). Therefore, “hacking” someone’s attraction function is tantamount to tricking them into wasting their time on a relationship they won’t enjoy (see also: the “used car salesman” archetype).

        After reading some PUAs’ reports of their one-night-stands and relationships, I’m afraid this is at least partially true. And the saddest thing is — even when everything is going well, these guys are unable to relax and enjoy the experience, because they have been taught to be hypervigilant about staying in control 24/7.

    • Alphaceph says:

      Rationalists don’t talk about pick up because the SJW/Feminist segments of the community have successfully blackmailed the community into decreeing that talking about pick-up is a thoughtcrime. See Scott’s post:

      “I will allow this one thread, after which I would prefer no further object-level discussion of PUA.”

      The blackmail runs along the lines of “if you talk about pick up, we will cause such a stink/headache for the admins that they’ll regret allowing the conversation to happen”

      This is how a lot of epistemology now works in the rationalist community: something is false when one particularly vocal, politically adept part of the community decress that anyone who says it’s true is evil and any further discussion of the subject will be punished.

      • Stefan Drinic says:

        Alternatively, Scott is someone who hates seeing things that upset him to the point where even speaking of the great horror that is doge will send him into a catatonic state, and not creating massive threads on pickup is the polite thing to do.

        • Alphaceph says:

          Isn’t that just another way of restating/sugar coating what I just said?

          “This topic will upset/offend someone so you can’t talk about it” = “this topic is thoughtcrime and you will be banned if you talk about it”

          BTW I have no problem with the idea of caving in to the feminist thought police; especially when the host is known by his true name.

          I just object to the sugar-coating because I see it as dark-side epistemology.

          • Stefan Drinic says:

            There’s plenty things being discussed here that’ll make people feel bad. This thread alone has people argue points that many SJW-aligned folks would gleefully interpret as racist, islamophobic, or vaguely classist. Our host does not object to these discussions, and nobody is telling anyone out there to be quiet because ohmygosh they might feel bad… But because there’s one particular subject that he’d rather not see too much discussion about, suddenly the reasoning behind it must be because the feminist thought police is breathing down everyone’s necks and we’re all deathly afraid of offending them?

          • Alphaceph says:

            I thought “race” was also banned in the open thread; there are 500+ comments here, if you think there’s a frank race/islam discussion going on do point me to it.

          • Stefan Drinic says:

            Just ctrl+f islam and go to town reading the discussion started by JakeR. There’s no need to tar this whole blog as ‘afraid of all feminists and enforcing thoughtcrime’ when there’s some social justice heresy going on just fine.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            So talk about this on rationalist tumblr? Certain topics tend to quickly drag a comment section to shit so Scott’s fully within his rights to ban them, especially if there’s an easily accessible adjunct community for discussing them.

          • Wrong Species says:

            I have to agree with Stefan that I don’t think this is social justice thing but I also have to agree with Alphaceph that the reasoning seems suspicious. There are quite a few subjects that we have talked about to death on SSC(even outside of race and gender) and Scott doesn’t seem to have a problem with those.

          • Pku says:

            I’d say Scott has probably pretty much given up on stopping race/religion discussions, but still hopes to contain PUA.

          • Alphaceph says:

            > talk about this on rationalist tumblr

            It’s better than nothing I suppose!

          • SUT says:

            Banning discussions on PUA is legitimate in the same way as banning consumption of cocaine in your libertarian bar.

            Sure a line or two is not going to kill anybody, but if you read “The Game” or online forums, you see that for certain people, this becomes the singular pursuit of their lives. And why not, sex, and the ego boost of getting laid is like a drug to men. And like snapped out people trying to be rational, PUA’s seem to have a harder time being intellectually rigorous in the tradition of this site.

            In summary, without dismissing the object-level claims of PUA, there’s good reason to not make it a welcome topic.

        • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

          >Scott is someone who hates seeing things that upset him to the point where even speaking of the great horror that is doge

          Scott has already embraced the truth of the gode, there’s no going back now.

  40. Saal says:

    I sent this to your tumblr, Scott, but I’ll just go ahead and stick it here as well:
    https://github.com/moridinamael/raikoth

    If guy-who-is-making-this sees this, I’d be interested in seeing where you plan on going with it and potentially getting involved.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      I’m not sure how to interpret this. I see the description, but is there an existing program yet? If so, where do I find it?

      • Saal says:

        No, it’s basically empty at the moment. It looks like he’s planning on building it on the Ethereum blockchain though, which is an interesting little system that I recommend looking into if you’re not aware of it.

      • moridinamael says:

        Okay, so, I was reading about Ethereum at the same time I happened to be perusing your Raikoth materials and my brain did that “these things are somehow related” thing.

        I spent quite a bit of time playing with Ethereum and started coding some contracts which would be analagous to citizenship/”ownership” contracts, but at this point haven’t moved beyond that. Ethereum is really new and there’s a paucity of tools and frameworks for making things within it. I figured it would be a more efficient use of my time to wait for some tools to be created before moving forward with it. A lot of the tools I thought about leveraging such as Augur (an Ethereum-based prediction market that looks very promising, which I would be in a sense coupling with the Angel of Evidence) haven’t even launched yet and so I obviously can’t incorporate them.

        tldr: there’s a little code written but I don’t think the framework is ready to handle even a cartoon implementation quite yet.

    • moridinamael says:

      As I mention in my reply to Scott, it’s sort of stalled due to the fact that Augur isn’t launched yet and also I feel like I should just wait for a library of good contracts to be written that I can borrow from rather than trying to hack something this complex on a platform that I barely understand.

      If you want to get involved, I just made this Google Group, peek in there and maybe we can get a discussion going: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/raikoth-ethereum

  41. Earthly Knight says:

    Bayesians!

    I have a puzzle for you. Call it Caie’s paradox of anti-expertise.

    Suppose that I am taking a shot in pool, but am encumbered by a strange form of stage fright. Specifically, if my confidence that I will make the shot is .5 or higher, I will tighten up and almost certainly miss, while if my confidence that I will make the shot is below .5, I will feel like the pressure’s off and almost certainly sink the ball.

    Now consider the following two propositions:

    (P): I will make the shot
    (~P): It is not the case that I will make the shot

    Here’s the puzzle: what pair of credences should I assign to the propositions (P) and (~P) in order to maximize the accuracy of my belief states?

    (Assume that the chance that I sink the ball is independent of my confidence in (~P)– my subconscious doesn’t understand negation.)

    • Kiya says:

      .4999, 0 or .5, 1 seem pretty good.
      By the setup of your problem you’re going to be wrong about P, so keep close to center on it. Because of the sharp cutoff at 0.5, you can predict ~P pretty exactly, so may as well.

      I think most people’s subconscious do understand negations though.

      • Earthly Knight says:

        .4999, 0 or .5, 1 seem pretty good.

        These are the right answers. Is either an answer a Bayesian can give?

    • Alejandro says:

      If I am fully aware of my stage fright and can reason through all its consequences for my beliefs, then it seems that the only stable probability assignment is 0.5 to both P and ~P. You did not specify what happens with my shot in that case but it is a reasonable assumption (continuity) that if my confidence is exactly 0.5 then my chances of making the shot successfully are also 0.5.

      You can sharpen the paradox (at the cost of making it even more more psychologically unrealistic) by ruling out continuity. Say, for confidence greater or equal to 0.5 I will fail the shot for sure, but when it is lower I will make it for sure. Then I am in a situation where my beliefs include:

      A) P(X) < 0.5 X

      (I have replaced your notation P by X, to reseve P to mean “probability assigned to”). This is paradoxical because if I assign any number smaller than 0.5, by (A) I should infer X and update to 1, whence again by invoking (A) I update again to 0, and so on.

      This paradox is discussed in the MIRI article “Definability of Truth in Probabilistic Logic” (pdf). The conclusion there, if I understand it correctly, is that the paradox is caused by assuming an agent can have fully precise knowledge about their own probability assignments. Relaxing only slightly this assumption (disallowing fully precise knowledge, but allowing knowledge with any given error no matter how small) solves the paradox and leads to a consistent probability assignment of 0.5. If I do in fact assign P(X) = 0.5 exactly, but can’t know that I did it exactly (I can only know that my probability is on a tiny interval s centered around 0.5), then I cannot infer ~X and fall into paradox. My subjective assignment of P(X) = 0.5 is consistent and the best guess I can do; by assumption I end up failing the shot, but I can’t know that in advance.

      • Earthly Knight says:

        You did not specify what happens with my shot in that case but it is a reasonable assumption (continuity) that if my confidence is exactly 0.5 then my chances of making the shot successfully are also 0.5.

        Yes, I did. If my confidence is .5 or higher, almost-certain failure. If my confidence is below .5, almost-certain success. A disjunction, no continuity.

        This paradox is discussed in the MIRI article “Definability of Truth in Probabilistic Logic” (pdf).

        The problem addressed there is a different one. I believe that the present paradox will hold even if we alter the formulation to “if my confidence that I will make the shot is [in an arbitrarily small interval around] .5 or higher, I will tighten up and almost certainly miss, while if my confidence that I will make the shot is below [an arbitrarily small interval around] .5, I will feel like the pressure’s off and almost certainly sink the ball.”

        Actually, I think the opacity-of-credal-states response will only work if we allow that my credal states can be maximally opaque, that is, if I have no idea where on the closed interval [0,1] they fall. But this defies credulity.

    • That’s an example of a problem that shows we don’t necessarily have a completely independent choice. Presumably you would “choose” .5 confidence. Might also see:

      http://mindingourway.com/newcomblike-problems-are-the-norm/

    • Adam says:

      I believe most athletic endeavors are such that your assessment at a subconscious level of whether you can hit a target is usually more reliable than trying to explicitly reason about it. The part of your brain devoted to maintaining muscle memory and not devoted to worry and explanation is a better Bayesian than the part that talks.

    • grort says:

      Why are you trying to maximize the accuracy of your belief states? As a rationalist, your goal is to win. Assign (0, 1) every time, and be happy to be wrong.

      (This is a weird result, but I suspect that’s because it’s a weird question. It’s very unusual for humans to have this sort of stage fright, and for those that do, it’s even more unusual for them to be able to arbitrarily assign numbers to their confidence of success. I think the closest real-life situation would be someone who tries very hard to convince themself that they’re going to fail, but only sometimes succeeds at that process.)

      • grort says:

        A better phrasing: Normally we think of confidence numbers as these sort of abstract values which exist only in mindspace, and which can only affect the world by improving our predictions. Under those circumstances, of course we want to have good confidence numbers.

        In this case, we’ve discovered a confidence number which affects the world directly, which is very weird, but let’s exploit the heck out of it as long as it makes us win.

    • Gerry Quinn says:

      The last of the Ted Chiang stories linked by Linch a couple of threads above might be relevant…

    • Earthly Knight says:

      Alright! 36 hours have passed, so here are some answers. Kiya’s probability assignments above are, as I said, correct– the best you can do is to assign a credence of .5 to (P) and a credence of 1 to (~P). Why is this a paradox? Well, it’s a paradox because this is an incoherent set of probability assignments– it violates the Kolmogorov axioms.*

      This should be cause for alarm for Bayesians. The main selling point for Bayesianism was that probabilistic coherence was guaranteed to maximize accuracy– in other words, for every incoherent assignment of credences, there would always be some coherent set of credences which would be more accurate. This turns out not to be the case, as the present example demonstrates. And if Bayesianism sometimes gets in the way of having accurate beliefs, well, why would anyone care to be a Bayesian?

      If anyone’s interest is piqued, here’s an abridged version of Caie’s original paper. Be forewarned, if you thought my exposition was in any way unclear or too technical, you’re in for a rough ride.

      *The proof of this is simple:

      1. (P) and (~P) are mutually exclusive (by Non-Contradiction).
      2. Cr(P or ~P) must be the sum of Cr(P) and Cr(~P) (by 1, Additivity).
      3. Cr(P or ~P) is 1.5 (by 2, arithmetic).
      4. (P or ~P) is a tautology, and so must be assigned a credence of 1 (by Normalization).
      5. But 1=/=1.5

      • Adam says:

        Why is the Bayesian answer not take 10,000 shots and update your confidence based on how many you actually sink? I know that sounds inherently frequentist, but the point of Bayesianism isn’t to ignore evidence or never seek it. It’s just to not ignore priors while evaluating evidence.

        • Earthly Knight says:

          The short answer is that when you have prior knowledge of the objective chances you don’t need to concern yourself with frequencies. If you know that a die is fair, roll it 100 times and get 30 sixes, your credence that the die will come up a six next time should remain at .18. And here it is built into the scenario that I know the objective chance of my making a shot is approximately 1 when my credence is below .5 and approximately 0 when my credence is .5 or higher.

          The long answer is that, if I do as you suggest, I’m going to make almost exactly half the shots and wind up very near (.5,.5), which is still inaccurate. Given reasonable priors, each shot where I’m at .5 or above I will miss and update slightly downwards, while each shot where I start out below .5 I will sink the ball and bump my credence slightly upwards. In fact there is no observed frequency which will translate into the most accurate assignment (.5,1), because this would require me to miss 100% of the shots and sink a further 50%.

          • Montfort says:

            I can’t help but notice that in your long answer, the determined probability (0.5 +/- epsilon) becomes vanishingly close to the observed probability (0.5 +/- epsilon). I also notice that this answer sounds much more intuitively pleasing than “time to break the axioms of probability(!) in such a way that I can never observe results that agree with my assigned probability.”

            (quotes are, of course, a mildly comical paraphrase, not a literal quotation)

          • Earthly Knight says:

            If the concern is that I could never acquire observational evidence that I have the relevant type of anti-expertise, it is misplaced. Surely I can notice that my having a confident feeling when I shoot the ball is perfectly correlated with my missing.

            And there is nothing more “intuitively pleasing” than being right!

          • Adam says:

            Makes more sense that way. You got me with prior knowledge of the objective chances. That isn’t possible with actual pool shots, so isn’t the way any pool players form assessments of their own ability. I’m too wedded to reality for some of these paradoxes.

    • James Picone says:

      The gap between (P) and reality is essentially (1 – n) for n = 0.5 (because you will miss).

      So the best you can do is P=0.5, ~P=0.5, and the gap between P and reality is 0.5. Also, you won’t sink the ball. 0.49999[a finite number of additional 9s] would be almost as close and you’d actually sink the ball, so that might be preferable.

      That seems intuitively obvious to me, so I’ve almost certainly fucked something up massively and completely missed the point.

      • Earthly Knight says:

        Thank you for giving the (incorrect) orthodox answer! This is really what I was fishing for. It would not even occur to a true Bayesian to have incoherent probability assignments, but you can in fact increase your accuracy in this unusual case by augmenting your credence in ~P to 1.

  42. Can someone please explain the comb jelly joke to me?

    I’ve been thinking about it for way too long and at this point I don’t even know how to pronounce the answer. (Ten dollars four cents? Ten oh four?)

  43. John says:

    Steve Sailer, of all people, missed the race angle in Vietnam. The French speaking collaborators included many, many ethnic Chinese that are part of the cantonese speaking diaspora. These people tend to be businessmen and traders, moneylenders etc. Think about the Jews of se asia. They are a market dominent minority and in 1975 they were mostly ejected from Vietnam. Their property was seized.

    Something similar happened in Indonesia and East Timor in the 60s and 70s.

    China is resented in Vietnam, and they even fought a mini war in 1979. But the Japanese are hated.

  44. James says:

    A book recommendation and an acknowledgement of a book recommendation:

    To whomever was talking in the last open thread about how much they love ‘black box’ fiction (FacelessCraven?): you should read Solaris. Actually, it’s such a central example of ‘that sort of thing’ that there’s a good chance you already have, but the fact that you didn’t mention it makes me think maybe you haven’t. It’s brilliant, one of my favourite novels, and centred around a deeply creepy central mystery which I think you would probably enjoy. (The two movies versions of it are both fairly good and each fairly unfaithful to it in their own way; neither is a good substitute for the novel itself.)

    To whomever has been recommending Ted Chiang around these parts (actually, this might describe more than one person): I’ve been reading what stories of his I can get my hands on online. The Merchant And The Alchemist’s Gate is wonderful. (I thought the playful thousand-and-one-nights stylisation and the tales-within-a-tale were very Borges). The other stories I’ve read of his are also good (though not quite as great).

    • Paul Torek says:

      Seconded on Solaris, but then, Lem is just a god.

      I’ll look for Ted Chiang.

    • Ilya Shpitser says:

      Lem is really good.

      Strugatsky Bros. are really good, too.

    • James says:

      Replying to self to try and catch the other people who like Lem: can you who like Lem recommend anything else of his? I’m at a loss to find anything else of his that’s as good. I find the Cyberiad stories that I’ve read fun, so far as they go, but gratingly whimsical. I found his collection of reviews of made-up books (I forget the title) boring when I tried it (though admittedly I didn’t try very hard), even though I feel like in some respects it’s just the sort of thing I should theoretically like. Is there anything else?

      • Anatoly says:

        Novels that are like “Solaris” in that they deal with the vast difficulty, bordering on impossibility, to understand and communicate with truly alien minds: “Eden” and “His Master’s Voice”.

        “The Investigation” and “The Chain of Chance” are present-time scientifically-minded detective stories with deep and unsettling philosophical implications.

        “The Futurological Congress” is a very powerful exploration of virtual-reality escapism on a massive scale, written before virtual reality was a thing (so Lem based it on psychotropic drugs rather than on computer simulation).

        “Tales of Pirx the Pilot” and the follow-up collection are superb conventional-SF astronaut stories that are somehow sneakily memorable.

        I tried to select for you works that dated little if at all, and that aren’t whimsical. My personal favorite among all these is “Eden”.

      • youzicha says:

        My favorite Lem book is Fiasco: a spaceship from Earth sets out to make first contact with a different planet, which turns out to be a lot harder than you’d think. The style is kindof dry, basically continuous info-dumping, but it has a high density of cool ideas.

    • jaimeastorga2000 says:

      I’ve been reading my way through Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others. “Tower of Babylon” was amazing; definitely worthy of its Nebula award. “Seventy-Two Letters” was really good, too. “Understand” reads like a slower, less action-packed version of Vernor Vinge’s “True Names”. “Division by Zero” and “Story of Your Life” are examples of a format I’ve noticed in modern science fiction short stories in which you take a hard science fiction plot thread and a humanistic, character-focused plot thread and alternate scenes from them until you join them together at the climax. I’m not a huge fan of this format, because the human interest scenes tend to be boring as hell, and these stories are not the exception; I was much more interested in the aliens and the mathematical contradiction than the protagonists’ domestic difficulties. “The Evolution of Human Science” was okay, I guess, but not specially noteworthy. I haven’t yet read “Hell Is the Absence of God” or “Liking What You See: A Documentary”.

    • FacelessCraven says:

      I have never read Solaris, nor have I seen the movies; I don’t even think I saw trailers for the george clooney one. I’ll definately check it out!

      [EDIT] – Warren Ellis, of Transmetropolitan fame, has a new comic series in progress called Trees that seems at least Black-Box-Adjacent. The writing displays a healthy dose of Ellis’ faults and a heap of Social Justice messaging, but it looks pretty promising all the same.

    • Linch says:

      I think I was {one of/the one?} waxing poetic about Ted Chiang in these parts. Here are some of his stories that were not in the Stories of Your Life and Others anthology (which is also where I first heard of Chiang):

      Exhalation: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/exhalation/
      A wonderfully philosophical tale about a scientist exploring the curious question of why all the clocks in the world seem to be running faster than usual. I’m deliberately being vague on the details because the slow reveal is a huge part of the story.

      The Lifecycle of Software Objects: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_lifecycle_of_software_objects_by_ted_chiang

      A near-future novella about artificial intelligence, written in an incredibly personal way that’s unlike any other fictional treatment of AI that I have read before. I don’t like speaking in vagaries, but “human” is the best way I know of to describe it. No conventional Singularity or paperclipping or seed AI, just the experiences of raising, and learning from, a new intelligence through the booms and busts of a business cycle. Another commentator mentioned how he relatively disliked the “human interest” aspect of Chiang’s stories, so this may not be up his alley. For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed it.

      The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling: https://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2013/the_truth_of_fact_the_truth_of_feeling_by_ted_chiang
      A story about how technology changes the way we remember. Two stories are woven together. The first is about how people in the future have “lifelogs” that store their entire past. This by itself doesn’t change how people act dramatically. However, this hip new technology called Remem lets you easily and perfectly search past “memories”-albeit uncorrupted by nostalgia. I just watched the Black Mirror episode “The Entire History of You,” which has a very similar motif, but extremely different conclusions (Also Chiang is subtler). The second is about the introduction of writing to a native tribe during the Scramble for Africa. Ted Chiang shows that here, too, the technology of writing alters not just the way we communicate, but also the nature of truth and memory.

      The Great Silence:
      http://supercommunity.e-flux.com/authors/ted-chiang/

      Story (present tense) about the Hawaii telescope, the search for extraterrestrial life and sentientism. Too artsy for me and probably most of the other people on this blog, but it’s cool and made me think.

      What’s expected of us:
      http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v436/n7047/full/436150a.html

      A very short story about free will.

      • DrBeat says:

        This is interesting stuff! Thanks for linking it.

      • James says:

        I found The Lifecycle Of Software Objects too unfocused for me to really like it. It felt like an exploration of a bunch of only-partly-related ideas, in series (i.e. without very much structure). I might have liked it better if it were shorter, or contained fewer ideas, or if the ideas cohered together with more structure.

        I didn’t mind the human elements of Division By Zero, per se, but I didn’t love it as a story, either.

        Exhalation is good. I know I called The Merchant And The Alchemist Borges-y above, so I’m probably starting to sound like I’ve got Borges on the brain (which is admittedly true), but I’m quite sure its opening line is a deliberate reference to the opening line of Borges’ Library of Babel. I agree that the slow reveal is an important part of the story, and works very well. I can’t think of too many other short stories that work quite like this. (Perhaps The Library of Babel is a candidate.)

      • Kevin says:

        I hadn’t seen The Great Silence, thanks for the link!

        This reddit thread has a bunch of links to Chiang stories: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/1y5x3k/everything_by_ted_chiang/

      • Deiseach says:

        I found “The Great Silence” too sentimental, but then again I have very little tolerance for the Magical Negro genre of lecturing where modern industrialised Western man is ticked off for not being One With Nature by a member of a mystically linked in to Mother Nature if more technologically ‘primitive’ culture. (I think modern etc. can well stand a bit of ticking-off for our faults but not by ‘if you only gave up everything and went back to living in mud huts you would be so much better off because of the primal mystical colours-of-the-wind wisdom’ type finger-wagging; I very much doubt Mr Chiang wants to go live like an Amazonian tribesman even if that would save the parrots).

        The Noble Savage myth did no favours to the people it was holding up as exemplars; “Avatar” made me cheer on the Evil General and the Evil Human Corporation Army smushing the blue puddy-tats when its intent was quite the other, and Chiang’s story makes me want to go pull feathers out of parrots’ tails 🙂

        • Linch says:

          *nods* Many of Ted Chiang’s other stories can be read as cautiously pro-technology and against inertia bias (His day job is a technical writer). The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling is an excellent example of this. Liking What You see:A Documentary, is another. (SPOILERS, albeit mild) One thing Chiang does really well is that if he has an interesting idea, he will have a (mostly) likable narrator be initially antagonistic to the idea, but slowly warm up to it as the story goes along. This is similar to the first novel in Iain M.Bank’s Culture series, although the “Culture” is less about the social changes that comes from a discrete technological advance and more about a large identity.

          I think “if you only gave up everything and went back to living in mud huts you would be so much better off because of the primal mystical colours-of-the-wind wisdom’ type finger-wagging” is exaggerating the case though. Even without my special knowledge about Chiang’s other stories, I don’t think that’s a plausible reading of The Great Silence. I think it’s a trivial point that destroying the rainforest is neither a necessary nor sufficient criterion for technological advancement. Whether or not preserving the rainforest is worth it is a separate question but “We should not care about the rainforest because the Internet” would be an odd argument too. Arguably we can/should do more to preserve the existence of other sentient beings on Earth w/o sacrificing significant technological advancement (I’m personally ambivalent about this for complicated reasons).

          Avatar annoyed me as well; I think most writers and directors have trouble depicting an intelligent alien race as, well, alien and not conforming to morphological or psychological (Western) human standards. District Nine was a little better, but it still didn’t go far enough. (Though I appreciated the movie quite a bit more after I learned how Blomkamp got some of his scenes! Arguably unethical, but very aesthetic).

          ““Avatar” made me cheer on the Evil General and the Evil Human Corporation Army smushing the blue puddy-tats when its intent was quite the other, and Chiang’s story makes me want to go pull feathers out of parrots’ tails ”
          …This is literally outside of my range of plausible reactions and I have no idea how to process or respond to it. I wonder if it’s similar to schadenfreude? (Another emotion I do not understand, but is apparently really common).

          • Deiseach says:

            I agree with the point about destroying the rain forest, I even agree that “if you can’t identify intelligence on your own world, how will you recognise alien intelligence?”

            I don’t think the rainforest lecture needed to be delivered by a super-intelligent parrot rather than a native human Amazonian, though. That’s a bit too cutesy-poo (that last line! Oh God, oh Montreal!) for my tastes. Then again, I am an avowed BLOODMOUTH CARNIST. Anybody got any good recipes for baked parrot? 🙂

            You be good. I love you.

            A sentiment fit to grace a Hallmark Commercially-Faked-Emotion Day greetings card, and one dripping bathos by the bushelful. If Polly is so smart, it had better occupy its beak only in gnawing on cuttlefish bones if it knows what is good for it.

            I have no objection to ordinary sentiment, but squawked out by a parrot oleaginous in its self-righteousness, such a little animal fable does indeed evoke in me the desire to pull out feathers. La Fontaine’s beasts at least had some 17th century gravitas (and were graced with 18th century wit and sparkle in later editions) to their moralising!

            As for “Avatar”, it was one particular moment where the intent was to show how Evil the Evil General was and how noble etc etc etc the blue puddy-tats were; it was in the aftermath of the attack on the sacred tree (or whatever the McGuffin was) and they were all emoting and acting pained and grieved (well, as much as CGI could act).

            Instead of feeling moved and sympathetic, my reaction to the “same pouting face as a four year old throwing a tantrum” expressions was “My God, these lot are hopeless ninnies. Wetter than a haddock’s bathing costume! Don’t just stand there with a face on you! At least the Evil General has some blood in his veins – go, Evil General! Smush the blue puddy-tats!”

            Apparently I like a man of action. Who knew? 🙂

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            I was disappointed in Avatar, but as a first vehicle for peak-of-darien class new artform…. Hey, they can’t all be Snow White or Star Wars.

        • rsaarelm says:

          “Avatar” made me cheer on the Evil General and the Evil Human Corporation Army smushing the blue puddy-tats

          And above your tomb, the stars will belong to us.

  45. Stefan Drinic says:

    I’m genuinely interested to hear what our resident libertarians think of the sale of antibiotics.

    I can see why you’d want to legalise weed or other drugs, as ‘this harms only the user and nobody else’ is technically not a wrong argument in such a case. Are there libertarians here who are for legalisation of most/many drugs but not antibiotics, or even those who think they should be legalised anyway?

    Note: I’m aware antibiotics can be easily bought in many places worldwide. My country keeps them prescription-based, and I think that’s for the best, too.

    • Jon Gunnarsson says:

      I’m a libertarian, but don’t know enough about antibiotics to know whether the good effects of banning the sale of non-prescription antibiotics outweigh the bad. It may well be that this is one of the rare cases where government intervention leads to a better outcome than the free market.

      • Stefan Drinic says:

        Bad side effects of freely available antibiotics: everyone and their mother can and often will use the things whenever they get so much as a sniffle, which leads to an increase in resistant bacteria and isn’t very good for the human anti-immune system in general.

        Positive side effects of freely available antibiotics: you can get your antibiotics to treat some infection a few hours earlier than you would on a prescription basis, I guess?

        • Jon Gunnarsson says:

          Some good effects of freely available antibiotics you didn’t consider: if you or someone you know and trust has the relevant medical knowledge to be pretty sure that your doctor would just prescribe you antibiotics, you can just buy them right away, cutting out the middleman and saving time and money. As with drug prohibition, there are costs associated with enforcement. And no matter how vigorous the enforcement, there always is a black market in whatever prohibited goods people wish to buy, with all the problems that entails.

          As I already said, I do not know if these benefits outweigh the harms, but the matter certainly isn’t as black and white as you suggest.

          • Stefan Drinic says:

            I did not consider those things, it is true.

            On the other hand.. I haven’t the faintest clue about some kind of antibiotic black market existing where I live, not to mention in other places where they’re not so easy to get. There probably are ways to make sure you can get some without a doctor’s direct approval, but I’m fairly sure that even with minimal enforcement you could cut down on unnecessary antibiotic use enough for the sheer reason that most people aren’t the sort to illegally acquire antibiotics for whatever reason.

          • Saal says:

            The black market in antibiotics is online, not local. I’ve only used antibiotics once in the past 3 years or so, but when I did, I purchased them via Canadian pharmacies. you can also get high-quality medications from India.

          • Pku says:

            Is there a particular reason you didn’t just go to a doctor? it seems like it’s be simpler and probably cheaper, and I think doctors are pretty trigger-happy with antibiotics if you have a legitimate complaint (though I guess it’s possible they’re tougher about it wherever you live).
            (Unless you actually are canadian, in which case I misread that whole comment).

          • Saal says:

            I am uninsured. Just the cost of seeing a PA or nurse practitioner at a low-cost health clinic in my area is more expensive than ordering antibiotics online.

            Edit: Doctors are extremely trigger-happy with antibiotics everywhere I’ve ever lived. The antibiotic question was actually the first step on a road which led me to disavow orthodox libertarianism.

            Edit2: Another route that I’ve seen some uninsured people in my area take is purchasing veterinary broad-spectrum antibiotics (eg sulfa for cattle and other livestock) and just changing the dose, but I live in an area in Texas known for ranching, so it’s probably not all that common elsewhere.

          • jaimeastorga2000 says:

            Another route that I’ve seen some uninsured people in my area take is purchasing veterinary broad-spectrum antibiotics (eg sulfa for cattle and other livestock) and just changing the dose, but I live in an area in Texas known for ranching, so it’s probably not all that common elsewhere.

            The way I heard it is that you can just buy fish antibiotics over-the-counter for human use.

          • Lupis42 says:

            @Saal
            Edit: Doctors are extremely trigger-happy with antibiotics everywhere I’ve ever lived. The antibiotic question was actually the first step on a road which led me to disavow orthodox libertarianism.

            Oddly, I had the opposite reaction to this sort of question. Antibiotic resistance seems like the sort of co-ordination problem that might require a governmental or regulatory solution. Hey, we have a large regulatory apparatus around the creation and use of drugs. What are they doing? They’re ignoring the problem, while spending enormous resources punishing doctors for prescribing painkillers, suppressing research into the use of marijuana, because it might turn out to be too cheap, effective, and free of harmful side effects, and restricting access to pseudo-ephedrine.

    • Earthly Knight says:

      Important point here: the biggest problem with antibiotic use is farmers (i.e. large agricultural corporations) using them indiscriminately on livestock in order to make a few extra bucks, and not with little Cindy Lou’s parents insisting that she be given amoxicillin for her head cold.

      • Stefan Drinic says:

        Yeah, that’s true. I’d like seeing the mass feeding of antibiotics to livestock reduced, too. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, agriculture gets too much popular and governmental support in general, which ironically again is something a libertarian could get behind. I’m just curious whether or not many libertarians would support antibiotics being free for all, and the thought process behind such a position.

        • keranih says:

          PS I would love to see a way to convince a pathogen that it was only allowed to develop resistance to a drug if the drug was administered to a cow that belonged to a large agriculture corporation, whilst refraining from developing resistance when the same drug was given to a cow that was on a family farm.

          That would be a neat trick!

          • Linch says:

            Unless I completely misunderstand his prior comments on this issue, Earthly Knight isn’t exactly a fan of livestock-raising “family farms” (to put it mildly), so I don’t think your sarcasm is particularly relevant here.

          • keranih says:

            @ Linch –

            I will cop to sarcasm, which was not necessarily kind.

            I do, hold that it is relevant, particularly in the context discussed.

      • keranih says:

        Important point here: the biggest problem with antibiotic use is farmers (i.e. large agricultural corporations) using them indiscriminately on livestock in order to make a few extra bucks, and not with little Cindy Lou’s parents insisting that she be given amoxicillin for her head cold.

        This sort of statement should be supported with data. (It may be difficult to find this data, as the statement is not accurate.)

        A decent starting place for a summary of the state of the science, and of the current consensus of experts is 2014 Report to the President.

        Let me be clear – there is a common global microorganism pool, and any use of antibiotics – in people, cows, cats, whatever – increases the development of resistant pathogens, and brings the day closer when that drug is no longer effective against that pathogen. But if you look at the list of drugs of concern, and of pathogens of concern, you see that overwhelmingly, the diseases of concern are human-specific, and it is through the misuse of drugs in the human population that we are in the current fix.

        We have multi-drug resistant TB because treatment of TB in humans is not done optimally. We have multi-drug resistant gonorrhea because we have mismanaged that as well. MRSA is a human pathogen, with occasional and rare cross contamination into animals. C. diff is almost entirely a disease that comes from patient-specific antibiotic overuse. (I could go on and on, do read the report and do the research.) I support the shift to reduce use of antibiotics of concern in any animals, so that we preserve them for human use, but attempts to blame agriculture for this are counterproductive and mostly consist of tribal signalling.

        • Earthly Knight says:

          The degree to which antibiotic use in livestock has contributed to the current spread of multi-resistant diseases is not known, although likely to be substantial, as your link says repeatedly. Your inference from the fact that the diseases of concern are human-specific to the conclusion that the problem is caused primarily by antibiotic overuse in humans is erroneous, because the frequency of lateral gene transfer between livestock-specific pathogens and human-specific pathogens is also not known.

          It is relevant that the great majority of antibiotics used in this country are given to livestock, and that perhaps half of antibiotic use in humans is medically necessary.

          • keranih says:

            The degree to which antibiotic use in livestock has contributed to the current spread of multi-resistant diseases is not known

            Exactly, after a number of people have spent a great deal of time trying to determine just how badly “farmers” were harming all of us.

            And in direct contrast to your previous statement that agricultural antibiotic use was “the biggest problem”. It’s not.

            your conclusion that the fact that the diseases of concern are human-specific to the conclusion that the problem is caused primarily by antibiotic overuse in humans is erroneous, because the frequency of lateral gene transfer between livestock-specific pathogens and human-specific pathogens is also not known.

            Not so. Firstly, it is not an erroneous conclusion, because any review of the history of antibiotic resistance would show that issues in human populations occurred long before the use of antibiotics in animals. Secondly, half an instant’s consideration of the problem would show that “agricultural-related resistance” would show up first in food animal veterinarians and farmers – as does agriculture-related pathogens, such as bovine-origin tb, glanders, avian influenza, brucellosis, and half-a-hundred other zoonotic diseases. Instead, antibiotic resistance shows up in conditions of urban poverty and poor patient compliance (due to funds, instability in living conditions, poor housing, lack of education, whatever).

            The exact degree of influence of agriculture antibiotics on global resistance patterns is not known. But not for lack of people who really REALLY wanted to find a smoking gun to show that “large agriculture conglomerations” are teh evol.

            What is very well understood, though, is that human misuse of antibiotics directly leads to resistance patterns. In this context, trying to blame farmers – either “large corporate conglomerations” or not – for the on-going disease and death, and for degradation of our most potent tools against human and animal misery – is blame shifting which does next to nothing to fix the problem, and a great deal of harm in convincing the public that “farmers” are responsible for the mess we are in – and not the people lining up for abx for Cindy’s snotty nose.

            (I suggest Farmer’s works on TB in Haiti.)

          • Earthly Knight says:

            Firstly, it is not an erroneous conclusion, because any review of the history of antibiotic resistance would show that issues in human populations occurred long before the use of antibiotics in animals.

            The argument you are making here is that because A preceded B as a cause of C, B could not be a/the significant cause of C. This is a patently invalid argument.

            The premise is also false. Antibiotic use in livestock dates back to ~1950, not long after antibiotics began being widely prescribed to humans.

            The exact degree of influence of agriculture antibiotics on global resistance patterns is not known. But not for lack of people who really REALLY wanted to find a smoking gun to show that “large agriculture conglomerations” are teh evol.

            The scientific consensus is that antibiotic use in livestock undoubtedly contributes to antibiotic-resistance in humans but that the magnitude of the effect is not known, your clueless protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. The key difference between antibiotic use in humans and antibiotic use in animals is that the latter is around 4 times as common but almost none (or, arguably, absolutely none) of it is medically necessary. This is why I say it is a bigger problem.

    • brad says:

      I think our policies around narcotics and antibiotics are exactly backwards. The DEA should be raiding offices looking for doctors prescribing antibiotics for viral colds, not doctors writing Oxycontin scripts to drug addicts.

      • Stefan Drinic says:

        Judging from all the replies I’m getting here, the consensus seems to be ‘no, freely available antibiotics shouldn’t be a thing,’ which is bad for my curiosity as far as the people who would support that are concerned, but a relief where it comes to libertarians present here thinking of the implications some of their policies might have.

        • anon85 says:

          If you’re looking to debate some less reasonable libertarians, you can try reddit’s /r/LibertarianDebates (I found it to be a pretty good place for finding ideological libertarians, but not a great place to have a productive debate).

          • Stefan Drinic says:

            Hey, I was curious, not out for internet points. I was wondering whether or not there are many libertarians who think antibiotics should be freely available, and whether or not the arguments in favor of them are very good. I’d rather try finding out here than on reddit.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      I don’t know if I count as libertarian, but I think I support legalizing most currently-prescription-only drugs, and I wouldn’t support that with antibiotics.

      • onyomi says:

        Although being an unambiguous libertarian myself, I still have problems with denying the sale of antibiotics to adults of sound mind, I think this is a much more defensible stance than the banning of heroin, etc. One is not, after all, reducing the efficacy of aspirin for everybody else by abusing heroin.

    • Ever An Anon says:

      Antibiotic resistance seems like a clear case of government intervention being justified.

      The cost of using antibiotics carelessly falls almost entirely on other people. By the same token using them with care is costly in terms of knowledge (most college educated people could not tell you whether any given disease is bacterial or not) or in the case of farmers directly costly because indiscriminate use actually increases the size of their animals. And of course erring on the side of safety can mean having a nasty infection or losing animals.

      Given that restrictions on antibiotics are pretty reasonable, and arguably could be a lot tighter.

    • John Schilling says:

      A corollary to the libertarian-purist economic ideal where antibiotics can be freely purchased over the counter, is that in the libertarian-purist free market the manufacturer can simply say, “We have an antibiotic that can still cure all the extreme drug-resistant infections out there, so we’re going for the market niche of Pay Us $50,000 If You Get One Of Those Infections, Or Die”. Other manufacturers can go after the Pay Us $10 So You Can Make Believe You’ve Done Something About Your Kid’s Cold market. Hmm, for best results the $50K antibiotic is only available at licensed inpatient clinics or through cooperating hospitals; makes sure everyone sticks around for the full course of treatment, and camouflages the price by bundling it with the clinic fee.

      If the libertarian utopia doesn’t have patent laws for an enforced monopoly, it probably doesn’t have an FDA requiring you to disclose the formula for approval, so you can get the same result by trade secrecy.

      Or, if you’re willing to allow for deviations from libertarian ideological purity, you can have the FDA require prescriptions for at least some antibiotics. For anyone but an extreme ideological purist, that looks like a pretty good trade – especially if you don’t insist on a prescription for every sort of antibiotic.

      Pragmatically, though, I don’t think it matters. Enough doctors will hand out the prescriptions on demand to negate the effect. Manufacturers will succumb to the temptation to expand their short-term markets, cartels will fall to defection, and neither patents nor trade secrets will last long enough. What will keep some antibiotics effective is that some antibiotics simply can’t be given in pill form, some have dangerous or unpleasant side effects, and nobody is going to sign up for twice-daily injections under medical supervision for a cold or flu.

    • James says:

      There is a great humility in regards to Libertarianism. If, as a single member of Libertarianism, I knew the answer of the best way to handle anything (antibiotics), then that would necessarily disprove Libertarianism, as oligarchy or central planning would be sufficient in handling the issue (antibiotics).

      So, if you’d like to prohibit them, then have a community which disallows them. Personally, I’m not educated on the subject enough so I’d probably look at the communities in Ancapistan, and observe how they treat antibiotics, and choose accordingly.

      Perhaps your health insurance, or rights protection agency, or private police force could recommend that your life expectancy and that of your kids is longer in that community where antibiotics are required, thereby making them more money over the course of your lifetime.

      • Saal says:

        This may have been an ok solution in the alternate timeline where people WEREN’T globally interconnected with near-free travel between communities. I mean, for god’s sake, ancaps are for open borders! Sure, I can go join my takes-antibiotics-only-when-needed community, but the next community over takes a sub-clinical dose twice daily and I’m not allowed to wall the stupid bastards out.

        • James says:

          Why are you not allowed to build a wall to keep “the stupid bastards out”?

          Seems a rather silly solution. The invader would not be able to drive on your communities roads without the antibiotic approved driver’s license. He could not eat without the antibiotic approved grocery membership. He could not pay for anything without the antibiotic approved debit card for your community’s bank. He would be unable to live in your community. Your local insurance company, police force, or antibiotic center would quarantine, feed, and deport the individual.

          Of course, the invader could cough and kill your entire community. So maybe your wall is the best solution. We won’t know until we are free. Free to fail. Free to voluntary associate with one another. Free to discriminate.

          Forgive me: Statists seem so humorless and lacking imagination. I imagine Statists looking at a pair of shoes, the dating market, and even friendships, and fainting at the thought that these things exist without government, force, and violence.

          Without anarchy, there would be chaos.

          • Saal says:

            Look, man. Don’t be that guy that throws the word ‘statist’ around and thinks he’s scored points. I’ve read my Rothbard, Mises, Hayek, Friedman, etc. I considered myself a libertarian for several years. I’m pro-recreational drug legalization, support legalizing prostitution, have real issues with bureaucratic regulation due to capture and public choice issues. I am a decidedly non-central example of ‘statist’.

            My opposition to freely available antibiotics has to do with how biology works. Having pro- and anti- freely available antibiotics communities DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM. Unless you are prepared to undertake a Berlin-wall style separation programme in all the communities around the dunces who are abusing their antibiotics (and probably not even then), you are not going to prevent those pathogens from getting out. If you’re close enough to check Mr. antibiotic-disapproved’s driver’s license (since when do ancaps do driver’s licences, btw?), you’ve already undergone significant risk of introducing the pathogen into your community, and if it’s something nasty, you may have doomed every medically vulnerable (young, old, autoimmune deficient, pregnant, etc.) person in your community to death. Scoffing at my statist control-freakness will not change that fact.

            As for “free to fail”, great. So now one little community’s fuckup means everyone else gets to undergo a massively harmful plague. But at least the morons with the amoxycillin were free, right?

          • Adam says:

            Give me liberty or give me unkillable drug-resistant super diseases.

          • James says:

            Your statement of not being able to build walls and your statement of driver’s licenses not being able to be voluntary and “ancap”, made me think of the statist close-mindedness.

            Apologies. I obviously don’t know enough about the subject. I can imagine experts on the subject can come up with voluntary solutions. Much like a road builder may come up with the voluntary exchange of currency for a license to drive on his roads. Perhaps that’s a bad idea. I don’t know. Let the experts have it out. I just can’t imagine the solution to antibiotics is not solved by force.

            I’m not particularly arguing that antibiotics be free.

          • Saal says:

            James, it’s not just that you “can’t build walls”, although I think it’s salient that open borders are kind of a big deal among ancaps. It’s that walls aren’t effective against microorganisms. Nor checkpoints, licensing, etc. And it’s the fact that if a superbug is made in one community, the chances are arbitrarily close to 0 that without a well-financed organization with a mandate to quarantine people, forcibly restrict travel, etc. (otherwise known as evil statism!!!!) you aren’t going to prevent that superbug from going wherever it damn well pleases. And you certainly aren’t going to prevent the superbug from coming into existence in the first place.

            The fact is, “we’ll just have communities for people who like superbugs and communities for people who don’t!” is the absolute weakest possible argument for libertarianizing(?) antibiotics. Some other libertarians in this thread have made stronger arguments, such as pointing out that the current system of “spend $150 and 3 hours getting antibiotics that the doctor is going to give you pretty much no matter what so everyone is wasting time, money, and STILL making superbugs” is not a particularly worthy one. There are changes that could be made to improve this (some of them even relatively libertarian in nature!); perhaps primary care doctors are so swamped with patients that they just hand out the scrips to empty their waiting rooms, and we need to make it easier for NP’s and PA’s to run their own practices so these less-credentialed people can handle some of the load, and ensure patients are getting properly diagnosed before writing scrips. I don’t know.

            What I do know is “We’ll just let each community decide if they wanna raise cute little pet superbugs and segregate ourselves from the ones that do!” is utterly detached from reality.

          • Wrong Species says:

            I remember having the same mindset when I was an ancap. The problem is that you say we aren’t being open minded but all statists make judgement calls on what the government should or shouldn’t be involved with(unless you think the Soviet Union is the way to go). So we’re all trying to figure this out and have learned it’s pretty difficult. The problem with ancap is that there is no room for being open minded. Every problem has to be answered with less government and you can’t budge on anything, because if the government is the right answer to anything, then that completely tears the down the case for ancap.

            There are many libertarian minded people here who would love for ancap to be the right choice for society and probably a decent percentage who were ancap at some point. Maybe we’re wrong and you’re right but you can’t just assume that we’re all brainwashed drones who mindlessly accepts the conventional narrative without question.

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            A lot of ancaps probably do believe that “if the government is the right answer to anything, then that completely tears the down the case for ancap.” But it isn’t necessarily true: history offers pretty good reasons for doubting that the government, once you’ve set it up, will limit itself to those things for which it’s the right answer.

          • To expand on Paul’s point …

            One result of having a government at the moment is a set of policies that make producing drugs much more expensive and sharply reduce the number produced. There’s an old Peltzman article where he estimated that one change in the regulations (The Kefauver Amendments) cut the number of new drugs coming out in half with no observable effect on average quality.

            The easier it is to produce new drugs, the less serious the problem of disease organisms adapting to the existing drugs.

            Of course, the argument can be made in the other direction as well. An A-C legal system probably would not have intellectual property law (for reasons I explain in one of the new chapters in the third edition of _MoF_). That might reduce the rate of innovation in drugs.

            More generally, since we have not found any mechanisms for making a government do all and only the things that are in the interest of the people it rules, the relevant comparison is not between A-C and the ideal government policy but between A-C and the set of government policies you think will result from having a government.

          • AlexanderRM says:

            Seeing that all the comments below this are about the practicality of building walls (and on that subject: I’d also like to note that in the real world, building walls isn’t free. So even if you could do that, that’s imposing a cost on the don’t-want-superbugs communities)- am I the only one who thinks the above description of an Ancap community doesn’t exactly sound very libertarian or free? In fact it sounds like a classic SF dystopia where everything is monitored.

            I assume the (unstated) difference between that and a state is that people have free exit rights, archipelago-style, even if they don’t have entry rights… which seems to mean you’d need to outlaw any sort of private contract which impeded those, which requires statism.

            Also, besides the deontological moral arguments, that basically means abandoning many of the *practical* arguments in favor of libertarianism- if free trade is beneficial, then keeping people out of the community is harmful (and thus another cost imposed on the community by the superbug folks).

      • Deiseach says:

        Prescribing medicines is one of the areas where we need to leave it up to the experts. Certainly the public expectation of “a pill for every ill” and the original enthusiasm (and lack of experience of what would happen) about antibiotics as the magic cure for everything led to over-prescribing.

        Now we know (or should know) that antibiotics can’t cure everything and that you need to follow the regime completely, so restrictions on antibiotics (not being able to walk in and buy them over the counter) sounds reasonable.

        Of course, we’re still far off the ideal situation where doctors test first and then prescribe according to what germ you have (instead of handing out a broad-spectrum antibiotic first off) and where patients understand what medicine they’re taking and why, and stick to completing the course, not mixing them with other medications, giving them to family members who have a lurgy, or thinking “The funny rash has gone away, I can get back on the dating scene and needn’t mention my little problem to potential partners” 🙂

      • Deiseach says:

        Speaking (broadly) of drugs and Libertarianism and should or shouldn’t the government intervene to ban/legalise things, what opinions on this story?

        I don’t want to write it off as “Greedy vulture sees opportunity to make a killing” and there probably is a point in there about hiking up prices of very rarely used drugs to fund research, but on the other hand – the guy does seem a bit dodgy (at least how he’s presented here) and if the drug is over sixty years old, is this a case for patent-busting? Or the government funding generics? I mean, if GSK sold off the rights, obviously it thought there wasn’t profit to be made, so how can the price supposedly leap from $13.50 a pill to $750? I know drugs can really be that expensive (my brother has just come back from being part of a team training in the workers on a production line for GSK in one of their English factories where they were making cancer medication that did indeed cost hundreds of pounds per dose) but this seems quite the hike (if true).

        • John Schilling says:

          As usual, Derek Lowe has a pretty good take on this, and why the industry shouldn’t stand for it

          And yes, it’s pretty much a straight ripoff. Part of the reason they can get away with it despite the drugs being long off-patent is that it costs a small fortune to certify that your formulation and production process is safe and effective even though you are at least in theory exactly duplicating what was proven safe and effective by the other guys twenty years ago. The other part is that one of the tests you have to do before you can sell an off-patent generic is to test your formulation head-to-head against the original, and these guys are strictly controlling the distribution (factory direct to certified sick people only, not for resale, no you can’t just pick some up at the local pharmacy). So when someone says “I need five thousand doses for a clinical trial”, they just say “No”, and if someone says “We just completed a clinical trial anyway”, they say “And which of your people committed fraud and perjury in the process?”

          The absolutist libertarian solution should be obvious. On the other hand, the sensitivity of drugs to trace impurities and other things that shouldn’t matter because These Are Supposed To Be The Same Thing, Dammit!, has been remarked on here before and there is value in trying to make sure a proper clinical trial is done.

          Probably not $750/pill valuable.

          • Deiseach says:

            The “factory direct” proviso seems get-around-able; since the pills are so expensive, if a rival company sponsors a local hospital (or even quietly advertises for sick people who are likely to be prescribed this if they can afford it) and takes a sample dose from every patient, might they get enough to at least get a start on back-engineering the stuff?

            Or just do “knock-off version in Third World country where people are more likely to have these diseases anyway and the government sure isn’t going to prosecute us for making cheap drugs”.

            EDIT: Actually, GSK only sold the American rights. So if a generic manufacturer could source UK version of the drug (which after all is the same thing), would that be a loophole to exploit? Turing Pharmaceutical didn’t research and develop the drug itself, it’s only making it to a recipe from GSK.

          • John Schilling says:

            I believe that, when the hospital orders a course of the meds for a sick person at $750/pill, they have to sign a document saying the pills will be used for that purpose only under penalty of Being Sued For Lots Of Money. Makes it difficult to simultaneously prove to the FDA that you used the right stuff in your clinical trial, and defend all of your con-conspirators against the inevitable lawsuit from the only authorized makers of the right stuff.

            Yes, workarounds can be managed, but they will probably involve more cost and risk than are justified by the profits of selling $15, or even $50, pills to a relatively small number of people with rare diseases. Because that is part of Shkreli’s particular racket, picking the half-forgotten drugs for the half-forgotten diseases to buy the quasi-monopolistic manufacturing license and jack up the price.

          • Doctor Mist says:

            This is indeed a saddening report. But there are many things I don’t understand from the article or from Derek Lowe’s commentary.

            The free-marketeer in me says that in general when somebody tries to pull such a stunt, potential competitors come out of the woodwork, eager to cash in by selling the pills for $700, and then $650, and so on until we get down to something reasonable.

            So exactly why doesn’t that happen here? Does Turing or its hypothetical competitors have to go through the whole FDA approval process again? Derek Lowe says

            The FDA grants market exclusivity to companies that are willing to take “grandfathered” compounds into compliance with their current regulatory framework

            This suggests that it’s the FDA preventing competition. But why is it that they do this? I also see such drugs referred to as “orphaned”. Does that mean the original manufacturer has discontinued them? Why would they do that? (In other words, if Turing finds it profitable to market the drug at $750 per pill plus whatever it cost to buy the rights, why didn’t the original manufacturer find a price point that paid off?)

            Or maybe my question is: if these drugs are so rarely used that they fell into the cracks somehow, how is it that Turing finds them worth manufacturing?

            I’m not questioning the sleaziness of Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals and the rest of the industry Lowe says has sprung up. I’m sure there are answers to my questions. But it seems to me that the answers must point to a flaw in the system (and the free marketeer in me suspects that the flaw is something imposed by the government, such that fixing that flaw would be far more useful than Lowe’s suggestions of jawboning respectable pharma companies in various ways).

          • suntzuanime says:

            In order to be allowed to sell your pills, you have to prove they work as well as the pills already being sold. In order to do that, you have to do a trial comparing your pills to the pills already being sold. In order to prevent you from doing that, they make anyone buying the pills promise not to use them in a trial comparing your pills to theirs. Somehow this is legal?

          • brad says:

            There’s a fair amount of legal gray area in the intersection of the FDA’s jurisdiction (i.e. drug regulation) and the FTC’s jurisdiction (i.e. antitrust law). Mostly because congress deliberately created some temporary monopolies for drugs, and it is unclear how much of the rest of antitrust law is supposed to apply.

            Another part of the problem is that the FDA’s founding mythos is all about how they saved America from thalidamide, which leads to a culture that is too risk adverse and distrustful of peer regulatory bodies in other countries.

            Ultimately, I have to agree that this is a failure of regulation. But given that by all accounts Shkreli is a serious asshole, it’s probably no bad thing that he is being cast in the role of the villain. You need a narrative to get legal changes though and thwarting a villain is a good narrative.

          • Doctor Mist says:

            @brad:

            Ultimately, I have to agree that this is a failure of regulation.

            Thanks. But I’d really like to understand what that failure is. What regulations could we change to preclude it, and what horrible scenarios would making that change enable?

            It’s odd to me that all the discussion seems to be about what a travesty it is and what a villain Shkreli is, without even the usual rhetoric about how he is exploiting a “loophole”.

          • John Schilling says:

            What regulations could we change to preclude it, and what horrible scenarios would making that change enable?

            My first cut would be to suggest the rules for marketing generics should be relaxed. If you can show that your version is physically and chemically identical to what’s described in the original patent / FDA approval, to a degree of precision that is reasonably achievable in a physical chemistry lab with just your version and the records of the original, you can sell it as a generic equivalent.

            It might turn out that, for some subtle reason, it only cures 80% of patients where the original cured 90%, or that it gives 5% of patients a severe headache or whatever. You’re not going to get Thalidomide 2.0, and the lesser stuff we can sort out on a case-by-case basis and watch the statistics come in.

            Even without Shrekli, some of the promise of generics is lost to the fact that only a handful of companies can afford the current process. A closed oligopoly is better than a straight-up monopoly, but an actual free market might work better.

          • anon1 says:

            Different crystal structures of the same molecule can have very different bioavailabilities and hence very different effectiveness, so the FDA’s requirement isn’t as stupid as it looks. Here’s a case of dramatic nonequivalence between chemically identical drugs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritonavir#Polymorphism_and_temporary_market_withdrawal

            > It might turn out that, for some subtle reason, it only cures 80% of patients where the original cured 90%, or that it gives 5% of patients a severe headache or whatever.

            If you have HIV and – surprise! – you’re no longer getting enough of your protease inhibitor to be effective, I’d think that’s a big problem.

            This one’s also interesting because the transition was autocatalytic, so that contamination with small amounts of the less soluble/less effective polymorph could ruin an existing supply of the more effective polymorph.

            All that said (I’m no biologist, just (almost) a chemistry major), I’d be surprised if a full clinical trial weren’t huge overkill for screening out problems like this.

            Edit: I didn’t notice you specified physically identical as well as chemically. Oh well, at least I got to tell people about polymorphs.

    • Bendini says:

      The pro libertarian argument that seems to be absent from this discussion: everyone is comparing a hypothetical no regulation on the sale of antibiotics with what the government should theoretically do. It seems that by accident the pro government side of the issue has been framed as “what ideally should be done with government intervention” instead of “what can be done given weak public understanding and the prospect of little Cindy’s parents being told no, the government says you can’t have antibiotics for your little darling’s viral infection!”

      In the absence of a free market solution to the commons tragedy, the status quo is only marginally better (and maybe not so once admin costs for regulation are accounted for)

      • Saal says:

        Ok…I’m seriously not trying to be offensive/condescending here, but comments like yours are PRECISELY why antibiotics ought to be tightly controlled and regulated (more so than they already are today!)

        ANTIBIOTICS ARE NOT FOR VIRAL INFECTIONS. They are not for the cold, they are not for the flu (I’ve seen the last two in this thread as well). They are for SPECIFIC sets of BACTERIAL infections in vulnerable patients.

        I really don’t see people educating themselves to the extent necessary to:
        1. Determine that this illness is not viral/fungal/prion/friggin’ cancer/hypochondria
        2. if bacterial, determine if it is treatable by antibiotics, and if so, which antibiotics
        3. Determine if they PERSONALLY really need antibiotics (old, young, autoimmune deficiency, other poor health)

        They need to see a doctor first. And yes, doctors currently hand ’em out like friggin’ candy. Which is why they need to be MORE restricted. Understand that this is coming from someone who believes you should be able to buy heroin and prostitutes.

        • Earthly Knight says:

          I don’t think Bendini was making that mistake.

          • Saal says:

            Ah. In that case, color me embarrassed, and I apologize for going off on an improperly-parsed statement.

            The point still stands in the general case, however. The proportion of non-medical-professionals I’ve met over my lifetime who were aware antibiotics are not for viral infections is roughly equivalent to the proportion of people I’ve met who can calculate differential equations.

          • dndnrsn says:

            1. Are non-medical professionals who don’t know that antibiotics don’t kill viruses really that rare? It’s not like it’s a learned skill – it’s a bit of information. I probably read a magazine article once or something and saw that. Whereas I’m not even sure I know what a differential equation is off the top of my head.

            2. I see the idea “doctors throw drugs at everything/patients demand drugs for everything” a fair bit – but as a layperson I’ve never run into it. Is it maybe an American thing having to do with health care system differences?

            Any time I’ve gone to a doctor with something that be bacterial but maybe not, I’ve only been given antibiotics after they’ve run tests, and more than once told “we don’t need to do any tests, drink some liquids and take it easy”. And the one time I asked for drugs (did something to my back, was wondering if I could get something better than over the counter) the doctor said no (but did tell me something better over the counter to get).

            I get the feeling that if I asked a doctor for antibiotics right off the bat, having come in with something flu-like, they’d tell me to piss off.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            “Are non-medical professionals who don’t know that antibiotics don’t kill viruses really that rare?”

            @dndnrsn:
            I’m not sure what Saal means here, but based on my (layperson with medical professionals adjacent) experience, knowing that antibiotics don’t treat viruses isn’t really the issues, in a “that;s not even wrong” way.

            The real issue is understanding how to differentially diagnose a bacterial from a viral infection, and accepting that this is important enough to not treat things as if they are bacterial by default. A friend of ours would call us up on the regular to ask my wife if she could prescribe a Z-Pack for the cold he had “because that always fixes me right up.”

            She would patiently explain that he probably had a virus and that he would probably be better before the Z-Pack would be done anyway and might say that it was overkill anyway. All of which was true. And the next time he had a cold he would call right back.

          • ReluctantEngineer says:

            Are non-medical professionals who don’t know that antibiotics don’t kill viruses really that rare?

            I am some sort of engineer. My co-workers are also engineers of various sorts, and as such are significantly more educated/scientific minded than average. This exact topic came up in conversation once, with one of my co-workers complaining that the doctor wouldn’t give him antibiotics for his cold, and other co-workers agreeing that they hate when doctors do that. One had a doctor that wouldn’t give him antibiotics when he had the flu so bad that he could barely stand!

            It turned out most of them did not know that antibiotics do not kill viruses, or perhaps they didn’t know that colds and the flu are viral rather than bacterial. I was stunned, because I had assumed this was all common knowledge, but it turns out it’s not.

        • Bendini says:

          I apologize if my writing is difficult to parse, but Earthly Knight is correct.

          My point is that the status quo is “doctors handing them out like friggin’ candy” while under government control, so until someone has a politically feasible idea to fix that we can’t have a fruitful discussion of the subject.

          • Glen Raphael says:

            @Bendini:
            Worse, the status quo is “doctors handing them out like friggin’ candy” after charging $100 or so for a useless/counterproductive consultation. But wait, it’s worse than that. Actually it’s
            (a) make an appointment to see a doctor.
            (b) wait an hour in the waiting room.
            (c) see the doctor, who charges money and writes a prescription for a drug you don’t need
            (d) you take the script someplace else where there is a pharmacist who actually sells you the drug you don’t need. (Assuming he can read the doctor’s handwriting and there’s no miscommunication between them).

            Whereas a clearly freer-market alternative system (found in countries like Mexico) is that you go to the pharmacy and ask the pharmacist to recommend something for your problem and sell it to you.

            What makes this better than the status quo is:
            (1) no waiting to see a doctor
            (2) no paying to see a doctor
            (3) no traveling to two different locations
            (4) when the person who fills the order is the same as the person who recommended it, that’s one less opportunity for miscommunication to produce errors.

            What makes such a system worse than the status quo is…actually I can’t think of anything that makes it worse. Sure, in theory we could try to educate doctors to not recommend antibiotics when they shouldn’t. but we don’t successfully do that now, and it’s just as true that in theory we could similarly try to educate pharmacists to do the same thing. And in practice, we won’t, so the two cases are identical.

          • AJD says:

            Obvious potential drawback: the pharmacist has incentive to recommend whatever drug is the most profitable for them to sell, rather than whatever one is appropriate for your condition.

      • Stefan Drinic says:

        How is a no regulation situation on the sale of antibiotics hypothetical? And how is their being restricted in places theoretical? We have examples of both policies just fine.

        • Bendini says:

          Because we have relatively open borders and abundant intercontinental travel, meaning that if a country implemented adequate restrictions on antibiotics it wouldn’t count for much unless the rest of the world joined in.

    • I heard a talk years ago by Sam Peltzman (U of C economist/statistician). By his calculations, the introduction of the requirement of prescriptions for drugs roughly doubled the total demand for physician time. That’s a rather large cost.

      If you have good reason to believe that the use of a particular antibiotic imposes costs via increased resistance, that’s an argument for taxing its use, not for requiring prescriptions.

      • Murphy says:

        Though keep in mind: the cost of controlling antibiotics through prescription is only a modest fraction of the total cost of all controlled substances.

        I suspect you’d need to tax it so heavily that you’d create a significant underworld to supply it and also hurt a lot of poor people a great deal to have much effect.

      • Deiseach says:

        But you still need someone qualified to judge “Do you need an antibiotic?” rather than deciding for yourself “I’m congested/little Billy is stuffed up, better pop down the chemist and buy a course of antibiotics” which may do damn-all for your viral or fungal infection, and if it is bacterial you’ll stop taking them as soon as you feel better instead of finishing the course.

        Taxing use may also hit people who really do need the antibiotic but can’t afford it, so we might get the (even) worse of both worlds than the current situation. I think the irony of the situation is the very success of medical progress, which means people have an unrealistic expectation of “Give me something to make me feel better right now!”

        Particularly as it’s harder to take time off sick; where previously you might have taken one or two days off to stay in bed and dose yourself with aspirin and plenty of orange juice, now you struggle in to work and you want something that will get you better in twelve hours or so because you can’t afford (either literally for the loss of pay or figuratively in the cost of letting work go undone and the knock-on effect on your career of perceived absenteeism) to be sick.

      • Murphy says:

        It just occurred to me that your solution of taxing it more heavily also has the side effect of very very very strongly incentivizing not finishing a course of antibiotics and only taking them until you feel better: a very perverse incentive indeed.

    • Asterix says:

      OK, I’ll be the token libertarian dissenter. I do not see a rational basis for rationing antibiotics.

      If antibiotic use is likely to create a superbug, it can do so easily without being prescribed to people with viral diseases. It can develop just as easily in people that have bacterial infections. More easily, in fact, since the patient with the bacterial infection has at least one strain of bacteria the viral patient doesn’t have — and one that causes enough of a problem that people seek treatment for.

      So I had a problem the urologist blasted with antibiotics. It turned out to be something else. Should he have to run it by a bureaucrat first?

      The superbug I’d be most concerned with would be something like super-TB. And that has become a reality, but not because people used antibiotics on viral infections, but because they used it on TB. I think.

      If free use of antibiotics were actually likely to create a superbug, then sure, I’d say that’s a public health issue that deserves intervention. But if you want to prevent superbugs, you should deny antibiotics to people with bacterial diseases (which has its own problems!). And, as has been pointed out, ban their use to make cows and chickens gain weight more quickly.

      • Deiseach says:

        If your urologist is dosing you up with antibiotics for a whole year (and every time you stop them the problem starts up again) and it turns out that a bacterial infection is secondary to the real problem and by blasting you with antibiotics the urologist is masking the real problem which is doing more damage, you bet he should run it by a bureaucrat first!

        Again, example of real thing that happened to family member of work colleague. You all have to take my word for this that I’m not just inventing convenient examples, but it’s really true, I swear on a stack of HPMOR print-outs! 🙂

      • keranih says:

        And, as has been pointed out, ban their use to make cows and chickens gain weight more quickly.

        To be more clear, it’s keep livestock healthier so they’re not sick and stunted, as many developing nations humans are. There are also good reasons for treating animals in their feed and water – rather than catching each one to give it a shot or force a pill down its throat – or for giving animals medication in the face of an outbreak where the animals are almost certainly incubating the disease but are not yet showing signs. This accounts for an overwhelming percentage of the use of drugs in food animals.

        A related thought – the most important drugs for humans are already restricted from being used in food animals in the USA (which has different restrictions than the EU.) However, one’s dog may be treated with the most sensitive drugs such as vancomycin, and go home to shed vancomycin-resistent pathogens all over ones home. The actual science that investigates the risks here is not well developed.

        Finally – restricting use of antibiotics needs to be done globally, because the bugs respect international borders even less than they respect species differences between a cat, a cow, and a human. Restricting access to any material good relies on the framework of law and order in that region. There are many parts of the world where even if the political will existed to restrict the distribution of antibiotics, the physical means of tracking and controlling the drugs is not present.

        (In many places, the market is taking care of much of the problem, by pricing the newest antibiotics out of general access. And then there are aid agencies, and nationalization of drug manufacture, and other schemes to improve ‘access to health care’…)

    • Brian Ritz says:

      It should be pointed out that, even under no regulation, drug companies will have at least some incentive to prevent antibiotic resistance because they lose revenue if the antibiotic becomes ineffective due to resistance. Would that incentive be enough to prevent resistance? I don’t really know, but I’m doubtful, especially if the drug company doesn’t have a monopoly on the drug as is the case with older antibiotics.

      • Saal says:

        Ah, but preventing resistance means not using the drugs. So in order to not lose revenue (by reducing resistance) they have to sacrifice revenue (by selling fewer antibiotics). This leads to an obvious question: is the revenue for an antibiotic doled out in small amounts to prevent resistance greater than the expense of researching, developing, and producing the drug? If the answer is no, is it worth it to produce LOTS of antibiotics and just phase in new ones as bacteria become resistant (note that this is purely an economic question; obviously this would be bad from a public health standpoint)?

        The answer to both of these questions appears to be no, from what little research I’ve done. Route one isn’t very profitable (certainly less so than producing blood pressure or chronic pain medications, which you can both sell as many of as you like w/out reducing their effectiveness and which don’t cure the patient, so they keep coming back for more). Route two is to some extent impeded by the FDA, but also if you research an antibiotic for an exorbitant fee and than bacteria become resistant very quickly because you’re passin’ em out like skittles, you might not even recoup your costs. So drug companies just don’t make very many new antibiotics, and the ones we have become useless because people take them for the sniffles and don’t use the whole bottle because they “got better” halfway through. -_-

    • keranih says:

      It’s difficult to find anything which humans do which just affects them – either positively or negatively – and so what we buy on the market, what we create, what we destroy, what we say and what we keep behind our teeth – all of that impacts other people. So it’s possible to argue that anything one does is a legit concern for the other humans on the planet.

      Where to draw the line between “upsides of public scrutiny/control” and “downsides of public scrutiny/control”, ah, there’s the rub.

      IMO, antibiotics are a fairly classic example of a common public good which can be built only through great combination of effort by many, but spoilt by the actions of a few.

      It’s also an example of something which can be fairly easily regulated, without a great deal of intrusion into private or public life. The downsides of a strong restrictive policy on antibiotic use are not insignificant, and we should be aware of the cost in terms of lives, livelihoods, and material comfort. However, I think (like many here) that no, abx should not be free (either in material cost or time), and yes they should be more restricted than they are now.

  46. Wait a minute says:

    A general question for everyone about linguistic intuitions.

    How successful is the concept “scientific racism”? Does it do the job it is intended to do, which is point out a certain miss use of science? Or does it do the opposite, that is make racism somehow seem less evil and more justified? People who see science as a reliable methodology might get this idea. It´s like saying “rational racism”, which would sound like a justification than condemnation. I know the intention behind the label is the opposite, namely to get people to intuit negatively towards “science” that is reaching pro-racist conclusions.

    • James says:

      It’s the sort of collocation that is pretty much defined by its use. It just makes me think of late 19th/early 20th century phrenologists, and so forth.

    • Asterix says:

      Words deceive by connotation. Sort of like we mustn’t “discriminate,” but it’s good to be “discriminating.” I think “racism” is so dark that even “scientific” can’t make it seem nice, at least in this decade. “Peer-reviewed” is stronger, but “peer-reviewed racism” is a head-scratcher (fortunately!).

    • Wrong Species says:

      Has anyone ever used scientific racism in a positive manner? It seems very effective at what it’s meant to do.

    • Ever An Anon says:

      Scientific Racism is a term along the lines of “Bourgeois Pseudoscience” or “Jewish Physics” (which means, as per Godwin, I’ve officially lost the debate). It lops off quite a bit of solid research, including nearly the entirety of physical anthropology and psychometrics, in an attempt to reconcile scientific findings with ideology. So far it has been very successful in doing so: for example, James above who characterizes pioneering forensic anthropologists as “phrenologists” when their findings are still being used today.

      As for making racism seem more or less evil, that depends on your definition. If racism is about unreasoning hatred then facts would presumably have little value either way. If it’s about structural oppression then accurate information about race would seem to be necessary for building less oppressive structures. If racism is just believing that race exists, then you’ve defined yourself into a corner where factual knowledge is itself evil.

      • James says:

        for example, James above who characterizes pioneering forensic anthropologists as “phrenologists” when their findings are still being used today.

        I should clarify that I was only reporting the associations it has for me, not endorsing them; i.e., I don’t necessarily actually believe that all work that could conceivably be described as ‘scientific racism’ is of the same calibre as phrenology.

      • Ever An Anon says:

        Yeah that came off a bit harsh on you. Originally I was going to talk about Gould’s role in spreading that misconception (still pissed about being taken in by The Mismeasure of Man) but your comment was right there.

        I still have a few minutes to edit it if you would prefer.

        • James says:

          No, no, I don’t mind. It just made me realise I ought to clarify.

          Originally I was going to talk about Gould’s role in spreading that misconception

          Sounds like it can be added to the ever-growing list of misconceptions in whose spreading Gould had a role.

        • Anonymous says:

          Would you care to discuss Gould’s book in more detail? I took it at face value when I read it and would not have noticed any errors or omissions.

          • Addict says:

            Gould has a history of behavior unbecoming of an academic. Particularly, getting things wrong, and plaigarism.

            http://lesswrong.com/lw/kv/beware_of_stephen_j_gould/

          • “Now it is not very hard to find out, if you spend a little while reading in evolution, that Gould is the John Kenneth Galbraith of his subject. That is, he is a wonderful writer who is bevolved by literary intellectuals and lionized by the media because he does not use algebra or difficult jargon. Unfortunately, it appears that he avoids these sins not because he has transcended his colleagues but because he does does not seem to understand what they have to say; and his own descriptions of what the field is about – not just the answers, but even the questions – are consistently misleading. His impressive literary and historical erudition makes his work seem profound to most readers, but informed readers eventually conclude that there’s no there there.”

            (Krugman on Gould)

          • Linch says:

            How reliable is Krugman as a source?

          • Linch asks how reliable Krugman is as a source.

            I happen to agree with Krugman about both Gould and Galbraith, if not about much else, so may not be the person to ask. Krugman is a very bright guy. He is at present a professional public intellectual, a sort of left wing Limbaugh (although he might not appreciate the comparison), which I think badly distorts his view on some subjects—compare what he says about minimum wage laws with what he wrote on the subject in a textbook some time back.

            But Gould was also on the left, so I don’t see that Krugman would feel any pressure to be hostile to him.

            Also, economists tend to like evolutionary biology, since the two sciences have very similar logical structures. I like it, and it’s clear that Krugman likes it. So it isn’t surprising that he got far enough into it to form the opinion he did about Gould.

          • suntzuanime says:

            To be fair, I think there’s a strong pressure to present the orthodox views of your field rather than your own personal heterodox views when you’re writing a textbook. Public Intellectual Krugman might have less distorted views relative to Actual Deep-Down Krugman than Textbook Author Krugman.

    • houseboatonstyx says:

      @ Wait a minute
      Does it do the job it is intended to do, which is point out a certain miss use of science?

      Intended by whom? Words, like mail-order brides, often desert the person who introduced them.

      If you want to discredit something, it works better to put the negative word first , cf Creation science.

  47. Alsadius says:

    Re pandemic prevention, I think I’m following action on this and not claims, and supporting MSF with any anti-pandemic dollars. They’re the only ones who seemed to give a shit about the big Ebola outbreak last year.

    • Aram says:

      I agree. Stopping the next pandemic will not look like doing what Singularity University is doing. Rather it’ll involve primary health care, surveillance and other health infrastructure in poor countries. MSF is probably the way to go here because they are already present in the places where the next pandemic is likely to come from. That’s why they treated probably more Ebola patients than any other group except perhaps the national governments there.

      Another answer comes from looking at how HIV got its enormous head start because we waited until it affected rich countries before really working on it. Or you might look at where XDR TB is emerging and which groups are working on it.

  48. Is the decreased happiness of night owls as compared to larks caused by a mismatch in circadian rhythm compared to socially accepted work schedules, or is it somehow intrinsic? Or is lack of sunlight exposure maybe the underlying factor?

    Is the lowered happiness a cultural universal? Are night owls happier when it’s brighter later in the day?

    Related: if I want to be evaluated for Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, should I go to a psychiatrist or a sleep clinic? Are there any diagnostic criteria or tests other than “the patient claims to be an extreme night owl and scores highly on the Morningness/Eveningness Questionnaire?

    • Matthew says:

      I don’t know that I could disentangle these effects from my own experience, because I take 5000 D3 every day year round and use a gradual light/birdsong alarm clock, which would probably mitigate the light issue somewhat, but I’m definitely much less likely to be depressed when able to sleep later.

    • James Picone says:

      I talked to my GP and he referred me to a psychologist specialising in sleep (but not an actual sleep clinic). There might be someone similar in your area?

      For diagnosis, I spent several months recording when I went to bed, when I was asleep and when I was awake in bed, when I got up, any naps I took throughout the day, when I drank caffeine, when I drank alcohol, when I took medication, and when I stopped using a computer each day. I also recorded how much sleep I believed I’d gotten and how long I believed I had spent in bed. A caffeine curfew and a computer curfew were instituted, I struggled mightily to be in bed at midnight and to get up at a particular time (it varied over the course of recording). Psych tried a couple of scheduling things to make my sleep less fragmented / better in general (saying “You are only allowed 7 hours in bed each day” for example).

      After a few of months of that she conceded that caffeine, computer usage late at night, and willpower weren’t the problem and got my doctor to prescribe melatonin (it’s prescription-only over here). Continued recording sleep for a few weeks when I was on melatonin, noted the improvement, went “Alright, we’re all good then”.

      Your mileage may vary. I get the feeling maintaining a sleep diary like that is very much standard practice for people in the field, so it’s probably one of the standard techniques. The idea of a sleep clinic or some related stuff was floated, but wasn’t looked into in any real depth. I don’t actually have a diagnosis, as such, other than the psych saying “Well it seems like you have a very long rhythm and can’t entrain properly”, but if you don’t need that and do need a solution it might help. I wasn’t employed at the time, which helped a lot – there were weeks in there where I was a shambling zombie because of sleep deprivation. If you are in employment a sleep clinic might be better.

      I know people in psychological studies of sleep are often given an internal thermometer – you swallow it and it wirelessly communicates readings and/or is collected from the other end – and things can be inferred from body temperature over the length of a day. I’m not sure if that’s done for actual medical diagnosis or just for research – it came up in the context of research.

    • Glen Raphael says:

      If you have a modern smartphone and want more objective data than a questionnaire result, it’s pretty easy these days to run a do-it-yourself sleep study. Go to the apple or google store and download a “sleep tracker” app. Then leave your iPhone/whatever plugged in overnight running the app as it sits on the corner of your bed. The app uses the vibration sensor to figure out how awake you are based on how much you thrash around and how rhythmically you’re breathing through the night. Run it every night for a week or so and you’ll be able to bring the doctor a pretty chart showing exactly what your sleep cycle looks like and you’ll have a control run you can compare against when you experiment with changing anything related to food/drink/light exposure/bedtime/supplements/drugs/exercise.

  49. Asterix says:

    Kohlberg postulates? observes? stages of moral development, from an infant’s lack of understanding to a mature understanding that goes beyond the rules. I think it’s supposed to be like Piaget’s observation of children learning more physical realities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

    So something that interests me is how this works out in ideologies. Presumably each ideology will congratulate itself on being further along than its out-group, or else will dispute the stages. What about Nietzsche? Would he say the whole thing’s a crock, or add a new stage of being (ahem) beyond good and evil? Would Hindus do the same, as Atman is beyond our understanding? Christians would recognize St. Paul’s giving up the letter of the law as going from stage 4 rules to something better, except that some, like young people still in stage 4, would have a hard time understanding what he’s on about. Daoists seem to pay attention to how hard it is to encode reality in stage-4 rules, so Daoism might also be hard to understand at a certain age. (Maybe at any age.)

    So is there a stage beyond Kohlberg’s sequence? Are there branches along the path? Or are we stuck here by the way our brains work?

    • HlynkaCG says:

      What if your ideology rejects the premise?

      It seems there are a fair number of assumptions in Kohlberg’s spectrum that I don’t buy. How would the distinctions between Consequentialist, Deontological, and Virtue ethics map to it, if at all?

      • Asterix says:

        What assumptions don’t you buy?

        The ideologies wouldn’t _have_ to map to stages of development. It seems to me consequentialism is about social contract (5), but I’m not sure. Maybe it can be viewed as a set of rules (4). A consequentialist might know.

        • HlynkaCG says:

          For starters, the idea that stages described are in fact hierarchical and flow naturally from previous to the next.

          As Earthly Knight says below, the progression Kohlberg makes normative for all human beings seems to have a lot more to do with Kohlberg’s own views on ethics than they do with observed behavior.

      • Paul Torek says:

        Consequentialism, deontology, and virtue theory don’t really map to Kohlberg. Some varieties of consequentialism might be pegged as K’s stage 5, but it’s a loose fit at best.

        • Hlynkacg says:

          That is essentialy my point. To someone who thinks about ethics in such terms Kohlerg’s hierarchy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

    • Earthly Knight says:

      My impression is that Kohlberg’s stages were never well-supported by evidence, and that no one’s taken them very seriously in a long time. Rigid, sequential stages of development through which all human beings must pass are largely a bad hangover from Freud, a historical curiosity mentioned in passing in introductory psychology textbooks before being promptly dismissed.

      The stages are also deeply unfair to heterodox moral theories. Contractarians in ethics (i.e. those who think that our moral obligations are fixed by a hypothetical social contract) will rightly be peeved that their considered moral views are a stepping stone to the final stage of development. Particularists in ethics (i.e. those who hold that there are no universal, abstract moral principles) will rightly object to the fact that they can never become mature moral thinkers. One suspects that the progression Kohlberg makes normative for all human beings has a lot more to do with Kohlberg’s own views on ethics than any sort of law of human nature.

    • TheAncientGeek says:

      I’m a conteactarian, and I think many contracts could be improved on, so I’m not peeved.

    • Hanfeizi says:

      Have you looked at Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, or Don Beck & Chris Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics? Both of these essentially expand on Kohlberg’s themes.

      I’ve noticed that developmental and staged models seem to be really out of favor these days, to the point that they’re hardly mentioned in even fringe dialogues like the ones on this site. Which is very odd to me, given that it seems to map naturally to anyone obsessed with development, “progress”, the future of civilization, the history of civilization, etc…

    • Not Robin Hanson says:

      Hypothesis: Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are merely the moral encoding of what the old Bedouin proverb says more plainly: “I, against my brothers. I and my brothers against my cousins. I and my brothers and my cousins against the world.” Tribalism is recursive. You need more “advanced” moral reasoning in order to organize larger groups as well as secure your place within them.

  50. jaimeastorga2000 says:

    Did something happen to the “Recent Comments” section? I can’ see it anymore.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      My host said it was using up too many resources. Usually these things break every couple of months and start devouring resources, we wait a little while, and then we try them again and they’re fine. Hopefully Recent Comments can come back soon.

      • onyomi says:

        I would also like to show my support for the recent comments function by pointing out a very useful aspect of it: it encourages people continuing to read and think about older posts, and to put comments in the comment sections of the posts where they belong.

        If, for example, I read a post which is 1 year old and think of something I’d really like to say about it, or see a discussion I’d really like to add to, assuming the old posters are still around, I can either wait for the next open thread and link the old post, or I can just comment on the post itself and hope it shows up in recent comments where someone will notice there is life on the old comment thread. Without the recent comments function, there is almost no chance of a comment on an older post getting noticed, which turns them into archives of conversations long past rather than dynamic nodes of continued discussion.

        Of course, it’s inevitable and maybe even desirable that a really old post will eventually get set in stone and that people wanting to revisit should probably start a new thread in an OT, rather than continually digging up ancient history, but it also seems desirable that posts go in the comment sections of the post they’re about whenever possible. From the perspective of future readers it will be easier to find them there than in OTs, any of which could be about anything.

        • It would be great to be able to discuss old posts too. I actually think a registration and inbox (comment replies) feature would be ideal for that purpose, though no doubt there are many options.

  51. Anonymous says:

    A couple of previous posts have discussed “political correctness” as a rather vague concept, and a pattern that may or may not be properly crystallized. I think I’ve figured out what political correctness is. It’s not simple and AFAICT it hasn’t been explained elsewhere but it does make sense. And it’s a trade-off that is neither all good nor all bad.

    I think I can explain it without using race or gender in my examples, but it’s treading close to the line. Would my model be appropriate to post here?

    • HeelBearCub says:

      Well, I want to read it, if that counts for anything.

    • Stefan Drinic says:

      Sure, I’d like to read it.

    • Berna says:

      I’d like to read it.

    • Please post, we’d like to see.

    • Anonymous says:

      The phrase “political correctness” can refer to two things, not fundamentally related but pushed by approximately the same group of people.

      Political Correctness of Form

      This consists of being very careful about connotations and implicit messages in words. The simplest case is slurs, which are names for groups with “and that’s bad” tacked on as a connotation. The word “papist” basically means “catholic (and I hate catholics)”. Words can have subtler messages. Used unironically, “slut” means a person who has too much sex. Using the word endorses some deontological principle of chastity, because it doesn’t make sense without that. Referring to cis people as “real” members of their respective genders implies that trans people are somehow fake or deceptive. The word “heathen”, in addition to raw negative affect, contains an implication that all non-Christian religions are basically the same.

      The case for this sort of political correctness is that these messages are often harmful, and hard to argue about through normal channels. When someone makes a one sentence comment with harmful connotations, and you need three paragraphs of philosophy to respond, you’ve lost the argument even if the audience is sympathetic to you. Even worse, many people who can correctly notice there’s a problem cannot construct that argument (I’m not sure why, just empirically this seems to be hard).

      On the other hand, it’s not clear how much power these implicit messages have. They seem like the sort of thing that would lurk in intuitive thought and pounce at opportune moments, but I don’t know of any strong evidence for that. Also, this is highly subject to euphemism treadmilling, so in the end it may make speech sillier, and create a bunch of new insults, without achieving its end.

      The case against this is that it requires additional effort in speaking. In some cases, it can produce a chilling effect — especially when people haven’t been paying attention, so they don’t know what the problematic words are, only that the subject is a minefield.

      On the other hand, these downsides seem minor compared to the potential benefits (at least if the benefits are actually realized). And the chilling effect problem becomes very small if the enforcement is done with compassion.

      The extreme case against is when it gets turned into an isolated demand for rigor (or perhaps for civility). Then it’s no more than a bullying power grab. Anyone who writes an unironic article entitled “5 Words Barbaric, Terrorist-Sympathizing Ragheads Need to Stop Using to Refer to Jews” is a bad person who should feel bad.

      If applied evenhandedly, though, this sort of correctness is probably a net good thing.

      Political Correctness of Substance

      This is the silencing of ideas that could give plausible deniability to bad people.

      For example, consider a bigotted business owner who hires members of a group preferentially, but when challenged says “I hire the most qualified people and skill happens to be distributed unevenly along that axis.” Or consider a rapist who says “they said yes to [something a little ambiguous], I guess there could have been a miscommunication.” As the author of these hypotheticals, I can tell you that both people are guilty as sin, but good luck proving that in-universe.

      But, if you deny that ability to do a given job can ever be distributed unevenly along an axis of discrimination, or that communicating about sex is as difficult as communicating about anything else, then it’s easy to “prove” their guilt. Once you’ve done that, it’s a lot easier to punish them or force them to change their ways, which in these cases is a good thing.

      Note that plausible deniability requires that the ideas be both true and important. Had the rapist claimed that false memories of being raped are routinely inserted by Sirius XM’s mind-control satellites, this would not have offered plausible deniability. The Sirius XM Theory is not politically incorrect, because it clearly isn’t true. Had the bigot claimed that native Japanese speakers often have trouble with the phoneme “l” and therefore cannot “apply” for jobs, this would not have offered plausible deniability either. The Japanese Accent Theory is not politically incorrect because it isn’t important.

      Because these claims are both true and important, you can’t really argue against them. You can simply assert they are false, very loudly and repetitively. Or you can be mean to people who point them out. Or you can get them officially banned from relevant forums. So one downside of this sort of political correctness is that it harms discoursive norms.

      Also, by the nature of plausible deniability, punishing the innocent is pretty much inevitable. If someone does suffer a sexual miscommunication, but a court believes that’s impossible and sends them to jail, where they are raped repeatedly, then the cause of decreasing rape hasn’t really been served.

      Finally, ideas which are true and important have other consequences. Hiring processes that keep getting rewritten until they find the right mix of groups will find less capable people than processes that are optimized to find the most capable people, even if that tradeoff is never made explicitly. And when the problem is important, you need the most capable people working on it. Alternatively, missing information could lead you to misinterpret education systems and get into a horrible zero-sum competition that destroys your country’s middle class.

      As may be apparent, I think this is a bad thing on net, but let’s remember it is trying to do something good.

      • Interesting and balanced analysis.

      • I also liked this analysis. Sort of belongs on rationalist wiki page somewhere (do we have a SSC wiki yet? Or best comments collection?). Rational wiki seems to have an article, but its actually hard for me to tell if its parody or not. Thanks for posting.

        • Anonymous says:

          I am continually astonished to see people here talking about Rational Wiki as anything even approaching a credible or useful source. Have you read anything on there before? It’s a left-wing Conservapedia. Any time there is the smallest tension between presenting some information accurately and making a joke about how stupid right-wingers are, the latter is chosen, every single time.

          Is it because it has ‘rational’ in its name? They can call it that without actually being rational, you know. It feels as odd seeing it taken seriously among a bunch of smart, sensible people as it would if it were common to see people here post, “Huh, I wonder what the Daily Mail has to say about this?”.

          • BBA says:

            Back in the 2000s “rational” just meant “anti-Bush.” It made sense at the time.

          • Deiseach says:

            Hey, “The Daily Mail” is very useful if I want to see what are the current concerns of the unhinged barking at the moon To The Right Of Attila The Hun wing of the Tories! (Mainly property prices, immigrants, and the effect of immigrants on property prices, also how the EU wants to take over the nation, execute the Queen and rip up the Union Jack) 🙂

          • Actually I haven’t read much on there and I just assumed it was a rationalist thing not a left thing. So is there a rationalist wiki somewhere? LW, while very interesting/informative, isn’t ideal in my mind because of EY’s very narrow stance on what are acceptable views on a number of non-trivial topics.

          • AlexanderRM says:

            Mostly unrelated, but thank you for explaining Conservapedia to me. For some reason I’d never really understood what was going on with that (is it a parody, or conservatives?), and your statement clicked somehow. If I understand you, you’re saying they start out each article doing something like trying to present factual information, but keep interrupting themselves to make jokes about how terrible the left is, without actually coordinating the jokes to make cohesive parody articles.

      • Kevin C. says:

        “but let’s remember it is trying to do something good.”

        Why does that matter? Particularly since so many here at least claim to be some form of consequentialists, and consequentialist theories give no moral weight to intentions. Harm is harm, whether or not you’re trying to do good.

        • Arioch says:

          It doesn’t matter much when evaluating whether PC of substance is a bad thing. Depending on your moral philosophy, it might matter when it comes to your moral judgement of the people involved.

        • Ant says:

          If you want someone to stop doing something, knowing if they do this out of malice or not matters greatly. For instance, I expect that insisting a lot about the evilness of the action to change will not have much effect on someone who does it knowing it hurts.

      • Arioch says:

        I really like this analysis. One thing I think it’s missing is that “PC of Form” is sometimes used more as a shibboleth rather than to serve its stated purpose (i.e. to avoid mind-killing and hurt feelings). In these cases, a term (or set of terms) which is *not* loaded with negative affect is declared problematic without very strong justification, and all right-thinking people have to use the new term instead. The most obvious example of this type I can think of is “people of colour”.

        This is pretty clearly not a good thing, but it’s also not a good thing to assume (as I think some people do) that *all* PC of form is shibboleth-y signaling.

      • Error says:

        I want to nominate this for next OT’s comment of the week.

      • James says:

        Just echoing that, yes, this is good. The second part seems original (or at least new to me) correct, and useful.

  52. jaimeastorga2000 says:

    Do mail-order brides count as an example of Munchkinism for high-earning but romantically unsuccessful men?

    • Pku says:

      Pretty sure it does. Dammit, now I’m seriously tempted to get a mail-order bride if I’m not married by the time I’m forty (assuming I’m high-earning by then).

    • Zebram says:

      In this society, it appears to fit that word’s definition, as far as I understand it. But there is no intrinsic property of ‘munchkinism’ in the universe, as far as I can figure. It is a made up social construct created by a hypocritical culture.

    • rsaarelm says:

      Munchkinism is supposed to be using a system in an unexpected way to win. But mail-order brides aren’t really unexpected, since everybody already knows they are a thing, and it’s questionable how much you’re winning, since gaining social status is a reason to marry and mail-order marriage is generally considered low status.

      Also the only example of someone doing that I can think of is Hans Reiser and it didn’t exactly end up working out for him.

      • Svalbardcaretaker says:

        Also one of the other advantages of being “romantically successful” is, well, being romantically successful – usually one gets love/sex/attraction all intermingled and the economic reasons behind the attraction are usually only implicit (if there are any at all).

        Getting a mailorder bride does not guarantuee that the bride will stay with you after the immigration laws give her legal (not-tied-to you) residency, or indeed, does not guarantuee even regular sex!

        What I am trying to say: mailordering spouses has advantages, but also disadvantes over traditional spousal finding; be aware of them and make sure they align with your values.

      • US says:

        “it’s questionable how much you’re winning, since gaining social status is a reason to marry and mail-order marriage is generally considered low status.”

        Isn’t this sort of getting things the wrong way? This part – “gaining social status is a reason to marry” – in particular. I thought people looked for ways to increase their status because it increased their chances of getting married (to the sort of person they’d like to marry) – the idea of getting married in order to obtain higher status seems completely foreign to me.

        What’s so great about high status anyway – could not an argument be made that ‘people mostly care about social status because high social status equals mating privileges’? It seems to me that high status isn’t all that great on its own and that it’s (mainly? only?) great because of the (social) effects derived from the high status, the most important effect of which is that high status makes you attractive to people to whom you are attracted and gives you the ability to obtain access to higher-status partners.

        • “in particular. I thought people looked for ways to increase their status because it increased their chances of getting married”

          I’ve speculated in the past that the reason people care about relative rather than absolute results, such as income, a pattern that economists tend to see as irrational, is that the mating market is something close to a zero sum game, a context where my gain is your loss. And the mating market is what our hardwired software is largely designed for.

          It isn’t entirely true because of the sorting element. The woman I estimated to be about a one in a hundred thousand catch (and to whom I have been married for about thirty years) wasn’t being pursued by anyone else when I met her and would probably not have been particularly well suited as wife to most other people. But it’s close enough to explain the pattern.

          • US says:

            “the mating market is what our hardwired software is largely designed for.” Incidentally in his book The Mating Mind, Geoffrey Miller goes perhaps even further than that…

            As for your ‘the mating market is something close to a zero sum game’ observation, I think one should be careful about making judgments such as these, especially about the far past, even if in the specific case I’d probably tend to tentatively agree with your overall assessment (…and I’m reasonably sure I’ve argued along the same lines in the past myself). When I started out writing this comment I included quite a few observations related to that discussion/question, but in the end I decided to delete that stuff as I’d prefer to only give precise and reasonably comprehensive reviews of topics in exchanges like these, and this requires time I don’t have at the moment. I however thought I should mention that a very good book on related topics which I highly recommend is Sexual Selection in Primates, by Kappeler & van Schaik (editors).

            I’m not sure about income, but to me it makes sense that people are bad at figuring out just how to value (in status-terms/desirability-terms) stuff like wealth, as “accumulation of wealth was not possible in hunter-gatherer societies” (as Matt Ridley pointed out in his book The Red Queen).

          • Jaskologist says:

            Interesting. Just the other day I was speculating that leftist economics are a mis-application of our zero-sum mating game solvers, but under your theory, it’s actually being correctly applied. That seems pretty plausible.

            (It’s still societal poison. There’s a reason the Ten Commandments had to finish off with “Don’t covet your neighbor’s house. No, not his wife either. No, not his servants either. No, you can’t covet his ox either. Oh come on, the donkey is off-limits to coveting, too. You know what, just don’t covet any of his stuff.”)

    • Scott Alexander says:

      You should look at the Reddit threads of the experience of people who have ordered mail-order brides. They seem split between “…and then we lived happily ever after” versus “…and after the minimum necessary time permitted by immigration laws, she divorced me and took half of my stuff” .

      https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/33t5lu/redditors_who_married_mailorder_brides_from/

      https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14dakg/who_has_ever_purchased_a_mail_order_bride_how_did/

      https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2x2dji/serious_redditors_with_mail_order_brides_what_led/

      I guess it depends how sure you can be you’re going to end up in the first branch, plus how much you care about an intellectual/personal connection with a partner. I can’t imagine you’d have much of that with someone you’d barely met who doesn’t speak your language and comes from another culture. But I could also see it working out well for someone who has an old-fashioned view and just wants a partnership where one person works outside the home and the other raises kids and they get along okay.

      • Adam says:

        Somebody at my wife’s work apparently just lost his security clearance and got fired for taking a mail order bride.

        • Murphy says:

          Was there a “and keeping it secret thus making him mildly blackmailable” bit or do they just have an item on the form “has mail order bride” which if ticked means no security clearance?

          • suntzuanime says:

            It makes sense to me. A foreigner who has perhaps not undergone rigorous vetting has intimate access to you.

          • Murphy says:

            So do you also lose your clearance if you marry a random girl you met in a bar while on holiday in the same country?

          • Adam says:

            He didn’t tell them immediately, which backfired, but suntzu is correct that foreign entanglements and family from overseas are major stumbling blocks either way, even if you’re completely upfront about it.

          • John Schilling says:

            Coincidentally, I’m just this week updating my SF86 to maintain my clearance. They specifically want to know about any “foreign national relatives or associates that you or your spouse are bound by affection, obligation, or close and continuing contact”. If your mail-order bride is from e.g. Russia, and she didn’t cut off all ties to the motherland, that’s a whole lot of Russian relatives to explain.

            Opportunities for blackmail or extortion should be obvious, and the possibility that the bride herself is on the FSB’s payroll is not to be discounted. And, as usual, it’s the cover-up that nails you. I know people with felony criminal records with Secret and I believe Top Secret clearances, because they were absolutely honest and cooperative in the investigation. When you say, “Oh, sure, my wife was born in Vladivostok, but she came to the United States before I met her and hasn’t been back since”, and the investigators find the records that say otherwise, no clearance for you.

          • Adam says:

            My wife goes on the public adjudication website sometimes to see who did and didn’t get a clearance. My favorite was the guy who was some kind of drug lord in early 80s Miami who got convicted of trafficking and murder, did 25 years, and now has a TS and works as a contractor.

            Which I guess is obvious. It’s not like the CIA is against selling drugs and killing people. Anything that a foreign agent might be able to use as leverage against you is the biggest thing – secrets you don’t want revealed, financial troubles, vulnerable people you care about.

          • sam says:

            wife here. so, you’re required to report 1. any changes in personal status and 2. any foreign associations. and he didn’t. so being low key married to a Colombian citizen that he may have brought here illegally was kind of a triple-whammy, but the real issue was not disclosing it. the DoD investigators have no tolerance for dishonesty.

            I *think* that in theory, marrying a foreign citizen *could* be mitigated, if you reported it all immediately. even then it probably depends on the circumstances.

    • Eli says:

      I don’t really see how, unless you’ve somehow fundamentally misunderstood the point of modern marriage (ie: love, partnership, all that jazz).

    • multiheaded says:

      #justSSCthings

      • jaimeastorga2000 says:

        Jaime awarded himself a tally mark for Saturday, since he’d managed to make someone go into wow just wow mode before the day was over.

        • Pku says:

          Dammit, I’m on there! Now feminists are going to misinterpret something I said and get mad at me on the internet.

          • Pku says:

            Also, seems like this is exactly what Scott meant when he said rationalism is a safespace for this sort of discussion.

            *would’ve edited the above comment, but can’t anymore.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            Going to echo Pku here; this feels to be in extremely bad taste. If you want to archive comments so that you can pull them up as proof later on go for it, but broadcasting them to score points is icky.

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            But muh reblogs, man! I was about to crack 200 followers!

        • rsaarelm says:

          Now I’m wondering if I’m just there as backdrop or if I can also claim multiheaded hate points.

          • Murphy says:

            No, if you look at the reblogs your comment is the one they’re focusing on by half quoting your “low status” comment then making up a load of stuff about how you hate women since they’re sure it’s what you really meant.

      • Wrong Species says:

        Do you feel like this meets the true, kind or necessary requirement for comments on here? What’s the point of going on this website if your only comments are about how much better you are than us?

        • Nita says:

          In some ways, the “mail-order bride” business is just a type of international “personal ads” service. But in other ways…

          E.g., some quotes from the linked reddit threads:

          “How expensive were they? I’m asking for a friend”
          “I had a co-worker buy one of these.”
          “I’m not thinking about buying one (yah right).”
          “My great-uncle purchased a mail order bride.”
          “My uncle purchased a Thai woman at a bar a few years back.”
          “My dad bought one last year.”

          So yeah, there’s a reason why some people are appalled by mere mention of it, and it’s not because it helps unattractive guys get laid or whatever.

          • suntzuanime says:

            Binders full of women!

          • Nita says:

            “Binders full of women” is an awkward phrase that generates a funny mental image. “My uncle purchased a Thai woman at a bar” is something else.

            And these folks were writing comments in the comfort of their own homes, not fielding questions in a live high-stakes debate.

          • Ever An Anon says:

            @Nita

            This might be a misunderstanding on my part, but it sounds like you don’t have a problem with mail ordering brides per se only with how these guys were describing it. If they had elided the fact that they were literally purchasing foreign women out of a catalog would that have been better?

          • AJD says:

            I suspect what Nita is suggesting can be considered appalling is not per se the fact that people do describe mail-ordering brides as “purchasing a Thai woman at a bar”, but the fact that descriptions like that are close enough to accurate to be reasonable.

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            Are they, though?

          • DrBeat says:

            Yeah, the people describing it as “buying” are the people who are not doing it themselves and no not have actual experience in the topic. To use that as justification to find it appalling is… not very sound reasoning.

          • Wrong Species says:

            I don’t go on SSC to get my outrage meter up. There are people her who have views I consider appalling but I don’t go on long rants about how they are terrible people and how I’m the only decent person here. If we freak out every time someone says something outrageous then we turn in to reddit/tumblr/4chan/etc.

          • Nita says:

            @ Ever An Anon

            If they had elided the fact that they were literally purchasing foreign women

            If they had literally purchased someone, they should be in prison, not merrily chatting online.

            It is exactly this flippant conflation of arranged marriage (which can be done ethically) and chattel slavery (which cannot*) that I have a problem with.

            The fact that it is so common among people in favour of the practice indicates some serious underlying issues.

            E.g., international adoption is similarly controversial, but you won’t find “how much does a foreign baby cost? (asking for a friend)” on reddit.

            * IMO, of course — we are on SSC, after all, so I don’t want to presume too much consensus

            @ DrBeat

            the people describing it as “buying” are the people who are not doing it themselves

            Some of them were inquiring about the “price”, others were talking about close family members. That kid with the Thai aunt** “purchased in a bar” enthusiastically described how hard-working she is, and how his uncle takes all the money she earns (except some she manages to hide).

            Anyway, I’m not defending Multiheaded’s behaviour, but Jaime’s framing of “munchkining” — a clearly excellent opportunity obscured by silly social rules — conveniently sidesteps the central issues.

            ** I don’t know if he thinks of her as a family member, but let’s be charitable

    • Deiseach says:

      Depends. What are you looking for in a mail-order bride?

      (1) True love and romance? Yeah, good luck with that. You could argue that this is not much different from a conventional marriage bureau/dating agency, but when foreign nationals are promising they’ll marry you definitely no question about it, then it’s not because they’re looking for love.

      (2) A proper old-fashioned good obedient wife who knows her place and is feminine and womanly? Maybe. Equal chances you’ll end up with a Third World native who privately thinks you’re an absolute pig but “better an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave” and she’d have to play the same role for men of her own country anyways, so as long as you really are high-earning she’ll play the meek doting spouse.

      (3) Old-style match-making where all parties know it’s not about romance, it’s about agreeing to have kids and exchange home making duties for bread winning? Probably do a lot better with that attitude.

      (4) She is only waiting for the permanent residency/citizenship then she’ll dump your sorry ass and take you for every cent you’ve got? Alas, this too is a very likely possibility.

      Again, work place anecdote: heard a case of another client who married a mail-order bride who, once she got Irish citizenship, cleaned out hubby’s bank account and ran off with his best friend. Greeted with a chorus from us all of “To the surprise of absolutely nobody” 🙂

      We do see a few instances in the job of Irish men who married mail-order brides and I have to say, the guys are no prizes and tend to be overbearing/bullying to the women when both spouses come in to interview for housing needs assessment. That’s possibly one reason they couldn’t find a wife at home and had to go abroad, though this is by no means saying every man who pays for marriage is in the same boat.

    • Pku says:

      aaaand now this thread is being attacked by feminists. (here http://slatestarscratchpad.tumblr.com/post/129593643621/krwks-veronicastraszh-thathopeyetlives ). Do some people not understand the concept of discussing something without actually making plans to do it? I (and I assume pretty much everyone else in this discussion) were just here talking about weird ideas… this is like accusing someone who brings up the trolley experiment of trying to plan ways to justify murder.

      • suntzuanime says:

        What kind of person is inside there?

        • Wrong Species says:

          I like this comment: “Feminist dating advice is pretty useless for lonely dudes.”

          No doubt they go around the internet telling us how feminism is really good for men as well.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            Several people involved in that conversation actually agree that a lot of Feminists treat mens’ concerns very poorly. I think they’d still argue that the things feminism sees as problems harm men as well as women, but they’re not entirely mindkilled.

      • Cauê says:

        And what’s with the misreadings of “is” as “ought”?

        And the assumptions about the type of person that would talk about this.

        And the accusation of “circlejerk” in the context of you and your friends pointing at and criticizing an ongoing conversation you didn’t bother to engage with?

      • Held in Escrow says:

        I think there’s some misreading of the principle of charity there. It doesn’t mean you have to engage with an idea, just that if you engage with an idea you treat the person espousing it with a minimal standard of respect. I for one, think that NRx is dumbshit and have no interest in debating it… so I skip past anyone talking about it.

      • multiheaded says:

        “Do some people not understand the concept of discussing something without actually making plans to do it?”

        It’s more about how you talk about it. You aren’t going “hire a sex worker”, you are going “find a desperate enough person you have leverage over and try getting the most out of them”.

        • Pku says:

          Again, completely missing the point (are you unaware of the concept of discussing ideas, or just with the concept of reading things without immediately trying to see how feminism can criticize them?) It’s not a conversation about plotting to hire hookers using polite euphemisms, it’s a hypothetical conversation about something (arguably) different.

          • Nita says:

            It’s not a conversation about plotting to hire hookers using polite euphemisms

            The problem is not euphemisms, but dysphemisms. You use language seemingly designed to deny basic respect to the other party in the transaction and pre-emptively dismiss any claim to human rights they might have (“order a bride”/”buy a hooker”), and when abuse happens, people go “well, no wonder — this person did sell themselves, after all!”

        • DrBeat says:

          If you read with that much anticharity, every conversation you ever encounter is worthy of mockery.

  53. JakeR says:

    Can I bring up a controversial topic from current events? I hope I’m not violating any rules, but I’m so baffled at the popular reaction to this issue that I’d like to hear from the smart, objectives readers here to make sure I’m not missing something obvious. (If I am violating any rules, please just delete this comment, I’ll understand.)

    I’m talking about the whole Ahmed-clock debacle. Everyone in the media (and of course social media too) is reacting as if being suspicious of a bomb-looking device is the most irrational, Islamophobic behavior conceivable, but it seems pretty sensible to me. In fact, it’s absolutely in line with the official policy directive plastered all over NYC, “If you see something, say something.” It’s even in line with President Obama’s own advice, when after the Boston marathon bombing, he said, “…this is a good time for all of us to remember that we all have a part to play in alerting authorities — if you see something suspicious, speak up.” (http://1.usa.gov/1Mi0sBc). They want us to report backpacks left behind at a bus stop but not a device that looks to the average Hollywood-informed Joe to be eerily similar to an actual bomb?

    That being said, I absolutely do acknowledge that there was definitely an *overreaction* in how they treated the kid, arresting him, questioning him without his parents, etc. but almost all the criticism I’ve seen is focused on the very premise that anyone should be wary of such a suspicious looking device in the first place. I think caution and prudence was definitely warranted here. Wasn’t it?

    Does this make me an ignorant, Islamophobic bigot?

    • Daniel Speyer says:

      They never claimed they thought it was a bomb, but that it was a fake bomb for a hoax — presumably a hoax involving reverse psychology.

    • suntzuanime says:

      The official policy directive plastered all over NYC is insane, a huge number of false positives for every true one. It would be nice if it didn’t take stuff like this to help us see that, or if people were capable of generalizing from stuff like this to realize that the policies are insane, but what can you do.

      • JakeR says:

        I agree that the policy, and the general irrational paranoia, is unwise. However, it’s still what’s being publicly advocated. So it seems inconsistent to tell people, “If you see something, say something,” but then go on and tell them, “but not if it plays into the stereotyping of Muslims.”

        • Wrong Species says:

          That’s exactly the policy they want to promote. You’re allowed to be suspicious of white people, not anyone else.

        • Eli says:

          It’s inconsistent because it’s two different groups: you have one group who instituted “if you see something, say something”, and they’re actually quite in favor of applying that policy to Arabs and Muslims, and then you have another group who yell about Islamophobia (which is a legitimate problem in America, though I’d dispute the degree to which you can call European Islamophobia a racist ideology these days) and also consider “if you see something, say something” to be overly paranoid in the first place.

          • Muga Sofer says:

            Specifically, it’s public figures pandering to these two different groups (hence Obama, for example.)

    • Pku says:

      In terms of the direct impact, I agree that it was a classic dumb flag-waving competition about complaining about islamophobia.
      But, in this case it had a lot of potential good side affects, which (hopefully) might not go away completely. because it also involved complaining about school overreactions, bomb threat overreactions, and a bunch of supporters saying things like “cool clock” – which, truth or motivation aside, is a public affirmation that making clocks at home is cool, which is a nice (if minor and probably insincere) side effect.

      • nil says:

        Bingo. It’s an overblown media circus, and it’s irritating to see people who are 35+ proclaim that this could never happen to a white kid when anyone who attended public school after Columbine knows that, yeah, it totally could, but we need some overblown media circuses to give school administrators and their associates at least a minimal disincentive to fucking up kids’ lives over infinitesimal or purely hypothetical risks.

      • ThirteenthLetter says:

        I wish I could agree with you. Unfortunately, the only part that’s gotten any real media traction is the “ha ha, look at those knuckle-dragging racist Islamophobes in Texas” part. I will guarantee you that moronic zero-tolerance policies in schools or general American security theater, and tolerance/approval of same, will not decline the slightest bit due to this event.

    • Asterix says:

      The problem I saw people having — that I had — was not that the school authorities panicked over something they thought looked like a bomb (and that I thought looked like a computer). It’s that they handcuffed him and said they were going to charge him with a hoax bomb, though he kept telling everybody it was a clock. The caution was not, I think, the problem.

      • JakeR says:

        Well, there were myriad news outlets covering this, so I have no doubt that some of them might have taken that position. But the viewpoints I heard were more expressing shock that a teacher/principal/police could be so stupid as to even think this was worth being suspicious about. One quick example I can point to is the popular tech show “This Week in Google” which started this week’s show spending 10 minutes covering the story. Another example is this framing of it in Gawker’s coverage: “Ahmed’s English teacher believed the device was a bomb. Why? Could it have something to do with Ahmed Mohamed’s name, or the color of his skin?”

        Again, just to be clear, I want to reiterate, I absolutely do think the extremely harsh way he was treated was wrong. But to express caution and suspicion when faced with this situation does not seem at all uncalled for, IMHO.

      • Jiro says:

        Even if it really was meant as a hoax, once the police come he’d tell them it’s just a clock and not intended as a hoax. So any such statements made by him carry zero information. You have to determine that it’s a hoax or not based on the circumstances and his actions at the time he is caught, not based on his later statements.

        • multiheaded says:

          Totally Kafkaesque, yo!

          • Jiro says:

            It’s not Kafkaesque that stating you are innocent doesn’t work as evidence for your innocence. It’s how evidence works. Evidence that would exist independently of your innocence cannot be evidence for your innocence, by definition.

          • Nicholas says:

            Which means that confessing guilt is not evidence of guilt. Absence of Evidence is Evidence of Absence.

          • Montfort says:

            Nicholas: unfortunately your technical nitpick is about to be nitpicked. You have failed to consider that there are actions besides confessing guilt and protesting your innocence. In fact, there are many such actions, but we’ll refer to them collectively as “staying silent.”

            Imagine innocent people, when accused of a crime, choose the following actions with the given probability: P(protest|innocent) = 0.5, P(silent|innocent) = 0.49, P(confess|innocent) = 0.01. For criminals, we assert P(protest|guilty) = 0.5, P(silent|guilty) = 0.4, P(confess|guilty) = 0.1.

            You can see that in this world as P(protest|innocent) == P(protest|guilty), the fact that the suspect claims innocence is literally no evidence at all, and yet a confession still is 10 times more likely to occur if your suspect is actually guilty – i.e. confessions are still evidence of guilt.

            Is this likely to be the case in the real world? Probably not, I made it up as an explicit counter-example. A charitable reading of your comment would be something like “I very much doubt innocent people are exactly as likely as guilty people to protest their innocence.” But it takes only the same amount of charity to read Jiro’s point as “protests of innocence are very weak evidence wrt innocence, the sign of which may be uncertain.”

        • Jaxon Jensen says:

          He didn’t do that though, he did not clearly say “It’s a clock, yo” at all. He optimized for maximum news coverage, courtesy of his coaching from dear old dad.

          • AJD says:

            Jiro: “Even if it really was meant as a hoax, once the police come he’d tell them it’s just a clock and not intended as a hoax.”

            Jaxon Jensen: “He didn’t do that though, he did not clearly say ‘It’s a clock, yo’ at all.”

            Irving, Tex. police officer James McLellan: “We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock.”

          • Jaxon Jensen says:

            ugh, lack of threading. Other local news sources (dallas news IIRC as one example) indicated that the kid gave evasive responses.

          • Deiseach says:

            If he kept saying “It’s a clock” when they were asking “No, come on, what is it really?”, that might be classed as an evasive response if you’re convinced in the first place it couldn’t be a clock, it has to be part of a sinister campaign to make adults in the school and police look like racist bigots by tricking them into arresting a 14 year old so as to manipulate them for your plot of getting maximum public attention and sympathy.

            See, I don’t necessarily think the school were racists (I think they over-reacted and badly needed to heed the advice “When you’re in a hole, stop digging”). But when the conspiracy theories about “The kid plotted all this to have this exact outcome” and “he was radicalised/coached by dear old dad”, then the assumptions that we wouldn’t be hearing this talk if it was Joe Smith and not Ahmad Muhamed who was called to the principal’s office start to look more credible.

            Can you really not conceive the school and the cops made a mistake and this whole affair is a storm in a teacup? That the police and the faculty are not so flawless they had to be right in assuming this was meant to be a bomb, or a hoax bomb, and that they didn’t stick to their script even when it looked like they were wrong because they had made such a fuss, they had to keep going in the hopes they could salvage something along the lines of an admission of wrong-doing?

            Seeing as how neither the school nor the police treated it as a real threat (nothing like they would have reacted for a real bomb threat), they obviously had their minds made up that this was meant to be a hoax bomb and equally obviously were trying to break the kid down to admit that was what he did. Now, if that was true, they were in the right (though not going the right way about it) but if that’s not true, then what else can the kid do but keep on saying “It’s a clock” even if they don’t believe him and threaten to, and do, arrest him and put him in handcuffs and march him off to the station to be fingerprinted and processed?

            I think the school handled it badly, for whatever reasons. I think the kid was spectacularly unaware of what the repercussions could have been, probably because he’s a 14 year old geek with poor social skills who was more interested in showing off his invention to the teachers than thinking “Hey, this maybe looks like a prank bomb!” I think there’s been a lot of bandwagon jumping by both sides (the rush for the invite from the White House, for instance, is pure political PR).

            I also think imagining some kind of radical Sudanese Muslim immigrant plot masterminded by either a 14 year old or his father to create chaos through bomb hoaxes and manipulating the authorities into seeming racism, as a face-saving exercise for the authorities, is going too far and is toppling over into anti-Muslim/anti-immigrant sentiment territory.

          • DrBeat says:

            Dies, the “he planned this” theory isn’t hinged on him being Muslim either, and most of the people I have seen talking about it don’t cast it as any kind of “radicalized Muslim” thing.

            It hinges on him wanting to get attention.

          • Dr. Beat:

            I’ve seen a range of interpretations of what he did. That includes the one in which it was a deliberate plan, presumably by his father, to produce a news story that would benefit Muslims and make people hostile to Muslims look bad. It doesn’t strike me as very likely, but it’s not impossible.

            A somewhat more plausible theory, I think, is that it did occur to him that some people would think it was a bomb and he thought that would be fun–they could react in fear and he could then say “ha, ha, fooled you” or the equivalent. Teenaged boys do sometimes do such things.

            A still more plausible theory, in my view, is that he was showing off—pretending to be what his father later claimed him to be, a brilliant techie kid. That fits his describing it as his invention when, it now seems clear, all he did was to transfer the innards of an old clock to a pencil box. Although, of course, he might have thought of that as being an invention.

            Part of what is disturbing about what happened is the way people on each side of the political spectrum grabbed the story and fitted it into a form that worked for them.

    • Izaak Weiss says:

      You think something is a bomb; you call the bomb squad, you evacuate the school, you question people related to it; the bomb squad determines it’s not a bob, everyone was like, “Yeah, we knew it wasn’t a bomb, but we had to be sure”, we groan about the hassle, and the kid is told “don’t leave a backpack with a science experiment alone on the bus again.”

      That happened at my high school. In this case, the procedure seemed to be: You think something is a bomb. Bring bomb and kid into office. Don’t move anyone out of office. Leave bomb in populated office. Call police officers – not to deal with bomb, but to arrest kid.

      This discrepancy is unexplained except by malicious intent or stupidity. Usually I’d say stupidity, but in this case, the student is muslim, which makes the prior for malicious intent much higher.

      • DrBeat says:

        Thinking it was anti-Muslim is just fitting the events to the narrative.

        School administrators are stupid. Really, really stupid. The malice they exhibit is but one aspect of their stupidity. The rules made for them to follow are stupid, because if they were not stupid, they would not be able to follow them.

        OP of this subthread pointed out that the stupid school administrators followed the stupid rules made for them to follow exactly.

        School administrators are not capable of deviating from the rules when the result of deviating from the rules would be less stupid than adhering to them; you have probably had the “pop-tart bitten into gun-shape” example brought up by now, which had nothing to do with race.

        The school administrators behaved exactly as we would predict they would behave just knowing about the rules they are meant to follow and their endless need to maximize the stupidity of their actions. So, if their behavior is perfectly predicted by our model without knowing the race of the student in question, the race of the student in question can’t be the cause of their behavior.

        • zz says:

          Indeed. I first saw the story in the news section of a tech forum that I get my tech news from. OP made no mention of the kid’s race and I wasn’t surprised at all.

        • Can’t it be both?

          It looks to me like this was overdetermined. A white kid would probably be under suspicion if he had something like that clock, too. But the fact that he’s a Muslim named Ahmed surely didn’t help matters.

      • Jaxon Jensen says:

        No, they were following “hoax/fake bomb” procedures because they believed that was the situation they were dealing with and the responses from the kid were nebulous enough to make them believe it might be what they were dealing with.

    • Yes, the whole business is dumb. Kids have gotten expelled (or otherwise disciplined) from school for biting graham crackers into the shape of a gun. The clock definitely did look like an actual suitcase bomb, just missing, you know, the bomb part. I don’t expect the kid’s teacher to know what a bomb looks like, but I do expect the police to.

      But the whole business plays really well into the whole SJW-narrative of “Americans are evil paranoid racists who are so dumb, they can’t tell the difference between a bomb and a clock if it happens to be held by a Muslim!”

    • Alraune says:

      He was going to be charged with, and was treated in the standard manner for, committing Criminal That’s Not Funny.

    • HlynkaCG says:

      JakeR says: Does this make me an ignorant, Islamophobic bigot?

      If it does they might as well throw me in the box-car with you.

      That said, that clock only looks like a bomb to someone who has no idea what a bomb actually looks like. Personally I feel like the accusations of racism/anti-islamism are just a smoke-screen to preempt criticism of the obvious incompetency on display.

      • JakeR says:

        First of all, why would the average person know what a real suitcase bomb actually looks like? I’ve never seen one in real life. Have you?

        Secondly, if you search Google Images for “suitcase bomb” some of those contraptions look quite similar to Ahmed’s device.

        • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

          For that matter, why would anyone assume that a bomb built by a 14-year-old could only look like a bomb built by an adult professional, and not like the sort of bomb you’d see in those action movies that are so popular with 14-year-olds?

          • HlynkaCG says:

            You wouldn’t, but you would expect it to have some sort of reaction mass and power/ignition source. Point being that the kid’s “bomb” is pretty obviously non-functional which leads us to facelesscraven’s point below.

        • Eli says:

          Well, if you don’t know what a suitcase bomb looks like, why would you confidently identify some device placed before you as a suitcase bomb with high probability?

        • FacelessCraven says:

          @JakeR – “First of all, why would the average person know what a real suitcase bomb actually looks like? I’ve never seen one in real life. Have you?”

          HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG-

          OK, I am hereby invoking authority of expertise. I am probably the only person in this thread who has actually made a fake bomb and used it to scare someone. Also, making “fake bombs” is a small part of my actual job.

          A real bomb can look like anything. Scrap wood, a toolbox, an amazon package, a shitty car. The point of most real bombs is to NOT LOOK LIKE A BOMB UNTIL THEY EXPLODE. The goal is for people to look at it, see nothing, and let their attention wander elsewhere.

          The point of a fake bomb is to LOOK LIKE WHAT PEOPLE THINK A BOMB LOOKS LIKE. You want people to look at it and immediately think “sweet jesus that’s a bomb we’re all gonna die”.

          Anyone talking about how the thing didn’t look like an actual bomb, THAT IS THE POINT. You know how the save icon is a floppy disc even though most people using computers have never seen a floppy? Floppies aren’t the platonic ideal of the symbol for “saving”, they’re the symbol we use for the saving function because people associate it with the saving function in a progressive recursion back to the point that floppies were actually used. Suitcase + exposed wiring + digital display = “bomb”. There are even subvarients. If you want something that people will immediately recognize as a bomb but not find scary, you use black ball + fuse sticking out the top. We associate that with cartoons and funny rabbits, not actual terrorism (though back before those cartoon rabbits, people actually associated them with hairy-faced anarchists). Above all, fiction has to be plausible. It’s reality that can play fast and loose.

          To the point at hand: the school thought it was a fake bomb, not a real bomb. There’s layers here.
          a – Is it a real bomb? no, definately not.
          b – Is it a fake bomb? no, definately not.
          c – is it an innocent device that can be mistaken for a or b depending on circumstance? Yes, clearly so.
          d – Is it a plausably deniable fake bomb? probably not.

          Some of the background on the kid’s dad, and the statements the kid made, make it seem distantly possible that this might have been a publicity stunt, but there’s zero proof, zero way to get proof, and at the end of the day it’s way safer to grant him the benefit of the doubt and wish him well, and use this of another example of the absolute insanity of our modern schooling system.

          Visual aid for those needing one:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8kWnOCy90o

          Also, for those who want to think about the racism angle, a helpful control:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Boston_bomb_scare

          • JakeR says:

            I forgot about that Boston marketing stunt that freaked out the authorities. Thank you for bringing that up. It’s not quite a perfect counter example to all those who are saying, “they were only suspicious of it because of his race” (since the race of the 2007 perpetrators was unknown when the devices raised suspicion) but it’s pretty close.

          • nydwracu says:

            A few months ago, an 11-year-old white kid around here got suspended for a year because the school found a maple leaf in his backpack and thought it was weed.

            The public school system is a jobs program for morons and sadists. Anyone who thinks the clock thing happened because the kid’s name is Ahmed has somehow managed not to realize the obvious fact that the public school system is a jobs program for morons and sadists. People who have somehow managed not to realize an obvious fact are unlikely to deserve even ten seconds of your attention.

    • houseboatonstyx says:

      I think a lot of the fuss is people way out on the fringes of the incident and/or of US stuff in general, taking map as territory. They’re reacting to the term ‘alarm clock’ instead of looking at a picture of the whole actual object (per Steve Sailer).
      http://i0.wp.com/makezine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/0916ahmedclock-sk.jpg?zoom=1.5&resize=620%2C375

    • Scott Alexander says:

      What do people who know about electronics think of this article?

      • Partisan says:

        (Electrical Engineering graduate) I think the main claim is about right – that circuit board probably came from an existing clock.

        That said, I don’t think that really matters much. Taking apart existing electronics and re-constructing them is a great way to learn.

        To put it in context: As part of a college class I had to make a circuit to control one digit of a clock. It was difficult! A 14-year-old re-wiring an existing clock with all the digits and functions is impressive.

        • Saal says:

          I dunno…I could see the case for “He disassembled and reassembled this device”, but it looks an awful lot like he just stripped the plastic case and screwed it into the pencil box. Pretty sure I could pick any random fourteen year old who isn’t in a special needs program and they could do it, and furthermore, wouldn’t gain any knowledge from it.

          • Partisan says:

            It’s interesting to me that there seems to be a desire to take this kid down a peg. I think it’s wrong, but maybe understandable.

            The adults who suspended / arrested / etc. the kid obviously overreacted. I don’t know whether this reaction was motivated by structural racism; anti-Muslim paranoia; anti-intellectualism; an out-of-control zero tolerance mindset; or what, but it’s clear the response was disproportional.

            The response to this incident in the media, on the Internet, etc. has also been an overreaction. There are lots of motivations for this – some noble (“scientific curiosity is to be encouraged!”) and some not (“ha, those stupid conservative Texans, let’s all signal how much smarter we are than them”). But there’s been a rush to make sure everyone knows that this kid is great and everyone else involved sucks.

            But now there’s a reaction to the reaction to the reaction. There seems to be the notion that this kid has received undeserved status, so it’s now important to make sure we know he didn’t _really_ build a clock, or isn’t really a perfect angel genius, etc.

            And maybe that’s the real issue – we’re trying to make sure the relative status changes of people involved match our preferences? I’ll admit that’s what I’m doing: I want the kid to have some more status (but let’s not go overboard with it). I want the adults involved to have less (and let’s see how far we can take it).

        • Gbdub says:

          Did he even rewire it though? To me it looked like he ripped out the innards and repackaged them (in something that, like it or not, triggers the public zeitgeist of “suitcase bomb”).

          Clever, yes, but the race to nominate this kid for a science Nobel are just as absurd as the alleged technical ignorance of the teacher.

          Kids the same age with the same or better technical talent are a dime a dozen at e.g. FIRST robotics. I don’t mean this as an insult to Ahmed, just as a note that teens are more capable than they are often given credit for.

          • Partisan says:

            I certainly agree that the notion that the kid is the next Tesla is unwarranted, but I stand by my claim that disassembling and re-assembling electronics is praiseworthy and to be encouraged.

            When I was around his age I replaced my Sega Dreamcast memory card’s CR2032 batteries with recharge-able AAs. How did I do it? I bought an AA case at Radio Shack and used alligator clips to attach it. As far as projects go, $5 of supplies and 10 minutes of assembly isn’t very interesting, but the adults who saw me do it were impressed. The good feedback encouraged me to study electronics, and encouraged my eventual career in engineering.

            So, I don’t really think that saying “well other kids in robotics competitions are more talented” is very useful. The kid should get praise for taking on a project, not arrested and subjected to dissections of his merit on the Internet (sorry kid).

          • DrBeat says:

            I think your project is a lot more laudable because you were trying to add utility, by replacing those tiny little goddamn disc batteries that cost way too much with normal people batteries. Ahmed wasn’t trying to add utility at all; he wasn’t trying to DO anything even in the most favorable interpretation.

          • Partisan says:

            Re: DrBeat, the other benefit of my project was that the memory card didn’t beep every time you turned on the console because the disc batteries were dead…

            You say “he wasn’t trying to DO anything even in the most favorable interpretation,” but I think that might mean you’re not very good at imagining favorable interpretations!

          • Whatever Happened to Anonymous says:

            >he wasn’t trying to DO anything even in the most favorable interpretation.

            That just isn’t true. Hell, if you consider the unfavorable interpretation that he intended to use it as a hoax time-bomb, what he did clearly had a purpose to it!

          • Gbdub says:

            I fully agree that technical tinkering and experimentation should be encouraged. I’m less trying to take Ahmed down a peg than I am trying to take a peg from the people who laugh at the teachers technological incompetence while simultaneously lauding Ahmed as a little Tesla without understanding what he did either.

            Also, the fact that he didn’t add any utility to the clock is I think relevant to whether or not it’s plausible that Ahmed intended to provoke a reaction. It’s not really relevant to whether or not the school officials overreacted, that I agree on. I just think it’s another reason that the social media reaction is over the top.

    • Saal says:

      TBH, I’m not really interested in the school’s reaction, the media’s reaction, or Obama’s reaction.

      What I wanna know is, wtf? Why does rehousing an off-the-shelf alarm clock (look at the damn thing!) get you “offers from Twitter, NASA, and MIT” and make you some kinda boy genius?

      Edit: Here’s a guy who actually tracked the clock in question down: http://blogs.artvoice.com/techvoice/2015/09/17/reverse-engineering-ahmed-mohameds-clock-and-ourselves/

      Edit2: oops, Scott beat me to it.

      • Eli says:

        He’s 14, that’s why. Managing to do a bit of trivial tinkering without having received any former education in the subject raises the expectation that he could become a useful electrical engineer (which is what, last I heard, he wants to be), if you actually go and give him the formal training — probably more so than people who just go through EE majors in school because their parents said to major in engineering.

        • Gbdub says:

          Ever seen FIRST robotics? Or Team America Rocketry Challenge? Or any of a number of other technical clubs and competitions? Yes, it shows some aptitude, but I and a number of students at my fairly small school were doing similarly technical things at that age and no one was falling all over themselves to give us a MacArthur grant.

        • Saal says:

          I think it’s pretty salient that the kid is running around saying he designed and built a “homemade alarm clock” which is, in reality, an old alarm clock with the plastic stripped off stuffed into a pencil box. Which means, at best, he went into that school looking to be fawned over as Mr. Boy Genius for a project he didn’t do, and the fact that he (intentionally or not) whipped up a media controversy is now supposed to somehow make him worthy of accolades and fast-track into high-status tech careers.

          • Gbdub says:

            His engineering teacher probably should have confiscated it for having exposed AC wiring. Obviously can’t blow anyone up with it, but would be pretty easy for a kid to get seriously zapped by it.

      • Partisan says:

        Point one: “Twitter, NASA, and MIT” probably want to ride the wave of positive feelings toward the kid more than they want to actually bring him onboard.

        Point two: My guess is that P(person will be a talented electrical engineer | person rebuilt clocks as a teenager) is much greater than P(person will be a talented electrical engineer | person did not rebuild clocks as a teenager).

      • Not Robin Hanson says:

        Hello. I am Not Robin Hanson, but I’m here to tell you about signalling anyways. This is not about Ahmed, the person, as e.g. Gbdub’s argument demonstrates. This is about Ahmed, the social phenomenon. Twitter, NASA, MIT, et al. are taking this opportunity to say “YEAH SCIENCE LOOK HOW SCIENCY AND SUPPORTIVE OF SCIENCE WE ARE WE ARE SCIENCE.” This isn’t about sending an offer to Ahmed, it’s about sending a message to everyone. “Sending an offer to Ahmed” is simply a vehicle for making that message as conspicuous as possible, as is making the offer in as public a place as you can find. It is irrelevant whether the clock demonstrates that Ahmed is a boy genius because we have already decided that Ahmed is playing the role of Boy Genius in this drama. The only question is whether you are on Team Boy Genius and how much on Team Boy Genius you are.

        • J says:

          Well said, Not Robin Hanson.

        • Oscar_Cunningham says:

          It is irrelevant whether the clock demonstrates that Ahmed is a boy genius because we have already decided that Ahmed is playing the role of Boy Genius in this drama.

          Are you sure you’re Not Robin Hanson rather than Not The Last Psychiatrist?

          • Not Robin Hanson says:

            Indeed, the great thing about not being someone is that you can be not two people at the same time.

    • Paul Goodman says:

      A couple points on this:

      1) I’m pretty sure that overall the harm done by overvigilance due to fear, harassment of innocent people, and dropping everything in wide areas to safely blow up harmless backpacks far outweighs the plausible gains in likelihood of stopping terrorist attacks.

      2) From what I understand they continued to treat him terribly after they were sure the device was not in fact a bomb. While they were arresting him the device was not treated with any of the precautions you would use with something you were worried might be a bomb.

      • DrBeat says:

        They did not believe it was a bomb, they believed it was a hoax bomb. As in, a device that was not a bomb, but looked like one, built for the purpose of scaring or threatening someone who believes it is a bomb.

        Like if you bring a replica gun to a school or other suppsedly-secure place, one of those ones that looks real but doesn’t shoot, you get in trouble even when they know the gun was not capable of harming people — you get punished for bringing a thing meant to scare and threaten people. The school who punished the white kid for biting a Pop-Tart into a gun shape did not believe it was an actual gun or that it would fire bullets, and did not treat it with the precautions you would treat a gun with.

        • Wouter says:

          > They did not believe it was a bomb, they believed it was a hoax bomb.

          I agree that this is a more reasonable interpretation. However, in that case, the burden of proof to show that the device was indeed intended to scare or threaten people, should lie with the accuser.

          Why did the following not happen:
          Police: “Mr. school administrator, you have called us to deal with this kid who has brought an entirely harmless clock to school. While we agree that some fools could mistake it for a bomb, that does not suffice. Harmless things are mistaken for bombs all the time, and malice is rarely involved. Please, present us with your evidence that this child did in fact intend to use this device as a hoax bomb. If you have no such evidence, we will arrest you, the school administrator, for frivolously wasting police time, a.k.a making hoax calls to an emergency number.”

          • Ptoliporthos says:

            Because the police aren’t a court, and that’s not the standard for making an arrest?

            Perhaps threatening to arrest everyone who reports something they mistakenly think might be a crime could have bad effects on the effectiveness of the police too?

          • Wouter says:

            Ptoliporthos says
            > Because the police aren’t a court, and that’s not the standard for making an arrest?

            And the mere accusation that someone is planning a bomb scare is sufficient standard for making arrest? They had more evidence for “the school administrator is wasting our time” than they had for “the child is planning a bomb scare”.

            (what evidence did they have for “the child is planning a bomb scare” ? None (the clock doesn’t count. Bomb scares can be done with simple backpacks.). What evidence did they have for “the school administrator is wasting our time”? The fact that the school administrator called them with wild allegations and no evidence to back them up.)

            > Perhaps threatening to arrest everyone who reports something they mistakenly think might be a crime could have bad effects on the effectiveness of the police too?

            It cannot be worse than arresting everyone who is merely accused of planning a bomb scare.

        • Agronomous says:

          Yes, but what made them so sure it was a hoax bomb? Did they bring in hoax-bomb-sniffing dogs to examine it?

          More seriously, I’m leaning towards the his-narcissistic-attention-seeking-obscurely-politically-motivated-father-dreamed-the-whole-thing-up-and-expected-it-to-play-out-just-like-it-has theory. Even when I was initially in the “Yay, baby Woz!” camp, the situation just felt too pat to be true: like actual professional con men,* it just pushed way too many feel-good/feel-superior buttons simultaneously.

          (* OK, the one** time I’ve actually ever met any.)

          (** Or was it? Crap. How could I tell?)

      • houseboatonstyx says:

        I think the facts in point 1) quite justify the actions in point 2).

    • Deiseach says:

      No, you’re not a bigot but it was how the school reacted. They didn’t evacuate and no bomb squad turned up so they were not treating it as a real possible suspect device. The explanation coming out is garbled but it’s something like “we wanted him to tell us where he planned to put the hoax bomb” so that’s why the cops and handcuffs and public parade to the station to be fingerprinted. THAT’S what makes it look racist.

      • Gbdub says:

        But there are a number of non-minority kids who’ve gotten similarly lousy treatment for things like chewing a toaster pastry into a vaguely gun-like shape and pointing a bubble shooter at another student (both of those kids were under 10).

        The evidence that a non-Muslim could would have been treated substantially differently is essentially nil. Hell, you yourself are associating Muslims with terrorism when you assert that the reaction must have been racist. So aren’t you a racist now too?

  54. jaimeastorga2000 says:

    In “A Winning Conservative Strategy”, Free Northerner argues that the GOP, if it decided to actually play to win for once, could easily do so by playing hardball at the lowest levels of violence and threatening escalation, relying on the Red Tribe’s ultimate control of the highest levels of violence (the military, the police, and armed civilian masses).

    • Zebram says:

      I don’t think most people in this country will actually rebel against the government or the majority. There will be talk, but nobody’s gonna do nothin’.

      • Pku says:

        There’s also the issue of how much red tribe loyalty someone has. Most military people talk a lot about loyalty to country, and I think enough of them actually believe it that the red tribe would have an incredibly hard time convincing the majority of the military to join in a coup.

        • Autonomous Rex says:

          This you.gov poll came out three days ago:

          http://www.juancole.com/2015/09/republicans-backing-military.html

          43% of Republicans polled can see supporting a military coup.

          • suntzuanime says:

            in other words, 57% of Republicans would never support a military coup, no matter how bad things got?

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            Well, nothing to worry about then.

            As long as this contingent isn’t vulnerable to believing wild, thoroughly disproven, conspiracy theories we should be fine.

          • HlynkaCG says:

            Being able to imagine circumstances where in military intervention could be justified isn’t quite the same thing as being pro-coup d’etat.

          • Scott Alexander says:

            I question that poll. I’m pretty anti-coup, but even I can imagine a situation where I’d want the military to take over – for example if the civilian government ended up a genocidal dictatorship. If the poll isn’t just reflecting who has better imaginations, it’s probably reflecting some kind of knee-jerk response to the word “military”.

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            That’s nothing. Nearly 100% of utilitarians can see killing an innocent person with a trolley car!

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            You’re being entirely too sanguine. According to many Republicans we’re already meeting those conditions, Scott.
            60% of Trump voters believe Obama is a foreign-born Muslim. Another large percentage believe in FEMA camps and plots like Jade Helm.
            Christian apocalypticists abound.
            Race war enthusiasts routinely post here.
            This week on Limbaugh the theme was “we could use some of what Honduras got”. The twelve GOP candidates speak as if entirely untethered to reality.
            Yet, nothing to see here, move along….
            I see a lot of intelligent people so ultra-committed to a belief in a demonic, intransigent, left, there’s no evidence that could convince them we have a serious mental health problem on the heavily-armed right. It can all be swatted down, if you’re sufficiently motivated.
            The question is why?

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHOog45llUU

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Autonomous Rex – “I see a lot of intelligent people so ultra-committed to a belief in a demonic, intransigent, left, there’s no evidence that could convince them we have a serious mental health problem on the heavily-armed right. ”

            Holding opinions you disagree with is not mental illness. Holding irrational views is not mental illness. Gun owners are significantly more law-abiding than the median American. And more to the point, you have demonstrated an inability in previous threads to distinguish between conservatives, even strident ones, and Adolf Hitler’s political organization.

            People occasionally post here saying that the comments have gotten more right-wing, or more stridently right-wing over time. I’ve actually started saving samples of your posts to quote the next time I see the meme.

          • Pku says:

            “Gun owners are more law-abiding” – can you link any sources? I’ve tried googling but couldn’t find anyone who wasn’t ridiculously partisan on the issue.
            Also, there’s an interesting issue on whether a large number of sane people could, when viewed as a group, be somewhat crazy. I’d say yes, and american gun obsession seems as good an example as any – the argument on gun control aside, it’s a bit strange that it’s such a big deal here. (Case in point: a few years ago Israel passed a law making it significantly harder to get guns. I only found out about it after an american newspaper cited it as an example).
            (To be clear, this isn’t “gun owners are crazy”, it’s “there are a lot of people who are pretty crazy about guns here.”)

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Pku – “Gun owners are more law-abiding” – can you link any sources? I’ve tried googling but couldn’t find anyone who wasn’t ridiculously partisan on the issue.”

            If yopu’re willing to use concealed-carry permit holders as a central example for members of the Gun Culture, then this might be a start:
            http://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Report-from-the-Crime-Prevention-Research-Center-Final.pdf

            …Stats for CCW permit holders show them committing serious crimes at a rate 1/7th that of the actual police, using a possibly conservative estimate of police crime. There’s also the fact that gun ownership, “assault weapon” ownership, and concealed carry have all increased exponentially since the 80s/90s, while murder and crime rates have continued to drop.

            “I’d say yes, and american gun obsession seems as good an example as any – the argument on gun control aside, it’s a bit strange that it’s such a big deal here… (To be clear, this isn’t “gun owners are crazy”, it’s “there are a lot of people who are pretty crazy about guns here.”)”

            I’m not sure how to parse this. Like, you just think it’s crazy that we have such strong opinions, whether pro- or anti-?, since you see guns as largely irrelevent to lfe in general?

          • Pku says:

            About the article: Their conclusion of “there are more gun permits and less crime these days, even accounting for more police” seems tenuous at best.
            The last one, with “Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors or felonies at one sixth the rate that police officers are convicted.” Seems much stronger. I’m still not fully convinced though – stereotype (and the one person I actually know who lives in rural texas) seem to suggest it’s pretty easy to get guns without permits in Texas, so there could easily be a correlation there because law-abiding people are the ones who actually bother with getting a permit before they get a gun (among other explanations; it seems like a interesting but not overwhelming evidence for gun owners being more law-abiding, though).
            The second part got parsed weird because I switched ideas halfway through. The first one was that a society of mostly sane people can probably still be insane as a society (Nazi Germany, or if you want to avoid Godwin, soccer fans, seem like a decent example).
            The second one was that on both sides, guns seem a topic where americans have a very hard time being detached and rational (I’d say pro-gun people are significantly worse about this, partly because they tend to be more politically active, partly because it’s hard to get too excited about not owning a gun, and partly because building a huge armoury of weapons is something I can easily see people getting carried away with for the same reason people like pokemon).
            Case in point: the guy I know who lives in Texas has guns hidden in spots all around the house in case of a sudden burglary, but doesn’t bother locking the door when he goes out or in (I don’t know if he’s representative, but he’s a friendly and reasonable guy aside from that, not some cartoon redneck, so I can believe there are a lot of people like him out there). This seems like owning guns as a form of cultural signalling rather than actual utility, which is strange for someone coming from a culture where guns are mostly just regarded as weapons.

            Aside: Scott said he’s pro-gun because there’s no proof banning them would significantly decrease crime. I kind of agree, except my approach is “it seems like it would be more likely to decrease than increase, so we should probably do it just in case”. But once you see guns as part of a culture, the cultural war effect is way bigger than the might-decrease-homicide (or suicide) effect, so it’s really not worth the effort.

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            “People occasionally post here saying that the comments have gotten more right-wing, or more stridently right-wing over time. I’ve actually started saving samples of your posts to quote the next time I see the meme.”

            You seem less interested in responding to my examples than you do in shutting me up.

            EDIT: taking a quick look at your comment history shows you have a lot to answer for when it comes to
            making wild hyperbolic accusations. My comments are not phrased as undeniable assertions like yours.
            If you think you can bully me you will be sorely disappointed.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Pku – “Their conclusion of “there are more gun permits and less crime these days, even accounting for more police” seems tenuous at best.”

            There are definately more guns now, and there is definately less crime, and that drop isn’t attributable to more police. It’s not attributable to the guns either though; near as is possible to know, guns seem to have zero impact on crime rates. Law abiding people don’t abuse them, criminals can always get them anyway if they want them. Effects from self defense seem to balance out effects from easier access for criminals. It’s a wash.

            “It seems like a interesting but not overwhelming evidence for gun owners being more law-abiding, though).”
            that’s about all I expected of it. My main point is to argue against AR’s description of the gun-owning right as mentally ill. If CCW holders are an example of the “hard core” gun owning right, then he’s pretty obviously wrong.

            “This seems like owning guns as a form of cultural signalling rather than actual utility, which is strange for someone coming from a culture where guns are mostly just regarded as weapons.”

            Rule for Radicals #6: “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.” They’ll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They’re doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.

            Guns are hella fun, and being part of the Gun Culture has interesting positive knock-on effects for other areas of life. For example, I would argue that the way CCW holders are super-law-abiding is a result of the subculture itself. CCW holders take it seriously, and enforce group norms that encourage law-abiding behaviour. That makes them a desirable group to be part of, and people shape their behavior to conform to the group. They have their failures too; I easily believe that gun owners disproportionately believe Oama is a kenyan-born muslim. I also note that error has little real impact on their day-to-day lives.

          • Ever An Anon says:

            @Autonomous Rex,

            The reason people seem hesitant to engage you in debate here is that, in a delicious bit of irony, your ranting about Republican irrationality and alleged mental illness makes you sound crazy and irrational.

            More on point, can you offer any non-anecdotal evidence of widespread mental illness or violent tendencies on the political Right? Most of the studies I’ve heard of have conservatism correlated with slightly better mental health and slightly lower IQ, plus a few other traits such as the strength of disgust reactions. But nothing like what you describe.

            After all, if somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-50% of the country is as bug-fuck insane as you imply, you’d expect to see some hint of that in the data.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            Autonomous Rex – “You seem less interested in responding to my examples than you do in shutting me up.”

            Previous interactions with you have left me pretty confident that you are not interested in civility, niceness, or productive conversation. You think conservatives are some combination of insane or evil, and your commitment to that position is not shakeable by the contrary evidence I and others have supplied. On the other hand, I have no power to shut you up, and would not if I could. You, like Steve Johnson, do an excellent job of serving as a bad example while still raising points that have to be engaged.

            I apologize if this is unkind, and submit that I find it both true and necessary.

            If you are belatedly interested in contrary evidence…
            1 – Members of the right-wing Gun Culture are in fact more law-abiding than the average citizen
            2 – While right-wing people believe some truly rediculous things, I hung out with the far left during the Shrub’s administration, and nothing you’ve cited (including the support for coups) is new or unusual or exclusive to the right.
            3 – While I have lately come to believe that conservatives have an apocalypse problem rooted in their ideology, you have repeatedly put forward that a significant part of the American population is crazy/evil and murderous, and we need to Do Something Immediately before they go Rwanda on their neighbors. That sounds suspiciously like an apocalypse problem rooted deeply in ideology, and it only confirms to conservatives that they’re right to be paranoid about the left.

            You come across as a jerk. Please find a way to be nicer. As a suggestion, try to accept the idea that the people you disagree with, even the ones that believe crazy things, are actually more-or-less decent human beings capable of leading fulfilling, productive lives.

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            Context, lads. Remember, this thread is in response to Free Northerner’s essay:

            “Find a leftist and destroy him/her on a personal level. Targets can include actual elected officials, bureaucrats abusing their positions for partisan reasons (ie. the IRS), leftist bloggers, leftist media figures, leftist academics, leftist activists, leftist businesses, leftists NGO’s and non-profits.
            The investigation network will find out everything they can about it, they will pass it to the information network who will distribute it, and it will be logged in the enemies list. If the person has done anything actionable, the legal war team will pounce on it. The street and phone team will protest in their own manners.
            You could have dozens of these campaigns running at once.”

            At the end this foreign national makes his appeal:

            “If any higher placed GOP flak with the funds would like to win, win hard, and win permanently rather than throw massive amounts of money down the RINO-hole, I am willing to sell my services. I will gladly be hired to write up a detailed plan and I would be happy to be hired to implement it (for appropriate compensation of course). I might not believe in democracy, but Democrat tears are their own reward.
            Also, my offer of selling my services applies to other country’s conservative parties. I do live in Canada after all.
            Think about it GOP operative or rich conservative donor reading this. You can hire me for peanuts (relatively speaking) and win, or you can continue to throw millions upon millions at candidates that always seem to let the country continue left.”

            Tu quoque, Brutus?

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Autonomous Rex – “Context, lads. Remember, this thread is in response to Free Northerner’s essay:”

            That essay is about the Red Tribe responding to the blue tribe’s dirty tactics by adopting those same dirty tactics in an organized fashion. It is not, in fact, about shooting people. No part of his plan involves any form of illegal behavior, much less actual assault or murder. He is talking about using the tools of society to destroy and intimidate political opponents in exactly the fashion they are currently being used by sections of the blue tribe. If that pisses you off, take it up with the evil people on your side who decided that fucking up peoples lives to make an ideological point was the best possible way of securing political change.

            As it happens, his plan is probably a terrible idea, because Social Justice is probably a burnout fringe movement and not the next big thing. If it rallies and starts making major headway, I’d consider donating to his campaign myself.

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            Calm down. All my comments have been simple citations or quotations of people you make common cause with, filigreed with some sarcasm.

            “If that pisses you off, take it up with the evil people on your side who decided that fucking up peoples lives to make an ideological point was the best possible way of securing political change.”

            Is this about Moldbug’s disinvitation?
            The Eich firing of last year?

            You seem to be sheltered from authentic suffering. Why waste so much hatred on those who disagree or criticize businessmen you admire?

            So far you’ve claimed im ranting, guilty of calling opponents evil, and am “so pissed off” when none are true of me and all are true of you. Get a hold of yourself.

            You may be suffering from hysteria associated with unacknowledged shame, i.e. Humiliated Fury:
            http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff/20a.html

            You seem like a once normal person, perhaps intelligent and kind, who got caught up in a rightwing backlash, and is suffering from the shame and stress of defending the indefensible .i.e Ted Cruz et al. + violent and venal opportunists like Free Northerner.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Autonomous Rex – “So far you’ve claimed im ranting, guilty of calling opponents evil, and am “so pissed off” when none are true of me and all are true of you. Get a hold of yourself.”

            I guess I’ll have to leave it up to my fellow commenters to draw their own conclusions. Have a good one, sir.

          • James Picone says:

            @Autonomous Rex:
            Please don’t.

            I understand where you’re coming from. My view of reality is closer to yours than to Faceless Craven’s. I don’t think there’s some kind of Left Wing Dirty Tricks Thing going on that the right should hypothetically be responding in kind to.

            But you are not helping. Being a jerk is not ethical and not convincing.

            Your last several posts on this thread are not posts you should have made. They’re direct personal attacks. Please don’t make posts like that.

          • Luke Somers says:

            Autonomous, I’m a grayish blue, and I still can’t get behind statements like ‘we have a serious mental health problem on the heavily-armed right’ because you’re painting with too broad a brush. Or perhaps the brush is right but the paint is wrong.

            Sure, some people believe some really stupid things. Maybe a noticeable fraction of Republicans actually believe Obama is a Nigerian Muslim. Maybe they were BS-ing/signalling. Maybe the poll was made up (that’s a thing that happens). Maybe the sample was biased. Maybe the question was a bit more ambiguous, like this one was, and it doesn’t mean what the summary meant – is it conceivable, rather than do they think it’s true.

            This is not sufficient evidence to declare a mental health problem, unless failure to have highly developed rationality is a mental health problem.

            Hyperbole does not help, especially in politics, and especially when you’re blaming people for failure to be reflective, and especially ESPECIALLY when you’re blaming people for failure to be reflective in politics.

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            Agreed.

            Az tsvey zogn ‘shiker,’ darf zikh der driter leygn shlofn (אז צוויי זאגן “שיכור,” דארף זיך דער דריטער לייגן שלאפן):

            The third time someone tries to put a saddle on you, you should admit you are a horse.
            (If two people say the third is drunk, he should go to sleep).

            http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/

            http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

    • The_Dancing_Judge says:

      I have actually always wondered why the GOP never responds in kind to leftist tactics. There’s something there with the demographics preventing such activity.

      Though with the increasingly grey-red leaning anti-SJW crowd, things may be different.

      • HlynkaCG says:

        I obviously can’t speak for the GOP as a whole, but the general feeling is personal attacks and lawfare have a certain tinge of the “dark arts” about them.

        That said I feel that this inhibition has been waning in the last few years, There seems to be a growing sense in red tribe forums that the only way to defend against such tactics is to start punching back twice as hard.

      • Stefan Drinic says:

        You could just as easily wonder why leftists don’t respond in kind to rightist tactics, so you have a lot more to ponder if you’re truly interested.

      • Scott Alexander says:

        Can you give an example of what leftist tactics the GOP doesn’t respond to, and what would be an example of responding to those tactics?

        • Jiro says:

          I think Republicans are hamstrung by the media narrative. Republicans who try to claim that Democrats are racist or sexist will simply get ignored or laughed at regardless of whether they actually are, because the narrative is that those things are the fault of the Republicans. They *can’t* use the same tactics in many cases.

          It’s also unlikely that you’ll find Republicans *never* using some tactics. You’ll just find them using the tactic with much lower frequency, which is a lot harder to prove in a blog comment because people like arguing by examples. (This is true both of tactics that they are unwilling to use and tactics that they are unable to use. I can even think of single examples of Republicans pointing out Democrats are racist, like with the origin of some gun control laws.)

          That being said, I don’t recall any Republican protests that resemble Occupy protests.

          • s4 says:

            tea party rallies? also protesting/attacking abortion clinics seems like a leftist kind of tactic

          • Hlynkacg says:

            The Tea-partiers werent setting up semi-perminant camps so I dont really see them as comparable.

            I’ll grant the abortion clinic example but i think its worth noting that the abortion debate is one of the few topics where in the tribes’ typical argumentative roles are flipped.

          • ThirteenthLetter says:

            > tea party rallies?

            The tea party rallies were generally peaceful, had the appropriate permits, and cleaned up after themselves and went home at the end of the day. No real comparison to Occupy, unless you’re just talking about the broad strategy of “have a rally with lots of people in it.”

          • Simon says:

            When I first heard of OWS, my immediate reaction was to assume that the movement was a deliberate left-wing counterpoint to TP.

          • Limi says:

            I’m sorry, but what leftist tactics do murdering abortion doctors resemble? I never actually thought of abortion clinic attacks as right or left wing, just heinous religious zealotryzealotry, but I would love to know what the left does like firebombing clinics.

          • Limi says:

            Do you understand present and past tense? More importantly, are you really so committed to smearing leftists that you would rather go hunting through history for cold war atrocities than agree that abortion clinics are a result of warped religious zealotry as opposed to left/right political tactics?

          • Limi says:

            I don’t get it. I also don’t see how it passes through any of the gates.

          • suntzuanime says:

            it’s true because I really did laugh out loud, and relevant because I was laughing at you

          • John Schilling says:

            Do you understand present and past tense?

            All of the examples given here have been past tense. Murdering abortion doctors is past tense. It’s a thing that was done with some frequency (well, OK, seven times) in the 1980s and 1990s, only once in this century, and not at all in the past five years. Hasn’t even been attempted in this century except for the one anomalous case in 2009; modern anti-abortion violence is mostly arson and vandalism against unoccupied clinics.

            So, hunting through history for old atrocities rather than admitting that your tribe can be as violent as the other tribe, casting the six-sigma nutcase extremists as central examples of the other’s practices, engaging in the Chinese-Robber fallacy scarcely one post after our host suggested that maybe this isn’t a sound argument? That’s not something the animated Chinese general introduced to this discussion.

          • Urstoff says:

            Past and present tense are defined according to whatever definition makes my side good and your side bad.

          • Limi says:

            No John, it is not past tense. Multiple bombs have been detonated in abortion clinics in the past decade. Regardless of how many doctors have been murdered, that is an act of terrorism.

            And I went out of my way in my original post to say that I didn’t think those bombings were right or left wing and that my only question was what the left was doing like blowing up clinics, so I am really not sure how you got the impression I was doing the exact opposite.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ John Schilling
            Murdering abortion doctors is past tense. It’s a thing that was done with some frequency (well, OK, seven times) in the 1980s and 1990s, only once in this century, and not at all in the past five years.

            How many late stage abortion doctors are left? This may be a case of no more mousetraps because there are no more mice.

          • John Schilling says:

            Multiple bombs have been detonated in abortion clinics in the past decade. Regardless of how many doctors have been murdered, that is an act of terrorism.

            Yes, it is. But terrorism and murder are two different things, and you very specifically…

            I’m sorry, but what leftist tactics do murdering abortion doctors resemble?

            …accused “religious zealots” of murdering abortion doctors, and one post later implied that this was an ongoing practice. That accusation was false.

            Lots of terrorists are also murderers. But lots of terrorists make an extra effort to not be murderers. By, e.g., setting their bombs to explode at 3:00 AM rather than 3:00 PM. To the extent that we are stuck having terrorists for the foreseeable future, this is to be encouraged.

            Falsely accusing terrorists who do not even attempt to kill people, of being actual murderers, is not to be encouraged. The first time is maybe ignorance, but if you double down on it we’re going to write you off as a liar plain and simple.

            And I don’t think you came into this intending to be a liar. I think you remember “religious zealots” murdering abortion doctors in the 1980s and 1990s. I think you occasionally hear about abortion-clinic bombings today and, not caring to look into the details, assume it is just more of the same. I think it was a careless error not to check on that before posting, but hardly an unforgivable one. But it’s not an error you can retcon away by redefining the terms. You stumbled into a shallow hole, and have been digging ever since.

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            Blowing up an unoccupied abortion clinic is perhaps not all that different from burning down an unoccupied BBQ joint because you’re mad at the Ferguson PD.

          • ” than agree that abortion clinics are a result of warped religious zealotry”

            Missing the word “bombing.”

            Which I assumed, perhaps mistakenly, was the basis of Suntzuanime’s “lol.”

          • Limi says:

            John, as David points out, in my second post I omitted the word bombing from before abortion clinics, which I blame on my alarm and my phone. I did mention bombing in my first post however, which should at least indicate that I didn’t switch to bombing in an attempt to backpedal. They are both heinous acts of terrorism, and while one is ‘better’ than the other, I honestly can not comprehend how you can think that only blowing up clinics is not a big deal, or somehow renders my concern about it being considered a political tactic not worthwhile. They both ruin lives and if the left resorts to such tactics then I want to know, because 90% of the people I know are left wing.

            Consider me a liar if you like, but I have not backpedalled or changed my position, or entered this conversation without knowing what I meant to write. And I don’t understand why you put religious zealots in quotes, do you think they are religious moderates?

          • Nathan says:

            The left definitely engages in its own political terrorism, most commonly on environmental issues. For example in my home town not long ago some people destroyed a CSIRO project researching GMO crops.

          • John Schilling says:

            @Limi: I noticed that you left out a “bombing”, understood what you meant, and decided not to call attention to the discrepancy. Not an issue.

            The issue, is that you accused a group of people of repeatedly murdering other people, and at the first opportunity clarified that this was present-tense murder you were talking about. You didn’t just accuse them of bombing, you didn’t just accuse them of terrorism, you didn’t just accuse them of ruining lives or of using political tactics that are a “big deal” and cause for concern. If you had, there would have been no problem, because at least some of them are guilty of those things.

            They are not, at least not the people presently in the anti-abortion activism business, even the terrorist side of that business, guilty of murder. And at this point you damn well know that.

            If you accuse people of a bunch of lesser crimes they are guilty of and also accuse them of murders they are not guilty of, you really need to walk that back immediately the first time someone calls you on it. Or you are a liar, not to be trusted on any assertion of fact, and have nothing of use to contribute to the debate. Falsely accusing people of crimes they didn’t commit is one of the classic Never Do This Ever moral failings all the way back to Moses. And I don’t recall an “unless they are bad people who do other bad things” exemption to that one.

      • Kevin C. says:

        (Second try on this comment)
        “I have actually always wondered why the GOP never responds in kind to leftist tactics.”

        Perhaps because many leftwing tactics only work for leftwing ends, but not for opposing purposes, much as a wrecking ball is useful for demolishing a building, but not for building one?

        • HlynkaCG says:

          An obvious example of this would be Nuisance Lawsuits and “SWATing” the GOP wants to be (and largely is) identified as being the pro-“law and order” camp and they can’t really use those tactics without undermining a major component of their popularity and support.

    • ddreytes says:

      Well, I think people are doing most of the things listed there, except for the part where it turns into a consciously organized campaign of persecution. On both sides. It’s being done in a much looser, less centrally organized and directed way – for many reasons, not least of which is that the money is not all in one central place but rather in the hands of a reasonably large number of donors and groups – but it’s being done. I mean, the steps that he’s outlining here are pretty much the constituent parts of partisan politics as it is presently practiced. The organizational stuff is absolutely not novel. Again, it’s done in a more diffuse way, but these are things that exist for both Democrats and Republicans.

      The part of it is novel is combining all of those things into one central apparatus to destroy political enemies on a personal level. And I hope you’ll excuse me if I say that I do not think that would be a good thing for American politics to have a massive, well-organized mechanism for the harassment of people on the basis of politics. I know that this is a minority opinion on these comments, but I do not think that the left does this in the kind of centrally organized and directed way that is being advocated in the piece (which is I think a crucial difference). To the extent that they do it, I think they ought not to do it. It is difficult for me to regard that kind of tu quoque thing as a valid justification.

      Yes, I think it would be an effective tactic. But I think it would also corrode the body politic. It would lead down a road that I think would be very dangerous. Certainly, I think it is dangerous if you value democracy or republicanism.

      • Alraune says:

        Free Northerner is, iirc, a Canadian Catholic Monarchist? He probably considers the erosion of the American body politic a feature here, not a bug.

        • ddreytes says:

          Yeah I was aware of the possibility. Didn’t want to argue to it because it’s not an argument that’s explicitly made in the post, and because the post seems to be trying to speak to partisan American politics as they actually exist.

          • Luke Somers says:

            Yeah, it’s speaking to partisan American politics, reminding it to slit its veins lengthwise, not across the wrist.

    • stillnotking says:

      He poses the question of why the Red Tribe doesn’t threaten violent escalation, but doesn’t attempt to answer it — a strange omission.

      Readers of this blog already know the answer. The cost of destroying the timeless Platonic contract would be much greater than whatever political gain is to be had from, say, electing Ted Cruz. Of course, the average Red Tribe member doesn’t literally think about the issue in those terms. Political violence against Democrats simply is not a live option to them. It’s the same reason pogroms have all but vanished from the developed world.

      • A Definite Beta Guy says:

        My brother-in-law is voting for Bernie Sanders. The situation will have to be TERRIBLE to suggest using the military against my brother-in-law, or creating any environment which may lead to such violence, regardless of his political leanings.

    • It’s not clear how blue tribe could resist if it happened, but I don’t think your average conservative would think very highly of those who used such tactics. And like it or not, both blue and red tribe people play vital roles in the economy and society, and you don’t have to like them to realise that if you terrorise them you’re basically ruining your country. But I think the main thing preventing this is the awful consequences when its actually been tried. Pre-WWII conservatives in Germany tried political violence by allowing far-right street violence against the increasing tide of leftism. IIRC the Italian monarchy did something pretty similar when it came to the rise of Mussolini. That’s the problem – once violence is publicly legitimised conservatives have no hope of keeping the more thuggish individuals on their side under control. Not unlike how leftist revolutions often end in Stalin – there’s plenty of people in the woodwork just waiting for a good excuse to hurt some people, and once things get messy its the most ruthless who always gain control. Ideology just provides the facade of legitimacy. Unless you’re a fan of slippery slopes and eventual purges, I think a ban on all political violence is the only defensible and reasonable Schelling Point for any sane person. I think (or hope?) at least enough conservatives have an intuitive sense of this to prevent this from being seen as a legitimate tactic.

    • Andy says:

      When he called voting an act of political violence, I lost all respect for him. I mean, I admit that I don’t have a high level of respect for the average NRxian, but the ENTIRE POINT of voting is to avoid violence. It’s more an act of agency than violence, which I prefer to think of as restraining the agency of other. My vote does not restrain the agency.

      FN’s post reminds me of an engineer looking at some social problem (the dating scene, forex) and going “Oh, I’m smart, I can FIX THIS!” and making everything worse. But pretty much everything he’s suggested has been done or is being done.

      • Dave says:

        “the ENTIRE POINT of voting is to avoid violence.”
        I’m trying to think of an apt analogy, but failing. If that were the *entire point*, I would think we would take the “avoiding violence” part more seriously.

        Perhaps you meant to say that it is less prone to outbreaks of certain kinds of violence compared to feudalism or dictatorship. But it institutionalizes low-key coercion, where the majority informs the minority what they must put up with in order to avoid violence. This is not violent in the same sense that threats of violence are not violent; that is, no one ever ended up in the hospital or the morgue as a direct result, but that hardly lets it off the hook.

        • AJD says:

          My interpretation of “The entire point of voting is to avoid violence” is: In a non-democratic system, the way to replace a leader enforcing policies of which one does not approve is to stage a rebellion, depose the current leader, and install your own favored candidate (or, I suppose, to plausibly threaten such violence unless the leader peacefully steps aside). In a democratic system, the same end may be achieved simply by amassing the support of a majority of voters on election day, without committing or threatening violence.

        • Paul Brinkley says:

          I see voting as a (hopefully) voluntary exchange at a meta level. In a single vote, all parties commit to abiding by the majority’s preference; violence is only on the table if the minority then reneges on that commitment. Democracy is the meta version of this, in that we can look at it as a long term commitment to multiple voting instances.

          In this light, it looks more like Dave’s concern. Consider that once that long term commitment is secured, it’s now possible to game that commitment in various ways, such as controlling what gets offered for a vote, and what gets tabled; or by only putting things up for a vote when the majority is known beforehand. This type of manipulation is presumably not agreed to in most people’s minds.

          If those manipulations continue anyway, eventually a single vote will come about in which the speculated minority is unwilling to abide the majority preference, strongly enough to be willing to risk violence by reneging.

          • JE says:

            Something is only voluntary as far as you can say no. You definitely can’t decide that you don’t want to be bound by the results of the political process.

    • Earthly Knight says:

      One of the chief complaints here seems to be that leftists are getting conservatives fired for their political views. Are you absolutely certain that conservatives never do anything comparable, or worse?

      • Andy says:

        But those are perfectly legitimate firings for unnatural degenerate behavior! /sarcasm

      • DrBeat says:

        I don’t think it’s the same thing. It’s obviously not right or fair, but people who get fired for being LGBT, get fired by their boss because their boss does not approve of being LGBT. I’ve not heard of any examples in the past decade of a conservative learning someone somewhere was gay, rallying up his ideological allies, and having all of them apply pressure as a group in order to motivate the person’s employer to fire him or her for being LGBT.

        Conservatives (some quantity of them) fire their employees for being LGBT. Liberals (some quantity of them) GET other people’s employers to fire them for being conservative, and to do so, employ as much of the Blue Tribe as they can get to listen, and rely on no Blue Tribe members saying “No, we should stop doing this, this is morally wrong”. I mean, both of them are wrong, but I think the latter one is much firmer grounds for moral judgment of the group since it requires a significant proportion of the group to participate and none of them to oppose it.

        I think you can even argue it’s more harmful, because it’s much easier to find an employer who doesn’t fear LGBT people than it is to find an employer who doesn’t fear Twitter mobs.

        • Earthly Knight says:

          It’s not really true that “liberals get other people’s employers to fire them for being conservative”– it’s that liberals get other people’s employers to fire them for expressing or evincing politically incorrect views about historically marginalized groups.* Social media mobs don’t give a damn about your opinions on capital gains taxes or the Crimea.

          Your ten-year statute of limitations is also a bit of a cheat. As recently as twenty or thirty years ago there were many places where coming out as gay would make you a pariah, not just because your boss was a bigot, but because the upstanding Christian community would be outraged by your continuing employment.

          So the addition of a little context makes a big difference. The problem is not really that progressives are resorting to dirty tactics which both sides have hitherto avoided. It’s that they’re winning. I agree that it would be nice if no one got fired for stupid reasons, but if you think this is uniquely a fault of the contemporary left you’re deluding yourself.

          *The former does happen, of course, but I don’t think there’s any reason to think it’s more common than the reverse, e.g. the Kerry supporter getting fired.

          • nil says:

            Agreed. It wasn’t that long ago that a viral image of a young black woman stepping on an American flag was all over my facebook feed with text giving her name/address/imploring the viewer to never hire her and spread the word popped up about half a dozen times on my Facebook. I’m sure if you were loud and proud about your anti-patriotism or, especially, disrespect for soldiers, you could whip up a similar center-right mob baying for your life to be destroyed.

            There’s no difference between the left and the right in attempts to socially censor violations of sacred values. The only difference is in what causes the media (and especially the clickbait-based progressive internet media that most of us are disproportionately likely to notice) will pick up.

          • Jiro says:

            People use the rhetoric “never hire her” all the time. That’s undirected. That’s different from “get her employer to fire her”, which is actually aimed at a particular employer to cause a particular reaction.

          • nil says:

            This was not rhetoric, it was an intentional and clear attempt to informally blackball a particular woman. I doubt very much she would have agreed that it was “undirected.”

            I will grant that it’s less common, but I think that’s more due to the media bias already mentioned as well as the fact that the offenders on the left tend to be less vulnerable than those on the right (that girl might not even have a job, and certainly wasn’t in any sort of remotely high-profile position) rather than any sort of unilateral restraint

          • DrBeat says:

            I think the liberals are able to use a tactic on a scale that hasn’t existed before and that conservatives are unable to use it during the time that scale has existed. And if you are saying that comparable behavior happened 20 or 30 years ago, then that’s fine and I agree with you but it’s still dishonest to claim the same thing is happening now and draw equivalency with the thing that is happening now.

            A person being fired because their employer does not like them is not the same thing as a person being fired because a mob was whipped up about them. If someone says only liberals do the latter, and conservatives did the latter 20-30 years ago, then say THAT, don’t draw attention to the thing that is happening now but is not actually comparable.

          • brad says:

            Where’s the evidence of any scale? Is the number of people fired in the trailing year for crossing so-called internet social justice warrior mobs greater or less than the number that won powerball? Were killed by lightning strikes? Shark attacks?

            Be appalled by each incident all you want, but claiming there’s some sort of tsunami of occurrences on this of all posts is silly.

          • Earthly Knight says:

            I think the most accurate characterization is that conservatives have rounded up plenty of mobs in the past and would still like to do so but now when they try to throw a mob nobody comes, or it has a tendency to backfire on them. Meanwhile, liberals mobs, amplified by social media, are more effective than ever. It’s hard to see a serious disequivalence there, other than that the leftists are winning.

          • DrBeat says:

            Earthly Knight, you just said pretty much what I think, with the added caveat that “pointing to things they do today, when they are unable to rouse up mobs, is not useful; point to when they roused up mobs”.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Brad – “Where’s the evidence of any scale? Is the number of people fired in the trailing year for crossing so-called internet social justice warrior mobs greater or less than the number that won powerball? Were killed by lightning strikes? Shark attacks?”

            The problem with that view is that in most cases I can think of, internet SJW mobs were clearly aimed at changing organizational/societal norms. They were test cases being used to shift policy for organizations or society as a whole, not simply attacks on individuals. Think about the times you heard some varient of the phrase “we need to have a national conversation about X”. They also displayed indicators of pseudo-organization: slogans, talking points, media narratives, go-to experts, etc. In short, they were part of a significant movement that (at least at the time) appeared to be making serious gains as far as the eye could see.

          • Nicholas says:

            @Earthly Knight and Dr Beat
            I would point you to the literal mobs of red tribers, who regularly got together up until (in my home city in the Midwest) 2009 to kill people like me.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Faceless Craven:
            Well that’s the rub isn’t it? The societal norms?

            Lets take the issue of the employment of gay men. There are those who are prominent in the Republican establishment who still claim that gay men are pedophiles who can’t be trusted with children. But that attitude was completely mainstream 20 years ago, and the Boy Scouts didn’t change their policy banning gay men from being troop leaders until this year.

            The right didn’t have to employ a “tactic” to hound one gay person out of their job. The mainstream simply fired all people who were found out as gay as matter of course, and the government could out you in jail for it less than 20 years ago.

            All the talk about how powerful and scary the left is on this issue never seems to grapple with how comparatively weak the left is, as compared to the status quo they are fighting against.

            It’s only the fact that the left is gaining ground on the issue, something that was a huge power advantage for those who are anti-gay, that makes them seem powerful.

            Wake me up when heterosexual deconversion camps become a going concern.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @HeelBearCub – “All the talk about how powerful and scary the left is on this issue never seems to grapple with how comparatively weak the left is, as compared to the status quo they are fighting against.”

            In the case of gay rights, how can they be weak if they won completely? The status quo you described is gone, and it doesn’t seem likely that it will be coming back. The question is, what replaces it?

            I was convinced gay rights was a good thing because it was better to have a pluralistic society with room for those who refused to conform, not simply to replace the tyranny of one narrow viewpoint with the tyranny of another. More to the point, there are a whole hell of a lot more social conservatives than there are gays and lesbians. If your future itinerary involves treating them the way their status quo treated gays, that seems like a pretty good way to fuck society up for a long, long time.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @FacelessCraven:
            I’m not sure you actually engaged with what I was saying. You are making the exact argument I was protesting against.

            Imagine Kim Davis going to jail, not for refusing a court order, but because she said “I hate gay people” in her own home with only her good friend present. But the cops overheard though the open window and arrested her on the spot and took her to jail.

            Loving another man or woman (well, making love to them anyway) was a crime, punished by the state.

            Imagine a world not where Brendon Eich gets golden-parachuted out of a CEO job for publically promoting an anti-gay marriage referndum, but where everyone lives in fear that there private anti-gay stance, expressed ownly in their own home, will make them unemployable by policy.

            Does anyone think that attending a Catholic, Baptist or similar church will get them jailed or fired? Yet merely being in a gay bar might get you arrested if you were there at the wrong time. You might be fired for simply being seen coming out of the bar.

            That is the kind of power that the anti-gay society had

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @HeelBearCub – “That is the kind of power that the anti-gay society had”

            Yes. Had. That society no longer exists. We have been dismantling it systematicly for decades now, and for good reason. What are the new rules that will replace it?

            Was what happened to Eich acceptable? Was it useful? Should it be repeated, and if so how often?

          • “There are those who are prominent in the Republican establishment who still claim that gay men are pedophiles who can’t be trusted with children.”

            From the rest of your post, the context is gay scoutmasters.

            Is it understandable to you that the Girl Scouts would prefer to have the adults in charge of groups of girls be female and Boy Scouts prefer those in charge of groups of boys to be male? Not do you agree–I don’t actually know what Girl Scout policy is—do you see a plausible argument for such a policy? It doesn’t imply that all adult men are rapists or seducers of minors or all adult women similarly, just that a few are and the organization prefers not to take the risk.

            If you agree, then apply the same logic to the question of gay scoutmasters. The assumption is that gay men like to have sex with other males, straight men don’t, hence the chance that a gay man will have sex with a male minor he is responsible for is higher than the chance that a straight male will.

            I should probably add that “can’t be trusted with children” is, unfortunately, a very common view in our society, quite aside from issues of homosexuality. I’m a long time participant in the Society for Creative Anachronism, a group that does historical recreation for fun. Some decades back, one person in the organization turned out to have had sex with minors he was responsible for in the context of group activities, resulting in a lengthy and expensive law suit against the organization.

            The organization’s policies since have gone absurdly far in the direction of preventing any situation, such as a class, in which an adult is interacting with a child without another adult with some authority present. At one point there was an announced policy that a minor could not attend a class at Pennsic unless his or her parent was present–fortunately we managed to get them to back away from that, since it would in practice have meant locking minors out of most of the classes at Pennsic.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @FacelessCraven:
            You are going right past the argument, again. Or perhaps conceding it and then disregarding it.

            From my first post:”It’s only the fact that the left is gaining ground on the issue, something that was a huge power advantage for those who are anti-gay, that makes them seem powerful.”

            There is a difference between saying “I don’t think what happened was right” and “They are so powerful that I live in constant fear”.

            The dismantling that occurred didn’t happen because of how much power the left or the “gay agenda” had/has. It occurred because people’s minds were changed.

            The power of gay people and their allies might be roughly equivalent to that of left-handed people once the dust settles.

            @David Friedman:
            Pedophillia and “sex with a minor” aren’t the same thing. No, my primary issue isn’t the Boy Scouts, it was simply one example. The issue of adults having sex with minors after pubescence but before the age of consent is a potentially interesting one, but is a distraction from this particular topic.

          • Limi says:

            David – in Queensland, we need to have a Blue Card to be part of an organisation that interacts with children, requiring a background check, police check ups and training and other assorted hoops. Is that not a thing in the US? It’s an invasion of privacy and a pain in the ass and it’s not flawless, but it seems like a far more efficient of dealing with the problem than what you had to go through.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @HeelBearCub – “You are going right past the argument, again. Or perhaps conceding it and then disregarding it.”

            I appologize, but am not entirely sure how to fix it. We seem to be talking past each other a bit.

            “There is a difference between saying “I don’t think what happened was right” and “They are so powerful that I live in constant fear”.”

            I agree. I also agree that right now, constant fear isn’t warranted. Six months ago on the other hand, things seemed pretty scary. Part of the disconnect might be that you may be seeing Eich and gay rights as an isolated issue, where I see a connection from Eich to Listen And Believe to Tim Hunt to the Reproductive Ants to the Science Guy Shirt to the UVA accusations to Memories Pizza to RequiresHate to Sad Puppies and so on. All of those seemed to involve similar scripts, a lot of crossover between actors, and the same ideology. All of them seemed to be arguing that our social norms of Charity only served to protect racism/sexism/etc and should be removed immediately. A lot of them came right out and said so explicitly.

            That push seems to have stopped. Near as I can tell, the damage being done and the cruelty on display generated a serious backlash from the moderate left, and SocJus backed down for the moment. There’s no real indication that their ideology has changed. What happens when they decide to start pushing again?

            “The dismantling that occurred didn’t happen because of how much power the left or the “gay agenda” had/has. It occurred because people’s minds were changed.”

            People’s minds were changed about who was a victim and who was a villian. That change conveys enormous power. The push I decribe above was, I think, an attempt to use that power in an extremely harmful way. I would like to see more consensus on that point, because I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen again.

            “The power of gay people and their allies might be roughly equivalent to that of left-handed people once the dust settles.”

            That’s one possible outcome, and it’s the one I’m rooting for. Gay rights are more or less a foregone conclusion at this point. They won’t be reversed, and opposition to them has a high probability of dying out over the next few decades. I think we have a decent chance of seeing the end of the Christian Conservative vs Secular Liberal culture war, and I think it would be better for everyone if that happened. They’ve lost, and they’ll accept that quicker if the loss looks survivable. What happened to Brandon Eich makes it look less survivable. The broader SocJus push makes it look not survivable at all. If it’s not survivable at all, they have no reason to accept and every reason to fight as viciously as possible.

          • brad says:

            @FacelessCraven

            I don’t mean to be unkind, but have you considered the possibility that your risk calibration may be off? It never appeared to me that we were at any risk of snowballing into a sort of post-French Revolution dystopia lead by twitter mobs. And IIRC didn’t you also write somewhere on here not too long ago that you left the country during the GWB administration for fear that the country would fall into some kind of dictatorship?

            Now maybe those were both narrow misses, and don’t say anything about the reasonableness of the fear, but if you string a few together then maybe some updating is in order.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @FacelessCraven:
            Think what it would mean if the “left-handers” cohort and their allies were attempting to use social justice to prevent further discrimination against left-handed people.

            Seriously, stop and think about it. What would that mean about the world? It would mean that left-handedness was still a going concern.

            But nobody thinks left-handers are evil (sinister, literally) anymore. So there is nothing to fight about. So no fighting is happening.

            Essentially this is a fight about whether it will still be OK to consider gay people evil. What it isn’t a fight about is whether some other group will be considered evil.

          • Cauê says:

            Seriously, stop and think about it. What would that mean about the world? It would mean that left-handedness was still a going concern.

            We have enough examples of outrage and movements about false facts to abandon this conclusion. The examples are mindkilling almost by definition, but regular SSC readers shouldn’t have difficulty thinking of some.

          • John Schilling says:

            Think what it would mean if the “left-handers” cohort and their allies were attempting to use social justice to prevent further discrimination against left-handed people.

            One problem is that this state of affairs is difficult to distinguish from the one where the “left-handers” cohort and their allies are attempting to use social justice to secure a position of absolute advantage for left-handed people and their allies.

            It would mean that [discrimination against]left-handedness was still a going concern.

            In the first case, yes, but not in the second. And I don’t see how you can avoid going from the first case directly to the second. Because…

            But nobody thinks left-handers are evil (sinister, literally) anymore. So there is nothing to fight about. So no fighting is happening.

            …this is ludicrous. Over the past generation or two, a great edifice was constructed for the purpose of fighting against sinisterian oppression. Some people actually make their living at this. Some people wield great power through this. And lots of people derive a sense of self-worth through being a part of this crusade. And all of this just goes away when sinisterian-dexterian equality is achieved, or fades away as the residual inequality asymptotically approaches zero?

            Pull the other one. Of course there’s still fighting going on; there’s a machine built for fighting and it doesn’t really have an off switch. The fighting is fun and profitable, particularly now that the opposition is crushed and demoralized. What begins as a fight for equality, ends as a fight for supremacy.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Brad – “I don’t mean to be unkind, but have you considered the possibility that your risk calibration may be off?”

            I know for a fact that it was in the past. I’ve had several extremely useful conversations here that have led me to conclude that this is a systemic problem with what remains of the conservative worldview I was raised with. In short, conservative values are on the decline for decades now, and I internalized the idea that Society Will Be Worse if they lose. I think this had an obvious effect in biasing me toward worst-case interpretations of available evidence. Lately I’ve been trying to correct that bias by updating based on a decade or two of additional evidence, and my conclusion is that certian classes of concern should be discarded. The Federal Government probably isn’t going to collapse into cartoonish supervilliany regardless of who wins the presidency. The economy probably isn’t going to melt down and leave us in thrall to Lord Humongous. Coming to those conclusions requires a fair number of data points, though. It’s hard to do so the day after the Patriot Act is passed, or in the middle of the housing crisis. And notably, the Patriot Act really did deserve to be opposed, and the Banking Crisis was actually really bad. Contrary evidence isn’t necessarily conclusive, but it is still real and needs to be dealt with.

            We appear currently to be at the tail end of a Social Justice crisis. Currently, my working model is that it was probably an aberration. Social Justice is unbelievably toxic, but that makes it self-limiting; sooner or later its excesses generate significant pushback from the moderate left. Seeing leftists argue that it’s no big deal or obviously good and people who say otherwise are crazy weakens this model.

            On the other hand, Social Justice itself claims to be the wave of the future, and if they get significant buy-in, their stated goals seem to be a direct threat to me and everyone I know and love. I don’t see how their program could be sustainable long-term, but it doesn’t have to be to do a hell of a lot of damage to a hell of a lot of people, especially considering the knock-on effects of re-escalating the Culture War rather than letting it die out naturally.

            Either way, taking them seriously seems like an obviously good choice. Is my risk calibration faulty? I don’t think so, but then I wouldn’t, would I? Part of the reason I’m interested in discussing it with people here is to get more data points. My model for the moderate-left backlash against SJ comes partially from observations here. My model for SJ itself comes in part from conversations with SJ advocates here and on ToT.

            A big part of it comes down to whether you believe the “Cthulhu always swims left” idea, and what implications you draw from it. I’m currently trying to put together a model that can reject it.

            @HeelBearCub – “Essentially this is a fight about whether it will still be OK to consider gay people evil. What it isn’t a fight about is whether some other group will be considered evil.”

            An uncharitable interpretation of that statement would be “everything will be totally fine once all those people we don’t like are gone.”

            I’m hoping it’s actually a fight over whether force of law or mainstream societal pressure (as in social pressure you can’t opt out of) can be deployed against gay people, and indeed that fight seems to be largely over. If you actually need everyone in America to believe that moral or cultural objections to Homosexuality are evil, then we have a problem, and the extent of that problem is bounded by how hard you are willing to push.

            And again, gay rights is only one portion of the overall picture, and arguably the least troubling one since it’s largely been settled.

          • Jiro says:

            Social Justice is unbelievably toxic, but that makes it self-limiting; sooner or later its excesses generate significant pushback from the moderate left.

            The reason that it seems like social justice isn’t a going concern is that social justice has accumulated victories, and things get quiet after the victory has been won. Eich is still fired. The media still misreports Gamergate as much as before, and the Wikipedia page on the subject is as bad as ever. I’m pretty sure that the Sad Puppies will face as much trouble at the Hugos next year as this year (and Sad Puppies is itself a failed pushback against SJWs anyway).

            I can’t think of any current SJW fights, but they haven’t lost; they just haven’t made further wins, while keeping the wins they already have.

          • “Essentially this is a fight about whether it will still be OK to consider gay people evil.”

            On one reading of “OK” I agree, on another I would take that as support for FC’s nightmares.

            I agree if it means “gay people are not evil so you shouldn’t think they are.”

            I disagree if it means “showing that you think gay people are evil, for instance being unwilling to assist with a gay wedding, ought to be punished.” Note that the symmetrical equivalent of that wouldn’t be “gay sex should be punished” but “demonstrating that you believe gay sex should not be punished should be punished.”

            It’s the latter version that has recently been implemented and that some of us find upsetting for reasons that have nothing to do with attitudes towards homosexuality. The same reasons we find the claim that criticizing global warming arguments ought to be a criminal offense upsetting–although in that case it is only an argument being made, not something that seems likely to happen any time soon.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Jiro – “The reason that it seems like social justice isn’t a going concern is that social justice has accumulated victories, and things get quiet after the victory has been won.”

            This is obviously true in the short term. The specific targets get burned down almost immediately, and there’s not a lot that can be done for them. In the long-term, I’m not sure. It seems to me that the obvious goal of Social Justice is control over social rules, and on that front they aren’t doing nearly as well. As I’ve argued previously, Gamergate was at least a draw on the social rules front (compare with, say, Dickwolves, which was a pretty clear victory). Listen And Believe looks like an outright failure; #TeamHarpy, Rolling Stone and so on were decisively discredited, and now we have excellent counterexamples if Listen and Believe is pushed again. Tim Hunt lost his position, but subsequent events have entirely vindicated him.

            Social Justice relies on lying too much, and I think that’s a problem for them long-term. It would work if the lies bought them full, permanent control of the group’s consensus, but in most of the cases last year, it didn’t. Burning Tim Hunt down didn’t actually advance their agenda much, and they can’t use their attack on him as precedent for future attacks because it opens them up to having their lies re-examined. All they can do is keep making the same claims, but each time a certian percentage of the audience isn’t fooled and won’t ever trust them again, and that percentage keeps growing.

            That’s how it seems to me, at least. I have pretty much zero contact with mainstreamish blogs/media and a lot of contact with SJ-skeptical sources, so there’s an obvious risk of sampling bias. Then again, the smaller spaces are what I think actually matter. MSNBC is irrelevent to my life, while the influence and editorial stance of Polygon effects my livelihood directly. I think that’s the way it works for everyone, which is why SJs are aiming at relatively small institutions and organizations for their takeover attempts in the first place.

    • Loquat says:

      Once the escalation has been pushed high enough, the left will blink at the implied threat of physical violence and then perhaps deescalation can occur.

      I’d really like to see a plausible explanation for how things would de-escalate back to a reasonably civilized level without passing through some sort of civil war first.

      • Andy says:

        Agreed – I am deeply suspect of plans that rely on the Left being made up of wilting violets that’ll cave at the first thought of political violence. Which is so completely not the case. As a leftist who writes military science fiction (and tried to sign up for the army, but was rejected on medical grounds) this isn’t even close to being true.

        Free Northerner cites the military, police, and the NRA as the people with the guns. While the military is very white and Red-Tribe, I’ve known many veterans who affiliate with the Blue Tribe, especially immigrants and minorities who signed up out of patriotism or for economic/educational opportunity, and many of them were Blue Tribe when they got out. Anti-war veterans groups are another example. I’ve also known many police who hold generally Blue-tribe values, even if the Red-tribe police tend to get more of the headlines and seem to dictate policy more. Lastly, the NRA represents gun manufacturers, not necessarily owners, and there are plenty of people who are generally Blue-Tribe but grew up around guns, own guns, and know how to use guns, but aren’t fond of the NRA.

        Progressives wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Which was originally John Brown’s Body, after a progressive who maybe had more crazy than strategic sense, but was unequivocal about the morality of using violence to achieve his moral goals. And a few years later, there were troops marching all over the then-Red Tribe strongholds singing “As he died to make man holy, let us die to make men free” as they trampled out the vineyards where the grapes of Red Tribe pride were stored. The South’s elites thought that the North would wilt at the first sight of Southern steel – some fire-breathers vowed that a lady’s thimble would hold all the blood shed.

        Free Northerner should look at his philosophical brethren of the American South to see where exactly this kind of confidence leads. Hint: it’s not with a victory for the conservatives.

        It occurs to me that the only context in which FN’s post makes any sense is if I assume that FN’s real goal is a kind of mad accelerationism where both Red and Blue escalate until all is fire and screams, the kind of environment where neoreaction can take root and establish a new order amid the ashes.

        • Doctor Mist says:

          @Andy:

          I am deeply suspect of plans that rely on the Left being made up of wilting violets that’ll cave at the first thought of political violence.

          Part of the story is that the bulk of active military personnel are on the Right, and the Left doesn’t have to be wilting violets to be seriously outgunned by the active military.

          I can think of several counters, but I’m not sure I heard you say any of them. 🙂

          1. People in the military, while Red, are much more likely to view themselves as the referees, at last if it ever escalated high enough for it to be relevant.

          2. Gun-wielding Leftists are more than a match for the active military. (Note that this is counter to the usual Leftist position that the second amendment is useless for preventing tyranny because a lot of good old boys with shotguns are no match for soldiers with bazookas. Ditto for vets who turn Left after discharge.)

          3. The upper ranks of the military are not uniformly on the Right, especially if we include the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief, and the lower ranks will obey orders.

          Personally, I can see #1 and #3, maybe, depending on exactly how things escalate.

          Progressives wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

          What have you done for me lately? 🙂 Presenting the Civil War as something with any relevance to a hypothetical Red/Blue struggle today seems like a stretch to me. Civilians on both sides were way more likely to be armed than even Red-tribe civilians today. And both sides were geometrically fairly convex; even with the Big Sort I’m afraid such a struggle would be more like the French Revolution than the Civil War, which was plenty bad enough.

          • John Schilling says:

            Part of the story is that the bulk of active military personnel are on the Right, and the Left doesn’t have to be wilting violets to be seriously outgunned by the active military.

            The military is at least an order of magnitude more anti-coup, anti-mutiny, and anti-civil-war than it is pro-Right or anti-Left. If the right instigates large-scale violence against the left, the very best that the right can hope for is that the military will remain neutral, and even that will be difficult to arrange – any campaign of violence against the Left powerful enough to greatly change the social or political dynamic, will look enough like a coup or civil war that the military will feel duty-bound to obey the legitimate government’s orders to put it down.

            If the Left tries to engage in large-scale organized violence against the Right, the military’s political leanings would be more relevant and the Left could probably not count on the military as a compliant tool in that scenario. But the Left isn’t planning to do any such thing, because they don’t need to do any such thing.

            If your plan was that your tribe’s martial supremacy would enable you to control the nation’s social or political destiny in extremis, you screwed up when you allowed the creation of an extremely powerful, professional, generally apolitical standing army.

          • I agree with what John Shilling says about the military, but I think this plan has an even greater problem in assuming that the activist class lacks a similar professional ethic that would make them balk at employing these tactics. I’m a left-libertarian blue triber that somehow wound up with an internship at the Heartland Institute, and I can say that even that supposedly most cynical and dirty-minded activist group was full of people that had gotten into the game for the right reasons and genuinely wanted a legitimate debate on e.g. climate change. Almost to a man, my colleagues would have started updating their resumes if their job stopped being publishing op-eds and started being digging up dirt and blackmail material on climate scientists. That goes double for the Institute for Justice lawyer making 35k/year struggling to pay back their law school loans. They signed up to fight taxi medallions, not practice lawfare. The idealistic college students pouring over their Rothbard and Ricardo at the Institute for Humane Studies’ seminars wouldn’t stand for it, either.

            I dunno, maybe the mainstream conservative movement has less healthy mores than the libertarian Kochtopus organizations I participated in, but I doubt it.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @James Vonder Haar – “I dunno, maybe the mainstream conservative movement has less healthy mores than the libertarian Kochtopus organizations I participated in, but I doubt it.”

            What happens if you wake up one morning and see, say, John Stewart celebrating the latest person hounded out of public life by an outrage mob with a quip about “Freeze Peach”? What happens if the next Social Justice push actually gets serious buy-in from the mainstream of liberal society, and starts really playing for keeps? It’s not like most of what they’re doing is illegal, and the parts that are can’t effectively be prosecuted or punished. What’s the correct response?

          • Luke Somers says:

            Faceless, this was all proposed on the idea that what the Left is doing is already bad enough to justify action, not that it could possibly escalate to that level.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Luke Somers – “Faceless, this was all proposed on the idea that what the Left is doing is already bad enough to justify action, not that it could possibly escalate to that level.”

            Yes, and I agree that he is definately wrong in the current situation. Six months ago, before the moderate left started pushing back, the situation was a hell of a lot different. The question is whether last year was an aberation and this year is the new normal, or whether last year was the new normal and we’re in a temporary lull. I would heavily prefer the former, but see less evidence for it than I’d like.

            If you see last year’s spectrum-wide brew up as a few irrelevent isolated incidents, then clearly this guy is unhinged. If you see the brew up as a budding cultural revolution, his suggestion is obviously useful and possibly necessary. I’ve seen too many leftists treating concepts like free speech, conscience, presumption of innocence and due process as jokes or blasphemy to think the latter view is trivially wrong.

          • Agronomous says:

            FacelessCraven wrote:

            Six months ago, before the moderate left started pushing back, the situation was a hell of a lot different.

            It’s interesting that you see it as the moderate left “pushing back” and I see it as them “yanking on the leash”.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Agronomous – “It’s interesting that you see it as the moderate left “pushing back” and I see it as them “yanking on the leash”.”

            I voted for Obama. Until last year, I considered myself a Feminist and bought the statistics about campus rape and so forth uncritically. Last year punted me way rightward, but my sympathies for the left haven’t been entirely extinguished. A large majority of Gamergate self-reported as leftist. A lot of the people registering as anti-SJ here claim to be leftist. I don’t know if there’s enough of them to be decisive, but the moderate left pushback seems to be a real thing.

        • keranih says:

          @ Andy

          While the military is very white and Red-Tribe,

          You might want to look again at the military demographics, as your assessment of the military as “very white” is quite incorrect.

          It’s also worth a word of caution comparing the povs of military personnel across generations – firstly, as recently as 1970, a majority of (male) US citizens were military veterans. That is not the case today. Secondly, many people may say that they were military veterans, but are not.

          Lastly, the NRA represents gun manufacturers, not necessarily owners,

          I have heard people say this. I have never heard an NRA member say this. (I don’t know any gun manufacturers, and I know many NRA members.)

          By my experience, it is correct that not all military, police, and gun culture people are Red Tribe. However, I have met very few of them who counted being “Red” or “Blue” over being “Military” or “Cop” or “Gun Owner”.

      • Doctor Mist says:

        @Loquat:

        I’d really like to see a plausible explanation for how things would de-escalate back to a reasonably civilized level without passing through some sort of civil war first.

        Without endorsing FreeNortherer’s strategy, I think the answer is that it’s all about incentives.

        The starting proposition is that the Left is using illegitimate tactics. In a magic world, the solution would be just to ensure that those tactics were unsuccessful — wave a wand so that votes from dead people or illegal immigrants somehow don’t get counted (I’m making no claims about how many there are!), or so that the directors at Mozilla grow a spine and are unmoved by the lynch mob coming after Brendan Eich, or so that the ambitious DA trying to trash Scott Walker is reined in by a more fair-minded superior.

        But this isn’t a magic world, and the next best thing is to make such an activity be a net loss for the perpetrator. The way to accomplish this is not to go nuclear right away, but to use a measured response that is just enough to offset whatever payoff the perpetrator gets, such that he or someone like him will not do it next time.

        This is the sort of feedback we use every day to ensure public civility. If someone is rude, we don’t start by punching him in the nose — but if we always just shrug and ignore it, some people will take that as evidence that they can go on being ruder and ruder. Intermediate indications of disapproval are usually sufficient, but for some people that’s true only because the possibility of a punch in the nose is always hovering in the background.

        The paradox FreeNortherner is grappling with (and @stillnotking is right that he doesn’t answer it) is why the Right, which owns the guns, doesn’t even take the first step, since in the Absolute Worst Case Scenario of escalation all the way up to civil war, it would easily win.

        I took FreeNortherner’s essay to be more of a Modest Proposal, to highlight the paradox. But I haven’t studied him, so I could be mistaken.

        • HlynkaCG says:

          Doctor Mist says: The paradox FreeNortherner is grappling with (and @stillnotking is right that he doesn’t answer it) is why the Right, which owns the guns, doesn’t even take the first step, since in the Absolute Worst Case Scenario of escalation all the way up to civil war, it would easily win.

          I took FreeNortherner’s essay to be more of a Modest Proposal, to highlight the paradox. But I haven’t studied him, so I could be mistaken.

          That was my interpretation as well.

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            Modest Proposals usually don’t end with an appeal to be hired to carry out said proposal.

          • HlynkaCG says:

            @ Autonomous Rex

            Really?

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            Colloquially, “A Modest Proposal” is a satirical critique/protest; a hyperbolic inversion of the author’s true feelings.
            An NRx “Modest Proposal” would be done in the voice of a “shitlib” calling for a pua holocaust.

          • HlynkaCG says:

            I’m starting to wonder whether or not you read Doctor Mist’s reply or A Modest Proposal.

          • Autonomous Rex says:

            Eich think you need a more compelling martyr.

          • Luke Somers says:

            This thread confuses me. Dr. Mist’s analogy to A Modest Proposal is really, really strained. FreeNortherner’s essay is not structured like A Modest Proposal at all. And yes, he did end the essay by suggesting that people could pay him to flesh the plan out more.

            Dropping snark hinting that it really is and that Autonomous didn’t read things, when he basically hit the nail on the head, is baffling.

            And then Autonomous turns around and makes a REALLY baffling response. What what now about better martyrs? How does that even begin to be relevant? Unless you’re responding to nonsense with nonsense, in which case I think you jumped the gun?

        • Loquat says:

          …use a measured response that is just enough to offset whatever payoff the perpetrator gets, such that he or someone like him will not do it next time.

          The main flaw I see in this theory is – how do you make sure the correct perpetrators receive the correct message from the response?

          Take the Brendan Eich case – and note that he wasn’t fired, he voluntarily left because so many people were threatening to stop using Firefox that his continued presence seemed likely to seriously harm the company. So the only perpetrators here would be the people who protested, and they pretty much all did so because same-sex marriage had become a deeply-held moral value for them, to the point that they didn’t want to do business with someone who opposed it. Any conservative attempt at escalation in response would then be extremely likely to be spun by the left as gay-bashing, or a message to stop defending gay rights – “Your moral values are wrong! Stop standing up for them!”

          And this is a common thread in a lot of the leftist behavior FreeNortherner is complaining about. (Speaking here about the SJW tactics, not the voting irregularities. The correct response to vote-rigging is prosecution, not counter-vote-rigging.) The part of the Left that goes after conservatives personally is primarily motivated not by a desire to put their own candidates in office, but by a desire to stand up for the rights of the oppressed. (Or at least to earn virtue points by appearing to stand up for the rights of the oppressed.) Attack them for doing that, and they’ll call you an oppressor and feel even more self-righteous about what they’re doing, much the way the BLM activists who disrupted a Bernie Sanders speech called the crowd racist for booing them.

          So I think that’s the answer to the paradox – escalating against people who genuinely believe they’re fighting for what’s morally right would be counterproductive, and escalating against dirty election tricks would be much less popular than just trying to ensure honest elections.

          • FacelessCraven says:

            @Loquat – ” Any conservative attempt at escalation in response would then be extremely likely to be spun by the left as gay-bashing, or a message to stop defending gay rights – “Your moral values are wrong! Stop standing up for them!”’

            This seems like a very strange thing to say, since that’s exactly what the left is saying to social conservatives. Why is it okay for the left to escalate in the face of the moral values of the right, but not okay for the right to escalate in the face of the moral values of the left?

            “So I think that’s the answer to the paradox – escalating against people who genuinely believe they’re fighting for what’s morally right would be counterproductive,”

            So let’s say tomorrow Social Justice rebounds in a big way and starts picking off crimethinkers left, right and center. The mainstream left abandons charity as a principle and starts supporting them wholeheartedly. Then what? How should conservatives respond?

            As I see it, it’s a question about what the rules are going to be. Are we going to have a pluralistic society where room is left for people who reject the consensus, or is securing the consensus for your group a matter of life and death?

          • anon says:

            “Take the Brendan Eich case – and note that he wasn’t fired, he voluntarily left because so many people were threatening to stop using Firefox that his continued presence seemed likely to seriously harm the company”

            Isn’t that how executives are generally fired though? Since firing an executive reflects poorly on the company (admitting to having bad leadership), it is beneficial to both sides to just announce that the partnership was ended by mutual agreement so they can pursue other opportunities or whatever.

      • Dave says:

        Germany and Italy did not have civil wars when the brownshirts went around attacking their political enemies. Maybe that would have been preferable.

  55. s4 says:

    You blog about Basic Income sometimes. Have you heard of Basic Income Earth Network? They had an IamA on reddit recently, talking about some experiments they did in India. Maybe you’re interested

    • Scott Alexander says:

      I haven’t! I’ll check them out.

      • Kyle Strand says:

        I was about to go check them out, but then I remembered that if they’re really promising or otherwise interesting, you’ll probably blog about them.

        • Winter Shaker says:

          The ‘efficient Slate Star Codex blogpost markets hypothesis’?

        • Scott Alexander says:

          Do realize that about 50% of the time my “I’ll check it out” means “I am very busy and saying something noncommital is easier than blowing you off.”

          • rminnema says:

            My son is selling popcorn for the Cub Scouts these days. When we go door-to-door, what a family means when they say, “Sorry, I don’t have any cash today,” is, “I don’t want to pay for this, but I also don’t want to tell a young boy ‘No.'” This is one of the many life lessons that selling popcorn imparts.

  56. jaimeastorga2000 says:

    In this thread, a Redditor argues that the Blue Tribe enabled the loss of working-class service jobs and middle-class manufactoring jobs to immigrants and offshoring, respectively, as a form of economic warfare against the Red Tribe, and that it is only now that H-1B workers are threatening their upper-class tech jobs that they have suddenly rediscovered a love of protectionism as represented by Bernie Sanders.

    • Pku says:

      First of all, while I can imagine some scheming number-crunching political campaigners actually plan to encourage immigration in order to get votes, I find the concept of the average democrat voter thinking that way about as likely as Republicans encouraging terror attacks to strengthen the Red-tribe narrative.
      Secondly, while I’m willing to believe there are people who think like that poster, I think this dual narrative is more the cause of a split in democratic party membership (some blue-collar workers who oppose immigration, some latinos/pro-immigration liberals who do), in which Bernie Sanders is one of the pro trade-union faction within the party who believe in being anti-immigration rather than the other faction – that this isn’t so much a case of a lot of people being hypocritical, as of a representative of a different segment being a loud voice at present.
      Finally, I’d like to say that the concept of being anti immigration to protect jobs appals my liberal, conservative, and libertarian sides all at once (as well as being a threat to me personally, since I’m more or less one of those STEM immigrants): the libertarian side in that it’s one case where we should clearly let the market optimize the economics for us, the conservative side because it’s forcing america back rather than letting it advance (I don’t have a very convincing conservative side), and my liberal side over the fact that discrimination by nationality is terrible – especially when you don’t really have a good market for it. And if you’re nationalistically pro-american enough to prefer to employ americans over foreigners (who, probably need the money more anyways) at significant personal loss that’s one thing – but forcing other people to do it is kinda terrible.

      • jaimeastorga2000 says:

        And if you’re nationalistically pro-american enough to prefer to employ americans over foreigners (who, probably need the money more anyways) at significant personal loss that’s one thing – but forcing other people to do it is kinda terrible.

        Whereas I think that if you are utilitarian enough to give up large fractions of your income to foreigners, that’s your business – but forcing other people to do it is what’s terrible.

        • Pku says:

          That’s an argument against foreign aid, which is a totally reasonable and legitimate thing to argue about. But how is it an argument against employing foreigners? You’re not giving them money, you’re making money off them (assuming you’re handling your business right).

          • Evan Þ says:

            Because you could instead be employing an equally-qualified American, making just as much money off them, and benefiting an American rather than a foreigner.

          • Science says:

            How exactly is not hiring someone “forcing other people to give up large fractions of (their) income”?

            Edit: in response to evan

          • Pku says:

            But could you? Employing americans is already easier because they’re right here, speak your language, and you don’t have to deal with a foreign country’s tax codes. If companies decide, after considering all these factors, to employ a foreigner, they probably have damn good reason to expect it to make them more money.
            (This aside, I can imagine a case where a foreign country has lower taxes in order to lure foreign investments, and as this is a country-level prisoner’s dilemma, it does seem like the US tax code should be built in a way that makes this hard to benefit from. But that doesn’t seem like the main draw here).

            Edit: @Science: I was talking about forcing a company to build factories in america because you want them to employ americans, which is forcing them to give up their income since it’s (presumably) much less profitable for them.

          • ryan says:

            @Pku

            Property rights are not absolute. Laws which control use of investment capital to favor quality of life for American families over profit for shareholders are simple value judgments. Of course I’ve seen people attempt to argue that maximizing shareholder profit also maximizes well being of American workers. It usually seems obviously flawed in many ways.

          • Cauê says:

            It usually seems obviously flawed in many ways.

            This is the kind of obvious that appears to become less obvious the more one studies the subject.

          • ryan says:

            @Caue

            This is the kind of obvious that appears to become less obvious the more one studies the subject.

            Coward.

      • Jiro says:

        First of all, while I can imagine some scheming number-crunching political campaigners actually plan to encourage immigration in order to get votes, I find the concept of the average democrat voter thinking that way about as likely as Republicans encouraging terror attacks to strengthen the Red-tribe narrative.

        They wouldn’t think of it in terms of getting votes. They’d just think of getting more of “my kind of people”, with the general idea that they’d like having more of my kind of people around running things. They would not explicitly think that having more of their kind of people around running things means votes, but that’s what much of it would amount to since that is, after all, one of the ways people run things.

        • brad says:

          They’d just think of getting more of “my kind of people”, with the general idea that they’d like having more of my kind of people around running things.

          Except that the kind of immigrants that are most Blue Tribe culturally are employment based legal immigrants. That is, the very ones that the Redditor claims are finally generating push-back by the Blue Tribe against immigration policies.

        • Evan Þ says:

          Except that most lower-skilled immigrants are ethnic minorities, which are (supposed to be) inherently Blue-Tribe. No, they’re not really, but that’s a problem with how the Blue Tribe defines itself internally.

          (Yes, Asians are also an ethnic minority. No, the Blue Tribe doesn’t usually treat them as such. That’s another problem with their definitions.)

          • brad says:

            Where is this supposed internal definition coming from?

            The first time I ever heard of Blue/Red Tribe was in “I Can Tolerate Anything Except the Outgroup”. Here’s Scott’s definition:

            “The Blue Tribe is most classically typified by liberal political beliefs, vague agnosticism, supporting gay rights, thinking guns are barbaric, eating arugula, drinking fancy bottled water, driving Priuses, reading lots of books, being highly educated, mocking American football, feeling vaguely like they should like soccer but never really being able to get into it, getting conspicuously upset about sexists and bigots, marrying later, constantly pointing out how much more civilized European countries are than America, and listening to “everything except country”.”

            I don’t see anything that says “disregard the above if the person in question is an ethnic minority” nor does that sound like a definition that fits the bulk of undocumented aliens from Latin America.

          • jaimeastorga2000 says:

            It’s important to distinguish between tribes and political parties. Right now, the Democratic Party is basically an alliance composed of the Blue Tribe (primarily white), the Helot Tribe (immigrant workers, primarily hispanic), and the Dalit Tribe (the underclass, primarily black).

        • Pku says:

          That is something of a possibility, in a way. I can see a northern democrat being happy about illegal immigration to Texas (but not to their own town) because that would make them feel more at home in Texas over the current red-tribe control there (or at least, they would think it would).
          It still doesn’t seem like the overriding reason for immigration support now, but only in the same way that angry internet SJW posters are probably not the majority of democratic voters. Which is to say, I think it’s still a minority, but have to admit there are probably a depressingly high number of people who support immigration because of ingroup bias.
          That said, this reduces us to the argument of “their reasons for supporting immigration (wanting their ingroup to be dominant in America) is just as selfish as the reds’!” (this is caused by the weird phenomenon of “america” being the reds’ ingroup and foreigners being in the blues’).
          (I’m making a hidden assumption here, which is that the “american” ingroup is no more natural than the “blue tribe” ingroup. I can think of a couple of counterarguments to this, but it seems to be broadly correct).

          • Stefan Drinic says:

            What if this whole thread is overthinking people’s motives on these matters, and the reasons for supporting immigration are as simple as wanting to signal virtue(being inclusive, not racist, supportive of the downtrodden, multiculural, etc) and genuinely thinking the US is wealthy enough to be able to absorb immigrants?

          • Pku says:

            That’s my reason (though as I’m an NRA, I can’t really claim to be altruistic for it). And I think that’s most immigration supporters’ reason. But current US politics are polarized enough that there are probably people who do have tribal membership reasons (though I suspect they’re a fairly small minority).

          • brad says:

            Going through the largest metropolitan areas, Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Greater St. Louis, are Greater Baltimore are the only ones in the two twenty without significant Hispanic or Latino populations.

            Blue strongholds like Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco all have very significant undocumented alien populations. So I’m skeptical there’s much of a “let them screw up Texas, serves those guys right” effect.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            I will once again forward the idea of empathy as a defining trait of Blue Tribe.

            Broadly, I think the driver is recognizing that the people who cross the border to work here are, in fact, people. When you meet them and have conversations with them they are nice. The lady who cleans our house and her workers are have been doing it for years. Many of these people may have been here for 20 years.

            They have built lives and are contributing. They work their asses off. The broad system has a big problem when folks like that are coming here illegally (or crossing the border legally and staying when their work visa is denied after many years, or what have you). It’s one thing to recognize that their are some really difficult systemic problems that don’t have great solutions. It’s another to think the answer is to try and push 12 million people back to their country of origin where their lives will be much worse.

            So broadly blue tribe supports immigrants for that reason.

          • Jiro says:

            I will once again forward the idea of empathy as a defining trait of Blue Tribe.

            Okay, so I’ll forward the idea that that’s backwards.

            I could equally well say that the red tribe has more empathy because they care more about the natives whose suffer from the increased crime rate from the immigrants, or whose votes are diluted by the presnece of illegal immigrants, or whatever.

            This amounts to a form of Bulverism. Your idea that the blues are more empathic comes about because you think the red policies are bad policies, and because you think they are bad policies, you think they harm people, and because you think they harm people you conclude the reds don’t care about harming people. If you did not think that red policies were bad policies, you would not be able to conclude that reds are not empathic. (And this is bad reasoning regardless of whether you are correct about red policies harming people or not, because it’s about motivations, so you can’t just say “well, red policies really do hurt people”; being mistaken is not the same as lack of empathy. )

          • Protagoras says:

            @Jiro, the problem with saying that the argument could be reversed is that pro-immigration people (though it’s probably a hopeless cause now, “blue tribe” and “red tribe” were originally introduced to speak of cultures as distinct from political standpoints) do not think that pro-immigration policies hurt the natives, while anti-immigration people seem to be perfectly aware that anti-immigration policies are bad for would-be immigrants, they just don’t care (or at least don’t think that matters enough to change their policy recommendations). Of course, the anti-immigration people will claim that the immigrants don’t deserve any better (at least not if it might come at any cost to the natives), but that sort of attitude to the immigrants is exactly what’s being referred to as the lack of empathy of the anti-immigration faction.

            So, to sum up, anti-immigration types openly endorse hurting one group to benefit another. Pro-immigration types may be wrong in thinking that they’re not doing the same thing, but they do at least think that; they are not consciously and deliberately in favor hurting one group to benefit another. The situation does not appear symmetric.

          • onyomi says:

            I am reddish-grey, but I think Heelbearcub is broadly correct about empathy (or at least signalling empathy) as a defining trait of the blue tribe. I certainly get annoyed when people claim that I, as a libertarian, must not care about the poor, when I actually believe that libertarian policies would be better for the poor than left-wing policies. Yet I also think it’s fair to say that red and grey tribes value other things at least as much, if not more than empathy, whereas the blue tribe truly does value empathy and equality of outcome more than the average red tribe member.

            Given the possibility of doing something arguably unjust but kind, like taking money from a hardworking rich person to give it to a poor but unarguably irresponsible person, I think the blue tribe member is much more likely to say it should be done. The red tribe member wants to know “did this person look for another job?” “Did they waste all their money on drugs and gambling?” “Does it create a bad incentive to give people money for irresponsible behavior?” The blue tribe member tends to say, basically, “it doesn’t matter: the person is suffering now. The kind thing to do is help him, regardless.”

            In other words, I think it’s fair to say that blue tribe more highly values empathy, at least in an abstract way (some may just be signalling empathy without actually being very empathetic in personal relationships: republicans give more to charity, for example), while red tribe values other things at least, if not more highly: order, justice, efficiency, etc.

          • Jiro says:

            Pretty much all political factions claim that some people deserve to be harmed. The blues do it too; they might characterize such people as oppressors or overlords or thieves or even bigots, but it amounts to asserting that it is okay to reduce the utility of those people because other things take precedence.

            (You could, of course, argue that the blues are harming the thieving capitalists for the sake of benefitting others, but the red positions in question amount to this as well, with, for instance, thieving capitalists replaced with thieving immigrants.)

            You’re probably right about signalling empathy rather than actual empathy, but I don’t think that’s what HBC was getting at.

          • Protagoras says:

            @Jiro, If you’re going to expand the discussion into how people loosely grouped into factions feel about every issue ever, the result will be hopelessly complicated and make cherry-picking effortless. The present topic was immigration, not how people of various stripes feel about the merits of capitalism in general.

            Still, if you want to talk about the amount of empathy involved in taxing the very wealthy, the very wealthy devote most of their spending to zero sum status games. As long as the taxes take away from all of them equally, they are not made worse off in their status games by the taxes (since their relative positions are unchanged), so the taxes don’t actually hurt them.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            I’m going to disagree here about it being empathy; the defining trait of the Blue Tribe is sympathy. The Blues, of which I am a card carrying member, are absolutely no better at putting themselves in another person’s shoes than any other randomly selected person. Rather, Blue Tribe tends to feel a lot of sympathy for those who they see as worse off for no fault of their own. It’s why there’s this big idea that pulling yourself up by your bootstraps is bullshit, why Blues care so much about minorities and immigrants, why LGBT is such a big deal. We feel sympathy for these people and want to help them.

            The only real empathy as a larger measure of the tribe I can see is how the gay marriage push did a hard swerve from “equal rights” to “they’re just people like you.” It was a shift from “you are a bad person for not feeling bad for them” to a distinctly empathetic “you can put yourself in their shoes.”

            If anything, the Blue choice of political commentary in the form of satire should help drive this in. Stewart and Colbert had zero empathy or desire to figure out why the other guy thought the way he did, but they had a lot of sympathy for the downtrodden.

            But again, Reds are no better at empathy than Blue, but Blues aren’t anything special either.

          • Jiro says:

            Still, if you want to talk about the amount of empathy involved in taxing the very wealthy, the very wealthy devote most of their spending to zero sum status games.

            You seem to be arguing that blues don’t have empathy with the rich because the rich are not worth empathizing with. Exactly why they don’t have empathy with the rich, or whether their reason is good or bad, is irrelevant to the question of whether they have empathy.

          • Protagoras says:

            @Jiro, I didn’t say that it didn’t matter if taxes hurt the very wealthy because they deserve to be hurt. I said that more taxes (at the levels that are generally debated) don’t really hurt the very wealthy. I thought I was fairly clear about it, too.

          • onyomi says:

            Yes, ironically, taxing the very wealthy more heavily hurts the rest of society more than it hurts them because the very wealthy will continue to consume whatever they want. They will simply save and invest less. And it is my opinion, that on average, the savings and investment of the wealthy, who, in many cases, got wealthy by making good investment decisions, do more good for society and the economy that whatever the government would have spent the money on. I think most government spending is harmful, so it’s not a very high bar to pass, but I think this would be true if government spending was mildly productive or helpful, only less than private sector spending–which seems a less controversial position.

            I think people imagine that when we raise taxes on the very wealthy, they will buy fewer yachts but continue to put just as much of their money into their businesses and investments, many of which employ people of all social classes and income levels. In fact, the opposite is far more likely to be true.

          • Jaskologist says:

            I think arguing that conservatives are the real empathizers is missing the point. This is not the first time I’ve seen a liberal self-describe empathy as a primary value, and I think it is at least important and true that they think of themselves as being more empathetic.

            You can certainly argue that they fail in this, but it seems true to me that empathy is a big part of the lefty self-image, in a way that it isn’t for the right. People on the right would be much more likely to say that they are hard-headed enough to recognize that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind than to say that they are guided by empathy.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Jaskologist:
            That is certainly extremely adjacent to the point I was trying to make.

            I think I could re-state your point as “liberals place relatively more value on empathy than conservatives”. If that was a fair restatement, wouldn’t that say something about what we should predict about actual behavior?

            I think it would be possible for some to misinterpret my stance as “Liberals are empathetic and conservatives aren’t”. I want to make clear this is not my stance. It’s a question of where in the value stack empathy lies, not an argument about presence or absence.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            To jump onto the end of @HeelBearCub’s post there, I would like to reiterate that while Blues say “empathy” they mean “sympathy.” You see very little attempt to understand why the badwrong people do what they do or believe how they believe, and instead a preference to pretend to be psychic and place badwrong motives on them. This is again, not at all unique to the Blues and arguably worse for the Reds, but in the end it comes down to the fact that the actual valued idea by Blues is sympathy, not empathy.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            People on the right would be much more likely to say that they are hard-headed enough to recognize that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind than to say that they are guided by empathy.

            More likely they might, from the group ’empathy’, ‘sympathy’, ‘compassion’, choose ‘compassion’. As in the 2000 ‘compassionate conservative’.

          • Jaskologist says:

            “Compassionate conservative” was a blatant attempt to steal the left’s brand, and fell out of favor when Bush did. I’m pretty sure the word “compassionate” was chosen over “empathy” and “sympathy” for no deeper reason than alliteration.

            (I’m in agreement with HeelBearClub here, and leave it to others to determine if HeldInEscrow has hit on a deeper truth.)

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Held In Escrow:
            You have tried to engage on the sympathy/empathy divide a few times and I haven’t replied, which is slightly rude. So, apologies.

            My gut reaction is that sympathy vs. empathy doesn’t actually do the lifting you want it to, and I’m also not sure what definitions you are using for the two words to be able to parse the difference so finely.

            For instance, do you agree with the divide as laid out here.
            “When you understand and feel another’s feelings for yourself, you have empathy. … When you sympathize with someone, you have compassion for that person, but you don’t necessarily feel her feelings.”

            I can feel sympathy for someone who is down on their luck as a result of a combination of bad choices and bad luck, but it is relatively easy to then feel no responsibility for helping them out. However, if I imagine how I would feel if I were in their shoes, it becomes much harder not to help.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ HeelBearCub

            I agree with the definitions you linked to, but as a snapshot of current usage. My impression from casual reading of texts going back at least to the late 1800s is that what’s happened is similar to the euphemism treadmill.

            Com-passion, sym-pathy, em-pathy all began, more or less, as ‘feeling with’. As each came in fashion as a claim, its usage cooled to less feeling and from further away. We see that happening now with ’empathy’ being used where ‘sympathy’ was used till recently.

            To riff off an Original Star Trek to show what the words meant when they were at a more distinct stage, the crew are as usual trying to figure out and solve some planet’s social problem. A visiting Empath is consulted, but when she connects with Group A, all she can do is weep, being possessed by their feelings; when she connects with Group B, all she can do is rage. This doesn’t tell much about the actual issue between A and B.

            McCoy is upset and anxious to side with A; he’s feeling a lot of sympathy. Kirk refrains from jumping to conclusions, but cares about solving the problem: compassion. Spock condescends to listen to both sides, illogical as they both are.

            @ Jaskologist

            Alliteration helped make ‘compassionate conservative’ effective, but I think the meaning was very important: signalling disagreement with the ideas of those who asked for help, and not being swayed by those people’s emotions. (More recently, a conservative might say his compassion meant forcing a poor mother into ‘the dignity of work’.)

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @houseboatonstyx:
            The phrase “I’m sympathetic to your situation” is usually followed by the word “but”, I can’t think of a similar turn phrase around empathy.

            Yes, words have treadmills (a favorite example, whether correct or not, is truly and literally), but the empathy/sympathy divide has been in place for my lifetime and your Star Trek example doesn’t server as a counter example, as near as I can figure out.

            Regardless, sympathy/empathy or whatever word is currently on the far end of the treadmill is the concept I’m talking about. Using more words, the concept is “I feel I understand the plight of someone else and therefore I am more disposed to help”.

          • Cauê says:

            I can’t think of a similar turn phrase around empathy.

            “I see where you’re coming from, but…”, and similar phrases.

            If we leave behind the argument about words, do you dispute HIE’s charge that “you see very little attempt to understand why the badwrong people do what they do or believe how they believe, and instead a preference to pretend to be psychic and place badwrong motives on them”?

            Using more words, the concept is “I feel I understand the plight of someone else and therefore I am more disposed to help”.

            As an aside, just because I find it interesting: we know people overestimate the impact of big life changes before they happen compared to their assessment a few months after the change. I think the same effect leads people to get it wrong when attempting to “understand the plight of someone else” in the cases where the change from your position to that someone’s would be drastic enough. I also think this explains some of the differences I’ve observed between the opinions of rich leftists fighting for the poor and those of actual poor people.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            Basically when I look at a sympathy/empathy divide I see sympathy as being unidirectional while empathy is omnidirectional. With sympathy you are looking for the obvious hurt and you want to fix it. Empathy is rather an understanding of why people feel the way they do. This is more of a bird’s eye view of the problem; why do the people wronging you feel the need to wrong you?

            To look at an issue where, despite pretty much agreeing 100% with my fellow liberals I still argue with them for ages about, take abortion. Someone who primarily deals in sympathy will see opponents of it as being evil; how can they want to hurt women so much? They must hate women or want to control their bodies. Someone who deals in empathy will try and figure out why not only women want abortions but why pro lifers feel that way. Is it because they’re not consequtionalists (as Scott goes with), is it because they believe that abortion is murder, so on and so forth.

            The big swing in gay marriage support came from a conscious decision to use empathy more in several major campaigns. The switch went from “gay people deserve equal rights” to “gay people are just like you.” This was a targeted attempt at looking at real objections to gay marriage (which often came from a disgust reaction) and overcoming it by associating gays with the guys you drink beers with or the nice lady next door who lent you her generator.

            In effect, empathy is about understanding why everyone stands where they do. It’s a lot harder than sympathy but can be more effective if you don’t just want to rally your base but convert others. It’s not always the right tool (“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it”) but it isn’t something I really see being that widespread among the Blues, especially as we became the cool party thanks to Bush.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Cauê:
            “I see where you’re coming from, but…”

            By the definition/distinction I quoted, that is sympathy.

            “I am outraged as well” is different than “I can see why you are outraged”. An obvious “but” phrase could be “I am outraged as well, but I don’t see that outrage is helpful/useful.” However I don’t see “I am outraged as well, but I don’t think what happened to you should be remedied” as a common sentiment. If you share the outrage, non-action is much less of an option.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Held In Escrow:
            “Basically when I look at a sympathy/empathy divide I see sympathy as being unidirectional while empathy is omnidirectional.”

            That is not a distinction/definitional difference that I am familiar with. To me this seems like you my have indirectly absorbed some personal connotations for the words that aren’t commonly shared. Even with you further expansion, I also don’t know that what you are saying really actually makes sense to me. I mean, I get an indistinct sense of what you mean, but your language seems very imprecise.

            You also seem very focused on empathy/sympathy for people who are engaged in harming others rather than being harmed themselves. On the one hand, I understand roughly where you are coming from; empathy for the person who murdered your daughter (for instance) is really, truly empathy.

            But, on the other hand, I find it a little weird that you view (or at least are framing) being harmed yourself as a prerequisite for empathy. I can feel empathy for someone whose child is dying of starvation without them harming me.

            Actually, that example, forgiving and showing empathy for the killer of a loved one would be an interesting test case. My prior is that those people will be overwhelmingly “on the left” in the US. Even if those cases were merely over-represented in the media if the person was on the left, that would still be evidence that empathy is valued more on the left, or at least seen as prototypical on the left.

            “Bleeding heart liberal” is a phrase for a reason.

          • Cauê says:

            By the definition/distinction I quoted, that is sympathy.

            I’m not a fan of that definition, then.

            “I am outraged as well” is different than “I can see why you are outraged”. An obvious “but” phrase could be “I am outraged as well, but I don’t see that outrage is helpful/useful.” However I don’t see “I am outraged as well, but I don’t think what happened to you should be remedied” as a common sentiment. If you share the outrage, non-action is much less of an option.

            “I feel your pain, but…”; “nobody hates X more than I do, but…”; “you know me, you know I love Y, but…”

            Seems common enough to me.

          • Held in Escrow says:

            Oh, I’m not saying that empathy is only with people doing the harming, just that it’s the easiest way of showing a difference. I’m sure people have plenty of empathy for those whose lives are hard, but that’s because at some level sympathy and empathy tend to merge pretty well; if you already feel bad for someone then it isn’t that hard to put yourself in their place. Real empathy comes from being able to put yourself in the place of everyone involved, no matter if you like them or not.

            Perhaps it is more common on the left (and if so I’d guess that it was because groups devoted to empathy are part of the big tent left), but it is in no way a terminal value. Otherwise you wouldn’t see “look at how nasty and icky these Others are” as a huge talking point.

    • suntzuanime says:

      Hasn’t the Blue Tribe pretty consistently hated offshoring? Their politicians betrayed them, sure, but that’s what politicians do.

      • jaimeastorga2000 says:

        Now that you mention it, I do remember reading this Daily Kos article promoting immigration and condemning offshoring. However, I have no hard data.

      • ddreytes says:

        Anecdotally, pretty much every left and Blue Tribe member I’ve known has been very opposed to offshoring. It would seem very strange to me to think of that as a blue-tribe policy.

        Establishment policy, sure, but those aren’t the same things.

      • Jon Gunnarsson says:

        It’s not so much a divide between Blue Tribe and Red Tribe, but more about people who understand economics and those that don’t. It’s one of those issues where almost everyone who understands the arguments for offshoring agrees with them. Blue Tribe economists, such as Paul Krugman, are not against offshoring (though they typically avoid this topic so as to not offend their (less educated) base).

        The reason for this divide is that making the case for offshoring requires a basic understanding of economics, while it is very easy to make simple populist arguments against offshoring, from either a left-wing or a right wing perspective. Either it’s greedy capitalists squeezing the working class and exploiting poor foreigners, or it’s dirty foreigners taking away our jobs.

        • ryan says:

          I don’t think it’s a lack of understanding of economics. It’s value judgment. Protectionist policies are rampant in practically every corner of the economy, from structured markets for beer distribution to licensing of barbers. Policies like these are what allow for concentration of wealth inside borders/professions/whatever. If you value that wealth being concentrated over shareholder return/low cost legal advice/whatever, you oppose outsourcing. And when the economist comes along and cries “but that’s inefficient” you say “There are better things in life than efficiency.”

    • Eli says:

      This strongly depends what you mean by “blue tribe”. This is the kind of issue where Old Left socialists (like me) get in fights with New Left “we are the world” liberals. The liberals believe in a kind of fuzzy internationalism where first we open all the borders for the sake of humanitarianism and the global net increase in utility, and then everything just sort of gets better somehow. The neoliberals (on the Right) know damn well that the “global net increase in utility” is really an increase in accumulated capital, and that’s why they make common cause with the liberals in supporting open borders everywhere.

    • Deiseach says:

      I don’t think it was a political conspiracy as such, but I do broadly agree middle-class professionals were sanguine about shop floor jobs being pruned as market necessity and automation. Now downsizing is nibbling at their heels, suddenly it’s a crisis.

  57. R Flaum says:

    So I was talking with my 8-year-old nephew the other day, and he posed a question I couldn’t answer (I probably knew the answer when I was in college and just can’t remember it). I’m posing it here because I suspect some of the commenters here are likely to know the answer:

    When two light waves destructively interfere, where does the extra energy go?

    • Orin says:

      It is impossible for two waves to destructively interfere everywhere(1). If two waves destructively interfere at location X, then there will always be some location Y where there is constructive interference such that the total energy remains constant.

      (1) If you try to be clever and think you can create some laser setup with mirrors so that there will be destructive interference everywhere along the laser path, then if you were somehow successful, there still wouldn’t be any violation of energy conservation, since there wouldn’t be any laser beam at all (think about it) and the laser wouldn’t be converting any energy into laser light in the first place.

    • Chris says:

      That’s a great question, and the answer is quite subtle. When two waves destructively interfere in one place, they necessarily constructively interfere elsewhere.

  58. s4 says:

    Scott Adams mentioned your toxoplasma post in his blog today. I think he missed some of the point but got the gist, and your blog gets a favorable mention. Do you see an increase in traffic?

    • pneumatik says:

      The Scott Adams blog entry that talks about slatestarcodex: When Wives Attack. He actually pulls a lot from an particular SSC post, but he only links to the blog’s front page. He says it’s because he’s too lazy to find the link to the specific post, but given how Adams writes, especially lately, that may be a lie. He may want to be less specific on purpose, like (I’m wildly guessing here) to make people associate the ideas more with his blog than SSC, or to make it less likely that people will read the original blog so they rely on his interpretation of it (this would reduce the number of people who argue with him over his interpretation).

  59. Kyle Strand says:

    This is interesting. A fan of free markets might even call it “encouraging. And he even mentions the basic income guarantee! http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-08/advice-for-the-new-old-left

    • Eli says:

      Seems that we could summarize the article as, “What the New Old Left needs to appeal to voters is to stop being itself, and start being the same neoliberal Blairite/Clintonite stuff that voters have already spat out. Because ‘Realism’.”

      For instance, much of the talk about tax rates ignores the simple fact that Corbyn supports nationalizing certain enterprises (namely, fundamental infrastructure and natural resources), as does much of the Old Left. At the very least, as in the case of British Rail, this state ownership will save money otherwise spent bailing-out failed private firms. In better cases, the state can use revenues from profitable nationalized enterprises to finance socially desirable programs without having to tax anyone to death.

      Further, one of the major elements of the New Old Left’s platform is to re-shift the tax burden from individuals to corporations. We can easily keep tax rates on human beings low if we make corporations and institutions pay proportionate taxes to how much of the national income they take home.

      The fatal weakness of today’s new old left is that it rarely seems interested in answering that question. If capitalism is evil at the core, why would you stop until you’ve replaced it with something you think is better?

      That’s not a weakness, by our values. We intend to replace capitalism.

      a more electorally purposeful left

      Or in other words, a Left that cares more about winning elections than about its own values and goals. A corrupt, self-serving Left.

      This is exactly what has lost elections for decades and what we need less of now than ever.

      • brad says:

        Further, one of the major elements of the New Old Left’s platform is to re-shift the tax burden from individuals to corporations. We can easily keep tax rates on human beings low if we make corporations and institutions pay proportionate taxes to how much of the national income they take home.

        I find this to be strangely euphamistic, if not somewhat dishonest, for a group that considers itself heirs to (the actual) socialists. Corporations can’t pay anything, they aren’t real. The money that is going to taxation would otherwise be going to some flesh and blood person. Traditionally that was the owner class, today more and more of it is going to the senior management and lenders of various sorts.

        • Gbdub says:

          Yeah this is the sort of stuff that makes me write off a lot of what passes for leftist economic discussion these days.

          “We’ll just tax the hell out of corporations! No way that affects actual human beings!” As if corporate profits just magically appear from no one’s pocket, and convert to pure evil if they don’t go into the government coffers.

          As it is, corporate profits already get taxed twice, once as corporate tax and again as capital gains.

          Even the “tax capital gains as income!” crowd seems to love bashing multimillionaires while being ignorant that most Americans rely on capital gains for their retirement funds.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            A lot of corporate money is spent on status signaling between competing corporations — ostentatious buildings etc. This is by definition easy to spot. Government waste is often camofloged as some worthwhile project, and even a bridge to almost nowhere may come in handy someday.

          • Doctor Mist says:

            @houseboatonstyx:

            A lot of corporate money is spent on status signaling between competing corporations — ostentatious buildings etc.

            Yes. And so? The money spent on ostentatious buildings ultimately goes into some humans’ pockets — architects’, contractors’, bricklayers’.

            You can dismiss it as irrelevant to the function of the original corporation (if you really want to try), but that doesn’t mean it’s “found money” that can be shunted into Federal coffers without affecting ordinary humans.

          • brad says:

            @Gbdub

            Just to be clear, I’m not saying don’t increase corporate taxes*, all I’m saying is that those of us on the economic left ought not to shy away from saying where the incidence of the taxes end up.

            Even the “tax capital gains as income!” crowd seems to love bashing multimillionaires while being ignorant that most Americans rely on capital gains for their retirement funds.
            But most retirement savings for most people are in tax advantaged accounts that aren’t subject to capital gains. So this isn’t a very good point.

            * Though personally I think corporate income tax is so intrinsically difficult to write in a loophole free way, that we’d be better off targeting the beneficial recipients more directly.

          • Paul Torek says:

            What brad said: tax corporate income when it reaches the individual stockholder. Except retained earnings – tax those at the corporate level.

          • Protagoras says:

            Limited liability is a really good deal. Do those who are opposed to corporate income tax think the deal should be available for free, or do you think there is some other way besides corporate income tax that corporations should have to pay for the benefit of that sweet deal?

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ Gbdub
            The money spent on ostentatious buildings ultimately goes into some humans’ pockets — architects’, contractors’, bricklayers’.

            I won’t try to put this in algebraic terms, but when those vendors build a public bridge, I think there is some greater than zero chance of it turning out useful some day. But the only use the ostentatious part of the corporation’s building might have, is being sold/rented to some other corporation for its ostentation.

          • Pku says:

            The argument for taxing corporations is that ultimately, you get net utility by moving money/effort from being used for signalling purposes to being used for actual benefit (example: if you take money from all billionaires so that they can only build 70-foot instead of 200-foot yachts, no one’s really losing, they just compare smaller yachts, and you can then pay the same yacht-builders to build houses for the homeless or something).
            The ostentatious building example is one example of why we might expect corporate money to be more likely to go to signalling (or, say, advertising), which doesn’t really benefit anyone but gives the company a competitive advantage.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ Paul Torek
            What brad said: tax corporate income when it reaches the individual stockholder.

            But money the corporation has spent on bling, never reaches the stockholder. It is a business expense.

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            Since limited liability is of direct benefit only to shareholders, and benefits corporations only inasmuch as it makes prospective shareholders more willing to invest, there’s no reason why its existence should be considered a problem for those people who want to tax corporate earnings only at the point where they’re passed along to shareholders.

          • Gbdub says:

            @brad – yes, 401k withdrawals are of course already taxed as income, so that was dumb on my part. On the other hand, increasing the capital gains rate would probably not exactly encourage stock market growth.

            I wasn’t actually the one that brought up ostentatious buildings, but FWIW I don’t think taxes are actually relevant to that since buildings are written off as business expense, and corporate tax is on profit, not revenue. Also, I’ll just say that ostentatious business spending is hardly limited to the private sector.

            Generally I agree with Brad’s last point that trying to tax corporations just leads to shenanigans that mostly benefit bigger companies that have the flexibility and legal teams to take advantage, so it’s probably easier and ultimately fairer to tax it as income when investors / owners / employees turn it into cash.

            And while I agree that limited liability is valuable, that doesn’t necessarily necessitate corporate tax. The value of limited liability flows to the owners/investors/employees as income and capital gains. Tax it there. Plus, it’s hard to see how modern global capitalism would really work without the corporation or a similar legal concept, so I think society gets its money’s worth.

            @houseboatonstyx – bling turns into revenue for bling companies, and for the company with bling, it usually adds capital value to the company (as you say, ostentation can be sold or rented) which in theory is reflected in the stock price. So it does flow to stockholders.

            Conflict of interest alert: I’m an aerospace engineer, and know several people who are now unemployed due to the late 2000’s war on corporate jets.

          • Deiseach says:

            Mmmm – you might be interested to know that the Brits are a bit fed-up with the Irish government permitting corporations like Apple to funnel profits through Ireland to avoid paying tax on them (ironically, as the Brits were encouraging such schemes themselves to attract multinational corporations to use them for ‘the money was only resting in my account’ purposes). Hence the pressure from the EU to do away with such schemes – though now they’re being replaced with the idea of the knowledge box.

            So Apple (which is the big example here) doesn’t pay US tax on outside earnings; it doesn’t pay tax to the Brits on its UK earnings, and it only pays 12.5% corporation tax in Ireland while not employing anyone in the shell company (apart from a few people to sit in the office where the licensing etc. allegedly goes on, so it’s not really creating large-scale employment which is the rationale behind our favourable rate of corporation tax – attracting multinationals in return for lots of jobs). Your own country isn’t too happy about losing out on the tax revenue either.

            The subsidiaries are Apple Sales International (ASI) and Apple Operations Europe. Despite having sales that totalled more than $150 billion in the four years to 2012 they have paid less than €10 million a year in Irish corporation tax.

            In a letter to the Irish Government in June, commissioner Joaquín Almunia quoted figures from a US senate inquiry into Apple’s tax affairs which found ASI’s pretax profits in the three years from 2009 were, respectively $4 billion, $12.1 billion and $22 billion.

            However, the Irish authorities had told the commission the company’s taxable profits in Ireland had been between €30 million to €40 million for 2009 and 2010; between €50 million and €60 million in 2011; and between €40 million and €50 million in 2012.

            In each year the company had paid between €1 million and €10 million in Irish corporation tax, the letter said.

            Ireland’s arrangement with the companies involved their taxable profits attributable to Ireland being a percentage of their operational expenses. Apart from these profits, the companies were not tax resident anywhere.

            So it’s not so much “start taxing big corporations” as “do away with the loopholes letting corporations dodge taxes”. How much luck they’ll have with that, who knows?

          • “The money spent on ostentatious buildings ultimately goes into some humans’ pockets ”

            Various people in this thread seem to be making the same mistake. If I hire someone for ten dollars to mow my lawn, he isn’t ten dollars better off. He is ten dollars minus the cost to him of the time and effort of mowing my lawn better off. In a competitive market, price equals marginal cost, which means that, to first approximation, his benefit is zero.

            Similarly for architects, builders, etc. If the ostentatious building really is worthless, which is what the argument claims, then all the real resources of materials and human labor that went to build it were wasted. Those same resources could have been used instead to produce something useful.

            On the other hand … . The higher the tax on corporate profits, the less the cost to the stockholders of inefficiencies due to the management spending money on benefits to themselves, hence the lower the incentive to monitor such activity, leading to increased inefficiency.

            If you tax corporate revenue instead, you have an even bigger problem. Suppose revenue is taxed at fifty percent. Any project whose cost is more than half its return isn’t worth doing.

            The sensible approach, in my view, is to attribute all corporate profit to the stockholders and tax it as ordinary income.

            So far as the idea of corporate tax as payment for limited liability … . Individuals have limited liability too. It’s called bankruptcy law. And limited liability only matters to stockholders in corporations that have gone bankrupt, since that’s the only case where, without limited liability, the stockholder would be liable. It only really matters to corporations that have gone bankrupt due to tort damages, because any contractual relation the corporation enters could have limited liability as a term in the contract even if it did not exist as a general rule for corporations. Not a benefit worth the amount collected as corporate tax or anywhere close.

          • brad says:

            Although I said above that I don’t think corporate income tax is a good idea in general, for practical rather than ideological reasons, I do take the point regarding limited liability (and also artificial personality, another valuable benefit).

            I think if you have strictly cost free corporate entities you open the door to some shenanigans. A small tax, probably on revenue or assets rather than earnings, would have a laudable impact of adding a little bit of friction. I’d say include non-profits in this as well.

            As for the ostentatious building, eh I’m not sure I see that as huge problem. I do think there is a problem of untaxed executive compensation (especially in closely held corporations) but I don’t think I’d go so far as to say a garish building is compensation to the employee.

          • Pku says:

            @David Friedman: In terms of the government trying to get money spent more productively overall (assuming we regard advertising,competition,copyright lawsuits, etc as productive for the company but not for society), would you say taxing corporations gives an advantage over taxing the stockholders directly? Since the same stockholder could have stocks in multiple companies, it seems like it could be a way of solving competition coordination problems? Or does this just ruin the benefits of having market competition?

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ Gbdub

            “for the company with bling, it usually adds capital value to the company (as you say, ostentation can be sold or rented)”

            But the bling may turn out to be a liability, losing both property value and the money you paid for it originally, and certainly losing the opportunity cost of the bling company’s work that could have made something of practical use.

            “which in theory is reflected in the stock price. So it does flow to stockholders.”

            If there is any, it may flow towards stock price, and then be lost in the surf.

          • CJB says:

            “But the only use the ostentatious part of the corporation’s building might have, is being sold/rented to some other corporation for its ostentatious.”

            Yep! The public derives no gain from the empire state, Woolworths building, Rockefeller plaza- certainly NYC has never derived public benefit from all those ostentatious buildings on the skyline. We should replace them with cost effective warehouses.

            This is about as dumb as Bernies “no one needs 30 toothpastes ” line- part of the reason we can afford to have 30 types of toothpaste is we have 30 types of toothpaste. Part of the benefit of ostentatious buildings is being ostentatious.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @David Friedman:
            “In a competitive market, price equals marginal cost, which means that, to first approximation, his benefit is zero.”

            This is the point where economists either start to need different words, or need to acknowledge they aren’t actually talking about what everyone else is.

            In this formulation, no one ever benefited from any work they ever did. You can’t even benefit from doing your own dishes. All activities have zero net utility. Everything is a zero sum game and God is dead.

            All fine as a way to model the broad economic behavior of individuals. Useless when anyone else other than economists use the word “benefit”. You aren’t actually talking about the same thing.

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            Yeah, I wondered about that whole “ostentatious buildings” thing too. If the 9/11 hijackers had succeeded in destroying the U.S. Capitol, should it have been replaced with something in tilt-up prefab concrete?

          • Deiseach says:

            Isn’t the benefit to the architects that of repute? They get the goodwill value of “If you want a big ostentatious garish pile, CoolDudes Trendy and Hip are the ones you want to throw money at!” and that gives them a reputation that wins them awards and the respect (um…) of their peers? And being award-winning top of their field cutting-edge means they can hike up their prices for the next client?

            The corporations get the benefit of advertising “We’re so successful we’ve got money to burn, so we wanted The Biggest Eff-Off Building in the area and by jings, we got it!”

            The onlookers get “Yikes, that lot have less good taste than a wharf-side rat, but it is undeniable that they must be coining money hand over fist if they’re able to afford that monstrosity, so maybe they’re worth a punt for investment/buying shares”.

          • Healbearcub thinks economics makes no sense. He is, naturally enough, missing the distinction between marginal and total (cost or benefit), since I didn’t explain it in my brief comment.

            Consider the simple case of someone deciding how many apples to buy and eat each month. The more apples he eats the more utility he gets from apples (up to the point where he doesn’t want another) but the less money he has.

            Apples cost a dollar. Suppose he was eating 29 apples a month. At that rate, a 30th apple gives him 10 utiles worth of pleasure. The best alternative use of his dollar gives him nine utiles. So he increases his rate to 30 apples a month, for a gain of one utile a month.

            At that rate, a thirty-first apple would give him only 9 utiles more (more precisely, utility(31/month)-utility(30/month) =9). But since he is spending more on apples than before he is spending less on other things, so now the best alternative use of his dollar gives him 9.1 utiles—not worth increasing the rate. Hence thirty apples/month maximizes his utility.

            On the last apple he just about broke even–a one utile gain. If we switched from discrete to continuous, which doesn’t require pulverizing the apples since we are interested in rates and he can consume 30.1 apples/month by consuming 301 apples every ten months, that one utile becomes an infinitesimal. Price equals marginal value.

            He is still better off for being able to buy apples, because U(30)=[U(30)-U(29)]+[U(29)-U(28)]+ … + [U(1)-U(0)] and only the first bracket is approaching zero. The total sum is what economists describe as the consumer surplus from apples.

            Hope that helps. Economics is not simple enough for a one sentence explanation.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @David Friedman:
            “Healbearcub thinks economics makes no sense.”

            Go back and re-read what I wrote. Not what I meant, not what I said, and it ticks me off that you would start with something as casually dismissive as that. My dad is an economist, and has been for 45+ years.

            On talking through the flaws in treating people as rational actors he made the statement “It takes a model to beat a model”. I recognize the essential truth of this idea This is one reason why I explicitly recognized the value of your statement as a model.

            But it’s not the colloquial meaning of the word benefit. Giving me a treatise on what economists mean when they say benefit (as opposed to what anyone else means) is missing the point entirely.

            When you can claim that me hiring someone to mow my lawn for twenty bucks is of no benefit to them (in a competitive marketplace), you are talking past people.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @David Friedman:
            “Healbearcub thinks economics makes no sense.”

            and tells me to “Go back and re-read what I wrote.”

            What you wrote was

            “In this formulation, no one ever benefited from any work they ever did.”

            Were that the case, economics would make no sense.

            He adds:

            “My dad is an economist, and has been for 45+ years.”

            “On talking through the flaws in treating people as rational actors he made the statement “It takes a model to beat a model”. ”

            True. But the particular model I was using does not have the fault you attributed to it—in the simplest model of perfect competition, complete with rational actors and full information, both consumer and producer surplus still exist. The fact that you thought it had that fault meant you did not understand it, which was not surprising given how sketchy my explanation was—I referred to *marginal* cost but didn’t explain it. So I tried to respond to you with a slightly less sketchy presentation.

            Apparently it didn’t work.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @David Friedman:
            “Apparently it didn’t work.”

            I was explicitly talking about colloquial usage, yes? That was the central point which you don’t seem to have acknowledged. You keep going back to the dismissive backhand that I “don’t understand economics”.

            Do I understand economics as well as you? Certainly not. Never claimed to.

            But fine, if you want to talk about models, then here is the rub. Why do you get to make the assumption that the real world lawn mowing market is perfectly competitive?

            When the neighborhood kid comes around and wants to mow my lawn for twenty bucks because he notices it is long, did he get a benefit out of it?

            When the salesman for the commercial lawn mowing service comes by and I agree to use his service, does he get a benefit out of it?

            I think I’d make an argument about any perfectly competitive market having to be inherently unstable, if I knew how to make it. Basically, a perfectly competitive market would be static, and economies aren’t static.

            But, again, this slides right by my point. You are objecting to people using words in a manner that economists don’t use them. But they weren’t using the economists’ definition.

          • Adam says:

            What he is saying with the lawn mowing example isn’t that a lawn mower receives no benefit from mowing any lawns ever. But once he finishes your lawn, goes on to do another, etc, at some point, he stops, and that point is the point at which marginal cost equals marginal revenue, the point at which there is no more benefit to be had. He still benefited from all the other lawns he mowed. That’s producer’s surplus. And the people getting their lawns mowed stop purchasing more service when the additional cost is no longer worth it. However, up to then, they generally paid less for most of the service they already received than they would have been willing to on the margin, so they get consumer’s surplus, too. That’s how everyone wins in a market where many buyers and sellers have symmetric full information and equal bargaining power. Even in that idealized model, there is still benefit to be had, just not on the margin.

          • Luke Somers says:

            David Friedman, I am around 90% sure that would have gone more smoothly if you hadn’t led with a vicious rhetorical attack.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Adam:
            Yes, I understand that.

            And all activity has opportunity cost. When I do my dishes I pay (mostly in the time it takes to wash them. I suppose you could include capital cost on the dishwasher and sink. Water costs. Soap costs. Dish sponge cost. etc. But, essentially dominated by the time cost, although, come to think of it, most people in the world don’t own dishwashers, so maybe not dominated by time cost.) From an economists perspective, you can talk about how many marginal utils you gained from doing your own dishes, but it’s still marginal.

            But you don’t get to claim the full benefit of “clean dishes”. Much as the you don’t get to claim the full benefit of each apple. And in a “perfectly competitive” marketplace the assumption is that everything is in balance. As he said, the net benefit of any activity is assumed to be zero. I think we could say that, in a perfectly competitive marketplace, my dishes are assumed to be as washed as much (on the margin) as I want them to be. Any more washing of the dishes is not beneficial.

            And when you talk about it this way, it becomes divorced from the realities of what people are saying.

          • Urstoff says:

            @HeelBearCub

            Are you simply saying, if we used the economists’ technical terms in their colloquial sense, economics is wrong? Because I suppose that’s true, but it’s not really relevant to anything.

            If you’re not saying that, it simply seems like you’re just missing the distinction between marginal and aggregate. In competitive markets, the marginal transaction brings no benefit, but there is a lot of economic activity that isn’t marginal. That’s simply the basic concept of economic surplus: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Economic-surpluses.svg/350px-Economic-surpluses.svg.png

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Urstoff:
            David jumped into this thread to make an argument about whether things are useful/beneficial. In doing that he used the economist’s definition, not the one that was being used.

            Suppose a company, for hires 1000 people to build sand castles in the remote desert and then immediately destroy them with no witnesses, and further contractually prevents them from taking pictures or talking about what happened.

            In the colloquial sense, this activity was “useless”. In the economic sense this was perfectly useful, as the corporate accounting function was served, (and the economist would contend that it would not have happened had it not been useful, the market being composed of only rational actors.) Neither definition is “wrong”, but they are different.

            Conflating two definitions of the same word (and not being up front about it) is either a mistake or poor form.

          • Adam says:

            Maybe a better way to explain this, because the issue is really about having many buyers and sellers and about aggregation versus individual transactions.

            Let’s say you sell baskets for a living and your neighbor wants to buy a basket. There are a lot of other people buying and selling baskets, too, so neither of you alone has the ability to set the price. Let’s say the marginal cost to you of producing a basket, including opportunity cost, is $20. The marginal utility your neighbor gains from purchasing a basket is $30. However, the market in aggregate has set the equilibrium price at $25. For this particular transaction, you both win, getting $5 of consumer’s and producer’s surplus, respectively.

            However, as you pointed out above, markets are not static. The equilibrium price is constantly changing. Let’s say the price changes the following week to $30 because a lot more people want baskets or a few sellers die or something. Now your neighbor is indifferent between baskets and any other good, but he makes the purchase anyway because he can’t find any better use of his last $30, so you pocket all the surplus this time.

            Then, another week later, a bunch of cheap baskets from China flood the market and the price drops to $15. Now, you’re no longer willing to make baskets, so you exit the market. Suddenly, you just became the marginal producer and no more benefit was to be had.

            Nonetheless, for every transaction actually made, someone benefited, usually both parties, because virtually no single market participant is the marginal producer or marginal consumer.

            Of course, this is an ideal market and there are practical concerns in reality to consider. You can’t just ‘exit the market.’ You might have a whole bunch of excess inventory remaining and you need to sell that for a loss to cover your lease payments until you’re legally allowed to terminate and move out of your retail space. Which isn’t technically any violation of welfare economics. You’re still only selling when it’s more beneficial to do so than to not do so, even if it means taking a loss, but it does mean not every transaction is a clear ‘win’ in any common understanding of that term for every party even under perfect competition.

          • Cauê says:

            Suppose a company, for hires 1000 people to build sand castles in the remote desert and then immediately destroy them with no witnesses, and further contractually prevents them from taking pictures or talking about what happened.
            In the colloquial sense, this activity was “useless”. In the economic sense this was perfectly useful, as the corporate accounting function was served, (and the economist would contend that it would not have happened had it not been useful, the market being composed of only rational actors.) Neither definition is “wrong”, but they are different.

            Wait, who’s paying for this? If someone is, they’re probably getting some utility out of it, and it’s not useless in the coloquial sense.

            If nobody is, if nobody chose this as the way to use their resources, then this makes as much sense as an example as “suppose people collectively decided to up and burn money. What of your economics premises then?”

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Cauê:
            I originally wrote “for arcane tax accounting reasons” but put that in angle brackets as a way to indicate that it was only for discussion purposes. I assume it must have been swallowed as an unknown markup tag. Whoops.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Adam:
            I believe Friedman was only talking about the point at which the next marginal basket reaches the market price for the trade-off economic activity. So that $5 dollars you refer to isn’t a benefit, it’s the going rate for the trade-off, hence his statement that the basket maker (or lawn-mower) isn’t benefiting at all. They could make just as much doing something else. If that wasn’t the case, other people would have already flooded the basket making marketplace until the trade-off price was reached.

            So your use of benefit and his are different here, I think. He presumes the basket maker could make exactly $5 dollars per unit-of-basket-sale-time and thus each basket sold can’t be considered of benefit to the basket maker.

            Or I may have his thesis wrong, but then I don’t understand what he means when he says that, in a perfectly competitive market, the lawn mower receives no benefit when you employ his services.

          • “Why do you get to make the assumption that the real world lawn mowing market is perfectly competitive?”

            Because I’m not trying to answer questions about lawn mowing. I was trying to explain the logic of the situation discussed in the thread, and that was easier to do with a very simple model.

            The point of the post you objected to was that people were confusing revenue with profit (more precisely, producer surplus). The easiest way of demonstrating that was a model where surplus was zero. On the margin in a perfectly competitive market surplus is zero, so that was the model I used.

          • Luke writes:

            “if you hadn’t led with a vicious rhetorical attack.”

            What I wrote was:

            “Healbearcub thinks economics makes no sense.”

            Which was how I interpreted:

            “In this formulation, no one ever benefited from any work they ever did. You can’t even benefit from doing your own dishes. All activities have zero net utility. Everything is a zero sum game and God is dead.”

            I was giving a perfectly conventional explanation of an economic point, and he thought it had absurd implications.

            I went on to say:

            “He is, naturally enough, missing the distinction between marginal and total (cost or benefit), since I didn’t explain it in my brief comment.”

            And then tried to explain.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @David Friedman:
            “I was giving a perfectly conventional explanation of an economic point, and he thought it had absurd implications.”

            I didn’t say this. I have clarified what I meant. You keep persisting on acting as if I said something I did not.

            I don’t think conventional economic theories have absurd implications. I think they don’t match up with how words are used colloquially. The fact that you continue to refuse to acknowledge that this was my point is perverse.

            You seem to have objected to the way I stated my point, which I admit was flippant. Perhaps this original flippancy has so obscured my point for you that you can’t see it.

            “The point of the post you objected to was that people were confusing revenue with profit (more precisely, producer surplus).”

            If this was the point you wanted to make, you could have simply stated it. It’s perfectly clear and relevant, although converting potential profit into ostentatious display cost seems a fair counterpoint.

            However, your example also explicitly included opportunity cost, which, again, is another great example of how economists use words differently than everyone else. Accountants don’t deduct opportunity cost (or any other implicit cost) from profit.

        • Gerry Quinn says:

          @David Friedman:
          “In a competitive market, price equals marginal cost, which means that, to first approximation, his benefit is zero.”

          This seems like a good argument against efficient markets. In a highly non-competitive market, both you and the boy who mows your lawn can consider yourselves to be getting a great deal out of the exchange.

          Happiness lives far from the margins. Maybe that’s a secret of capitalism that isn’t well known…

          It’s an argument for ‘creative destruction’ too. More disruption = more good deals = more happiness.

          On the other hand, being able to buy a wide range of cheap good-quality groceries could be considered a source of happiness too. And as a consumer I’m not indifferent to its benefits even though market efficiency has brought it about.

          • I hope my response to another comment clarifies matters. If the boy who mows my lawn is mowing ten lawns a week and gets a substantial benefit out of ten instead of nine he is missing a potential benefit and should probably be mowing more lawns. If I get a substantial benefit out of having my lawn mowed once a week instead of every eight days, I would probably be better off having it mowed every six days instead of once a week. Obviously there are all sorts of complications and lumpiness that mess up the simple picture, but the simple picture is the place to start, not the picture that treats revenue as if it were profit, which is what the comment I was responding to implicitly did.

      • Jiro says:

        We can easily keep tax rates on human beings low if we make corporations and institutions pay proportionate taxes to how much of the national income they take home.

        That link says nothing about institutions.

        It also fails to say what counts as a corporation. For instance, the New York Times and the ACLU are certainly incorporated; do they count as corporations?

        • Adam says:

          Of course those are both corporations. The ACLU is a non-profit, though, so doesn’t pay taxes.

          • Adam says:

            Jesus, dude, nonprofit management was actually my first job. I’m sorry my one-sentence answer was insufficiently nuanced for you. Yes, a nonprofit parent corporation that generates revenue from subsidiary business activities that don’t qualify for exemption pays taxes on that. They also pay sales taxes and payroll taxes and whether or not they pay local taxes on property is up to the local jurisdiction. The nonprofit status is for the IRS and usually the state franchise tax board and only exempts you from income taxes.

          • HeelBearCub says:

            @Adam:
            Your first comment was obviously not trying to recreate all of tax law and was clear on its own. Mark’s answer seemed like nit-picking for unknown reasons that I can only guess at.

  60. Machine Interface says:

    A question about Raikoth: what is the procedure for people from other countries who want to migrate to Raikoth? Does Raikoth accept migrants at all? How about refugees?

    • youzicha says:

      Non-Raikolin have a lot of trouble gaining entry into Raikoth. Legitimate reasons to want to go to a freezing island in the Arctic hundreds of miles away from anything else are few and far between, so it’s not like they have a big illegal immigration problem. Legal immigration is offered to anyone who can learn fluent Kadhamic as an adult, which when combined with desire to move to Raikoth turns out to be a very self-selecting population.

      (x)

  61. LTP says:

    So, I have a question about how “neurotypical/neuroatypical” is used here and elsewhere. I had always thought this dichotomy was strictly about whether or not people were on the autism spectrum. However, lately I’ve started seeing it used to describe people with borderline personality, PTSD, depression, social anxiety (so even I would be neuroatypical, apparently), or even just lacking social skills/experience. It seems to be used in some quarters as a catchall for “has a mental illness of some kind or not”.

    Was I just wrong in perceiving this dichotomy as concerning one being autistic or not? Or has it recently been expanded (appropriated) to include anybody with a mental illness?

    • Alraune says:

      You were just incorrect. “Neurotypical” is a fancy word for, well, typical.

    • suntzuanime says:

      The autism-specific term is “allistic”. That said, there are certain communities where the most salient form of neurodiversity is autism, and they might talk about neurotypicality as referring to a lack of autism. Also, neurotypicality is of course a spectrum, so some of the more modest neurocripplings might still be called “neurotypical” in a context where the salient neurodiversity was much more vibrant.

    • Anonymous says:

      I’ve only ever heard it in the context of “not autistic”, but the word “neuroatypical” is pretty self-explanatory in being more general than just that.

      • Linch says:

        This reflects my initial experiences as well, though I have definitely heard of it referred to for other mental “disorders” as well.

        It seems like a useful definition will allow us to differentiate between disease and disorder, though I admit that the boundaries are sometimes shifty.

    • anon1 says:

      (1) “Non-autistic” used to be the standard meaning of the word. At some point it began to be used (2) to indicate people who weren’t fundamentally wired in an unusual and unchangeable way (eg dyslexia). The usage that excludes anyone with a mental illness (3), even people who weren’t always that way (eg PTSD) and who are likely to become normal in the future (many cases of depression and anxiety), is something I’d never seen before this year.

      The newer(?) term “allistic” is a pretty good replacement for (1), and the change in meaning from (1) to (2) seems reasonable and useful to me. But the change in meaning from (2) to (3) annoys me because (2) seems a much more useful concept than (3) and now we don’t have a word for it anymore.

  62. Cole Gleason says:

    Hi everyone!

    I’m a new Ph.D. student studying Human-computer interaction and I was wondering if the community here has any research problems relating to that (admittedly broad) field. I have a research agenda for the short (6-12 months) term focusing on smartphone applications to assist the blind, but I’m interested in getting a cursory overview of high-impact problem areas that could use some attention from technology-focused research. I find health interventions fascinating (as I assume many of this community do), and I am especially looking for problems to tackle in that space in a year or two (assuming I think I can tackle it and there is funding to do so), if software can be an effective solution.

    • ioannes_shade says:

      I’m not sure this is what the field of human-computer interaction studies, but I’m interested in interventions that make the computer an easier-to-direct tool. I think computers currently capture far too much of people’s time and energy.

      Lately, I’ve been thinking specifically about designing software that could effectively block all porn on a user’s machine (I think internet porn is a substantial, under-addressed problem for large groups of people, both in terms of wasted time and mental agony).

      Does this sound up your alley?

    • J says:

      I think there’s a lot of potential for computers to augment willpower. We used to carry around (paper) personal organizers and had to remember to watch the time, now our phones remind us of our appointments.

      In medicine, patient compliance is terrible, so much that it’s hard to even do studies on treatments because patients never follow the instructions. So instead of just sending you home with a rubber band and hoping you do your elbow exercises, add a microcontroller that counts reps and sends you encouragements and prizes via email or facebook, and lets your doc know how well you’ve done. (Beware though, people will sometimes actively resist — I’ve heard stories of people putting their (mechanical) step counters in the tumble dryer to make it look like they were walking farther.

    • Benito says:

      Reading the second chapter of Bostrom’s ‘Superintelligence’ might give you something to work with. It details Bostrom’s beliefs about the potential of a variety of technological research areas wrt developing intelligent tech.

    • Rehabilitation after injury, and health maintainence for the elderly, are two areas that are increasingly being computerised (rehab using a wii etc). For example, if there is a program to help someone practice walking again, can they use voice to control it, or maybe the feedback from their steps adjusts the difficulty. It’s not as shiny as some fields but there’s probably a lot of utility in it as an area, both for a career and the benefits to folks generally.

    • tgb says:

      With the increase access to voice recognition software, one thing I’d like to see developed is a commercial microphone that can pick up subvocalizations or otherwise allow the user to speak without making audible sound. I know some work has been done in this area, but it could be an area to look into. It sounds more like an electrical engineering problem than what you’re interested in, however.

    • chaosmage says:

      You might want to look into how online services for the management of mental health issues can improve user retention. In depression at least, none of the many tools on the market appear to retain users very well. Of course motivation in depression is obviously a hard problem for non-technical reasons. But there is uncertainty over how the difficulties of interaction that come with depression (and other pathologies) affect human-computer interaction, so I expect that’s a factor.

      Various projects over the last two decades have stumbled into the insight that very colorful or rapidly moving content can make depressed people feel overstimulated and leave. It is also generally assumed that they’ll feel slighted much more readily and when that happens will withdraw rather than complain, so the respectful and sincere language of “therapy speech” is essential. But if there are other undiscovered rules to follow, I don’t think anybody knows them and establishing them might be valuable.

      • anon1 says:

        > the respectful and sincere language of “therapy speech” is essential

        I can’t speak for all depressives, but I’m pretty sure “therapy speech” will repel a lot of people. It tends to stink of insincerity and fake empathy, my reaction is usually “just because I’m crazy doesn’t make me an idiot, now fuck off,” and I can’t possibly be the only one who feels this way.

        Now a mental health tool (whatever it does – are you talking about mood trackers?) that copied the tone and humor of http://www.crazymeds.us (SSC discussion at https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/27/such-mixed-feelings-about-crazymeds) – that I might want to stick with. Wouldn’t be for everyone but I expect people like me are an underserved market.

        • Pku says:

          I can speak for depressives (well, for myself at any rate), and I’m going to say that for me it’s a fine line – if the therapist constantly toes the line and overuses therapy speech, it can usually come across as annoying or insincere. But I can feel slighted rather easily, and I’m far, far more likely to just quietly leave and not come back over actually complaining or anything. I guess the solution is to actually be considerate and respectful (and show it), but that gives about zero information on what to actually do.
          In practice, if you’re not sure, I think it’s better to lean a bit towards the side of therapy speech. I’m basing it on my current therapist (who I suspect is fairly new to it, based on his age): the first couple of meetings he overdid the therapy-speech thing, which made me feel distrustful and gave me second thoughts about coming back. But this superficial rule system did let me feel secure enough that he couldn’t do anything too sudden and bad, like suddenly shout “well of course you’re worthless! why are you even wasting my time denying it!”, that I felt I could come back and keep trying, which seems to be leading to gradual improvement and the ability to work on getting actual communication.

          • anon1 says:

            Just to be clear, I *am* pretty sure I’m some variety of depressive myself. The cynical bastard variety, maybe. Not sure which bin I fall into because due to various hangups I haven’t seen anyone about it yet, but I’d be surprised if it weren’t something.

      • Deiseach says:

        Speaking purely for myself, I’m using an online CBT therapy thingy (to use the technical term) for my depression, and it’s so positive it hurts at times; when my greatest achievement has been “Today I did not throw myself off the bridge”, the chirpy “real human stories” and meditation exercises make me give very negative feedback, which then makes me feel guilty about being a complaining bitch when they’re only trying to help, which – as you may imagine – doesn’t really help with the negative thoughts and emotions of depression.

        The respectful and sincere language of “therapy speech” is tricky; sometimes it can come across as canned or patronising. You have to bear in mind that people can be resistant (they might be sincere in wanting to access help but part of them doesn’t want to change and will take any opportunity to be picky and awkward.

        What I would ask is this: any chance of changing the voices for mediation exercises? Because…they….all….talk….like….THIS….in low tones….verrrrrry slowly….and….lots….of….pauses…. then….WEIRD UP-AND-DOWN on some words…. and honestly, I have to fast-forward through the exercise because the whole thing makes me want to jump out the window rather than practice relaxation or mindfulness or being in the present.

        • chaosmage says:

          I don’t think anybody’s thrown enough money at the online CBT thing to afford things like tone variations of materials (or even a choice between male and female speaker).

          A huge mistake in my book, because the entire market is amateurish and basically begs to be wiped out by one well-made multilingual tool. If a clear winner emerged, licensed to healthcare providers who’d offer it to their clients maybe for no extra cost, it’d throw tons of CBT in the water supply and quickly become the yardstick other therapy has to measure up to.

    • t dog says:

      When you’re in chronic pain you can do stupid things that make the pain worse because you’re in so much pain you can’t think. Wearable tech ir implants or whatever might be able to remind you about when your heart rate is increasing, you are bear abtrigger like temperature changes, there is vibration. Or to give you a reminder of what you plan to do ar certain times etc. I know you could do most of this yourself with a smartphone but oaradoxically chronic pain patients both desperately want to be pain free and are crippled by pain interfering with motivation memory self esteem decision organisation and coolnrationalnthought.

  63. pistachi0n says:

    The best way to prevent a pandemic is for doctors/scientists/public health people to be made aware of emerging outbreaks while they are still small. It’s better to go overboard preventing a pandemic that wouldn’t happen anyway than to ignore something until it goes viral (pun intended.) ProMED-mail is a reporting service that provides information about emerging outbreaks all around the world to anyone who subscribes (but most of the people who subscribe are doctors or people working in public health.) Their website would explain it better than I could: http://www.promedmail.org/

  64. Conditionable says:

    All academics: I’ve recently decided that I’d like to study computer science or engineering, up to and including grad school. However, my college requires that I made that decision at age 18; they don’t allow inter-college transfers into the college of engineering, where both departments are housed. The school of science does, and I’m now a math major. I’ve heard both that you can get into graduate school in computer science with any quantitative degree, and that you you are at a severe disadvantage if you’re not coming in with a bachelors in CS/CE. Are one or both of those true? Is there anything I can do as an undergrad to improve my shot at grad school other than major in math with a good GPA?

    • Cole Gleason says:

      Do you have any idea what field/sub-field of graduate school you are interested in? It may depend somewhat on the program. Due to the uniqueness of my department (CMU HCII), for example, we have people with CS, psychology, design, and other backgrounds. That might not be necessarily true in pure CS graduate programs, but again, it depends a bit on if you are interested in data mining or operating systems.

      • nico says:

        As Cole says, intended area is very relevant here. For instance, many of the theory people that I know (CMU CSD) were math majors in undergrad. You may also have good luck in something like ML.

    • Not Robin Hanson says:

      My impression, and definitely get a second opinion:

      If you’re going for a Master’s, a good GPA in math should be fine.

      If you’re going for a PhD, the most important thing to demonstrate in your application is research potential in Computer Science, and the best way of doing that is actual research experience. It will also help you determine whether a PhD is really the right choice for you. GPA and majoring in math (given that you can’t major in CS) are good, but secondary. Don’t rely exclusively on formal, institutional channels—take personal and proactive action to find professors who are doing computer science research and get in with what they are doing. Be prepared to knock on a lot of doors.

      • Pku says:

        This, especially the part about making sure research is right for you. There are plenty of brilliant people who have a hard time with research just because it’s not a right fit for them, and halfway through grad school is not the best time to find this out about yourself.

      • Ptoliporthos says:

        Yes! This is true for any STEM PhD! Make sure that you want to do research before you get to grad school. When you are doing research as an undergraduate, make sure to talk to the graduate students and post-docs about their experiences, since both institutions and individual labs vary widely and they will have already experienced several.

        Also, think a lot about why (and if) you want to do a PhD. It’s easy to fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy once you get halfway through a PhD and psychologically hard to leave, even when it’s clearly the right thing to do.

    • Science says:

      In some areas of computer science you’d actually be at an advantage. For example, if you wanted to write a thesis in cryptography, several of your math classes would be far more useful than the classes in compilers and logic design typical of many CS programs.

      That said, presuming you can take CS classes without being in the engineering school, I would at least take a classes on the theory of computation, data structures, and algorithms. And these days you should know how to program in at least one language. If you have absolutely no preference, something like Haskall would look great on grad school applications. If you want the option to bail for industry something like python or c++ would be better.

      • Izaak Weiss says:

        This; absolutely take some CS classes! But a Math degree with some CS classes shouldn’t leave you too far behind most other applicants to grad schools.

    • Asterix says:

      I can answer this, I think, because I got a grad degree in CS but did not have an undergrad major. They were happy to take me (YMMV), but before I could get to the graduate classes, I had to take the undergrad classes. So it introduced over a year’s delay for me.

    • RCF says:

      “they don’t allow inter-college”

      I take it you mean “intra”? If you’re really determined to get a CS BS, you could look into transferring to another school (Not saying that’s a good idea, just giving you all the options here).

      Are there many CS classes available to non-CS majors?

      • Vaniver says:

        I take it you mean “intra”?

        Probably not. Many large unversities are a collection of colleges, with wildly different standards. Where I went to undergrad the situation was similar, that one could not join the engineering college (which was very competitive and in demand) without applying as an external student to it. Among other things, it prevents people from applying to an easy department and then switching.

    • Tracy W says:

      FWIW, I nearly crashed out of elec engineering into comp sci and they made it clear they would be happy to have me.

    • Anon says:

      Studying CS and finding summer research placements is probably a strong way to improve your résumé for grad school. Note that an undergrad in the UK is three years, so if you’re a year in transferring over here is a good idea, and the course is more focused too (you only get classes in CS, nothing else).

    • Daniel Ford says:

      Try setting up a meeting with the chair of your Engineering department to ask about this. Go in and say, “I just discovered that I really want to work in engineering, but I don’t have the opportunity to study it at this university. What would you do if you were in my position?” If you get the go-talk-to-advising brush-off then respectfully point out that there’s no way anyone in advising is going to know as much about a career as the person who has practiced it for decades.

      Most new students don’t realize some rules of an academic bureaucracy can be negotiable. For example, when I ask my students how many of them know that our dean will alter degree completion requirements in reasonable circumstances, only 3-5% of them are aware of this. It may be that there’s an off-the-books mechanism for transfers, but if you don’t ask you’ll never find out about it.

      Even if you get immediately shut down you still have the chance to get some useful career advice you may not have been aware of.

      • chaosmage says:

        This is excellent advice, except maybe don’t ask only the dean, but a few other senior staff too. Especially ones that like you. Because the rules of academia are not only sometimes negotiable, but success in bending them can depend on knowing the right precedent to point to. (Source: I sat on a committee that decided appeals from students who had failed courses in a technical college.) Even a dean won’t necessarily know everything that’s potentially relevant to the discussion, especially if he became dean only recently.

    • Eli says:

      Actually, if you’re getting your undergraduate in mathematics, then all you have to do is specialize in category theory, logic, algebra, combinatorics, topology, or graph theory (these are various mathematical subjects connected to computer science), and learn a good amount of programming on your own time. Then apply to a Computer Science program for your postgrad, and you should have a fine time getting in.

      You’ll have to do some make-up courses to supplement your lack of a computer-science degree, but in fact, once you do those, you’ll have a more rigorous background for academic CS research than most people with CS undergrad degrees (since those mostly just teach programming and software engineering).

      Also, as everyone else said, look for ways to do undergraduate research! In math or CS, it won’t precisely matter.

      And pick yourself a subfield of CS, then focus on the maths relevant to that!

    • Adam says:

      I can’t advise on a PhD, but I did a CS MS program after a math undergrad and it wasn’t a disadvantage. I didn’t even specialize in any of the discrete topics Eli mentions. I specialized in statistics, modeling, and numerical analysis, but given how the rage is all about spectral and statistical methods to efficiently approximate global maxima in learning systems these days, I’d almost say that was an advantage more than a disadvantage. I did come in knowing close to nothing about architecture and networking and had to get up to speed on my own, but those things aren’t that complicated, I mean, not at the CS level. It’s complicated if you’re an electrical engineer studying digital signal processing and circuit design.

    • stubydoo says:

      Whether you can get in to grad school is one thing. Whether you’ll prosper assuming you get in is a different thing. Of course, a well designed admission process would generally minimize that difference, and I believe that such well designed processes do exist to a certain extent.

      I did graduate school CS at NYU, coming from a background of exactly zero prior CS classes, but a few years of professional programming experience. This turned out fine. In order to have been better prepared, a little more undergraduate math would’ve probably helped more than a little more undergraduate CS (I had a pretty good math background but less than a major). In my case the programming experience was certainly key – university CS departments get a lot of flak from some quarters for having curriculi that are totally removed from practical programming, but I don’t think there’s so much of a dichotomy. It might be more true if programming to you means setting up webpages.

      Now if you’re setting your sights much higher – say Berkeley or Urbana-Champaign – then you certainly have to have a very clear focus on what the admissions expectations are going to be.

  65. CThomas says:

    Thanks, guys. This is all great.

    CT

  66. CThomas says:

    One of the things I like about this web site is the unusually good quality of the comments. But precisely because it is so unusual that I find value in reading the comments here I’m struggling to figure out the right way to do so. Suppose I read the comments on a posting early on, when there are (say) 70 comments. Later on the post has accumulated 150 comments, and in an ideal world I’d like to be able to read the new ones. But the way it works is that the new comments are interspersed among all the old ones, and you have to re-read (or at least skim over) all the old comments looking for a new one interspersed here and there. Sure you can go to entirely new “primary” comments (the left-most aligned comments) because I guess those would all be new but it’s frustrating not being able to easily follow along the whole conversation more easily. Is there a good way to do this? I’m technologically dumb, and many of you guys know all about this sort of thing, so I worry that this is a stupid question, either because everyone knows that there is no solution to this or because everyone knows of an obvious thing to do. If so then I apologize, but it would be interesting to hear how you deal with this even if the answer is something everyone knows.

    CT

    • Montfort says:

      We mostly just muddle through. There are a couple features you didn’t mention and thus may not have noticed.

      1. Next to the reply button is the hide button, so you can close entire subthreads you don’t care about. Weed out the threads you don’t like; you can expand them later.

      2. Also, floating in the upper right hand corner should be the new comment tracker. A little plus sign will appear on the left side, allowing you to expand it and see a list of posts since your last pageload (timestamped with poster’s name). If you click on an entry, you’ll be scrolled to it directly. The time at the top (“X comments since [time]”) can be edited to give you comments after some other time if you wish.
      I think this feature relies somewhat on cookies(?) to save state, but it’s mostly reliable.

      Many people have missed these in the past, so I hope this is helpful to someone.

      (ETA: feature 2 might actually be a plugin Bakkot made that I’ve had installed for so long I forgot about it? I had the impression this had been incorporated officially somehow, but I am now filled with doubt)

      • 27chaos says:

        Feature 2 appears on my screen, pretty sure I didn’t install a plugin for it.

      • Zebram says:

        As Montfort said, we muddle through. It’s siimply our cross to bear with patience. May God reward us for our fortitude through thick and thin in the hereafter.

      • thedufer says:

        Feature 2 is not a plugin, as far as I can tell. It relies on local storage, rather than cookies, but those are typically cleared by the same actions so I guess I’m not really adding anything to the conversation with that bit of information.

    • Scott Alexander says:

      https://github.com/bakkot/SlateStarComments highlights new comments by surrounding them with a green box. It’s supposed to be on the site itself so that it appears for everyone automatically, but something might have gone wrong.

      • Evan Daniel says:

        It seems like it’s “working” for me. There are green highlights; they change if I change the “x comments since ____” date in the upper right. But it doesn’t do anything automatically; the date currently reads 12/31/1969. I don’t know when I last read the thread, so I can’t set it accurately. And even if I did, typing in a new date is awkward and silly.

        • Nita says:

          The date should change after you reload the page — if your browser accepts cookies.

        • Creutzer says:

          Does your browser automatically delete local storage data when you close it? Because that’s where, I think, the script stores the date of your last visit.

        • Cauê says:

          Clicking the [+] to the left of that box shows a clickable list of comments by date. You can check a few to find the time you last read.

      • Would it be nuts for me to suggest crowd funding to hire a someone to write/install a comments system specifically designed to the requirements of the site and its community? It feels like the community is large enough to justify it?

        Like something that still allowed unregistered comments, but with up/downvoting, and also allowed frequent posters to register, PM eachother, see replies to their post etc.

        • Error says:

          ObUsenetReference. A discussion system capable of handling a hundred thousand times our volume intelligibly has existed since the 80s; nobody uses it anymore because it’s not in a browser and the Internet Is The Web.

          (well, there are browser interfaces to it, most notably Google Groups, but they are uniformly terrible because the browser is a terrible platform for the purpose)

          I actually think the best solution to the overflowing-blog-comments problem is to use some kind of nntp-backed blog software, so that people who get confused outside a browser can still read but people who really need a more intelligent interface have a better way to participate.

          Any time I put serious thought into it I stumble over quoting convention conflicts, though.

          • Doug S. says:

            I thought nobody uses Usenet because there’s no spam or troll control?

          • BBA says:

            The problem with Usenet is that it’s too decentralized to moderate effectively. If a spammer or kook gets kicked off a server they can just join another one; if a server is a hotbed for spam or kookery you need to get every other server on the net to block it, which is extraordinarily rare. I’ve read of one case where a newsgroup’s members had to get a court order to ban one particularly persistent kook from posting there.

            An isolated, tightly controlled NNTP server (or an IRC-style closed network) could avoid these issues, but for the reasons you describe it’s unlikely to get off the ground.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ all

            TW: made-up or pre-historic names used for examples

            Usenet was wonderful. What about a Facebook site with a link to 40tude with alt.science.ssc or whatever as its default target.

            Usenet had great moderation options, or the Facebook site could include a gateway/filter. David, have the usenet sites you used to patronize found a way to deal with hackers/robots from alt.spam-nya-nya?

          • Assuming that Houseboat’s question was to me (there are other Davids here).

            I’ve pretty completely abandoned Usenet over the past year or so. But HPO (Humanities.philosophy.objectivism), which I was active on for many years, was a moderated group and seemed to work pretty well. I’m not sure what finally happened to it.

            There are five groups that I was reading a year or so back. Glancing at all of them they seem to still function without heavy spam infestation. But low traffic.

          • Error says:

            @ Doug: It depends on where you are, but I was more thinking of a private NNTP server rather than Usenet itself. The mechanism isn’t bound to the existing network. BBA has the right idea. Post editing and deleting can be implemented as supercedes and cancels, and with a standalone server they can be trusted. Bans are easy for the same reason. The special status of our host could be implemented by only allowing Scott to make a top-level post.

            Admittedly there’s no crowd-scoring mechanism akin to upvotes, but with sane thread navigation much of the need for one is gone.

            Of course, this will never happen, but I can dream about it. 😛

        • Josh says:

          The big thing for me would be push notifications of replies to my comments… I’d definitely get into much richer conversations here if it was more like texting or emailing back and forth with friends…

          I run a site for building tech quickly and easily without code (http://bubble.is), if there’s interest from Scott I would happily build something using it for free. Could have threading, notifications (email / text / chat client), anonymous or nonymous users…

          • nydwracu says:

            There’s Sovevos, but I haven’t looked at that at all.

            I’ve been thinking about writing an entirely new platform, since Tumblr is garbage, everything else was badly hurt by the decline of RSS, and nothing has sane privacy options. But Usenet was before my time, so I’m probably the wrong person to do that.

          • Any improvement wouldbe awesome. Do we know if Scott is amenable to that sort of thing?

          • Josh says:

            So, ironically enough, I wrote myself a reminder to check this thread to see if anyone had replied to me. Since interest seems mild, I will stop checking this; if anyone wants to follow up my email is on the site linked to from my above post.

            @Citizensearth — no idea if Scott is amenable to this. Sadly I think this needs Scott’s support to get off the ground, since I don’t think anything that’s not the primary, approved, Official (TM) commenting solution will get enough traction.

            @nydwracu — “But Usenet was before my time, so I’m probably the wrong person to do that.” It was before my time too, but I’m a little skeptical that it represented some sort of sublime high point in discussion software. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September. The hordes moved in, Usenet failed to adapt, people voted with their feet and port 80 won. See also Slashdot, Digg…

            I actually think Facebook is a pretty good model for how it should work, now that they have decent threading; the problem is that facebook is not anon or psuedo-anon friendly, which is a dealbreaker.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ Josh

            I agree about notification of replies, or at least something to make it easier to follow a conversation that has endured through more than one blog entry.

            As for U*s*e*n*t, yes it was s/u/b/l/i/m/e/l/y better, but WordPress ate my reply about that.

          • nydwracu says:

            It was before my time too, but I’m a little skeptical that it represented some sort of sublime high point in discussion software. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September. The hordes moved in, Usenet failed to adapt, people voted with their feet and port 80 won. See also Slashdot, Digg…

            Well, yeah, any system that doesn’t allow the greybeards to retreat to the hills when the Mongol hordes come in is dead. But most of the internet even today is a collection of steppes, hence the communist problem on Twitter, Tumblr, etc. (What would the digital equivalent of a mountain range look like?)

            But that’s a problem with most of the internet, including the SSC comments section.

          • houseboatonstyx says:

            @ nydwracu
            Well, yeah, any system that doesn’t allow the greybeards to retreat to the hills when the Mongol hordes come in is dead.

            Usenet had hills but they were steep, and websites like LiveJournal had greener bells and whistles.

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            nydwracu: “What would the digital equivalent of a mountain range look like?”

            High visibility, extremely low accessibility: any news source without a comments section, particularly sources that have a dead-tree version.

        • I don’t know a lot about USENET, but aren’t we looking for something that’s web based and easy to moderate, given the political content?

        • Anonymous says:

          > still allowed unregistered comments
          Vital. Lower entry cost to post = more participation.

          >up/downvoting
          No no no. If someone has made a particularly good or bad post tell them so, and more importantly tell them why. Cheering and booing belong to the domain of sport games and political rallies. Comments are more conducive to the sort of dialogue people seek here. (The astute reader will observe I am demonstrating my point with this reply.)

          >allowed frequent posters to register
          Doesn’t WordPress already have this? Or are poster’s avatars related to their email? Some people have the geometric patterns, but others have actual avatars. I assume the latter are registered.

          >PM each other,
          Unnecessary feature. Can easily contact off-site via email, twitter, etc.

          >see replies to their post
          Very useful feature. My current workarounds are to remember a phrase used in the post and search the page for that phrase later OR save the actual link to the post (i.e., to save your post I would middle-click on the date under your name to open that link in a new tab, then refresh the page later when I want to see new replies).
          On a related topic, the “N comments since DATE” popup is useless for me because it orders the new comments by date, which is not how I imagine anyone reads new comments (if you do, I admire your ability to remember the contexts of every thread, and switch contexts as much as each post you read). Ideally new posts would be sorted by parent post — that is, the first-level reply to Scott’s post to which the new post replies. No further nesting is needed, and would in fact be messy to show in many cases.
          Here is what I mean:
          [Scott’s article]
          Post_1
          -Post_1_1
          -Post_1_2 ~new~ 9/20/2015, 1:00:00 PM
          –Post_1_2_1 ~new~ 9/20/2015, 3:00:00 PM
          Post_2
          -Post_2_1 ~new~ 9/20/2015, 2:00:00 PM

          The current ordering is
          Post_1_2
          Post_2_1
          Post_1_2_1

          Whereas I think
          Post_1_2
          Post_1_2_1
          Post_2_1

          makes more sense.

          • Creutzer says:

            Excellent point about the ordering in the floater. This would, in fact, be trivial to implement by just removing one line from the script.

          • thedufer says:

            Avatars are coming from Gravatar, I suspect, since I don’t have an account of any sort here. Which means they’re just tied to your email address.

          • Bakkot says:

            You can go through the comments in that order by searching “~ new ~”, less the spaces. Since page-order is available by that means, I think it makes more sense for the popup to have them in date-order, since you can’t otherwise readily see comments laid out that way.

        • brad says:

          The specifics of how a forum works shapes the resulting culture. Even so much as adding a like button and only showing the raw number of likes is enough to change things in noticeable ways. Something like ordering by up/down votes is seismic. And not positive IMO.

    • Paul Kinsky says:

      New comments also contain ‘~new~’, so if you CTRL-F for that you can browse through them in thread order.

      • Except that I will always get your post, however many times I have read it.

        • 578493 says:

          CTRL-F ‘m ~new~’

          …oh wait

          • Matt S Trout says:

            I’m unsure why you think actively making the problem worse was any of kind, necessary, or true, but please try and refrain from doing so in future. It really doesn’t help anything. As a sarcastic comment to a friend, it might come across as countersignaling, but on here it’s basically just petty nastiness – that actually makes it harder for people to use the functionality.

            Please don’t 🙁

          • Agronomous says:

            a) It’s funny, in an xkcd sort of way.
            b) It doesn’t really make the problem significantly worse; I just tripped over it myself, but a moment before I’d tripped over someone else’s literal (and unwitting) tilde-new-tilde anyway; net loss to me: 5 seconds. If you feel strongly about it, though, maybe you can argue for banning it, like R***’s B**** over on Less Wrong. The debate over that would probably look a lot like this.

            (If, 10,000 years from now, all our uploaded descendants have of SSC to study is this single comment, it’s not going to make a damn bit of sense.)

    • E. Harding says:

      I’ve had the same issue, which led me to start commenting later. I usually like threaded comments, but I can see the value of their absence on Scott Sumner’s blog and the problems with them on this blog. On Sailer’s blog, the Unz commenting system pretty much makes up for whatever costs there are to the lack of threaded comments.

      • Anonymous says:

        I think a single comment thread, with linking and quote functions, is superior to threaded comments. (examples: Scott Aaronson’s blog, *chan boards)

    • RCF says:

      If people are writing up plug-ins, I’d like to express interest in a “mark as read” option, with all comments lacking that flag being marked somehow.

      • Katherine says:

        With a button for “mark this comment as read and go to next unread [not marked as read] comment”

      • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

        My (possibly impractical) first choice would be to make the ‘Hide’ function sticky between sessions.

        • RCF says:

          But that wouldn’t let me see replies to comments that I’ve “marked as read”.

          • Cerebral Paul Z. says:

            I suppose it comes down to how you use the ‘Hide’ function. I only ever use it on the first posts of subthreads whose subject matter doesn’t interest me; it’d be a real time-saver if I found them still hidden on my next visit.

    • Winter Shaker says:

      A thing I notice doesn’t seem to be working is that sometimes when someone links to someone else’s comments (or, as here, previous top comments are linked to in the OP), if you open those in a new tab, rather than scrolling you to the linked comment, it just takes you to the bottom of the page. I’m mostly on a MacBook with Firefox; I don’t know if that combination is relevant.

      • Evan Þ says:

        Interesting; that doesn’t happen for me on either of the setups I’ve used (Firefox 40.0.3 on Windows 7, or Internet Explorer on Windows 10.)

    • Jon Gunnarsson says:

      On a related note, is there a way to see when someone replies to one of my comments? What I currently do is to go to the comment page and search for my name with ctrl+F, which is rather tedious. It also means that I will almost certainly miss any replies on older articles.

    • Randy M says:

      I read this site often on an older computer at work and on a phone, so I don’t always have these neat highlighting features (which aren’t entirely useful if you browse from more than one source anyway).

      If I get involved i a thread and check out a few times a day, I get to recognize new comments by the general shape of the thread as I scroll through and skim.

      But the real trouble is that the pages take quite awhile to load once it gets up to ~200 comments. It’s not a huge problem since there’s usually a new thread a day or two later. I do like the Less Wrong feature where you can see one thread at a time sometimes. Generally have pages of comments is hard with threading.

    • Pku says:

      What I wish we had is an option for replying to the bottom comment in a maximally nested comment section. (That is, if you’re answering the bottom comment, you have to scroll up to the last nonmaximally nested comment and reply to that). It seems like it would be a pain to fix though, so I’m not going to complain.

    • Vinay Bhaskara says:

      I agree. Something that would really help is having comments that are numbered. I frequently use the site on IPad and IPhone, and one wrong swipe/slide and I lose my place and have to try and search through the comments thereafter.

    • I agree that the commenting software could use an upgrade, but then again, most comment threads are difficult to follow on the internet on repeated viewings, particularly if nested rather than linear. It’s been five years; why SBNation’s system isn’t ubiquitous by now I’ll neverunderstand (SBNation has nested comments but you can press the “Z” button on your keyboard to warp to the next unread comment, which then marks it as read. Good stuff)

    • Max says:

      We could all migrate to /r/slatestarcodex 🙂