Open Thread 136.5

This is the twice-weekly hidden open thread. You can also talk at the SSC subreddit or the SSC Discord server.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

1,228 Responses to Open Thread 136.5

  1. Nabil ad Dajjal says:

    So the recent cancellation of Richard Stallman brings up an interesting question. A lot of the discussion has centered around how his off-putting habits, such as eating things off of his feet and sleeping on a mattress in his office, allegedly make women at MIT feel unsafe. This isn’t directly about that so much as inspired by it.

    So how unattractive can a man be, in appearance or behavior, before his continued presence constitutes a legal liability for his employer under harassment law? If someone is a smelly toe-eater it’s not hard to imagine that he’s going to make women feel uncomfortable, but at what point does being gross actually cross the line into creating a hostile work environment?

    • johan_larson says:

      Probably the point at which people, particularly people from protected groups, start complaining about it to their bosses.

      I’m reminded of a conversation I had back at Google with my boss. The company at the time had no dress code, and some people did come in wearing stuff that really would have looked more suitable at the gym or the beach. He told me there was no formal dress code, but if anyone actually complained, the issue would be sorted out considering the particulars of the case.

      There was in fact a bit of drama some time later around whether it was acceptable to walk around barefoot. After a LOT of back and forth, it was decided that bare feet were unacceptable, but socks were ok and so were flip-flops. I think the kitchen staff had to wear shoes, though, because of some sort of health-and-safety regs.

    • Gobbobobble says:

      When the team can tell you’ve entered the pod by smell alone

    • viVI_IViv says:

      It depends on the job. Any public facing job plausibly requires higher levels of decorum than a non-public facing job.

      For non-public facing jobs, it’s still reasonable to require employees to keep certain standards in their interactions with each other. E.g. walking around the office naked and shitting on the floor would be clearly unacceptable.

      As for Stallman’s smell and toe eating habits, having not directly interacted with him I can’t tell how bad they were. As far as I’ve heard though, he mostly kept to himself in his office, and nobody really had to interact with him if they didn’t want: he wasn’t a professor or anything like that.

      In any case, if his hygene, or his jokes or whatever aspect of his weirdness were enough of a problem that people complained to HR, the proper course of action would have been for HR to give him a lecture and a stern warning about expected professional conduct in the workplace, and then if the problem persisted eventually either fire him or take away his office and tell him to work from home, rather than wait for an excuse to pressure him into resignation for an ostensibly unrelated issue.

      If nobody actually complained to HR while he was employed there then I don’t think there was any reasonable justification for outsting him.

  2. Jon S says:

    Has anybody here actually been humbled by receiving an award (or other forms of accolades, or accomplishing something difficult, etc.)? If that’s a real thing can you unpack those feelings a little bit? If it’s just a thing that people say but nobody feels, how did that come to be a thing that people say?

    I’m assuming that being humbled this way is a rare phenomenon, but maybe it’s normal and I’m just atypical. I can’t imagine feeling that way.

    • Le Maistre Chat says:

      I mean, I can see how receiving an award could puff a typical mind up with pride like Lucifer, but if you feel that way, it’s not a socially acceptable thing to say.

    • eyeballfrog says:

      Receiving an award is usually done publicly at community get-togethers, and requires you to go up in front of a whole bunch of people to accept it. This stark reminder that you are not one individual, but a piece in a much larger community, can be quite humbling.

    • Paul Brinkley says:

      Humility comes from realizing how much happened from a small act on your part.

      Suppose you wrote a book about how to deal with depression. Mostly it was just getting some stuff off your chest, recounting an experience you had, and figuring someone else might read it and find it useful. Next thing you know, the mayor is calling you up and asking you to get down to town hall, and you find out over a million people read your book and wrote your publisher, including a few thousand who decided not to commit suicide, just because of your book.

      It might feel a little like taking a quick walk up an ordinary-looking hill, and finding the Grand Canyon on the other side. Humbling.

    • HowardHolmes says:

      Imagine saying the opposite. “Well, it’s about time people starting recognizing how special I am!”

      We we get an award others do not think we are better than they. In fact those not getting the award are especially sensitive about that fact and don’t want any pride thrown in their face. They do not want to believe that this award in any way makes you start to think you are better than they. This is a very precarious time so one has to appear to be humble and reaffirm that he is no better because of getting the award. Think about the other common response which is to thank all those that contributed, blah, blah. One must guard against any hint of lack of humility (think Beto and “I was born to be president.”). “This is humbling” is so popular because it is exactly what your audience wants to hear.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        On the other hand, appearing too humble can come across as disingenuous, or even paradoxically arrogant.

        E.g. not showing enough excitement for the award or suggesting that you think your achievements weren’t that impressive can come across as implying you think of yourself as so much better the others that you don’t care of their judgment or that the things that are exciting to them are trivial to you.

    • AG says:

      For a lot of popularity contests, winning a larger number of fans is entirely subjective and arbitrary. So the winners of said popularity contests can be keenly aware of how little their own efforts mark them as genuinely superior to their competitors. It’s even moreso, when winning is not just about how many fans, but said fanbase mobilizing to accomplish things on their behalf. Complete luck of the draw on if someone wins over a charismatic fan who can spread word-of-mouth effectively, or a fan with technical skills to create a good fansite, etc.
      So the award is humbling because the process of getting the award reveals how much it’s about other people, not just the winner.

      Also, winning an award might kick the winner up into a higher tier, wherein they have more responsibility/pressure. The relative sizes of fish and ponds stuff.

    • Plumber says:

      @Jon S says:

      “Has anybody here actually been humbled by receiving an award..

      For my Junior High School yearbook my classmates voted me as the one of two who were the “Most patriotic”, which seems an accolade, but since it was Berkeley, California in 1981, and I was also voted “Most likely to live forever in a tent”, I’m guessing that it was an indication of how different they thought I was from them.

      Mixed pride and humiliation.

    • Jon S says:

      Thanks for the replies everyone. Some of these make sense to me for certain circumstances.

  3. proyas says:

    Is it possible for two siblings to share far less than 50% of the same DNA thanks to meiosis?

    Let me illustrate my reason for believing this might be possible by using a simplified example:
    1) Assume that the human genome consists of only one chromosome.
    2) One of the sister chromosomes comes from the offspring’s father, and the other sister chromosome comes from its mother.
    3) A man and a woman conceive a child. The sperm only contains a sister chromosome from the man’s mother, and the woman’s egg only contains a sister chromosome from the woman’s mother.
    4) A year later, the man and the same woman conceive a second child. The sperm only contains a sister chromosome from the man’s father, and the woman’s egg only contains a sister chromosome from the woman’s father.

    a. Wouldn’t the two children thus be genetically unrelated to each other?

    b. Even if we assume that some crossing-over happened during the meiotic production of the sperm and eggs, wouldn’t the two children share much less than 50% of the same DNA? (It’s my understanding that crossing over only changes a small minority of the alleles in a gamete)

    c. Are there statistical studies that address this issue, and that quantify the typical variance in genetic relatedness between full siblings? I’d like to see a bell curve graph showing how relatedness varies thanks to the vagaries of meiosis and the random matchups of sperm and eggs that happen.

    • Randy M says:

      I believe it it possible for two siblings (provided not both brothers) to share no DNA.
      This is unlikely enough to always assume otherwise. Like, 1 in 8 million if there’s no crossing over, which there will be.

      • EchoChaos says:

        This is actually a plot point in a Robert Heinlein novel! In Time Enough for Love he has a pair of unrelated twins, a boy and a girl.

        For Heinlein reasons, they have relentless sex with each other and get married.

        • Randy M says:

          Of course, for many alleles, all four chromosomes that might be passed on might bear the same effective sequence, especially if from fairly homogeneous populations to begin with.

        • rmtodd says:

          Yes, but IIRC the novel said that particular pair of twins was the product of a generic engineering experiment — the chances of an exactly complementary pair arising naturally are really really low.

    • Douglas Knight says:

      Sure, Razib Khan displays a bell curve and reports that two of his siblings are 41% related.

      See also the unit of the Morgan.

    • A1987dM says:

      Under a few approximations, that’s kind of like asking whether it is possible to flip 46 coins and get “far less than” 23 heads.

      https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=46+coin+flips

      • eyeballfrog says:

        For more details, the binomial distribution with N = 46 and p = 1/2 (i.e., flipping 46 coins) is well-approximated by a normal distribution with a mean of 23 and a standard deviation of 3.4. In terms of percentages, the mean is 50% and the standard deviation is 7.37%. Knowing the sex of the children doesn’t change the numbers much: the mean for same sex is 51% and for opposite 49%, with about the same standard deviation.

        This means the majority of the time, siblings share between 45% and 55% of their DNA, and over 80% of the time they share between 40% and 60%. 1% of all siblings share less than 1/3 of their DNA, and 1% share more than 2/3. Only 1 in 3000 siblings share less than 1/4 of their DNA (less related than average-case half siblings), and only 1 in 5 million share less than 1/8 (less related than average-case cousins).

    • secondcityscientist says:

      b. Even if we assume that some crossing-over happened during the meiotic production of the sperm and eggs, wouldn’t the two children share much less than 50% of the same DNA? (It’s my understanding that crossing over only changes a small minority of the alleles in a gamete)

      This isn’t really correct. On larger chromosomes, two genes located far from each other behave more-or-less as though they are on different chromosomes due to the amount crossing over. It’s hard to talk about “changing the alleles of a gamete” because once it’s a gamete the recombination has occurred already. Any chromosome in an individual’s gamete will be approximately 1/2 derived from the individual’s mother, 1/2 derived from the individuals father.

      There are chromosomes that work like you suggest, but they’re artificial and I’ve only worked with them in Drosophila.

  4. J says:

    Warning: unsong spoilers.

    In light of current events, I’m finally starting to understand the thing about the other kind of Messiah. A major theme is that if we don’t accept the Messiah when he comes, we’ll get another one, but he’ll be the other kind, not as nice. The nice one goes away when he’s not wanted. The other one doesn’t.

    The other brilliant thing it took me years to notice is that the actual Jesus figure isn’t the main character. It’s a supporting character who lives a blameless life. And because she does it in the shadow of superheroes, it took me years to not just be sorry for her, but to realize that she’s the actual hero.

    That makes her by far the best Messiah figure I’ve encountered in literature. Everybody else gives their hero the spotlight, a glorious death, and usually a triumphant resurrection. So much that I couldn’t even spot the real one in the shadow of the comet.

    But that’s not how the Jesus story goes! “He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”. He hangs out with the unclean, gets betrayed by the losers who follow him, and gets tortured to death.

    Aaron and Sohu and Uriel aren’t the heroes of unsong.

    SAVE ROBIN WEST!

  5. Radu Floricica says:

    I’m using the current article on pseudo addiction as meta-evidence that polarization in the Culture War is justified.

    If the medical establishment can take a memeplex and let it run so wild that letting patients scream in pain is somehow a thing, I’m going to go ahead and update on the fact that society at large can do similarly stupid things after being infected with various memeplexes.

    Two notes: This doesn’t favor any side of the CW, both are equally vulnerable. It only encourages putting more weight on using one’s own mind vs using one’s conventional wisdom, where conventional wisdom is by definition societal, contextual and lately very bubble-centric. And second, this doesn’t say anything about waging CW – only that actually having extreme positions is not as bad idea as you’d immediately think. Also, unfortunately for everybody’s ego, that other people having extreme positions is not automatically a bad thing. So on second thought, since it’s also more likely that the other extreme is also right it recommends a bit more restraint if waging CW.

    • Ketil says:

      I’m using the current article on pseudo addiction as meta-evidence that polarization in the Culture War is justified.

      I am puzzled. To me, polarization, especially in CW context, is almost synonymous with demonization and ad-hominem. Extreme positions and opinions of individuals are all right, but it is important to work towards a consensus using rational arguments and evidence, and make decisions based on that. In polarized CW, it is a battle where each extreme tries to force its own entrenched position onto the rest of the world.

      Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean?

      • Radu Floricica says:

        There’s a tendency to think the the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don’t really think so. I think on certain topics some sides are right and some are wrong. Trying to average things out may feel wise, but it’s probably a bad idea.

        It’s just one more way where the universe is sucky, because it doesn’t help you at all chose. It just means there’s no easy way out.

        • AlexanderTheGrand says:

          But the takeaway of the pseudoaddiction essay isn’t that doctors are crazy people who let people scream for no reason. I would say, the reason this is complicated at all is that pseudoaddiction presents nearly identically to real addiction –hence the name.

          When two things are identical to your eye, you have to use your priors to choose a side. A more charitable explanation: when doctors didn’t know opiods were heavily addicted, their prior leaned towards screams=pain. When they learned how addictive they were, their priors shifted. Scott is pointing out they may have overcorrected.

          The essay’s examples weren’t supposed to be fully representative, they were representative of times when the medical system got it wrong. And it’s important to make that point, but it shouldn’t push you to think that any doctor who refuses drugs to a patient who wants it is infected by memeitis.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            but it shouldn’t push you to think that any doctor who refuses drugs to a patient who wants it is infected by memeitis.

            … but… that’s exactly my reading of the article. There’s a memeitis epidemic going around that makes doctors overreact. And probably what makes it highly infectious is that this behavior is seen as conventional wisdom, best practice, default behavior, not at all controversial. “Of course you refuse a patient that insists he needs opioids. That’s What Is Done.”

            My initial point (probably not very brightly stated) is pretty much that if the medical establishment is not immune to memeitis, then definitely the society at large isn’t.

            Thank you for the metaphor 🙂

          • Eponymous says:

            The essay’s examples weren’t supposed to be fully representative, they were representative of times when the medical system got it wrong.

            Correct. Beware selective evidence. Scott is a great persuasive writer, but he sometimes lets persuasion get ahead of a fair presentation of the evidence (though he’s mostly upfront about when he’s arguing for a position rather than trying to simply seek the truth about a matter — and in this case the point he was arguing for has the advantage of being true).

            A fairer presentation would look at rates of type 1 and 2 errors, and also account for how costly each kind of error is.

    • albatross11 says:

      I’m not sure this supports CW so much as recognition that society can and does periodically have moral panics or waves of irrationality (satanic daycares, autism-causing vaccines, crack babies, etc.), and that a large and vocal fraction of your fellow citizens are usually up in arms about some goofy non-issue while ignoring serious and scary problems on the horizon.

      CW seems like the failure mode of using rational discussion to try to come to sensible conclusions about this stuff. Your being off-message on the dangers of witchcraft (“Hang on, I’m not 100% sure every friendless old lady with cats in town is actually having sexual relations with the devil.”) is proof that you’re on the side of the witches, or objectively pro-witch, or tone deaf and in need of shutting up. The very fact that you disagree with me on some issue is reason to decide you’re a monster. The culture war mindkills everyone so we can’t discuss the burning issues of the day in any sensible way.

      • Nick says:

        Yeah, I think considering moral panics as a somewhat distinct phenomenon is right here. I’m actually not sure the extent to which they’re a partisan phenomenon; was the Satanic daycare thing a left or right or both or neither thing?

      • Radu Floricica says:

        Yep, I was a bit sleep deprived at the time and my mind went too easily to CW. Best way of putting it is probably here.

      • Eponymous says:

        Moral panics are definitely not new, but modern information technology allows them to take on new destructive forms. Add in the set of factually wrong and morally dubious views rapidly becoming central to modern progressivism, and you have a significant cause of the latest phase in our civilizational collapse (though to be fair it has been ongoing for a while now, and has many causes).

  6. Suppose you had a “China-World” made up of multiple, self-aware, interacting “China-brains.” The operators of the China-World’s “neurons” fire a constant time after they observe neighboring neurons firing, making the whole process deterministic, start with the same brain-state and you’ll get the same series of firings, producing the same “people” experiencing the same “feelings.” The functionalist view says that the China-brains are conscious.

    Suppose, then, that you attached to this system a computer and recorded the brain state at every “step.” Then, in what I’ll call “Replay-World,” you tell the operators to ignore neighboring neurons, firing instead when the computer tells them to fire. The computer then gives the operators a sequence of neurons firing corresponding to the recording. So, the operators of the China-World behave exactly as they would if you gave them the same starting state, the same “people” seem to experience the same “feelings.” Are the minds in Replay-World conscious? Or are they philosophical zombies?

    Consider that in Replay-World, no actual computation occurs within the “brains,” if consciousness requires computation, Replay-World can’t contain conscious minds.* Likewise there is no casual link connecting any of Replay-World’s “brain-states,” you could just as easily play it backward as forward, and the minds inside Replay-World would seem to experience time as being reversed. We don’t consider that the man on the TV showing apparent self-awareness is a conscious being who will die if you turn the TV off, similarly, we’d be able to shut down Replay-World by telling ourselves that its minds are no more conscious.

    If you accept that the original China-World beings are conscious and the Replay-World beings are not conscious, you have another quandary: from the inside, it looks exactly the same. In both worlds, there can be minds asking the question “am I conscious;” with one being right and the other wrong. You could even switch back and forth. When one of the Replay-World mind wakes up, you tell the operators to go back to the original protocol, so that as he is contemplating the question of philosophical zombies in the mourning he will be truly conscious, but as he is reconsidering it later that night you switch it back. Thereafter, he can no longer think about it, though will think he is thinking about it.

    Another possibility is that there is no quandary here because there is no difference between China-World and Replay-World, because neither are really conscious in the sense that there is an “inner person” having experiences, instead, there are simply thoughts in the brain that bounce off of one another and form into a belief that it is conscious, which exists just as much in either scenario. There isn’t much difference between different parts of the brain communicating and deciding they are conscious and different beings communicating and coming to some shared conclusion about their world. Yudkowsky made the point that if you accept philosophical zombies as being mistaken about their consciousness, you cannot maintain a special right for us as individuals to maintain that we are not mistaken, we could be philosophical zombies too:

    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7DmA3yWwa6AT5jFXt/zombies-redacted

    If we are philosophical zombies, then the whole zombie-argument falls to the ground, there is no reason to suppose a “higher consciousness” that we do not possess but that some hypothetical being might.

    *Though you could say that the movement of the mind from one China-World-state to another is a type of computation, done outside the China-World-system, as the computer is summoning the memory of the given states.

    • broblawsky says:

      Consider that in Replay-World, no actual computation occurs within the “brains,” if consciousness requires computation, Replay-World can’t contain conscious minds.

      How can you replay a recorded pattern of information without computation? Just because Replay-World is deterministic, doesn’t mean it isn’t performing a computation.

    • toaDime says:

      I think Replay-World is not conscious for the same reason that a video of a person talking about consciousness is not conscious.

      It can’t actually “talk” about being conscious because it can’t answer questions etc. about the subject.

      • silver_swift says:

        I think Replay-World is not conscious for the same reason that a video of a person talking about consciousness is not conscious.

        Exactly this.

        Replay-World is basically the Zombie Master that Eliezer describes. A world that contains p-zombies talking about consciousness because a Zombie Master instructs them is not contradictory, the contradiction is a world that contains p-zombies that talk about consciousness because they believe themselves to be conscious (when they are not and have no reason to believe that they are).

      • Replay-world would contain beings appearing to talk to one another about consciousness.

        • toaDime says:

          So does a video of two beings talking to one another about consciousness.

          Replay-world is essentially a super-high-resolution 3D video. It requires consciousness to *produce* the realistic video of a conscious being, but the video itself is not conscious.

    • AG says:

      This seems to be just about moving the location of what we consider the source of consciousness.

      Consider Tool-Assisted Speedruns of video games. Someone hooks up wires to a video game controller, taking inputs from a program of when to fire certain button presses. The program is made by a human. There was one case where the game being run was based on taking touchscreen inputs from a stylus, so they made a robot to move and press the stylus to the screen (such that the robot was the one taking the input program, not the console).

      Your analogy here seems to be asking “what’s the difference between a human playing a video game, and a program replaying that human player’s button presses exactly?” However, your “inside view looks the same” frame of reference is the videogame itself as the China-brain.
      But neither the video game nor the TAS program is conscious. The source of consciousness is either the human directly playing the game, or the human making the TAS program.

      • “The source of consciousness is either the human directly playing the game, or the human making the TAS program.”

        It is different because in China-world, consciousness (or at least what appears to be consciousness) comes from within the system, whereas in the game-world it is traceable outside it.

        • AG says:

          The point of contention here is the “operator” firing the neurons in the China-brain. Ordinarily, the operators have their own procedure of when to fire neurons. In Replay-world, they follow the program instructions. So the question becomes if the operators have any choice in not following the program, within Replay world.

          Consider the video game Rhythm Heaven. The output of a perfect game is exactly the same no matter who the player is, because the rhythms are exactly set. That is basically what occurs with the Replay World, where operators are instructed to fire neurons/input video game commands in exactly the same sequence. But the source of consciousness still isn’t the firing of the neurons. It’s in the will of the operators/players to fire neurons as they please.

  7. I can look up anything on the internet except for memes, and that’s often because the text is contained inside the image. If someone wanted to build software which could do that, do we currently have the technology that would enable them to do so?

    • Nornagest says:

      I expect you could build software that parses meme text in an image pretty readily these days (quick and dirty version that only works for white text: isolate the white regions in the image, then run an OCR algorithm over them). But it’d be computationally intensive, and I’m not sure it’d scale to the volumes you’d need to index all the memes on the Web.

      Google does do some automated image recognition stuff for their image search, though, and that’s probably similarly expensive. So maybe you can do it, if you’re Google.

      • Ketil says:

        See also Ian Goodfellow’s work on parsing street number from signs on houses in Google Streetview.

        One thing that surprises me, is that the state of the art in OCR is¹ Tesseract, and ages-old system. Works well enough for scanning PDFs and the like, but I’d expect deep learning approaches to vastly outperform anything else, and am surprised this hasn’t already happened. (Alternatively, I am slightly less surprised that it has happened, and I just hadn’t heard about it)

        ¹ Or was until recently, I haven’t really done a thorough search.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        I’m pretty sure Google already parses text inside images.

      • So if you wanted to do something like this, you would have to explicitly index all those images yourself?

  8. phi says:

    Have you read Bronte’s Egg?

  9. BBA says:

    It’s somewhat ironic that Richard M. Stallman made his last public appearance at Microsoft, which for so long was built on values diametrically opposed to his own. Nowadays Microsoft owns GitHub and is actively maintaining and supporting some of RMS’s code for Windows, which would sound like an overwhelming victory for free software if you told me about it 15 years ago [GitHub didn’t exist, it would’ve been Sourceforge instead, but never mind that]. Instead, Microsoft is a has-been and Facebook rules the world. FB could GPL all the code they have tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter – it’s their userbase and their data that matter, not the code. For all “Stallman was right” has become a refrain among techno-libertarians, RMS never did figure out what to do about a situation like Facebook. But then RMS was never one to change with the times, that’s why he insisted on keeping the share-alike spirit of academia alive in the ’80s when all his colleagues were making more money writing commercial software for long-forgotten AI startups, and that’s why his career is over now.

    I never met the man, or dealt with him directly. I understand he was a total nightmare of a human being – there are stories going around about how his misogyny and poor hygiene made women feel uncomfortable in STEM, when in fact I don’t think he’s ever been accused of making anyone feel comfortable anywhere. Today I’m seeing positive glee from the enemies in FOSS he’s made over the years that he won’t be around to hold the movement back anymore. Now he has no job, no family, no community to support him, and I expect he’ll be dead or in jail within five years’ time. And I can’t say he doesn’t deserve this fate – the stubbornness and obliviousness to social norms that made him and FSF/GNU what they were are precisely what destroyed him, though FSF and GNU will live on.

    I say good riddance to RMS, but part of me still finds him a tragic figure.

    • Enkidum says:

      But then RMS was never one to change with the times, that’s why he insisted on keeping the share-alike spirit of academia alive in the ’80s when all his colleagues were making more money writing commercial software for long-forgotten AI startups, and that’s why his career is over now.

      I… don’t get this at all. Open source software has been remarkably successful, just not in the domains it was originally thought it would be most used for. The fact that he and others were part of this development is not because they were backward, it’s because they were forward thinking.

      His career is over (if it is, it’s only been a couple of days) because he’s apparently an awful person. This is very distinct from “has some old hippie-ish values that he applies to software”.

      EDIT: Ah, I think I misinterpreted and @liate is correct. Fair enough.

    • albatross11 says:

      Think about incentives.

      Richard Stallman, like James Watson, is apparently a big jerk. But both were also world-shaking brilliant innovators, and both built up important and wonderful institutions from scratch. And both have been chucked out of their powerful institutions for being off-message or saying offensive things which may or may not be factually true, but are definitely socially false.

      We will be a hell of a lot worse off if we find ourselves unable to accept brilliant assholes and benefit from their genius. And everyone who is now building up some institution (or does so in the future) and doesn’t want to be purged in the future is presumably going to be thinking very hard about how to make sure that can’t happen to them. How that plays out will probably have a big impact on the world.

      • Eponymous says:

        We will be a hell of a lot worse off if we find ourselves unable to accept brilliant assholes and benefit from their genius.

        But neither were axed for being jerks. Plenty of jerks do just fine in the current environment — many even find it to their liking, if they’re the right kind of jerk.

        They were axed for deviating from orthodoxy. This is fundamentally related to their contributions in a way that being a jerk isn’t. Making great contributions is a function of intelligence, but also of questioning received wisdom and following lines of reasoning even into dangerous territory. This is what did them in.

        • BBA says:

          It’s pretty clear to me that RMS’s comments were a pretext, and he was ousted for being such an insufferable jerk that absolutely nobody wanted his continued “leadership.”

          • salvorhardin says:

            Yeah. It’s still worrisome that those particular comments made such a ready pretext, though.

            For a historical analogy, think of those who spoke up in defense of Alger Hiss in the 50s. They were wrong to do so, in that he was in fact a Soviet spy. And some– plausibly many– of his defenders were Communist sympathizers if not outright Communist. Nonetheless, we would rightly say today that it’s disturbingly McCarthyite to declare that if someone defended Hiss, they must ipso facto have been a comsymp. If you want to root out comsymps you should have to rely on better evidence than that, lest we destroy the possibility of honest and open good-faith debate about who should count as a comsymp.

          • BBA says:

            I quite intentionally did not mention what the pretext was. I don’t consider it relevant. And yes, per Cardinal Richelieu, sooner or later everyone will say something cancellable.

            Though now I’m imagining an extreme asshole that everyone despises but nobody can get rid of because his opinions are infallibly politically correct.

            (Side note: RMS is an outright communist, as far as I can decipher his nutty political screeds.)

          • viVI_IViv says:

            He was ousted for refusing to bend the knee to the corporate overlords who now run the open source scene.

            Linus Torvalds almost suffered the same fate, but he eventually bent the knee and was able to keep his job as a figurehead.

            The #MeToo Epstein-Minsky stuff was indeed a pretext, how many people who defended Roman Polanski (a convicted child rapist) have suffered any negative consequence?

          • Eponymous says:

            @BBA

            It’s pretty clear to me that RMS’s comments were a pretext

            If true this would make me feel (a bit) better about this affair. But I’m skeptical. What do you mean by “a pretext”? Would he have been gone in the next month on some other grounds? The next year? Has he recently become more of a jerk? Why are people looking to push him out now in particular?

          • Radu Floricica says:

            @Eponymous

            That’s a very good point. If he wouldn’t have been ousted otherwise it
            just means it he had enemies that were ready to use free ammunition – which is to be expected for anybody this visible, and even more so for somebody known to be at least stubborn.

            Not knowing details about recent RMS, my prior is that he’s been in his positions for a long time – so they looked solid. The default assumption should be that the incident was a cause, not a pretext. At least without extra information.

          • Nick says:

            Not knowing details about recent RMS, my prior is that he’s been in his positions for a long time – so they looked solid. The default assumption should be that the incident was a cause, not a pretext.

            Fair enough, but are these his first controversial comments of this nature since #MeToo? I could see that making the difference.

      • salvorhardin says:

        “We will be a hell of a lot worse off if we find ourselves unable to accept brilliant assholes and benefit from their genius.”

        AIUI, the people cheering the departure of RMS and similar believe that this is not true: that these people’s apparent brilliance is typically overrated and not as special as it’s portrayed, and that the people who are put off making technological contributions by the assholes’ assholery would have, all in all, contributed more than the assholes did. It’s a kind of “what is seen and what is not seen” argument: you see what RMS built, you don’t see what would have been built by the people who would have stayed in the field if he wasn’t there, or even better, if he’d been forced to moderate his assholery in order to stay.

        Now the people who believe this tend to be IMO waaay overconfident of their belief, and it’s very hard to point to metrics that would be dispositive either way. But it’s not a prima facie ridiculous thing to think.

        • broblawsky says:

          I count myself on the side of the same people you’re describing. In addition to those arguments, I’d say that it’s hard to say how much of what’s considered Stallman’s work is his and how much of it is the product of people he worked with that’s merely attributed to him. Some brilliant people are actually brilliant, and some are merely good project managers.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            I’d say that it’s hard to say how much of what’s considered Stallman’s work is his and how much of it is the product of people he worked with that’s merely attributed to him. Some brilliant people are actually brilliant, and some are merely good project managers.

            If he was such a good project manager then he couldn’t have been so much of an insufferable jerk impossible to work with.

          • Jaskologist says:

            “merely good project managers” as if that’s a minor thing.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Jaskologist

            Good project managers are a dime a dozen. That’s why they regularly get paid high six figures and even seven figures, because businesses are bad at economics and just throw money at easily replaceable figures. 😉

          • A Definite Beta Guy says:

            Project Managers are extremely important, particularly with high-contributing, assertive individuals. You might as well say Phil Jackson is overvalued because he doesn’t actually play basketball, but he has 11 NBA championships. Guy must be doing something right.

          • DinoNerd says:

            In his twenties and early thirties, he had a prodiguous personal output – at one point successfully competing with a team of half a dozen developers – basically any feature they implemented for their closed source project, he’d implement for the competing open source project, where he was the sole developer. (He got rather exhausted, but was keeping up with them.)

            If he’s anything like me, his personal output dropped as he got older, and got onto ever larger teams. But at the time his productivity was pretty much off-the-charts. (People quote a 10:1 ratio between the productivity of best and worst developers. But I was probably up near the top at the time, and he was notably faster than me.)

        • viVI_IViv says:

          AIUI, the people cheering the departure of RMS and similar believe that this is not true

          But these people are intellectual-yet-idiots, to quote another loud-mouthed asshole.

          It’s a kind of “what is seen and what is not seen” argument: you see what RMS built, you don’t see what would have been built by the people who would have stayed in the field if he wasn’t there, or even better, if he’d been forced to moderate his assholery in order to stay.

          Nothing stopped these other people from creating their own organizations according to their own principles of niceness and civil behavior and compete with jerks like Stallman and Torvalds. Until the corporate takeover of the last 10-15 years, the open source movement was completely voluntary with very little money involved. There wasn’t even much first-mover or networking effects which could create high barriers to entry to competitors, hence there wasn’t really any gatekeeping: any group of #GirlsWhoCode or whatever could have forked GCC and the Linux kernel and created their own better versions.

          The fact that this didn’t happen tells us about the kind of personality required to successfully run weird nerdy projects while the world of respectable corporate people say it’s all bunk.

    • Eponymous says:

      And I can’t say he doesn’t deserve this fate – the stubbornness and obliviousness to social norms that made him and FSF/GNU what they were are precisely what destroyed him

      A nerd oblivious to social norms? Inflexible and stubborn? These very qualities were likely critical to his launching a wildly successful movement. But yes, off with his head, not for anything he did, but for saying something impolitic. How very 2019. The collapse of our civilization continues.

    • Ketil says:

      I never met the man, or dealt with him directly. I understand he was a total nightmare of a human being – there are stories going around about how his misogyny and poor hygiene made women feel uncomfortable in STEM, when in fact I don’t think he’s ever been accused of making anyone feel comfortable anywhere.

      I have, on two occasions. He was never a “nightmare” as far as I could tell, and he spoke calmly and civilly, although he clearly was very principled about many things. I am not aware of any misogynistic comment or action of his either. He looks rather far from the hygienic, well built, polished, aryan masculine ideal – so to the extent that this “makes women uncomfortable” and works as an SJW/progressive argument for ostracizing people and ruining their careers, I’ll happily concede the “hygiene” point. You’re welcome¹.

      He probably made a lot of people uncomfortable, yes. Clearly, a lot of people think their (or someone else) being uncomfortable for whatever reason gives them the right to blame their discomfort on whomever it suits them (but not themselves, of course), and that society at large owes them disproportionate retaliation on their chosen victim du jour.

      So – I’ll keep my signed copy of the Emacs Manual, thank you.

      ¹ But on a charitable note, it isn’t as though I can’t sympathize with the point. There are people who “feel uncomfortable” around Muslims, homosexuals, and trans persons, for instance. And back in the day, it was the people who “felt uncomfortable” around black people who got to decide on things like bus seating. So there’s plenty of precedent.

      • DinoNerd says:

        Stallman and I were friends when I was in college, and for some years afterwards, though we later drifted into mere acquintances, and I haven’t seen him in decade(s).

        I don’t recall any creepy behaviour. Yes, he often acted like a typical young man – inclined to chat up any young woman in sight etc. But that wasn’t creepy in that time and place (college campus), just annoying to some of those constantly being approached.

        He did have a bit of a case of clue deficit disorder/empathy failure, in that he completely couldn’t imagine where (some) other people were coming from, in particular female comp sci graduate students. Some quantity of MIT students, presumably male, were openly campaigning to distribute women evenly, rather than lumpily, among class sections, seeing them (women) as an amenity to be shared; meanwhile they were opposed by women who wanted to be distributed lumpily (some sections have lots of women; others have few or none) because they either preferred the resulting social dynamic, or simply wanted to be with their friends/those instructors they preferred. Richard told me about this, and pretty clearly couldn’t understand the position taken by the female students – and I don’t think I managed to explain it. (We’d already been through the same pattern at Harvard, though in a more paternalistic way – Harvard intentionally offered houses (dorms) with a variety of gender ratios, and house asssignments were biased to acheive this – and people seemed content with that arrangement.)

        And he was a complete nutzo fanatic about software, basically regarding restricting sftware distribution as something akin to rape, murder, theft etc. (I.e. it was a moral issue for him, and one where he couldn’t see those who disagreed as good people.)

        I’d say we drifted apart primarily because of this – I worked in industry, which (at best) had me enabling immoral behaviour from his POV.

        Assuming he didn’t grow out of his overall social cluelessness, adding any kind of power to that could indeed have been toxic. Random grad student chatting up every woman in sight = normal, if sometimes pathetic looking. Same thing taken into a work place, or a large organization, and being done by a high status person => often catastrophic results. I’d assumed that like most young men, he grew up – and indeed didn’t see any of this kind of behaviour the last time we met. But I didn’t check in with any young and attractive women about their experience at that time.

        I’d also expect him to be totally taken in by someone like Epstein (who I never met, so I’m going on descriptions); he’d believe what someone said and not notice non-verbal cues. At least, that’s what he was like in his twenties – typical high functioning person on the autistic spectrum.

        At any rate, I should probably read about whatever’s been causing this thread, and another one I saw on a mailing list, where it was shut down by the moderator before I could ask. Whatever it is, it hasn’t so far shown up in my news feed.

        • Ketil says:

          Thanks for this. As far as I know, Epstein has nothing (directly) to do with this, the current storm is about something RMS said about allegations against Minsky.

    • Lancelot says:

      I apologize in advance for the rant, and I understand that your post is far from the worst example of this, but

      Now he has no job, no family, no community to support him, and I expect he’ll be dead or in jail within five years’ time. And I can’t say he doesn’t deserve this fate – the stubbornness and obliviousness to social norms that made him and FSF/GNU what they were are precisely what destroyed him, though FSF and GNU will live on.

      I say good riddance to RMS, but part of me still finds him a tragic figure.

      This attitude honestly makes my blood boil. This is some Prometheus tier injustice. The man has laid foundation to so many important projects, all free to the public. If it was not for him, we wouldn’t have the open source movement nearly as widespread as it is today. And what reward is he going to get for his titanic contribution to the prosperity of humankind? “dead or in jail within five years’ time”, and somehow a whole lot of people are okay with that, because apparently he didn’t shower frequently enough for their taste, and happened to say some stupid thing once in a while.

      This is not even a rant about the modern leftism or the cancel culture or social justice or whatever. I felt exactly the same way when I learned about the life of Alan Turing. He did some essential contributions to the early computer science, to say the least, and it has been estimated his work on breaking the Enigma code likely shortened the WWII for years, and saved millions of lives on the Allied side — so what did he get? Driven to suicide over the ‘horrendous’ transgression of being gay.

      I am reminded of an old Russian adage, “не делай добра — не получишь зла” (“if you don’t do good, you won’t get evil in return”). What RMS should have done back in his day was to patent and copyright all his works to high heaven, and charge as much for them as the market would bear. If a society is willing to destroy the lives of such people despite what they have done, it doesn’t deserve their charity.

      • Jaskologist says:

        I feel like most of those comments could be summed up as “sorry, nuerodivergent people, you’re not useful anymore.”

        • DinoNerd says:

          Agree. If violating social norms is good reason for someone to be “dead or in jail in 5 years”, then I don’t want any part of the society involved.

          This is also why I like our atomized, individualistic etc. society – to the extent that it really is atomized etc. etc. then people aren’t trying to destroy other people’s lives for failure to observe (changing) local cultural norms, or celebrating when this happens to someone.

          [Note to the soundbite impaired – there are norms that should be enforced. Generally by the legal system. Violations tend to be considered felonies. This is not what I’m talking about. Note also that these norms are almost always explicit, and when they change there’s a huge public fuss about it. So not a problem for folks that are unusually poor at mind reading.]

          • BBA says:

            “Violating social norms” isn’t the least of it. RMS is a deeply mentally ill man, and I don’t think he’s capable of surviving outside the support networks at MIT and FSF that have sustained him for most of his life. And now he’ll have to. If he weren’t so thoroughly to blame for his situation, I’d feel more sorry for him.

          • John Schilling says:

            RMS is a deeply mentally ill man

            Citation very desperately needed, because this is sounding an awful lot like the old Soviet definition of “deeply mentally ill” and I’m not really sure I trust your unsupported word on this.

          • For what it’s worth, I’ve met Stallman and argued with him a little. He has very weird views, but in my limited sample I saw no evidence he was crazy.

          • BBA says:

            Oh, let’s see. He has such a phobia of water that he never showers, but he has been known to give himself sponge baths in public restrooms… do I need to continue?

      • EchoChaos says:

        I agree. For those arguing upstream, this is the “kind, true, necessary” way to say what J said.

      • BBA says:

        Do you know the name Jamie Zawinski? Miguel de Icaza? Matthew Garrett?

        They aren’t entryists. They’re coders who tried to work with RMS back in the day and couldn’t abide his bullshit. Now they’re among the many celebrating RMS’s downfall. And – here’s the key – each of them has produced a hell of a lot more software in the last ten years than RMS has. (Even JWZ, who long ago officially retired from software to sell beer.)

        Now you may say that his other ideas and activism are still worthwhile. To which I say: what other ideas? He came up with the GPL and the Four Software Freedoms in the ’80s, he was the first to raise the alarm about DRM in the ’90s… but what has he done for us lately? Best I can tell, for a long time he’s just been wandering around the world giving the same speech he’s been giving forever, mooching off and creeping out the poor fanboys who thought it’d be cool to let a legend stay over for a few days.

        What’s left? His community leadership? Some leader – his whole community is singing “ding dong the witch is dead” with nary a word of dissent from anyone who matters. (No, Eric Raymond doesn’t matter. He never did.)

        What good is a prophet who’s run out of prophesies?

        • Eponymous says:

          Wow. So pack him off to the old folks home, he’ll be dead soon anyway, what good is he to us now?

        • Radu Floricica says:

          but what has he done for us lately

          Really man?

          Actually, I’m calling Poe’s law here. Even if just for my mental sanity.

        • Lancelot says:

          I never claimed that RMS was doing anything useful in the last decade. In fact, I am a proponent of proprietary software and thus disagree strongly with most of his ideology and activism. That’s beside the point. The point is that over the course of his life he made a lot of very important work, to no other end but to improve the world by doing what he considered good and necessary. That, in my opinion, commands respect regardless of whether we agree with his views, and regardless of whether we would want to be his personal friends, and regardless of whether we would want to personally collaborate with him on some project.

          Now, I don’t think RMS should lead the open source community if the community doesn’t want him to. But I do think that he deserves a happy retirement, a honorary mention in the history of computer science, and to occasionally give the same speech he’s been giving forever to his fans and to whoever else who wants to hear them.

          What good is a prophet who’s run out of prophesies?

          So what if he did more important work throughout his life than most of the people who now drag his name through the mud ever will? We don’t need the man (not anymore), so why not just discard him.

          Right?

          • Aftagley says:

            So what if he did more important work throughout his life than most of the people who now drag his name through the mud ever will? We don’t need the man (not anymore), so why not just discard him.

            Ok, so what’s your proposed alternative? If someone in the 80s writes some good code, they get free reign to be creepy for the rest of their lives? MIT agrees to let a smelly old man harass female undergrads from now until he dies because he was right about DRM?

          • Lancelot says:

            Then there is also the point that the outrage mobs don’t really discriminate between people who did great things a long time ago, and those who did them recently.

            For example, consider the t-shirt scandal with Matt Taylor, the Rosetta comet landing lead scientist.

          • Eponymous says:

            f someone in the 80s writes some good code, they get free reign to be creepy for the rest of their lives?

            He wasn’t pushed out for being creepy or harassing women. He was pushed out for what he wrote about Epstein, Minsky, and age of consent.

          • Jaskologist says:

            free reign to be creepy

            There’s a lot to unpack in this.

            Why shouldn’t somebody be free to be “creepy,” whatever that is?

          • John Schilling says:

            Ok, so what’s your proposed alternative? If someone in the 80s writes some good code, they get free reign to be creepy for the rest of their lives? MIT agrees to let a smelly old man harass female undergrads from now until he dies because he was right about DRM?

            The obvious alternatives are,

            1. Give him a prestigious position at MIT but quietly arrange that he not have unchaperoned access to young woman, which is tedious and imperfect but can work reasonably well, or

            2. Say “Sorry, but the level of harassment is simply intolerable, and because of the way you are harassing young women we have decided to admire and respect your past work from a safe distance that does not include your future presence on the MIT campus”.

            And yes, there’s also

            3. Privately think the level of harassment is intolerable, then cleverly arrange to say “Because you have dissented from the regularly-scheduled two minutes’ hate against Jeffrey Epstein and anyone near him, you are officially Cancelled”.

            #3 has the advantage of being easy, effective, and uncontroversial outside of narrowly nerdish circles, at least in 2019. It has the disadvantages of being fundamentally dishonest and setting a dangerous precedent.

            Also, what’s the deal with “in the 80s”? Between you and BBA, there’s a recurring theme of, since RMS’s best work is in the past, we don’t owe him anything and can freely cancel him without even really explaining why. That would seem to imply that, if RMS were still actively doing good work, we would actually owe him a free pass on e.g. harassing pretty co-eds.

          • Randy M says:

            There’s a lot to unpack in this.

            Why shouldn’t somebody be free to be “creepy,” whatever that is?

            There is, but I feel like we’ve packed and unpacked it many times before. From untitled to ‘geek social fallacies’, to elevatorgate to metoo. It really shouldn’t be that complicated, but there’s a lot of intentional conflation to take more ground because having license to make new rules and take offense is power.

            Have some grace with awkward people awkwardly approaching you in public spaces. People who genuinely mean you harm are just as likely to be slick or go way beyond ‘creepy’.
            Back off when someone requests it, don’t take offense–even if it is meant, for you own sake if nothing else–and try again with someone else, preferably with a refined approach. And update your models so you are better able to read the ‘clearly uninterested’ signals.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            1. Give him a prestigious position at MIT but quietly arrange that he not have unchaperoned access to young woman, which is tedious and imperfect but can work reasonably well, or

            It’s not like he was trying to molest any girl on sight. The worst dirt GeekFeminism could dig up on him predating the Minsky affair is that he used to tell a sexist joke about “EMAC virgins” during his speeches, which he eventually stopped doing after people complained. And he had controversial opinions on various topics, but this is hardly being “creepy” and more in line with being a contrarian intellectual (e.g. Robin Hanson is also known for this sort of thing).

          • eyeballfrog says:

            Ok, so what’s your proposed alternative? If someone in the 80s writes some good code, they get free reign to be creepy for the rest of their lives? MIT agrees to let a smelly old man harass female undergrads from now until he dies because he was right about DRM?

            OK, I’m going to stop you there. Let’s go to the object level: is Richard Stallman accused of being creepy to women? Did he harass undergrads? Because if not, you’re arguing against a strawman.

          • Aftagley says:

            @EyeballFrog

            OK, I’m going to stop you there. Let’s go to the object level: is Richard Stallman accused of being creepy to women? Did he harass undergrads? Because if not, you’re arguing against a strawman.

            Being creepy to women: yes. Multiple sources report that he would make multiple overt passes at women in ways that made them feel uncomfortable. Elsewhere in the thread Dinonerd says he doesn’t think it was creepy, elsewhere online you’ll find multiple women/second hand sources saying it was creepy.

            Harassing Undergrads: I’m less confident on this assertion, and will partially retract it. It is true that the sign on his MIT office referenced “hot ladies” and he would send out emails to the entire department (students included) that reportedly included his views on women, underage sex, inappropriate jokes, etc. Second hand sources indicate that students on these lists felt harassed by this behavior, but I’ll admit that “harassing undergrads” implies more nefarious behavior than “acted inappropriately and unprofessionally around/to undergrads”

            @John Schilling

            Agree, it’s almost certainly number 3. Do you think that makes it any less valid?

            Also, what’s the deal with “in the 80s”? Between you and BBA, there’s a recurring theme of, since RMS’s best work is in the past, we don’t owe him anything and can freely cancel him without even really explaining why. That would seem to imply that, if RMS were still actively doing good work, we would actually owe him a free pass on e.g. harassing pretty co-eds.

            I made my comment explicitly in response to Lancelot’s when they said:

            So what if he did more important work throughout his life than most of the people who now drag his name through the mud ever will? We don’t need the man (not anymore), so why not just discard him.

            I was trying to imply that having some success back in the 80s doesn’t mean you therefore get a free pass for the rest of your existence. I don’t think his behavior would be acceptable if he was still producing today.

            @Jaskologist

            Why shouldn’t somebody be free to be “creepy,” whatever that is?

            Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins. Be as creepy as you want up until said creepiness starts negatively affecting the lives of those around you.

            @Randy

            You are correct, and I agree with you, mostly, but I’d like to challenge this notion that if you are unnerved by someone it’s entirely your fault. Existing in society is a two way street – in my opinion you have a duty to be as accommodating to everyone in your life as possible AND you also have a duty to present yourself as being universally accommodating as you are able.

            @ Everyone

            The man’s not dead; nobody who previously liked him is going to start hating him because of this one instance. His behavior was deemed unacceptable for the organizations he was professionally affiliated with and they chose to end their affiliation with him. T

            hey did this after he expressed views – in his professional capacity – that MIT and the foundation didn’t want to be associated with. If you think this is an unacceptable response, then what is the appropriate reaction?

          • Randy M says:

            @Randy
            You are correct, and I agree with you, mostly, but I’d like to challenge this notion that if you are unnerved by someone it’s entirely your fault.

            I don’t mean to advance that notion, although you’re likely to get more opinions than people when you try to draw the line between perfectly innocent and offensive behavior–especially if you care to have consideration of the differences in mental capacity between people. That’s why my suggestion is to have grace for offenses, even ‘should have known better’ offenses. (edit: Do I need to qualify that this doesn’t mean any and every harm? I think I will test the board’s charity level here) And to not dress up ‘off-put by strange behavior’ as ‘actually endangered’ like is sometimes done. And for the other side to learn and hopefully improve, and not brush off social skills as either unimportant or beyond learning.

            I do think it’s too much to ask that one have an expectation of never being approached romantically in public, including some professional environments, because finding mates is incredibly important and there simply is not a common script for how to do so any longer. (I’m not sure if this actually addresses the specific creepy behavior of stallman, though! Sorry if tangential)

            The man’s not dead

            Part of what people are reacting to is BBA saying

            I expect he’ll be dead or in jail within five years’ time. And I can’t say he doesn’t deserve this fate

          • Gobbobobble says:

            Your Liberty To Swing Your Fist Ends Just Where My Nose Begins. Be as creepy as you want up until said creepiness starts negatively affecting the lives of those around you.

            @Randy

            You are correct, and I agree with you, mostly, but I’d like to challenge this notion that if you are unnerved by someone it’s entirely your fault. Existing in society is a two way street – in my opinion you have a duty to be as accommodating to everyone in your life as possible AND you also have a duty to present yourself as being universally accommodating as you are able.

            So, similar to Nabil’s thread further up, how ugly does someone need to be for refusing plastic surgery to warrant cancellation?

          • ECD says:

            @viVI_IViv

            It’s not like he was trying to molest any girl on sight. The worst dirt GeekFeminism could dig up on him predating the Minsky affair is that he used to tell a sexist joke about “EMAC virgins” during his speeches, which he eventually stopped doing after people complained.

            Well, that and his repeated position that “voluntary” pedophilia and child pornography should be totally legal. Which has no bearing on his position on statutory rape at all, I’m sure.

          • Plumber says:

            @ECD >

            “…that and his repeated position that “voluntary”…”

            Yeah, ewww.

            Never heard of this RMS guy before but statements of that kind would creep me out.

          • but statements of that kind would creep me out.

            Very likely.

            But does it make any sense to describe someone holding and expressing those views as harassing anyone?

            If it does, I think I get to hold all anti-capitalists, here and elsewhere, as harassing me–expressing views I very strongly disagree with

          • albatross11 says:

            When you make people around you uncomfortable, that’s potentially a good reason to move you out of the organization/off the team. On the other hand, it’s pretty common to note that in some environments, you make people around you uncomfortable by, say, being openly trans, or being a Muslim woman and wearing a headscarf. There are a couple ethics for dealing with that:

            a. We cultivate a culture of accepting weirdness and saying that you’ll have to put up with the discomfort of dealing with a wide range of weird people, up to the point where they cross some pretty well-defined lines.

            b. We decide which kinds of weird we like, encourage or require acceptance of those, and purge the other kinds of offensive weirdos.

            I prefer (a), but I think more and more of the world is moving to (b)–including people who were originally accepted in tech culture because of (a). And that still doesn’t define what the lines are which mustn’t be crossed. That will inevitably be short of what would get you arrested.

            What behavior is creepy w.r.t. hitting on women changes over time and across cultures/contexts, but also changes based on who’s doing the hitting-on. A young, attractive man hitting on a woman gets perceived as less creepy that a fat, smelly old man doing the same thing, even using the same words. This works in exactly the same way that the same comment is *way* more threatening coming from a 20 year old man as coming from a 60 year old woman. Or that an ambiguously flirtatious comment gets perceived very differently when it comes from a 60 year old woman than from a 20 year old woman. (Older women will often complain that they become more-or-less invisible to young men at a certain age.).

            ETA: If we want to be able to benefit from weird geniuses, especially weird geniuses on the spectrum, then I think a good starting point is to make explicit rules and spell them out clearly. “No talk of sex, religion, or politics at work” is such a rule, and traditionally was used to prevent some kinds of dumb workplace conflicts among the socially-clueless. “Don’t hit on anyone in a subordinate position to you, and once you’ve hit on someone once and they’ve turned you down, wait at least a month till you try again” might be a workable rule.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            “No talk of sex, religion, or politics at work” is such a rule,

            Which if we started enforcing fairly would require shutting down entire academic departments of gender studies, cultural studies, etc., as well as most forms of workplace LGBT activism, sex education in schools and colleges, and so on.

          • Viliam says:

            No talk of sex, religion, or politics at work — other than nodding when your company representatives make an official statement on any of these topics.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Do you know the name Jamie Zawinski? Miguel de Icaza? Matthew Garrett?

          Last time I’ve heard of Miguel de Icaza he was flaming with whoever was left to direct the trainwreck that Gnome had become and he was working on the controversial, and ultimately unsuccessful Mono project. Wikipedia tells me he now works for Microsoft as director of .NET Foundation. So, poster child for corporate open source.

          I have no idea who the other two people are.

      • J says:

        Damn, how did I miss Turing in my rant? And to BBA’s point of “what have you done for us in the last decade”, he was almost exactly a decade from his peak when he died in 1954.

        • BBA says:

          Turing’s behavior, detested in his time, would be accepted and celebrated today. I don’t know of a time or a place where someone who acted like RMS would ever be accepted, barring Howard Hughes levels of wealth.

    • Nick says:

      So yeah, BBA, whoever the fuck you are, whatever the fuck you’ve done with your life. Use the code he wrote that lives on your device (in all likelihood in violation of the GPL) to condemn him. You’re normal. You’re not a jerk. You know how to stay safe from the mob. You’ll get to keep on posting when he’s in jail or dead.

      That’s the deal. They come into a world that isn’t compatible with them. But they live what they believe, even though it’s incredibly painful and incredibly lonely, change the world against its will, and then we condemn them, spit on their corpse, and live out our half assed lives in cowardice.

      Not necessary, not kind, not true. Less of this.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        I disagree. Not kind, but necessary and true.

        • Nick says:

          Recognizing that nobody can be totally sure what is or isn’t true, if you want to say something that might not be true – anything controversial, speculative, or highly opinionated – then you had better make sure it is both kind and necessary. Kind, in that you don’t rush to insult people who disagree with you. Necessary in that it’s on topic, and not only contributes something to the discussion but contributes more to the discussion than it’s likely to take away through starting a fight.

          The post fails all three tests. Guessing the details of BBA’s life is well into “how can you possibly know this” territory. It’s unkind, as you agree. And personal attacks of this kind very certainly fall into taking away more from the discussion than they contribute.

      • souleater says:

        I disagree,

        I think what he said was true.

        BBA is using code RS created, he is normal, not a jerk, and knows what not to say in public

        I think what he said what necessary

        I think the adult language and vivid metaphors added to the point he was trying to make. That people who condemn the revolutionaries/prophets while enjoying the fruits of their unique minds. The post is made better by injecting a little emotion into it.

        maybe not kind

        OTOH I don’t think what he said was snarky, demeaning, or rude.. just a little rough.

        • Nick says:

          I don’t want to have an argument about interpreting the post, since that goes against the spirit of our “less of this”–style self moderation. Suffice it to say I’m confused and disappointed that everyone disagrees with me about this.

        • EchoChaos says:

          @Nick

          I will say that I agree with you.

        • silver_swift says:

          @Nick

          I’m confused and disappointed that everyone disagrees with me about this.

          And by everyone you mean two people (three if you count the person you replied to)?

          Don’t underestimate the amount of people that silently agree with something, but don’t respond because they don’t necesarily have anything meaningful to add (this is one thing where upvote/downvote systems really have an advantage over the system we have here).

          For me, I don’t know enough about the situation to judge whether it was true, but I agree about it not being kind or necesary

        • Nick says:

          It’s not a matter of underestimating those who silently agree. Like I said, to have an argument about it is against the spirit of this style of moderation. It relies on consensus, and if I am literally the only person saying there’s a problem (as I was), and more folks keep disagreeing (as they do), I have no grounds to press the point. At that point, it’s up to Scott.

        • Plumber says:

          @Nick,
          I”ve no idea if “true”, I’ve never heard of and have no opinion on this RMS guy (and no particular desire to find out), and “open source” is a term I’ve heard, but I’m far from up on the what, why’s, and how’s of it.
          “Necessary” is even harder, in some sense all messages ever aren’t “necessary”.
          That it wasn’t kind I’ve little doubt and, judging by your post history, a “Would @Nick post this?” seems to me a good rule for me to keep in mind going on and I trust your judgement.

      • Eponymous says:

        Not necessary, not kind, not true. Less of this.

        Disagree. Probably true, not terribly unkind, and definitely necessary. More of this.

      • J says:

        Yeah, that’s fair criticism and not unexpected. It’s not the kind of thing we normally say here, and I don’t want ssc to turn into the kind of place where we say that sort of thing often.

        The more acceptable thing would have been to take BBA to task on the “he’ll be in jail or dead and good riddance” sentiment rather than turning it around at them.

        I suppose it’s selfish of me to have gone the other approach; to be the kid who gives the other kid on the playground a fat lip for mocking Gandhi’s non violence. If I get banned, to wear it as a badge of honor, as if I did anything to honor their legacy in my petty behavior. It’s not something RMS would have done.

        So BBA, my apologies. RMS respects your freedom to use your computer as you wish and so should I.

    • souleater says:

      KOLMOGOROV COMPLICITY AND THE PARABLE OF LIGHTNING
      This article seems very relevant to me.

      Direct quote from RMS

      “The term ‘sexual assault’ is so vague and slippery that it facilitates accusation inflation: taking claims that someone did X and leading people to think of it as Y, which is much worse than X,” Stallman wrote in his message. “The reference reports the claim that Minsky had sex with one of Epstein’s harem. Let’s presume that was true (I see no reason to disbelieve it). The word ‘assaulting’ presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex.”

      Stallman continued, “We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.”

      “the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.”

      I won’t comment on what he said for fear of being personally destroyed the same way RMS was. But I’ll just leave the text here and let the SSC commentariat, figure out the rest.

      • Radu Floricica says:

        I read the original article accusing him. Beyond anything else, my visceral spontaneous reaction when I got to the money shot, the quote above that’s suppose to condemn RMS, was getting a deep breath of fresh air. It’s like reading the rest of the article something in me wasn’t getting oxygen, and when I got to the quote it was “ahh, reason”.

        It’s probably the very mild spectrum in me, the part that’s better with concepts than with emotions. But then again, maybe it’s just my bullshit detector.

        • Aftagley says:

          Wait, just to be clear that I’m reading you correctly, your reaction to reading this:

          “the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.”

          Which, for context, is describing an underage girl (allegedly) having sex with a man ~60 years her senior at the compound and at the clear direction of a suspected sex trafficker and your reaction was that this,

          was getting a deep breath of fresh air. It’s like reading the rest of the article something in me wasn’t getting oxygen, and when I got to the quote it was “ahh, reason”.

          Look, extending maximum charity here, there’s a bunch of defenses one could reasonably use to defend Minsky here, like “maybe he didn’t know she was underage”, or “I don’t think she’s a credibly witness,” but saying “whelp, the sex-slave probably made it look like she was willing, so it’s totally ok” isn’t one of them.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            I don’t think “so it’s totally ok” is the implied conclusion? I read it as “so assault is the wrong term for it”

          • J says:

            How carefully have you researched this? The stuff I’m seeing is that the alleged event happened to Minsky in 2001, seven years before Epstein was convicted of anything, likely didn’t happen at all, and contra your claim that “it’s totally okay”, RMS was opposing the label “assault” for a hypothetical situation in which someone says “yep, I’m totes DTF.”

          • albatross11 says:

            How would Minsky have known that the woman he was sleeping with was underage? Why wouldn’t he have just said “Hey, that super-rich pimp guy who gives us so much money brought some whores around, and I don’t even have to pay. Score!”? I’m not going to call that admirable, but if he thought he was getting a freebie from an adult prostitute there of her own will, that doesn’t seem to me to be some horrible unforgivable moral lapse. (Casual voluntary sex with strangers is immoral under the moral code I believe in, but not, as far as I can tell, under the moral code that most of the outrage mob or open source community believes in.)

            I think the usual pattern of being “canceled” is that you have a lot of enemies but they lack a lever with which to force you out, and then you make some public comment that can be taken in an offensive way, and that becomes both the lever with which to pry you out, and the Schelling point for all your enemies to coordinate.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            You know, I’m kinda sick and tired of playing this charade, real name or not. Sex work is work. He wasn’t a sex trafficker, he was an employer. She wasn’t a slave, she was doing work that’s unlicensed by the state and without paying taxes. And judging from the same context, for more money than you and me are making together.

            Should she have been doing this at 17? I don’t know. That depends a lot on whether she’ll regret it later. Personally, I think either her or her parents deserve a good spanking. Probably both. But that’s just me, and it’s quite likely the morals of 30 years from now will say it was perfectly ok. Set a reminder if you want.

            But to describe an old academic having sex with her as slavery in anything but a metaphorical sense… There’s a disconnect here I don’t think we’ll be able to bridge. These things happen. Have been happening for as long as mankind existed, since the first girl discovered she can live better by offering sex than by withholding it. And that was way before age limits and taxes. And will continue to happen, because the choice remains: you can go to school and work and toil and maybe in 30 years pay all your debts and start new ones for a house, or make use of the fact that you’re kinda into older men and you’ve found a one in a lifetime opportunity to have sex with Bill Clinton and make a house worth of money in a summer.

            Call it slavery if you want. I call it common sense.

          • Lillian says:

            If someone gives me a bunch of money as a gift, and it later turns out the money was stolen, that doesn’t make me a thief, it arguably makes me a further victim of the thief. If someone appears to want to have sex with me, and we have sex, and it turns out she was coereced into it by a third party, that doesn’t make me a rapist, it arguably makes me a further victim of the third party. So i would say that, “She presented herself as willing” is indeed a completely reasonable defence. No different from, “He present it as a gift of his own money.”

            In any case Stallman’s argument is entirely hypothetical. The woman said that she was told to approach Minsky, not that she actually had sex with him. A witness to the event claims Minsky refused her. The balance of the evidence as it stands is that the sexual encounter did not even happen.

          • Aftagley says:

            How would Minsky have known that the woman he was sleeping with was underage? Why wouldn’t he have just said “Hey, that super-rich pimp guy who gives us so much money brought some whores around, and I don’t even have to pay. Score!”?

            As I said in my post above, “There’s a bunch of defenses one could reasonably use to defend Minsky here, like “maybe he didn’t know she was underage.” I agree, I don’t think this would be admirable behavior, but excusable.

            This is, hoever, NOT the point that Stallman was trying to make though. Like Gobo(..)ble says above, he was decrying the use of the term assault. Reading the entire text of the email, you get the idea that the age of the victim in this case just didn’t matter to him.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            This is a picture of the girl in question, at the time of the events, together with Prince Andrew, whom she also claims to have had sex with.

            As you can see, she could easily pass for a ~20 years old, and hardly looked distressed. Of course we couldn’t know exactly what her arrangements with Epstein were, but plausibly Epstein instructed her to seduce his powerful guests and she did a good job at it.

            The theory is that Epstein organized sex parties for powerful men with attractive girls. His guests might have understood that these girls were prostitutes, but thought they were safe because prostitution is a minor crime and they thought had plausible dependability anyway because they weren’t paying.
            Then Epstein was like “Gotcha! She is a minor, you’ve just committed rape in the second degree. Now about that deal we were talking about…”, which is presumably how Epstein got rich and powerful, as his official job hardly explains his wealth.

            Were the girls victims or accomplices? On a purely legal point of view they were victims, the laws of the US Virgin Islands are clear: ignorance of a minor’s age is not a valid defense. On a moral point of view, well, I doubt Epstein was forcing them at gunpoint, and if at age 17 you are apparently old enough to join the Army then you’re probably also old enough to understand what you’re doing in a scenario like that.

            Sure, the men weren’t completely free from blame: going to an orgy island to have sex with prostitutes hired by your sleazy billionaire friend, even if you think they are adult prostitutes, isn’t exactly the most moral thing you can do, but framing the story just as “old gross men rape poor innocent girls”, as the orthodox mainstream narrative does, isn’t accurate either.

          • Aftagley says:

            @J

            Yep, that’s why I when I was re-reading it before posting I changed the phrasing from “known sex trafficker” to “suspected sex trafficker.” As early as the 90s people were writing about/commenting on his predilection for young women. He was never particularly shy about it.

            @Radu
            I disagree with you; I think that age of consent is an important line in the sand for our society. I think there is a definite point before which someone is not capable of making the kind of decisions you’re talking about and given that a disturbingly high number of the women who were formerly in Epstein’s circle wound up emotionally broken (Jen Lisa-Jones), drug addicted (Julie Brown) or dead would indicate that exposure to this kind of life between the ages of 14 and 20 aren’t healthy for future development.

            As for slavery: could these women refuse? Could they chose to go back to their previous lives if they expressed that desire? Would Epstein have paid to fly them back from the Virgin Islands if they said, “no, I don’t in fact want to have sex with this septuagenarian academic?” If not, then the term slavery holds.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            I think there is a definite point before which someone is not capable of making the kind of decisions you’re talking about

            If we are talking of 14 years old, yes, but at 17 years old you’re relying on a technicality that varies between jurisdictions. From a legal point of view it’s normal and desirable that statuses depend on precise thresholds since this enables fair enforcement, from a moral point of view, not so much.

            and given that a disturbingly high number of the women who were formerly in Epstein’s circle wound up emotionally broken (Jen Lisa-Jones), drug addicted (Julie Brown) or dead would indicate that exposure to this kind of life between the ages of 14 and 20 aren’t healthy for future development.

            Alternatively, they had preexisting mental disorders, presumably cluster B personality disorders, which are associated with promiscuity and rule-breaking risk-seeking behaviors.

            Would Epstein have paid to fly them back from the Virgin Islands if they said, “no, I don’t in fact want to have sex with this septuagenarian academic?”

            Presumably yes? I mean, what was the alternative, drag them in chains to said septuagenarian academic?

          • Plumber says:

            @viVI_IViv says: This is a picture of the girl in question…

            ….As you can see, she could easily pass for a ~20 years old…”

            Um, that girl in that picture looks way more girl/teen than a woman to me, when I was still 20 I may have pursued a girl who looked like that, but after that?

            Right now when I’m 51 there’s a big bright line in the sand of “she looks way too young”!

          • viVI_IViv says:

            Right now when I’m 51 there’s a big bright line in the sand of “she looks way too young”!

            But would you pursue her if you were sure she was 20? If the answer is no, then you would be, quite justifiably, not pursuing that relationship due to age difference, rather than to avoid a child molestation accusation.

          • Randy M says:

            She’s got a bit of a baby face and no hips to speak of, but broad shoulders (for a girl), filled out chest, and quite the neck.
            I’d say 17 to 20 there. Looks about five years older than my oldest. Pretty similar too. Sigh.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            @Aftagley

            I disagree with you; I think that age of consent is an important line in the sand for our society. I think there is a definite point before which someone is not capable of making the kind of decisions you’re talking about and given that a disturbingly high number of the women who were formerly in Epstein’s circle wound up emotionally broken (Jen Lisa-Jones), drug addicted (Julie Brown) or dead would indicate that exposure to this kind of life between the ages of 14 and 20 aren’t healthy for future development.

            You won’t get much of an argument from me on that. I don’t wholeheartedly agree (for example I’m pretty sure it’s correlation, not causation). But whatever opinions I hold are comparatively weak, and anyways, I’d rather a girl I cared about go to school than do this, so it would be hypocritical to protest.

            But I think you’re utterly underestimating how common (and ultimately natural) this is. Hm. Let me make a proposal. I’m not sure of your sex, but regardless – try making an account on your local sugar dating site. Seeking.com, if nothing else comes up. Browse some profiles, chat some people up. If you’re a girl, expect some amount of “how much for an evening”, but this varies a lot by country. But mostly you’ll find… normality. People looking for what they’re missing. Some for relationships. Some even for marriage (there’s a tag for that). Most men for sex, most women for money – but pretty much always for something besides it.

            The Epstein case is slightly irregular (and I use the word “slightly” after consideration) because of the visibility of the men involved and the age of the girls. “Flying to Virgin Islands for sex” is a lot more TV material than “corporate employee looking for college girl to spend the weekend”. Which is how this usually plays out.

          • “whelp, the sex-slave probably made it look like she was willing, so it’s totally ok”

            What does “sex-slave” mean? In the stories I have read on Epstein, I don’t think I have seen even the accusation that he used force to keep women in his “harem.” What is described sounds like prostitution—he had lots of money and used it to reward young women with money and other desiderata in exchange for sleeping with him and his friends.

            Am I missing something?

          • If we are talking of 14 years old, yes, but at 17 years old you’re relying on a technicality that varies between jurisdictions.

            And at 14 you are relying on a rule that varies across time and space.

            In 1880, the age of consent was set at 10 or 12 in most states, with the exception of Delaware where it was 7.[2] … . The final state to raise its age of general consent was Hawaii, which changed it from 14 to 16 in 2001.

            (Wikipedia)

            In Jewish religious law it was (with some complications) twelve and a half.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            And at 14 you are relying on a rule that varies across time and space.

            True, but the higher the cultural distance, the more alien the moral norms become. While it is in some cases justifiable to reject moral norms of the past (e.g. w.r.t. slavery), it seems quite disingenuous for people at MIT, in Massachusetts, where the age of consent is 16, to condemn certain alleged acts as “child sexual assault” just because they supposedly happened in a jurisdiction where the age of consent is 18.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            Worth noting that while age for sex is 16, most locations have a different age for sex work (usually 18). While I wouldn’t go as far as to yell assault and ask for jail time, I actually think that’s a pretty good idea: it’s easier to convince a 16 yo than an 18 yo that she should drop out of school for what’s comparatively little money, but may seem a lot to her. This kind of decision might even significantly lower her lifetime earnings.

            I’m not talking about Epstein here. I’m mostly thinking about small town girl meets small town pimp, and she doesn’t go to college anymore.

            It’s also worth noting that I’m not protesting on moral grounds but on plain utilitarian ones. Minors should be protected from obviously bad choices.

      • Eponymous says:

        I won’t comment on what he said for fear of being personally destroyed the same way RMS was.

        Here, I’ll help you out: anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see that RMS’s point is entirely reasonable, logical, and well-stated, and certainly not something someone should suffer any negative consequences for saying in a halfway functional civilization.

        Since my view of the sort of people pushing him out is unkind, I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader.

      • BBA says:

        I didn’t want to address the specifics of what RMS said, both because I don’t consider them relevant (they were the final straw in a long history of bad behavior) and because my personal proximity to it makes it hard for me to discuss rationally. But the others in this thread have so thoroughly missed the point that I have no choice.

        Marvin Minsky was a child molester. That’s all he was. That’s all he’s ever been. That’s all he should ever be remembered as.

        This is not something that can be explained or defended. He was an evil man. I met him, took a course from him, and didn’t recognize him for what he was, to my eternal shame.

        (Yes, I’m aware of what Greg Benford said happened. But why should I believe a man who admittedly attended an Epstein party where underage prostitutes were present? How do I know he’s not just trying to save his own skin?)

        • Marvin Minsky was a child molester.

          You have told us, with great confidence, what you believe. But unless you are prepared to tell us why you believe it, there is little reason for the rest of us to take the claim seriously.

          It could be true. Equally well, it could mean that you dislike Minsky for some unrelated reason and so are inclined believe negative things about him.

          That’s all he was. That’s all he’s ever been.

          Obviously false.

          And that, and your response to the fact that an eye witness denies what you believe happened, gives further reason not to take your rant seriously.

          But why should I believe a man who admittedly attended an Epstein party where underage prostitutes were present?

          Do you think the invitation described it that way? That the prostitutes had name tags giving their age?

          • Machine Interface says:

            Then why did you go ahead and post what you knew to be a bad explanation that wouldn’t be understood?

          • albatross11 says:

            BBA:

            From the story as I’ve understood it, your description of Minsky here doesn’t make much sense to me.

            Would you continue believing that if (say) video showed up where he asked the girl her age and she said “I turned 18 last week?” Does your definition of “child molester” include “Once had sex with an underaged prostitute whom he thought was of age?”

          • BBA says:

            @MI: Because not everyone here thinks like Dr. Friedman does.

            @albatross: I have to be a moral absolutist. If I admit there are complexities, that makes me that much more complicit. You weren’t at the Media Lab. I was.

            The detail that matters most in my mind is that Minsky continued his affiliation with Epstein for over ten years after his encounter with Giuffre, including after Epstein’s 2008 arrest. He had to have known what kind of man Epstein was, and I find it much more likely that he was an active participant than that he simply didn’t care.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            I have to be a moral absolutist. If I admit there are complexities, that makes me that much more complicit.

            Ow my Poe’s Law

          • Lillian says:

            I find it much more likely that he was an active participant than that he simply didn’t care

            Why? People not caring about evil are far more common than people actively participating in it. From base rates the default assumption should be that he didn’t care. That’s assuming he knew, which isn’t even a given. Though frankly you seem to have been caught up in some kind of moral horror at the fact that evil men cannot be recognised merely by looking at them, and are dealing with it by adopting an attitude of maximum detestation towards anyone who might be tainted by wicked deeds.

            You do you, but the fact of the matter is that casting condemnation on all who stand accused isn’t actually going to make you any better at detecting malice. I’m willing to bet that if I introduced you to Hitler and Stalin with their hair done differently and their moustaches shaved off you’d come away with a positive impression about my very charismatic friends. So would pretty much anyone else, bad men do not in fact go around wearing pants with the word Evil on them.

        • souleater says:

          Marvin Minsky was a child molester. That’s all he was. That’s all he’s ever been. That’s all he should ever be remembered as.

          This is not something that can be explained or defended. He was an evil man. I met him, took a course from him, and didn’t recognize him for what he was, to my eternal shame.

          Are we talking about the same thing? Maybe I don’t have a full understanding of the facts involved. I though the allegation was that he had consensual sex with a girl he thought was of the age of majority.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            I though the allegation was that he had consensual sex with a girl he thought was of the age of majority.

            Not even that.

            The girl in question says she was instructed to have sex with Minsky, but she glosses over whether they actually had sex, and there is one eyewitness who claims that Minsky refused her.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Marvin Minsky was a child molester. That’s all he was. That’s all he’s ever been. That’s all he should ever be remembered as.

          Untrue, unkind and unnecessary.

          I don’t think I’ve ever reported a comment on SSC before, I’m not a fan of speech policing, but this behavior of yours is straight up provocation.

          Dragging the name of men greater than you through the dirt is not going to make any issue you have in your life any better, and does not foster productive discussions here.

        • Enkidum says:

          Adults who knowingly have sex with children (and teenagers) are morally wrong (let’s just take this as given, I have no desire to argue about it).

          Epstein was a moral monster who ran a ring of underage prostitutes.

          People should have known this about him decades ago, certainly after 2008.

          Anyone who continued to associate with him after they knew this was morally wrong.

          You are understandably upset because you have been lied to by some people who, at best, knew what Epstein was and didn’t care, and abetted him in his quest to launder his reputation.

          You don’t have a damn clue what Minsky knew or did.

          You are allowing your emotions to get the better of your thoughts. This is understandable, but still a mistake (in this case, not in all of them).

          All of the above, so far as I can tell, are true.

    • Dino says:

      I met RMS back in the mid-60s thru the MIT Folk Dance Club. (Here’s an image to haunt your nightmares – RMS on stage dancing the Tarantella in full costume.) I never interacted with him but saw him regularly at dances. He was creepy (in the “hitting on young women” sense) and a weirdo, but the more salient and precise word I would use is “crank”. Using the heuristic of “consider the source”, I discounted his opinions about things, including about what software the club should use when they transitioned away from using cassette tapes. The club went with software built on top of Microsoft Winamp, which was the correct choice – ITunes and *nix based solutions were years in the future back then. This was anathema to RMS, we never saw him again, and there was great rejoicing. I was not into computers back then and didn’t know much about that side of him. Decades later I got into computers, started my career in software and learned about Emacs and FSF and GNU. I was puzzled that people took his opinions about the economics of the software industry seriously – “haven’t you met him?”, “consider the source”. Eventually I realized they hadn’t met him, and “consider the source” meant source=”awesome coder” rather source=”crank”. Now taking his ideas seriously, I was skeptical that “awesome coder” means special insight into the economics of the software industry. But because I’m a socialist, I found I agreed with some of what he said. I disagree that software is somehow so special it deserves being socialized and other things don’t.

      Now he has no job, no family, no community to support him, and I expect he’ll be dead or in jail within five years’ time.

      I don’t think so – I predict he’ll do just fine. He can always make very big bucks doing *nix consulting work, lots of companies would pay for his skills. And lots of companies don’t care about being or appearing “evil”.

      he point is that over the course of his life he made a lot of very important work, to no other end but to improve the world by doing what he considered good and necessary. That, in my opinion, commands respect regardless of whether we agree with his views, and regardless of whether we would want to be his personal friends, and regardless of whether we would want to personally collaborate with him on some project.

      The age old issue of separating the man from his works. (Notice it’s always men.) We are still allowed to enjoy the operas of Wagner, the art of Picasso, the films of Woody Allen, the music of Michael Jackson.

      People quote a 10:1 ratio between the productivity of best and worst developers.

      It’s much bigger than that. I was 10x more productive than some developers I worked with, and there were stars 10x more productive than I was. My estimate is that a 90th percentile coder is 10x better than a 50th percentile, 95th is 10x that, and 99th 10x more again. Very non-linear at the top end, and >1000x between top and bottom.

      The rest of the story – the software for the folk dance club (written by Neal Rosen) was quite good and is still being used today many decades later. I recently found out it’s now also being used by other folk dance clubs. Freely sharing software – what a great idea! Neal likes penguins, so he included a penguin image in the UI – not the same one as the Linux penguin.

      • Viliam says:

        I disagree that software is somehow so special it deserves being socialized and other things don’t.

        The argument, if I understand it correctly, is that a piece of software can be copied to everyone for almost zero cost. And having your piece copied doesn’t make you lose it. These are the properties that most other things don’t have.

        Also, not sure if by “socialized” you mean “share voluntarily” or “taken by force”. In the free software movement, the former is usually meant. It’s about volunteers creating and providing GIMP for free, rather than about pirating Photoshop.

        In socialism, it’s usually the latter. Not how workers should build their own factories, but how they should take over the existing ones. Of course, when there is nothing more to take over, new factories have to be built, but that is never the first option. (Big respect to the exceptions, such as the workers at Mondragon.)

        • ana53294 says:

          Big respect to the exceptions, such as the workers at Mondragon.

          I don’t think it’s fair to call Mondragon socialist in that sense. Workers in it are capitalist, as they own shares they have to pay money for (usually by taking a loan). Not all workers of the company own shares. And it was started by a Catholic priest, not even one of those liberation doctrine types, although very social justice aligned (in the help the poor sense).

          They even get criticised by Chomsky for exploiting South American workers.

        • Also, not sure if by “socialized” you mean “share voluntarily” or “taken by force”.

          There are three relevant categories, not two:

          1. Private property. How we treat most stuff, including protected I.P.

          2. Government property. What the means of production are in a state socialist system.

          3. Commons. Not treated as a property at all, free to anyone.

          Stallman’s view is that software should be a commons. His approach to achieving that is to write software and release it without ordinary copyright protection and with source code, but with the requirement that anyone who builds it into future software must leave that similarly open. Variants of that approach seem to have produced a good deal of useful software.

          I think Stallman overstates how strong the arguments for his approach are, but there clearly are arguments for it.

          Most of my published articles and several of my published books are up on my website for free. I don’t think that makes me a socialist.

  10. broblawsky says:

    How personally responsible was Winston Churchill for the failure of the Allied invasion at Gallipoli in 1915?

    • AlesZiegler says:

      My understanding is that whole idea to conquer The Straits (Dardanelles and Bosporus) was doomed project from the start, and Churchill was the main guy pushing it, so in that sense his responsibility is undeniable.

      On the other hand, while ex post it was clearly a mistake, ex ante it wasn’t a stupid idea. Based on unimpressive performance of Ottoman army in First Balkan War (1912) it seemed reasonable to expect that they a weak link among Central Powers and that they are going to fold under pressure. They did not, unfortunately for the Entente.

      • Wency says:

        The idea of Britain using its command of the sea to direct force towards enemy vulnerabilities was certainly a good direction to explore. I think attempting Gallipoli, even if it was very risky or even borderline moronic, was still smarter than putting all resources into the Western Front meat grinder.

        Like many failures at the top, Gallipoli was a failure of intelligence. Worth noting that some on the British side thought the sight of British ships in Constantinople harbor would be enough to trigger an anti-war coup. I guess this sounds preposterous. Then again, Russia’s government was toppled (twice), arguably with less threat to the Russian heartland.

        But maybe the biggest intelligence failure was ignoring the role of German assistance from 1912-1915, particularly critical in improving the strait fortifications, but also the role of German officers in improving command and control throughout the campaign. The British thought they were still fighting the Ottoman Empire of 1912 and seem not to have thought critically about what difference Germany might have made.

        Then again, whatever their estimates for German assistance, the idea of using the fleet to open the straits to shipping, without any meaningful land support (I think this was Churchill’s original idea) also sounds preposterous. It doesn’t take much to seriously harass shipping that’s in sight of hostile land on both sides. So blame Churchill for kicking off that idea.

        McMeekin argued that the British should have attacked Alexandretta, a more vulnerable position, which would have cut the Ottoman realm into north and south and allowed for collaboration with the rebelling Armenians. This makes sense to me and could easily have been recognized ex ante. A maritime power like Britain needs to operate with local assistance whenever possible, especially when fighting a diverse power with large numbers of disaffected minorities. My understanding is that Alexandretta was dismissed for political concerns (French objections). Something tells me if Churchill had loved this idea, he could have overcome those concerns.

    • cassander says:

      It was his idea, so in some sense all of it. But it was mucked up on the ground by the local commanders who he didn’t get to choose and who largely ignored his orders to be more aggressive, so in some sense none of it. So definitely somewhere between all and none!

      • FLWAB says:

        Would being more aggressive have likely resulted in victory or less casualties?

        • EchoChaos says:

          Many historians (although not all) think so. The initial Turkish waves were badly bloodied and holding the high ground against the initial assaults was a very narrow thing for them. Overall casualties were surprisingly even despite massive Turkish superiority in terrain, so had the Allied forces taken that ground, the Turks would not likely have been able to win on even ground.

        • cassander says:

          Had the naval campaign been pushed more aggressively in the early days of the effort, very likely. The land campaign is more tricky. as echochaos notes.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          @EchoChaos

          I am a huge First World War nerd, so you get my half informed ramblings on any subject connected to it.

          EC is absolutely right that Allies did a lot of bungling during Gallipoli campaign. My assessment that it was doomed enterprise from a start takes quality of Allied mid-level command as endogenous. Amphibious operation of this kind was totally unprecedented, so mistakes were almost inevitable. But if Allied officers would be better, it is indeed possible that outcome would be different.

          Churchill however was not responsible for ground operations. He was First Lord of the Admiralty, i.e. cabinet minister responsible for the Royal Navy. Before ground operations commenced, Allied warships tried to get through Dardanelles against heavy opposition from coastal guns and from mines. They suffered heavy losses and ground operation was a response to their failure. Churchill claims in books he wrote after the war that purely naval push should have continued, since Ottomans were on a verge collapse. That is not supported by current historiographic mainstream, as far as I know. Here is an interesting (if you are into this sort of thing) lecture on the subject.

        • Protagoras says:

          In WWI generally, “all we have to do is break through here, and it will be easy going after that!” was frequently believed, but when the breakthrough happened it almost never worked out. Almost never /= never, of course, and maybe the circumstances EchoChaos mentioned would indeed have made Gallipoli one of the exceptions. But I tend to suspect it’s more likely that a more aggressive Allied effort would only have gotten a few more miles before stalling out, just because that was so much more typical of WWI warfare.

  11. Aqua says:

    Someone recently added ssc ads to uBlock origin (shame!), so if you want to support our host and associates, you should whitelist the site

    • Plumber says:

      And how do you “whitelist”” something, and what for?

      • broblawsky says:

        If you’re using an Adblocker extension to your browser, you usually just click on the icon for the extension and press a button to allow ads on that website. If you’re not using an Adblocker extension, don’t worry about it.

        • Plumber says:

          @broblawsky,
          Thanks!

          As it is I have to switch to “desk top” mode to see the ads, and I’m now reminded to do that.

    • chrisminor0008 says:

      That’s what the blocklists are for. People who use them know exactly what they’re getting. I didn’t see this change and it doesn’t affect me, because I already meticulously removed every element from SSC that wasn’t bringing joy to my life. I suggest everyone do the same on sites they frequent.

  12. Joseph Greenwood says:

    Epistemic status: I don’t actually know what I’m talking about.

    This last Saturday, on September 15 of 2019, Iran appears to have launched a drone strike against Saudi Arabia’s main oil refinery. This maneuver forces the United States to answer a difficult question: how should it respond?

    On the one hand, the attack was not directed against the United States or any US asset. In fact, damage to Saudi refineries is comparative advantage to US shale oil, so in the short run US companies are benefited by this behavior (even if gas prices might go up a bit for consumers).

    On the other hand, the US is the de facto security guarantor for the an anti-Iranian alliance that spans the middle east, and Saudi Arabia is a pivotal player in that alliance. If the US does not defend the interests and security of this alliance against Iran, it may well fall apart, which would solidify Iran’s grip on the region and possibly (depending on how the dominoes fall) allow it to push towards a regional hegemony. Furthermore, the United States has enemies and rivals in other areas who could well be emboldened to move against US allies and further erode the Pax Americana that the current (rapidly adjusting) world order is built on.

    On the gripping hand, it’s not clear what the United States can do in this circumstance. A ground invasion could be won in approximately the same sense that the United States won in Iraq and Afghanistan. A blockade would risk US ships (which are getting quite expensive) and which might not force Iran to back down (in which case the US can de-escalate, leave its resources committed indefinitely, or escalate, none of which are attractive options). A limited strike against military targets is possible, but the likelihood of collateral damage is high and there is a lot of uncertainty (I’d think–more knowledgeable commenters may disagree) about how effectively this would cripple Iran’s military in any case.

    So, my question to the SSC Commentariat is this: what *should* the United States of America do in this situation?

    • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

      Nuke Iran, it’s the only logical thing.

      Suppose the US does nothing, which somehow causes the Saudis and allies to self-destruct and leaves Iran being all hemegonous. Why would that be bad?

      • Statismagician says:

        It’s never been super clear to me why we don’t like Iran, specifically, as opposed to the vastly more vicious and unstable other ostentatiously Islamic regime in the area that we’re apparently best buds with. Just leftover resentment from the whole Embassy thing? Higher political yuck-factor from theocracy than absolute monarchy?

        • WarOnReasons says:

          Iranian government is organizing terrorist attacks all across the globe (like the bombing in Argentina which killed close to one hundred people). It funds and arms Hamas and Hezbollah. It threatens to erase another country of the map. It regularly organizes mass demonstrations under the slogan “Death to America”. There is a lot that goes beyond the “yuck-factor”.

          • Statismagician says:

            Right, but our dear friends the Saudis are just as, if not more in the ‘supporting

          • Machine Interface says:

            Iranian government is organizing terrorist attacks all across the globe (like the bombing in Argentina which killed close to one hundred people).

            This is not serious. Saudi, UAE and Qatari-back terrorists kill hundreds of people every year. The single most devastating terror attacks that occured in the US, France, Spain, Belgium and others were all the doing of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other wahabi groups. In all the history of Islamic terrorism in the US, there hasn’t been a single attack linked even remotedly to Iran.

          • Ketil says:

            Right, but our dear friends the Saudis are just as, if not more in the ‘supporting

            I don’t think this is entirely true.

            Iran is actively supporting the destruction of Israel through Hezbollah (who are stocking up on Iranian missiles on the Lebanese border) and the Houthi rebels (who actually have “death to Israel and curse the jews” in their slogan)

            I think most terror in Western countries (“global”) is by ISIS supporters and the like, and probably not supported by either regime. Although there may be connections to wahabi and salafi faiths, which are supported by Saudis.

            Edit: what Machine Interface says. Very few if any shi’ite terrorists, except attacks against Israel.

      • WarOnReasons says:

        Are there many historic examples when an aggressive regime conquered its neighbors and then decided it is no longer interested in further expansion?

        • EchoChaos says:

          The United States?

          • a definitive maybe says:

            I know it sounds like a joke, but I very much believe that having a nice, even 50 states is a significant part of why the US stopped expanding, just as it was a significant part of obtaining alaska and hawaii.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @a definitive maybe

            No, the last imperial action of the United States was fifty years or more before the statehood of Alaska and Hawaii. The Spanish-American War was definitely imperial, although we gave up the most valuable piece (Cuba) right away and the rest somewhat slower.

            Before that, we were clearly imperial, sweeping across the continent in Manifest Destiny and taking huge chunks from weaker neighbors. After that, although we kept intervening in Latin America, we never were interested in any territory.

            48 states fits into an elegant square on the flag and made sense too. The reason we stopped at 50 is that new places stopped making sense since they were either too small (Guam, Virgin Islands) or Spanish (Puerto Rico).

        • Protagoras says:

          Whether “decided they were no longer interested” is the right way to describe it or not, the most common (not the only, but the most common) pattern of historical conquering nations was to have a short period of lots of conquests followed by very little if any additional conquering.

    • souleater says:

      I think the US should assist the Saudi’s from a logistical standpoint, but not intervene militarily.

      Getting involved in a major conflict with Iran would immediately be a conflict point between Trump and the democratic candidates. I think it would doom his campaign. After which, the new president would have a mandate to end the war quickly, and I suspect it will be ended on unfavorable terms.

      We are now an oil exporting nation, and have no economic benefit to force peace in the middle east, and will likely benefit from raising oil prices.

      This conflict has a good chance to expand quickly and out of proportion

      While I understand we have a long standing favored nation status, I don’t particularly like the Saudis.

      Higher oil prices is probably good from an environmental perspective.

      • broblawsky says:

        Yeah, this seems like the best bet. Iran isn’t our ally, but the Saudis are pretty bad allies, and they’re prosecuting an increasingly aggressive foreign policy backed by the certainty of American support. The burden of proof should be on the Saudis that the US needs to intervene.

    • John Schilling says:

      It’s possible, even likely, that the attack was carried out by the Houthi faction in Yemen’s civil war. They have their own well-founded grievance with the House of Saud, and they have been expressing that grievance by conducting missile strikes deep into Saudi territory for a couple of years now. But those blast points are too accurate for sand people, at least using their traditional weaponry, so if it was them it was possible only because someone decided to give them roughly Predator-equivalent drones in place of their 1960s-style ballistic missiles. And, yeah, Iran knew what was going to happen when they did that. Or maybe they actually did launch the drone from Iranian territory, to hell with deniability.

      What “The United States of America” should do in this situation, is to apologize to Iran for falsely accusing them of violating the 2015 accord and imposing a nigh-global trade embargo for no good reason, and ask if they’d be up for status quo ante. But doing that any time between now and 2021 at the earliest, would be perceived as a humiliating embarrassment by the sitting POTUS, so it is unlikely that the United States is going to do this. If we need a solution that can be implemented by the United States before 2021, stops these sorts of attacks, and preserves POTUS-45’s ego, we’re basically going to have to go to war with Iran.

      Alternately, the European Union could pretty quickly negotiate and end to this by promising to turn the global trade embargo into “yeah, the US was never going to trade with you anyway, so let’s the rest of us just leave them out of it”. But that would mean putting on their big-boy pants and not being America’s Bitches any more, and if two and a half years of Trump haven’t prompted them to do this across the board, I’m not optimistic.

      • broblawsky says:

        What “The United States of America” should do in this situation, is to apologize to Iran for falsely accusing them of violating the 2015 accord and imposing a nigh-global trade embargo for no good reason, and ask if they’d be up for status quo ante. But doing that any time between now and 2021 at the earliest, would be perceived as a humiliating embarrassment by the sitting POTUS, so it is unlikely that the United States is going to do this. If we need a solution that can be implemented by the United States before 2021, stops these sorts of attacks, and preserves POTUS-45’s ego, we’re basically going to have to go to war with Iran.

        Here’s the thing: I suspect that Trump will do nothing, or at least stick to sanctions. If I could legally bet money on there not being a war with Iran before 2021, I’d do it.

        • John Schilling says:

          Likewise, or possibly some very token military response. Which means we’ll be getting more of these provocations from Iran or Iran’s proxies through 2021 at least, because Iran either needs someone powerful to decide that the sanctions are more trouble than they are worth, or they need an external enemy for their economically suffering population to unite against.

        • If the US is now a net oil exporter, one obvious response is to retaliate by blowing up some Iranian wells and/or refineries. That hurts the Iranians, helps us, helps the Saudis by raising the price at which they can sell their remaining capacity. Not so good for all our allies who are net importers, and somehow I can’t see our getting thanked by Norway. Or Venezuela.

          If oil facilities are as vulnerable as this incident suggests, I wonder if the threat of retaliation isn’t the reason this sort of attack is uncommon in the Iran/Saudi conflict.

          • John Schilling says:

            If the US is now a net oil exporter, one obvious response is to retaliate by blowing up some Iranian wells and/or refineries. That hurts the Iranians,

            Not really. US policy since May 2018 is that Iran isn’t ever allowed to export any oil to anyone anywhere for any reason. The US has been less than perfectly efficient in implementing that policy, but enough of the major oil-using and trade-facilitating nations are in full-on America’s Bitch mode that about 40% of Iran’s oil production capacity has been offline for over a year for lack of customers (and now seizure of tankers).

            Blowing up a few idle wells and refineries doesn’t hurt Iran, at least in the short term, and probably helps them on the political front. It also reduces the potential gain for Iran in ever negotiating a new agreement to reopen trade. Blowing up most of Iran’s wells and refineries would hurt, by cutting into their domestic fuel supplies, but at that point we’re in full-scale war territory.

      • Radu Floricica says:

        Iran is probably behind them with new technology, but it’s definitely not a new development. There’s some speculation that they’re even making some pretty decent new stuff themselves.

      • Ketil says:

        It’s possible, even likely, that the attack was carried out by the Houthi faction in Yemen’s civil war.

        My initial thought, too. An Iranian attack would be a very high risk of war, and one which Saudi-Arabia might not be able to win on its own, but one the US can’t afford to let them lose.

        But now US and SA officials claim it was launched from Iran? Is this another case of WMDs in Iraq, and if so, does US or SA actually want an all out war? I would think they would rather go along with the narrative of rebels south of the border to avoid it. Any evidence yet?

        If it did indeed enter from Yemen, it could be rebels having gotten access to Iranian weaponry (which doesn’t surprise anybody, it’s kind of a proxy war already). It could be Iranian operatives testing out new toys in an actual war setting. Or it could maybe be Hezbollah operatives wanting to test out their new toys from Iran, to see how American-made air defense deals with them, before a major attack on another country in the region.

        • John Schilling says:

          If it did indeed enter from Yemen, it could be rebels having gotten access to Iranian weaponry

          Rebels in Yemen don’t “get access” to Iranian Predator-oids; it’s on Iran to decide to give them such weapons (or not). And as such Iran takes a share of the responsibility for what said rebels will very predictably do with those weapons. Iran knows this, Iran knows that everybody else knows this, QED Iran wanted this. Maybe not “The Abqaiq and Khurais oil refineries, on September 14” this, but generically this.

          • albatross11 says:

            The same statement, of course, applies to US weapons used by the Saudis against Houthis in Yemen.

          • John Schilling says:

            Yes, absolutely. The United States has for some time been using Saudi Arabia as a proxy to block the expansion of whatever we are calling the Persian Empire this century, and even though the “blocking” predictably involves bombing people who are just trying to defend their homes and families and can’t find any better ally than an opportunistic Tehran to help them.

            That might be justifiable, depending on e.g. how much harm an opportunistically expansive Persian Empire is likely to cause, but it is what we have been doing.

          • Eponymous says:

            whatever we are calling the Persian Empire this century

            Meh, I don’t think this historical analogy is useful. The Persian Empire was not motivated by defending their coreligionists, which seems the primary motivation for the IRI.

          • Ketil says:

            Rebels in Yemen don’t “get access” to Iranian Predator-oids; it’s on Iran to decide to give them such weapons (or not)

            Yes, obviously. Well, for all I know there could be other routes, e.g. Iran could give them to Hezbollah to use against certain people, and Hezbolla could pass them on to friends in Yemen. But Iran supplies the Houthi, well aware.

            Still I think it makes a difference. The US could supply Mujahedeen with Stingers, and the Soviets could only gnash their teeth. If the US had shot downed a Hind with a missile from a ship or otherwise directly attacked the Soviet miliatry, things would be different.

      • Incurian says:

        apologize to Iran for falsely accusing them of violating the 2015 accord

        @John Schilling:
        Did they not? I’ve been out of the loop for a while, and I value your opinion on such things.

        • Aftagley says:

          Iran did not violate the 2015 accord.

          The deal focused solely on Iran’s stockpile of nuclear material and all available evidence indicates that Iran was complying. Trump decertified Iran because he didn’t like other aspects of their (incredibly destabilizing) foreign policy.

          • albatross11 says:

            Note that this kind of action, like our “kinetic humanitarian intervention” in Libya, teaches a lesson to the next ten potential rogue states that making a deal with the US is a really bad idea–we’ll turn on you when it’s convenient for us.

            Once again, it would have been cheaper and easier all around if we’d just taken out full-page ads in all the world’s newspapers, imploring dictators of rogue states to get nukes as quickly as possible.

          • FLWAB says:

            Note that this kind of action, like our “kinetic humanitarian intervention” in Libya, teaches a lesson to the next ten potential rogue states that making a deal with the US is a really bad idea–we’ll turn on you when it’s convenient for us.

            The Iran deal was never legally binding because Congress never passed it. Obama made it on his own presidential authority as a political commitment that “imposes no obligation under international law,” “incurs no state responsibility for its violation,” and which “a successor President is not bound by a previous President’s political commitment under either domestic or international law and can thus legally disregard it at will.”

            So the real lesson is that talk is cheap, but don’t trust that the president’s word will hold when there is a new president in office.

        • John Schilling says:

          What Aftagley says. Obama did not have the global clout to force Iran into a “do everything the US wants in all matters” deal, and had to settle for a “don’t enrich uranium outside of very strict and strictly-monitored limits, and don’t otherwise pursue the development of nuclear weapons” deal. It is impossible to prove a negative, but there is no significant evidence that Iran was violating the actual terms of this deal. Trump “decertified” them, which constitutes accusing them of violating the deal, apparently because he wanted to and thought he could then get credit for negotiating an “Iran does everything the US wants in all matters” deal, because he wrote the book on making great deals.

          Instead, Iran spend about six months trying to convince the other parties to hold up their end of the deal ignoring the US, which they wanted to but couldn’t because no big-boy pants to be found in Europe, and Iran is now simply not bound by any deal. Last time I checked, Trump was floating the possibility of “Maybe if we ‘loan’ Iran fifteen billion dollars they’ll accept a deal”, which will probably work if the deal is the not-enriching-uranium one rather than the do-everything-America-wants one. But the talk along those lines is apparently too vague to justify a cease-fire on Iran’s part.

    • b4mgh says:

      Consider the epistemic status of this reply to be the same as that of your post.

      First, what are the best and worst realistically possible outcomes? The best seems to be a resolution that does not incur a loss of life or infrastructure to anyone involved, a healthier relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia, and a less confrontational relationship between the US and Iran. The worst is significant loss of life and infrastructure for everyone involved, the destruction of the Iranian central government leading to the failed establishment of a US-backed puppet regime that’s constantly under attack by internal and external actors (state and non-state), and a significant loss of political capital for the US.

      What are the tools available to the US? Diplomacy, economic pressure, covert military action, and overt military action. They certainly aren’t mutually exclusive, and in fact cannot be used in a vacuum. Naturally the best possible scenario would require the use of diplomacy and preclude the military action.

      what *should* the United States of America do in this situation?

      The first and crucial step is to determine with certainty that Iran is behind the attacks. Intelligence collection and analysis can only achieve a certain level of certainty (unless the Iranians come forward with evidence and an admission), so this would be hard. Assuming they did it, why did they do it? And if it wasn’t Iran, why did this third party do it? Unless that can be determined, it’s possible that the American reaction end up being exactly what the attackers were hoping for. So, first things first: who did it and why.

      My understanding of the politics of the region is deficient enough that I’m not willing to speculate on who else might have done, and why it was done, so I’m skipping that part.

      Diplomatically, the only thing the US has to offer is a re-establishment of the nuclear deal, so it has a carrot but no stick. Economically, I suppose it could tighter sanctions, which only work if every other country stands with the US on the issue (either ideologically or out of self-interest), and I don’t know if that would happen.

      A ground invasion could be won in approximately the same sense that the United States won in Iraq and Afghanistan.

      That’s definitely not a good sense, unless you’re talking to contractors. Iran is larger than Iraq and Afghanistan put together. It is more populous than those two countries combined. It is significantly more mountainous than Iraq. Afghanistan was a culturally and technologically backwards country ruled by a theocracy which never had complete control of the territory, and was recognized by the international community as a haven for religious extremist militants. I know less about pre-invasion Iraq, but I’m not sure that it had recovered completely from the 1990 gulf war, and I think that their military might have gone through a purge. What I mean to say is that an invasion of Iran would, to put it lightly, not go well. Sending SOF in country to do SOF stuff sounds a lot more likely and less risky, although rescuing a captured Navy SEAL would make for good justification for more overt action.

      What then should the United States do? Well, considering all the previously mentioned caveats, and my lack of skin in the game, I’m gonna go with “send thoughts and prayers to the Saudis.”

      Also, I couldn’t work that in anywhere, but it’s entirely possible that Russia would take this opportunity to do something. I don’t know what exactly, or for what end, but something.

    • Enkidum says:

      I think I agree with the general thrust of the comments.

      Basically, Obama’s pivot towards Iran was a Good Thing. The regime is not a great one in many respects, but it is orders of magnitude better than the Saudis. So hang the Saudis out to dry.

      I realize that oil and money are somehow incredibly important here, and the Saudis have a lot of both, but I just can’t see why it’s that critical that we continue to allow the Saudis free reign to engage in brutal wars and export appalling religious philosophies that led directly to 9-11, among other things.

      My epistemic status is similar as well, I suppose.

      • Clutzy says:

        I have to disagree with you on the Saudi/Iranian leadership evaluation. The Saudi regime is much better than the Iranian regime. I base a significant portion of this evaluation on my evaluation of Iranian people as, generally, much better than Saudis based on culture, history, immigrants, etc. Thus, it stands to reason that if the overall outcome is even close, Iranian leadership is significantly worse. In your words, an order of magnitude worse.

        The second part on religion is probably a pox on both their houses thing, but I suppose the best bet for the US is to keep SA and Iran in a constant “civil war” so as to postpone a replay of Islamic expansionism into the West as happened in Mohammed’s time. If there is a relative stalemate going on, that means supporting SA seems to be correct, as we would assume Iran would be the victor if we pulled out.

        • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

          Thus, it stands to reason that if the overall outcome is even close, Iranian leadership is significantly worse.

          I can think of two rather large confounding factors. One begins with “oi” and the other ends with “oreign policy of the US”.

        • ana53294 says:

          Thus, it stands to reason that if the overall outcome is even close, Iranian leadership is significantly worse. In your words, an order of magnitude worse.

          I mostly agree with your assessment of Iranians; the ones I met, at least, were more liberal and educated than their Saudi counterparts.

          But in a lot of matters, Iran is, or would be, much less awful (at least now; directly after the revolution it was worse) than Saudi Arabia, if there were no sanctions against them that cripple their whole economy. They are much better in regards to women’s liberty, a matter I consider very important, for example. They also allow elections. And sanctions have a lot to do with the state of the Iranian economy.

          Iran is also better when it comes to religion; there are Christian churches there, for example.

          In which ways is Iran equally awful to Saudi Arabia? Except for their war on America (which is reciprocated, mind), in what way are they as awful?

    • Tenacious D says:

      Ostensibly the strike was launched from Yemen. The civil war there has gone on for long enough. In addition to all of the human suffering, it’s a destabilizing influence in all kinds of ways (e.g. giving bad actors a chance to gain combat experience). And for all of their (at best) malignant negligence at avoiding collateral damage, KSA-aligned forces don’t seem to be gaining any ground. Letting the situation fester isn’t in American interests and this escalation provides a chance to call for action. Putting boots on the ground (officially) would likely be deeply unpopular as it would come with all the worst aspects of the war in Afghanistan. So call for a UN peacekeeping mission to stabilize the country (probably accompanied by a negotiated ceasefire locking in the status quo lines of control). It probably won’t happen–but making the UN look irrelevant would count as a diplomatic win to the White House, I think, so the BATNA is okay–but making such a call is a way to “do something” that’s not likely to start the biggest war in the region in decades.

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      Depends on how the Saudis want to proceed. The status quo is perfectly acceptable, as long as you can get the Saudis to up their air defenses. Iran is playing a game of escalation to try to break sanctions, but they are playing a dangerous game. At a certain point other nations are just going to get fed up with their garbage and Iran is going to turn into a pariah state. At that point they might try to double-down on their nuclear program, but that’s only going to amp up the pressure even more.

    • Eponymous says:

      This last Saturday, on September 15 of 2019, Iran appears to have launched a drone strike against Saudi Arabia’s main oil refinery. This maneuver forces the United States to answer a difficult question: how should it respond?

      Launch a cruise missile attack that wipes out half of Iran’s oil refining capacity. When Iran complains, tell them it was a drone attack by Syrian rebels. Definitely not us.

      • albatross11 says:

        Fortunately, this sort of action never works out in any way other than the ones we intend, as you can see by the lovely state of Libya today.

    • WarOnReasons says:

      what *should* the United States of America do in this situation?

      Given the current political environment in the US, *should* and *could* options may not overlap. Following the trauma of the Iraqi debacle, the public is very averse to anything that seems to carry a risk of escalation. So some options (like bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities) would not be on the table regardless of their strategic merits.

    • BBA says:

      The US should do absolutely nothing, except to consider closing its overseas military bases and advising its “allies” in the region to take care of themselves. They’re big boy countries, they can handle it.

  13. Dgalaxy43 says:

    Having trouble coming up with an open thread topic, so i’ll just say this:
    Was talking about esoteric religious facts a few weeks ago and the other person turned me towards Unsong. I haven’t been glued to a book in a long time, but Unsong had my constant attention. Naturally after i finished it I came here. Scott has an amazing way of writing that manages to be both informative and compelling. Extremely glad I found this place, and excited to keep reading. What are some essential SSC posts outside of the top 10?

  14. Randy M says:

    The first thing that comes to mind when I think of Biblical Sci-fi is (spoiler alert, I guess) Assimov’s The Last Question and other stories like Battlestar Galactica and at least one Twilight zone episode where it turns out that the protagonists end up being the founders of Earth. But these don’t necessarily have the thematic ties to Genesis and the trope is fairly easy to spot these days. (Linked story still worth reading)

    The next thing to come to mind is not a short story at all, but Card’s Memory of Earth series. Which is unsurprising, because, unbeknownst to me for some years, it is basically a reskin of the book of Mormon, which echoes Genesis. It does capture a lot of the themes you mention–actually, all of them, pretty well–but what brings it to mind when thinking about Genesis is the epic feel more than anything; we see in some detail the lives of the individuals, and then over the course of the series (well, mostly the last couple books) we see the nations that come from them, and see how the interpersonal conflicts early on have echoes through generations. It strikes a very resonant chord with me and not incidentally at all is something I am trying to recreate.

  15. DragonMilk says:

    In era of replication crises, at least we can have excellent shitty experiments.

    • AG says:

      I dunno, has Kiwami Japan taken on the challenge yet? He’s made functional knives from pasta, milk, and gelatin before.

      (Although cutting a cucumber is much easier than slaying a dog, I guess.)

      • DragonMilk says:

        True, blacksmiths are trained. It may not be trivial to craft a proper knife. I suspect the researchers are inexperienced at proper forging techniques.

        More study is needed!

        • jermo sapiens says:

          Different diets need to be tried. Maybe the guy was eating too much corn.

          • Kuiperdolin says:

            An argument for extreme iron supplementation.

          • nkurz says:

            Maybe I’m missing an inside joke, but part of what makes it a beautiful paper is that the the authors controlled for that:

            “In order to procure the necessary raw materials for knife production, one of us (M.I.E.) went on a diet with high protein and fatty acids, which is consistent with an arctic diet, for eight days (Binford, 2012; Fumagalli et al., 2015) (Table S1).”

          • jermo sapiens says:

            lol ok I hadnt actually read the paper. maybe 8 days is not enough to change the intestinal flora to optimize for knife production.

    • b_jonas says:

      See previous open thread, where Tenacious D already posted about the same research: “https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/11/open-thread-136-25/#comment-798188”.

  16. DragonMilk says:

    I have a cooking mini-emergency.

    I had the bright idea of trying to make pulled pork for the first time by buying nearly 4 pounds of pork loin and putting it in the slow cooker (yes, I’m trying to make it more than just a chili-maker once every few months). Added seasoning, no water (google recipe told me water goes out not in and it’s pointless to add more).

    8 hours later, it didn’t pull, so I googled to give it more time. 4 hours later, it partially pulled so I put it on keep warm and went to bed.

    In the morning it was partial pull and looked…ok. Lots and lots of water. Tried a piece…I didn’t know meat could be so dry.

    How do you salvage this? Someone suggested stew but I’ve not made one of those…should I keep using slow cooker to salvage nearly 4 pounds of pork loin before heating?

    • jermo sapiens says:

      I’m not sure how to salvage your pork loin but if you want to make pulled pork you need pork shoulder. It has alot of connective tissue which melts slowly at low temperatures and when the connective tissue is melted all of the meat fibers dont really stick together and that is how you get pulled pork.

      Depending on the size and shape of your piece of meat though you may need to cook it for a very long time. I once decided to make pulled pork for about 20, and the night before I put the meat on the smoker for about 6 hours. The temperature is hard to control on a smoker but I was oscillating between 150 and 300 F. After 6 hours it wasnt ready. I put it in the oven overnight covered with some foil at 200 F and the next morning the house smelled like hickory smoke but the meat was spectacular.

    • FrankistGeorgist says:

      I don’t really believe it can be salvaged, for reasons I’ll expand on below, but my best effort would be:
      Keep cooking it and dry it out in the oven until you create meat floss.
      Mince it spectacularly fine (perhaps even puree it) with lots of flavorings, fat, and filler to make fillings for some kind of dumpling.
      Mince it for homemade dog food.

      The problem is you can’t realistically make pulled pork in a slow cooker from pork loin. The loin is an incredibly lean piece of meat with no connective tissue. Standard supermarket pigs in America at least are also bred to be clean and lean to emulate chicken. Some pork loin is so insipid it’s hard to distinguish from chicken breast. A pork loin responds best either to very quick cooking or very controlled cooking (like in an immersion circulator) and really benefits from brining beforehand to safeguard its already limited juiciness.

      Now it will go stringy eventually. That’s just a function of protein as it cooks. But the thing with slow cooking is that it relies on the breakdown of collagen into gelatin to account for the long cooking time which makes protein, in most cases, tough. This makes slow cooking excellent for the hardworking muscles and joints which have lots of connective tissues. The gelatin which results from slow cooking connective tissue lends a sense of succulence, lubrication, and richness. There’s basically none of that in loin so all you’re doing is cooking the protein.

      As protein cooks it squeezes out moisture within the muscle. A salt brine (wet or dry) beforehand can help counteract this by changing the I think osmotic pressure or something similar.

      So of the various factors in cooking meat, the water, protein, fat, and collagen content all matter in choosing how to cook it. In the absence of fat and collagen, you’re toughening protein and expelling water the longer you cook. This is why floating the resulting mess in a soup isn’t going to change the experience of dryness, because the protein can’t actually take back the water its lost or return the protein strands to their previous state of tenderness.

      Even in the dumpling scenario above I suspect there will be an inescapable sense of grainy-sandy dryness in the puree, as the protein is simply cooked beyond all reason. Nothing’s lubricating it. I don’t actually know what piece of meat is used for meat floss, but I suspect it isn’t loin.

      The good news is if you try again pork shoulder is generally cheaper than loin, by virtue of it requiring longer cooking times to soften (and there’s more shoulder on a pig than loin).

      • DragonMilk says:

        Thanks for the detailed explanation. How do you usually cook loin (or do you generally avoid it)?

        • jgr314 says:

          My wife has had a lot of success with cut thin, marinate, quick run through the broiler in our oven.

          Alternatively, anything you would do with chicken breast. As other commentators have mentioned, they are pretty similar.

        • FrankistGeorgist says:

          My favorite application would be Alton Brown’s Pork Wellington, which I actually prefer to the beef variety because of the natural affinity of pork, butter, apples, and mustard. And it’s cheap enough to make much more often than a full beef and duxelles nonsense.

          I’m a big fan of immersion circulators for cooking lean meats. But it’s a specialty device and the meat will come out looking quite anemic and it underperforms on anything that needs a good crust on it.

          But most commonly I like to cut very thin rounds, toss with oil and lime juice, and sear very very hot in bacon fat with onions until it’s all quite charred. I’ll be honest this is usually a bit overcooked but with some rice it’s a nice little weekday meal because it comes together quickly.

        • littskad says:

          Here’s my favorite way to cook pork loin, learnt from my Oma when I was a kid:
          Take a pound of sauerkraut, drained and rinsed; a small onion, chopped; a tart apple, peeled and chopped; a tablespoon brown sugar; salt; pepper; and caraway seeds (if you like them). Mix them up and put them in the bottom of a casserole. Lay your loin on top and cook, covered, at 350 until the loin reaches a temp of 145. Pull it out, and let it sit, still covered, for 10 minutes or so until you slice it. Serve with potatoes (I like mashed) or spaetzel and a veggie (I usually do carrots or beets).

        • matthewravery says:

          I made this Pork Marbella recipe the other day. (recipe video Plenty for my wife and I with leftovers for 1-3 days. It was actually the tenderest I’ve ever made; I usually grill it with a dry rub.

          I’ll also contradict the above and say that I have successfully done pork loin in the slow cooker. The trick is you have to supply your own liquid, since there’s no juices rendering from the lean meat. I believe there are internet recipes that’ll tell you how to do it with a bottle of rootbeer. Regardless, you shouldn’t bother. Use pork shoulder instead and it’ll taste better.

        • Matt says:

          Pork tenderloin: Marinate or dry rub, then cook it on the grill, flipping often. Take it off just before the internal temperature reaches 145 F. Measure with a meat thermometer. The closer you can get to 145, the better your meat will taste. Go too far over and it’ll be tough and dry.

          I cook tenderloin this way pretty regularly. For pork loin, I guess I would prefer it to be sliced into thick chops, then I would grill it the same way.

    • Phigment says:

      If your primary goal is to turn it into good pulled pork, I don’t have a lot of suggestions.

      Although, I would say that you might be able to get there by even more cooking. The “keep warm” setting on a slow cooker isn’t really hot enough to do much cooking. You need to be at least at low. Put it back on high for another six hours and it might work out OK.

      If your primary goal is to turn it into edible food, making stew is a very solid plan. Stew is simple and almost impossible to completely fail at, if you aren’t a picky eater.

      You’ve already got a bunch of meat more-or-less cooked. Pull it out of the pot, cut or pull it into bite-sized chunks. Put it back in the pot. Get a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. Your local grocery store will sell this. You want peas, carrots, corn, etc. Not, like, a back of broccoli florets. (Although that would be fine if you like mushy broccoli. Throw whatever you like in. That’s the benefit of stew.)

      Throw in some salt, some pepper, and some garlic powder. Maybe a cup of red wine. Enough liquid to almost fill the slow cooker after the solids are in. Slow-cook on high for 4 hours. Check it periodically to stir and taste-test. If it needs more seasoning, throw in more seasoning. If it needs more vegetables, throw in more vegetables, and keep cooking. Add onion. Add peppers. Add potatoes. Keep cooking.

      Never turn this slow cooker off. Just keep cooking it. Stew, like chili, just gets better and better with additional cooking. Just turn it to low, and keep cooking and adding ingredients, and then eat some, and then add more ingredients, and let it keep slow-cooking until the next meal, and so on.

      If you keep cooking it and eating it for a couple days, that’s great. If you go a week, it’ll be even better than when you started. Throw in different meats. Add chicken, or beef, or alligator. Doesn’t matter. As long as you never let it cool, just keep it cooking and add more liquid as needed, it’ll be fine.

      When you finally get tired of eating stew, freeze the remainder and pull it out later.

      • DragonMilk says:

        I think I’ll go with this approach. I’ve frozen it for now as it may be a few weeks before I’ll be able to use the slow cooker again (mix of location and limiting experiments).

    • broblawsky says:

      Mince it, mix it with mayonnaise and turn it into some kind of bbq pork salad. You’re not going to fix it by cooking it further – the fasces have contracted fully and no additional moisture will get in there.

      • Randy M says:

        the fasces have contracted fully

        I have never seen this word used in this context but it fits perfectly. Bravo if that’s your invention.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Apparently the proper word is fasciae, plural of fascia (“band”), which is related but different than fasces, plural of fascis (“bundle”), which in it’s plural form referred to the ceremonial axe of Roman magistrates, a symbol of the Roman state, appropriated thousands years later by the Fascist party.

          • Randy M says:

            I probably have seen that before, then, but anatomy class was long ago and came with many words rarely used since.

            Using fasces to reference muscle fibers strikes me as appropriate given the masculine nature of the Roman legions, and I appreciate the wordplay even if accidental.

        • broblawsky says:

          I didn’t think it was, but apparently it is. Whoops.

          • Viliam says:

            Now whenever you make a schnitzel, you can proudly tweet “today I hit some fasces with a hammer” for extra Social Justice points!

    • viVI_IViv says:

      Possibly the only way of salvaging it now would be to mince or blend it with fat, then fry it with any choice of onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes or dried berries, and use it as a sauce for pasta or dumpling filling or spread. Essentially, try to turn it into something like pemmican.

      I’ve never tried this though, so no guarantees on the result.

  17. albatross11 says:

    This NPR story discusses a paper that claims that about 6.5% of womens’ first sexual experience was rape. But it then starts talking about what fraction of those involved actual coercion or threats, and what fraction involved “verbal coercion” aka stuff like threatening to end the relationship if they didn’t agree to sex. Here’s a quote that captures some of this:

    More than 26% said they were physically threatened during the encounter, 46% said they were physically held down. Over half (56%) of them said they were verbally pressured into having sex, and 16% said that their partner threatened to end the relationship if they didn’t have sex. These forms of coercion were not mutually exclusive.

    Now, I haven’t read the paper (it’s behind a paywall), just the NPR article, but sleeping with your boyfriend because he threatens to break up if you don’t is not remotely rape. Nor is being “verbally pressured into sex.” (The paper, whose abstract is visible before you hit the paywall, uses the term “forced sexual initiation,” and probably is a bit more precise about its definitions than the news article.).

    I came away from reading the article uncertain about the actual fraction whose first sexual experience was rape, except that it was probably lower than the headline. (From the numbers in the article, it looks like at least 3.25%.) And also thinking that the fuzzing of the working notion of rape in this article wasn’t helping anyone think more clearly, but was helping to write an extra-clickbaity headline.

    • anonymousskimmer says:

      From that very article:

      The definition of rape is any sexual encounter that’s unwanted or nonconsensual

      You need to update your priors, or use different terminology (such as sexual assault, or physically violent rape), to defend your point.

      Note also that the definition of rape has changed tremendously over the centuries. This is not a term immediately obvious in definition to everyone who uses it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rape

      Most recently a threat-of-violence rape victim jailed and almost prosecuted for false report of rape is the reason for the current DOJ definition of rape: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/15/sara-reedy-rape-victim-wins-police-payout

      • J Mann says:

        anonymousskinner, I’m not sure that definition iis correct.

        That’s a quote in the article by Laura Hawks, but I think she’s mistaken. She says “the definition of rape” includes “any sexual encounter that’s unwanted”, but the link there is to Eric Holder’s guidelines, and those guidelines don’t include “unwanted” sexual contact. Instead, they state that any contact that occurs “without the consent of the victim” is rape.

        If “unwanted” is the standard, then someone who sleeps with their partner because their partner’s feelings would be hurt (but would rather play Minecraft) is a victim of rape, as well as someone who sleeps with their partner because they’re afraid their partner will leave them if they don’t, even if the partner hasn’t said anything.

        • Ketil says:

          …and if it is the second definition, then somebody who engages in sex with his or her spouse without asking first, is raping him or her (or most likely, each other).

          See also the recent case where Richard Stallman (when, oh when will you learn to shut your mouth?) gets into trouble for thinking “assault” means assault. Mixing up the two definitions of the word costs you your job. E.g:

          https://futurism.com/richard-stallman-epstein-scandal

          • Ketil says:

            “[Stallman’s comments] cannot go unchecked, simply because [Stallman] is seen as a ‘genius,’” Gano wrote. “Simply because they are powerful, influential, or have friends in high places. Those are the same forces that allowed Jeffrey Epstein to rape and traffick children for so long.”

            “Remove everyone, if we must,” she later adds, “and let something much better be built from the ashes.”

            This is…impressive. I’m not sure Gano (MIT graduate, unsure if there any other credentials) wants to remove everybody influential, or everybody who stumbles in linguistic humptydumptyism, but either way it is a remarkable position to hold. Equating Stallman’s remark with raping children is…well, I’m not going to tell you what I think, since it apparently can cost me my job these days.

            ¹ Most likely, she wants to take down anybody who dares speak out to nuance a case of alleged sexual misbehavior.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            …and if it is the second definition, then somebody who engages in sex with his or her spouse without asking first, is raping him or her (or most likely, each other).

            Yes, but people frequently give intimates passes on legal violations against themselves. For a more extreme example look at how hard it is to prosecute various acts of domestic violence that leave victims bruised or worse.

            Edit to respond on Stallman: I haven’t read about this yet. I will say that a major problem is the ability of employers in most of the US to unilaterally, and with any amount to no justification, fire people.

        • anonymousskimmer says:

          I believe you want the federal definition of “consent”:
          https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/920

          (7)Consent.—
          (A) The term “consent” means a freely given agreement to the conduct at issue by a competent person. An expression of lack of consent through words or conduct means there is no consent. Lack of verbal or physical resistance does not constitute consent. Submission resulting from the use of force, threat of force, or placing another person in fear also does not constitute consent. A current or previous dating or social or sexual relationship by itself or the manner of dress of the person involved with the accused in the conduct at issue does not constitute consent.
          (B) A sleeping, unconscious, or incompetent person cannot consent. A person cannot consent to force causing or likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm or to being rendered unconscious. A person cannot consent while under threat or in fear or under the circumstances described in subparagraph (B) or (C) of subsection (b)(1).
          (C) All the surrounding circumstances are to be considered in determining whether a person gave consent.

          Note that State definitions of consent vary and are sometimes non-existent (as of Jun 11 2018): https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bj3p35/state-definition-of-consent-legislation

          • J Mann says:

            Thanks! IMHO:

            First, that definition still doesn’t mean all “unwanted” sex is rape.

            More directly, I assume the “under threat or in fear” language means under threat of or fear of wrongful conduct, and I don’t think anyone disagrees that if someone says “have sex with me or I’ll commit a crime against you” is committing rape.

            Let’s take three hypos:

            1) On the third date with my partner, although she hasn’t said anything specifically, I come to the conclusion that if I reject her passes for too long, she’ll feel rejected and move on. I have sex even though I would prefer not to, because I really enjoy our dates.

            2) My partner tells me “I am hypersexual. I couldn’t be in a relationship where I don’t have sex once a week.” I make a point to have sex at least once a week, even when I would prefer not to, because I love her.

            3) My partner tells me “We had a lot of sex when we started going out, but after 10 years of marriage, it’s down to once a month and it feels like you’re begrudging even that. I’m unhappy, and if we can’t resolve the situation, I’m leaving.” I make a point to have more sex because I love her.

            The first one is “in fear” but under not “under threat.” The second two are both “under threat” and “in fear,” but not of wrongful conduct.

            Is your position that under the standard definition, all three of those scenarios describe my partner committing a crime against me?

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @J Mann

            IANAL, but legally when discussing whether someone allowed an action against themselves because of fear I would think that you must look to the actual state of mind of the victim. Whether the victim feared any results from the consequences threatened by the compeller.

            Social and personal consequences exist for ending a relationship. When those consequences are threatened to be called into being, unless someone perform an act they do not wish to perform, then coercion seems to me to be what’s happening.

            I understand your hypotheticals, and only the third is coercive IMO (the second is contingent on how long this relationship has existed). However, by that point in the relationship, you had set expectations, and now have changed the expectations. I don’t have an answer for this except that “(C) All the surrounding circumstances are to be considered in determining whether a person gave consent.”. Recall that this NPR article is about “first sexual experience”

          • ECD says:

            IANAL, but legally when discussing whether someone allowed an action against themselves because of fear I would think that you must look to the actual state of mind of the victim. Whether the victim feared any results from the consequences threatened by the compeller.

            None of what follows is legal advice. I haven’t researched this.

            This is from the uniform code of military justice, which is different from standard criminal law and it also defines

            “threatening or placing that other person in fear” means a communication or action that is of sufficient consequence to cause a reasonable fear that non-compliance will result in the victim or another person being subjected to the wrongful action contemplated by the communication or action.

            I think the requirement that the fear be reasonable and the act be wrongful are going to make this much narrower than you’re suggesting.

          • J Mann says:

            anonymousskimmer, thanks for engaging and sorry for all the pedantry, but if we’re working off the federal criminal definition of rape, then I’m pretty sure that none of the three cases are rape.

            1) Criminally, “rape” requires one of: unlawful force, force causing or likely to cause grievous bodily harm, threatening or placing a person in fear of grievous bodily harm, rendering the victim unconsciousness or improperly drugging the victim. 10 U.S.C. 920(a).

            2) “Sexual assault” occurs when the perpetrator commits a sexual act without consent (and for other reasons). 10 U.S.C. 920(b).

            So sleeping with someone because you’re afraid they’ll leave you can’t be rape under the federal criminal definition (section (a)) because it doesn’t even arguably fit the definition.

            You could argue that it constitutes “sexual assault,” but I don’t think you’d be right. Specifically, although a sexual act without “consent” is sexual assault, (section (b)), and “Submission resulting from the use of force, threat of force, or placing another person in fear also does not constitute consent” (f(7)), the statute also defines “placing another person in fear” as placing another person in fear of a wrongful action. (f)(6), as follows:

            (6)Threatening or placing that other person in fear.—
            The term “threatening or placing that other person in fear” means a communication or action that is of sufficient consequence to cause a reasonable fear that non-compliance will result in the victim or another person being subjected to the wrongful action contemplated by the communication or action.

            (emphasis added).

            Therefore, at least under the technical definition we’ve been using, I think otherwise voluntarily agreeing to sleep with someone because you are afraid they will end the relationship is definitely not rape, and probably not sexual assault, because ending a relationship is not a “wrongful action” and therefore doesn’t negate an otherwise voluntary consent.

            (None of this means it’s not morally wrong, of course, depending on the circumstances.)

            (Disclaimer: I’m not an expert by any means, but I think if you read the whole statute, it’s pretty clear.)

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            You could be right. I lack the time to search for a legal definition of “wrongful act” at the moment.

          • In this particular case, the expansion of the definition of “rape” is, in my reading, tactical and dishonest. The person who wrote the headline certainly, the expert quoted probably, intended readers to read rape as the traditional definition involving force or the threat of force. By doing that the author gets attention, the expert (probably) hopes to shift the strong negative emotive response appropriate to the traditional definition to also apply to her expanded definition.

            It is true that words change meaning over time, but sometimes the reason is that somebody is trying to con other people. The actual implication of the story, if I read it correctly, is about 3%, which is shocking enough.

          • Consider the application of the expanded definition of consent used here for “rape” to other contexts.

            A boxer continues to box because he makes more money that way than by working at MacDonalds. Is he the victim of assault?

            A student studies for an exam because he fears flunking it. Is he a slave?

          • albatross11 says:

            David:

            Also, the researcher was careful in the abstract (non-paywalled) to use a different word than rape. The newspaper reporter or press release writer took a bit of poetic license there.

        • EchoChaos says:

          @anonymousskimmer

          By that definition my wife has sexually assaulted me. That is a bad definition.

          That it is the legal definition does not change that it is bad.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Perhaps your wife has sexually assaulted you (though please note that “sexual assault” is a superset of “rape”, and the specific legal standards of rape may not be fully applicable to the sexual assault you have in mind).

            Or perhaps you had set up things such that “All the surrounding circumstances are to be considered in determining whether a person gave consent.” indicate that you gave consent to her activities earlier (perhaps years earlier) in your relationship.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @anonymousskimmer

            Or perhaps you had set up things such that “All the surrounding circumstances are to be considered in determining whether a person gave consent.” indicate that you gave consent to her activities earlier (perhaps years earlier) in your relationship.

            That used to be a reasonable defense, which is why someone who had given legal consent through marriage could not be said to have sexually assaulted.

            A sleeping, unconscious, or incompetent person cannot consent.

            This has happened to me. There is no wiggle room in this section, so I have been assaulted under the law. This is a bad law.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            Does pre-hoc consent exist under the law?

            So you’ve been sexually assaulted. If you refuse to testify that you were actually asleep at the time your wife cannot be convicted on a reasonable doubt standard.

            The spousal privilege has been greatly weakened over the years, but you can still say that you “don’t recall” whether you were asleep or not.

            Jurors aren’t bureaucrats, compelled in their minds to toe the written law literally.

            It seems like a good law to me.

            (Note: even with the evidence* of sexual assault* in your comment to me, you can always claim hyperbole for argument’s sake.

            * – assuming said assault took place prior to the change in law)

          • EchoChaos says:

            @anonymousskimmer

            A law that requires perjury and/or prosecutorial decisions in order to prevent spouses in a happy marriage from being convicted is a bad law.

            The law as I read it has no pre-hoc consent, because most such provisions were stripped to enable the crime of marital rape.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            A law that requires perjury and/or prosecutorial decisions in order to prevent spouses in a happy marriage from being convicted is a bad law.

            That would definitely be true, but the actual preventative measure here is that fact that spouses in happy marriages don’t accuse each other of rape.

            The same thing applies to other laws. Suppose I break into my brother’s house and take some money I urgently need for something; he will be fine with this and I am aware of that fact but for whatever reason I can’t ask his permission beforehand. Legally this is theft, but clearly it would be bad if I were prosecuted for it because no-one has been harmed. But that doesn’t present a problem for the definition of theft, since my brother won’t contact the police and press charges.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation

            That is the practical thing that makes this bad law not ruin society, you are absolutely correct.

            But in a technical sense, that’s still prosecutorial discretion. The law as written does not require that the victim testify or even be involved at all.

            If the cops caught you breaking into your brother’s house they would arrest you on the spot and the defense of “but it was my brother” would technically not absolve you. An aggressive DA (maybe he’s prejudiced against heavenly bodies?) could prosecute you even if your brother didn’t want to.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            You can say it’s bad law, but I don’t see any obviously better alternative. And note that your theft example where you get caught by the cops and charged regardless of the victim’s wishes seems vaguely plausible (as thought experiments go) but I can’t imagine the same thing happening with rape; non-rape sex doesn’t usually have witnesses.

          • Randy M says:

            I can’t imagine the same thing happening with rape; non-rape sex doesn’t usually have witnesses.

            I don’t know if this is the kind of thing that is taken seriously in divorce court, but that is a risk if so.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation

            Most rape sex doesn’t have witnesses either.

            My alternative is “until a legal separation is filed, all sexual encounters between husband and wife are legally consensual”

            This was settled law in all the West for generations.

            @Randy M

            I don’t know if this is the kind of thing that is taken seriously in divorce court, but that is a risk if so.

            This hits the exact failure mode I am concerned about. A man/woman who doesn’t know the exact definition admits in court that “yeah, sometimes I started while my spouse was asleep” and gets cited for sexual assault. I don’t know that it’s ever happened, but making sex between husband and wife illegal is a bad precedent to ever set.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @EchoChaos
            CW: description of rape

            My alternative is “until a legal separation is filed, all sexual encounters between husband and wife are legally consensual”

            Suppose one day your wife gets you very drunk and then violently sodomises you. Would this be “legally consensual” by your standard? If not, why not? If so, can you see why some people might believe it should not be?

          • EchoChaos says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation

            Hypothetical not found. Why would I suppose that my wife overnight turned into someone who hated me?

            As a bonus, note that you’ve added simple assault to the definition by adding the word “violently”. This can be resolved because assault is still illegal against your husband or wife without resorting to making it sexual assault as well.

            Short answers to your question. It would be assault, not sexual assault and shouldn’t be sexual assault.

            If she did something to me non-violently, then it shouldn’t be any sort of crime. If it got to the point where she wouldn’t stop and I didn’t want any more wake-up sex in my relationship, I’m a big boy and can end that relationship.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @EchoChaos
            CW: description of rape

            It’s a hypothetical, the fact that it differs from reality is kind of the point. The fact that the perpetrator in that example could also be charged with non-sexual assault isn’t really relevant. If she is sentenced more heavily than she would be for committing the same assault in another context (probably a clearer example here would be if she instead “non-violently” sodomised you at gunpoint, since it is easier to separate the non-sexual assault) then you aren’t making a marital rape exception, you’re just changing the name.

            If she is not sentenced more heavily — please consider my example of sodomising you at gunpoint vs just pointing a gun at you, rather than substituting your own “wake up sex” scenario — then that seems like a major injustice to me and I don’t really understand how you could see it otherwise.

          • Jaskologist says:

            “At gunpoint” is mutually contradictory to “non-violently.”

          • EchoChaos says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation

            She should be sentenced less than she would be in another context, yes. The sexual aspect should absolutely be allowed. Again, pointing a gun is still a threat and assault.

            I am having trouble understanding the problem you are having. I am saying that consent should be assumed between husband and wife, which is not true in the law we are discussing.

            Let’s get this to a more object level without bringing sex into it, which makes all sorts of people wound up. My wife and I have a joint banking account. There is assumed consent with her withdrawing from that account. I could be sleeping, I could be drunk, I could be completely unaware if it is occurring. She could even be doing something I asked her specifically not to do, but the consent has been legally established.

            Obviously if she keeps taking money out of the account in ways I don’t like or approve of, I’m going to close that joint account and set up separate accounts.

            My lack of understanding is why you can’t understand why it is so important to me that the law not call my wife a criminal.

          • Randy M says:

            “At gunpoint” is mutually contradictory to “non-violently.”

            Frankly so is sodomy, for those unpracticed at it or unprepared for it. I’m certainly fine with the ‘no-marital rape’ having a sodomy exception.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            CW: description of rape
            @Jaskologist
            Yes, that’s why I put “non-violently” in quotes.

            @EchoChaos

            She should be sentenced less than she would be in another context, yes. The sexual aspect should absolutely be allowed.

            I find this really hard to believe. If a random woman sodomised you at gunpoint, I assume you would want her to be charged with rape and and sentenced to several years in prison. But if the woman is your wife, you’d be content with a month or two for the misdemeanour of brandishing a weapon?

            If that actually is the case, I can think of two possible explanations. Firstly, you’re answering based on the fact that you trust your wife not to rape you and therefore don’t care if the law has absurd results in the case that she does. This is understandable but not a good way of making law, because a lot of people and in particular the vast majority of people who would be affected by this law have abusive spouses (even though thankfully you don’t). Or secondly, you have a kink for overriding the popular notion of consent. This is fine, but you shouldn’t try to enforce it on other people through the law.

            @Randy M
            Please consider the implications of that statement. You seem to be claiming that non-consensual vaginal sex isn’t really all that bad. Or are you merely saying that it is probably traumatic, but so much less so than non-consensual anal sex as to not be worth the attention of the law.

          • Nornagest says:

            But if the woman is your wife, you’d be content with a month or two for the misdemeanour of brandishing a weapon?

            It’d be assault with a deadly weapon at the very least. Even though the gun presumably wasn’t fired, a credible threat would be enough to qualify.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @thisheavenlyconjugation

            Yes, it is far more important to me that my wife’s current and real sexual activities be legalized than it is that a small set of people with abusive spouses have one additional charge that can be laid against those abusers. The number of people who commit only the crime of gently performing sexual actions against their non-consenting sleeping partners but absolutely no other crimes I consider too small to be notable.

            To explain this psychological phenomenon, one might look at the movement to legalize homosexual sex even though very few, if any were actually prosecuted for engaging in it.

            I quote from Lawrence v. Texas:

            The offense, to be sure, is but a class C misdemeanor, a minor offense in the Texas legal system. Still, it remains a criminal offense with all that imports for the dignity of the persons charged.

          • Randy M says:

            You seem to be claiming that non-consensual vaginal sex isn’t really all that bad.

            You’re going to have to unpack how you got those implications, especially in this context, before I simply assume you have poor reading comprehension. eh, fine, I was glib, so I guess that’s on me.

            If we are going to go back to not having a law specifically against marital rape, like EC is suggesting, I would not want that to assume that sodomy is covered. We traditionally assume vaginal sex is a given in a marriage relationship–indeed, the lack thereof is evidence the marriage is something of a sham. It is assumed you are consenting to vaginal sex at some point in the relationship when you wed–hence part of why the state cares about things like degree of relatedness.

            Absent any signs of physical trauma, which should most certainly remain illegal, trying to divine the degree of consent of any particular act of intercourse is far too much intrusion of the state into personal matters. I also don’t believe in a moral right to deny your spouse all forms of sexual gratification, especially assuming an expectation of monogamy and the aforementioned expectation of sex inside marriage. It’s basically fraud at that point. That doesn’t mean a license for the other party to violently obtain the sex in any way, however, and attempting sex with a person physically resisting is going to end up in assault. The mob is not justified in breaking kneecaps even if you do owe them money.

            And yeah, sodomy, especially of man, which would presumably involve some object and likely cause harm, is going to be by nature more violent than the normal way, especially sans preparation.

          • Dan L says:

            Or secondly, you have a kink for overriding the popular notion of consent. This is fine, but you shouldn’t try to enforce it on other people through the law.

            Galaxy brain take: that kink is actually really common, probably more so than the practice of explicitly negotiating sexual boundaries can realistically expect to be. It’s also anti-inductive. Any type of code regulating sexual behavior – legal, moral, or otherwise – is doomed to failure in a non-trivial number of cases. The question is which failure modes we prioritize.

          • ECD says:

            I assume the folks who are opposed to the idea of marital rape being rape are in favor of easy access to divorce?

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @EchoChaos

            Yes, it is far more important to me that my wife’s current and real sexual activities be legalized than it is that a small set of people with abusive spouses have one additional charge that can be laid against those abusers.

            That seems weird and abhorrent. Are you expecting the legal status of your wife’s sexual activities to have consequences in the future? If not, why are you (presumably) more aggrieved about that than about the various other unenforced laws that probably apply to you.

            The number of people who commit only the crime of gently performing sexual actions against their non-consenting sleeping partners but absolutely no other crimes I consider too small to be notable.

            That’s not the issue. The reason marital rape laws are important is because punishing someone for assault alone when they’ve also sexually violated someone is likely to be unjust in terms of sentencing. If you disagree then you’re making a general argument against *all* rape and sexual assault laws, not just marital rape ones (unless you hold that the only purpose of those laws is to punish people who do things like you described above outside of marriage).

            To explain this psychological phenomenon, one might look at the movement to legalize homosexual sex even though very few, if any were actually prosecuted for engaging in it./blockquote>
            That’s not equivalent. Obviously some people were prosecuted for sodomy (why do you think the Supreme Court case arose?) whereas I don’t know of any cases where people have been unjustly prosecuted for marital rape in the way you describe. And similarly there is no huge societal opposition to the kind of sex you are talking about, which makes the symbolism much less potent. But if somehow legalising homosexual sodomy also necessarily legalised rape in some situations, then I would certainly be opposed to it and I doubt many people would disagree.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @Randy M
            Do you think there should be a marital rape exception, or do you approve of current laws and are speaking hypothetically? In the latter case I can’t parse your argument; how are you deciding how a law you oppose should work?

            In the former case, from this

            Absent any signs of physical trauma, which should most certainly remain illegal, trying to divine the degree of consent of any particular act of intercourse is far too much intrusion of the state into personal matters. I also don’t believe in a moral right to deny your spouse all forms of sexual gratification

            it sounds like you believe there is some kind of marital rape that you think should be legal but that I think should be illegal and furthermore should be dealt with by “state intrusion”. But you’re ruling out “violence”, so exactly what are you talking about? If it’s the kind of technically-non-consensual-in-the-moment-but-enjoyed-by-all-involved-and-consented-to-implicitly-in-a-non-legally-binding-way thing that EchoChaos is referring to, then I would like to clarify that I don’t think that should be prosecuted; my whole point in the discussion with EchoChaos is that I think the legality of that is irrelevant because it won’t come up in court.

          • Paul Zrimsek says:

            Doing away with marital rape as a crime altogether would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, wouldn’t it? If we keep it, but with a rebuttable presumption of consent between spouses, we can avoid the folly of making Mrs. EC a criminal, while still being able to prosecute acts which can more sensibly be called rape.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @Paul Zrimsek
            I wouldn’t support that, since I wouldn’t want to necessarily give up the protection of rape law in situations where someone is intoxicated or asleep even within a marriage. But I certainly agree that it is vastly more reasonable than the policies EchoChaos and Randy M seem to be proposing. One could speculate about motives based on this interesting difference, but I won’t do.

          • Randy M says:

            edit:

            One could speculate about motives based on this interesting difference, but I won’t do.

            I don’t believe there is any meaningful difference between speculating about motives, and speculating about speculating about motives, and consider myself duly offended at one remove. I now regret responding to the question with the answer below and presumption of good faith is gone, but so be it. /edit

            Do you think there should be a marital rape exception, or do you approve of current laws and are speaking hypothetically? In the latter case I can’t parse your argument; how are you deciding how a law you oppose should work?

            There’s varying degrees of senseless, aren’t there? (Or rather, varying degrees of sensible)

            This is a fraught topic and it is easy to twist nuanced positions.
            But, to be frank, I don’t think consent is a meaningful concept after the wedding vows.
            A spouse has the (moral, if not legal) right to presume consent and initiate sexual activities.
            Whereas, if I initiated “sexual activities” with a stranger, I’m rightly guilty of harassment or assault or rape, depending on how far it goes.
            But, a kind spouse will not do so if there is indication their partner will not enjoy it.
            And if the other party is non-cooperative, there’s not really any recourse to push the right, as harm inflicted in the course of doing so is wrong, and covered under other laws against assault–it’s possible for both parties to be morally wrong.
            If a spouse is withholding sex from a partner, I’d view this as a form of theft or fraud, although what frequency should be expected is going to be pretty subjective, very much a subject of premarital counseling and not so much a matter of easy legislation.

            The exact state of the law doesn’t really have an effect on my life, but we should probably avoid the situation where there is a common activity that is illegal. Both to avoid engendering disrespect of the law, and for purposes of entrapment should the relationship sour.
            We already have easy divorce for the situation where marital affections have waned.
            I’m not sure if initiating sexual intercourse without immediate and explicit verbal assent is yet considered rape by law in any jurisdiction, but there seems to be a cultural push for that, which will be hard to oppose without being smeared. Whereas, I would imagine this is the most common form of sexual activity practiced.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            I don’t believe there is any meaningful difference between speculating about motives, and speculating about speculating about motives, and consider myself duly offended at one remove.

            The former is aggressive, the latter merely passively so.

            Do you think there should be a marital rape exception, or do you approve of current laws and are speaking hypothetically? In the latter case I can’t parse your argument; how are you deciding how a law you oppose should work?

            Despite quoting this and writing several paragraphs presumably in reply thereto, I still can’t work out what your answers to my questions are.

          • Nancy Lebovitz says:

            Randy M, have some statistics on women who find sex painful.

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5638059/

            Note that this is among sexually active women– I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a good many women who’ve given up on sex because it hurts.

            I’m not sure what you think is owed in a marriage when it causes serious pain.

          • Randy M says:

            I’m not sure what you think

            I’m not sure if you are actually asking what I think. Just in case this is an awkwardly phrased question rather than an awkwardly phrased accusation:

            My advice would be to not marry someone who would hurt you.
            And conversely to not marry someone unable to meet your needs without suffering.
            I expect you could find a way to get such a marriage annulled if only discovered in retrospect.

          • Randy M says:

            The former is aggressive, the latter merely passively so.

            I remain unconvinced. Don’t expect answers from me in the future. I’m not actually in need of aggression in my life, of either variety.

          • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

            @Randy M
            I’m sorry if I offended you. But you still have completely failed to answer my questions.

            Do you think there should be a marital rape exception, or do you approve of current laws and are speaking hypothetically?

            is a simple question with two answers. Avoiding (as far as I can tell) giving a straight answer to it is in my opinion worse faith than making the true and relevant claim that I could speculate about your motives.

      • “You need to update your priors, or use different terminology (such as sexual assault, or physically violent rape), to defend your point.”

        The DOJ definition of rape you cite does not include “any sexual encounter that’s unwanted or nonconsensual.”

        “Note also that the definition of rape has changed tremendously over the centuries. This is not a term immediately obvious in definition to everyone who uses it:”

        Sure, the definitions of many terms change throughout history. For instance, I could say I don’t like gay sex so any example of it is rape, then go around citing “rape” statistics and demanding everyone else “update your priors or use different terminology” when called out on it. To 95% of Americans, “unwanted” sex is not considered rape. Citing it as rape while knowing your audience has a different definition of that term is dishonesty.

      • albatross11 says:

        “Sleep with me tonight or I’m breaking up with you” is not anywhere in any criminal definition of rape I’ve ever heard of. Nowhere in the US are you getting prosecuted for that. Most people will think you’re a jerk for saying it to your girlfriend, but you won’t go to jail for it.

        • mdet says:

          I think it might be useful to have a definition of rape that is broader than the legal definition that will get you a prison sentence. I don’t think that having sex with someone who’s sloppy drunk is illegal, but many of us would consider it probably-rape*.

          But agreed that “sleep with me or I’ll break up with you” shouldn’t meet any definition of rape or assault.

          *”Sloppy drunk” doesn’t leave much room for consent but I’m hedging since I’m sure someone here could come up with some edge case where consent applies.

          • EchoChaos says:

            I don’t think that having sex with someone who’s sloppy drunk is illegal, but many of us would consider it possibly-but-not-necessarily-rape.

            It usually is, actually, although unless you got them drunk intentionally in order to bypass their consent it’s usually sexual assault rather than rape (see the code cited above).

          • John Schilling says:

            I think it might be useful to have a definition of rape that is broader than the legal definition that will get you a prison sentence.

            I think it would be worse than useless to have such a definition of rape.

            Having a different word that has the broad definition you want, would be useful, but both locking people away in prison and implying that people ought to be locked away in prison are serious business. Too serious to allow for any confusion with lesser accusations. I don’t know that we have a word for such conduct itself – “sexual assault” is and ought to remain a pedantic legal term for much the same reason – but we used to have words like “cad” and “rake” for people who engaged in such conduct.

          • mdet says:

            @John Schilling

            Rape is an especially emotionally-charged crime, so I get why there’s a need to keep the definition specific and narrow, but I think it’s a normal feature of language that the common usage of a word is often broader than the legal definition of the word. I don’t think a parent needs to be guilty of criminal neglect & endangerment before I call them abusive, for example.

          • Randy M says:

            I think it’s a normal feature of language that the common usage of a word is often broader than the legal definition of the word.

            I’m not sure whether this thread is about the common definition of the term, the legal definition, or an academic definition the standard for which falls somewhere in between.

            Regarding your example, “abusive” has gotten pretty vague. I think it’s too far gone to ever contest–or consequently to glean much meaning from. I don’t think “violent” is there yet, though. If someone said they lived with violent parents, and it turned out they yelled from time to time but never struck them or threw things, I’d consider them lying. But there is clearly a trend to use violence to mean a variety of actions that do not inflict physical harm to a person or object. That’s no more welcome than the expansion of rape.

            Just because people using language have a tendency to get overuse terms out of ignorance or contrivance, doesn’t mean we should let our thinking be similarly muddled. We want to know about reality, a place where the negative effects of nagging are not the same as the negative effects of physical assault.

          • mdet says:

            Much of this might be my own ignorance regarding what is covered by sexual assault law — can you be convicted of sexual assault for grabbing a stranger’s ass? I didn’t think so, but FindLaw’s overview of sexual assault law suggests that you could. (Although it’s also broad enough to call “unwanted bodily contact” a common example of sexual assault.)

            Regardless of what the law says, I think that getting your ass squeezed by a stranger falls in the same category as groping, fondling, forced kissing, etc. but also that it can generally be resolved without calling 911. I still agree that there are usages of “sexual assault”, “abuse”, “violence”, etc that expand the concept so far it becomes useless.

          • John Schilling says:

            I don’t think a parent needs to be guilty of criminal neglect & endangerment before I call them abusive, for example.

            “Abusive”, was never a word that refers primarily or centrally to a felony crime.

          • Randy M says:

            It’s possible that assault has gotten defined up, as well. It doesn’t necessarily indicate harm, which is (presumably) why there is the separate word “battery” to intensify that charge. In which case, ‘sexual assault’ would be a perfectly fair description of lesser forms of unwanted touching, even though to me the phrase has strong connotations.

          • hls2003 says:

            It doesn’t necessarily indicate harm, which is (presumably) why there is the separate word “battery” to intensify that charge. In which case, ‘sexual assault’ would be a perfectly fair description of lesser forms of unwanted touching, even though to me the phrase has strong connotations.

            I’m not going to go through various jurisdictions, and definitions are always jurisdiction-specific, but the lowest-common-denominator law school / bar exam definition of “assault” is a threat or use of force that puts someone in reasonable fear of imminent battery. Battery is intentionally making harmful or offensive contact with another person without consent. So lunging at someone and stopping your fist an inch from their nose is an assault. Punching someone is a battery (or more completely, an assault-and-battery, since your wind-up for the punch was an assault prior to the battery). Grabbing an ass would be a battery, if the other person didn’t see it coming, and didn’t consent.

          • mdet says:

            A tier of sexual offense in between harassment and assault would be useful, since I generally interpret “harassment” to only mean non-physical, usually verbal offenses, but “assault” does usually have stronger connotations than a quick grab, squeeze, slap, etc.

            As it is though, I generally do use “sexual assault” to refer to offenses that I wouldn’t consider and that may or may not actually be *criminally* wrong.

            Edit, re hls2003: Assault, a word whose popular understanding might actually be narrower than the legal one.

          • “I think it might be useful to have a definition of rape that is broader than the legal definition”

            How about “sexual morality?” The problem here is that the political left spent decades proclaiming that they didn’t care about sexual morality, consenting adults blah blah blah.

    • Randy M says:

      That’s what chaperones are for. Kids can’t use the swings by themselves, but you leave teens alone with their boyfriend/girlfriend? Let’s get the helicopter in the right place.

      If you mean already adult women, “have sex or we’ll break up” isn’t rape, it’s negotiating terms of a relationship. Terms I’m morally opposed to, mind, but that doesn’t make it equivalent to sexual assault.

      How much less culpability does Bonnie have for robbery if we find out Clyde said “Help me rob banks or we’re through?”, assuming no credible threat of violence was made against her own person? Imo, no less than otherwise.

      • albatross11 says:

        This definition of coercion also applies to my decision to pay my bills and go to work. Nobody is understanding the world more clearly by mixing together “pay your bill or we reposess your car” and “gimme your wallet or I’ll beat you senseless.”

        • Randy M says:

          Right. When I buy a drink because the barrista cleared her throat and pointed to the hypothetical “please leave seats for paying customers” sign, I have not been mugged.

        • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

          Or indeed “gimme your wallet or I’ll beat you senseless” and “pay your goddamn taxes”.

        • Secretly French says:

          Nobody is understanding the world more clearly by mixing together “pay your bill or we reposess your car” and “gimme your wallet or I’ll beat you senseless.”

          I strongly disagree with this statement. Are you operating in the world on some underlying assumption that everything is free and plentiful and readily available, other than that it has been sequestered by eeeevil capitalists, who then sell it back to you for profit? You are not owed a free car. We are all slaves. We have been cast out of the garden, and we must toil, or we shall perish. This remains true even if you are (somehow magically) the only human being dropped into the unspoilt unpeopled world of 12,000BC. The only difference between your two examples is the extent of the power structures (ie the de facto control of use of force): one (ultimately) a state, and the other a gang, or perhaps one individual. Do not elevate the state to godhood. Do not conflate the position of the state with moral truth.

    • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

      I think you and a lot of other commenters may be misinterpreting things (I can’t get past the paywall to say for sure). From the quote it’s tempting to conclude that 46% of respondents were victims of rape but some proportion greater than 16% weren’t because those kinds of verbal coercion don’t imply rape. But it’s perfectly plausible, and I think more plausible that say 46% of respondents were physically held down and the vast majority of the rest were e.g. implicitly threatened with force or too drunk to consent (i.e. also incontrovertibly raped). If you look at the differences between the groups of respondents in the article abstract they seem too stark for a significant proportion of those who claimed to have been raped not to have been.

      • J Mann says:

        Here is an open copy of the study. Looking through it,

        – They asked 13,310 women aged 18-44 whether they considered their first sexual experience to be “voluntary or not voluntary, that is, did you choose to have sex of your own free will or not?” 6.5% said “not voluntary.” They they surveyed the “not voluntary” group and got the following responses:

        83.6% answered yes to at least 1 form of coercion, as follows:
        56.4% – “Were you pressured into it by his words or actions, but without threat of harm?”
        50% – “Did you do what he said because he was bigger than you or a grown-up, and you were young?”
        46.3% – “Were you physically held down?”
        26.5% – “Were you threatened with physical harm or injury?”
        25.1% – “Were you physically hurt or injured?”
        22.0% – “Were you given alcohol or drugs?”
        16.2% – “Were you told that the relationship would end if you didn’t have sex?”

        All in all, you can quibble on the margins, but it’s a pretty disturbing picture.

  18. johan_larson says:

    It’s a simple plan. First, find a chemical that is mildly psychoactive, safe under most circumstances and cheap to manufacture but currently either generally unknown or (more likely) known but illegal. Second, do the hard social work of convincing people (including lawmakers) that this chemical is fun and safe, and therefore desirable, and should be legal. Third, set ourselves up as the Starbucks of this stuff, and reap a harvest of riches from our fields of slightly buzzed fans. Nice!

    So, the first thing we need is the right chemical. What are some candidates?

    • EchoChaos says:

      What are some candidates?

      Kratom is probably the most obvious.

    • S_J says:

      You’re on to something there.

      Maybe someone, somewhere in the U.S., should begin this with marijuana.

      Or maybe they have. (They’re still stuck in the gray-zone of some States allow such businesses to sell to the general public, but the Feds might prosecute you…and any bank that handles money from such a business might have all their assets confiscated by the Feds.)

      • johan_larson says:

        Marijuana is already in this pipeline. In the US, it’s somewhere between points two and three, depending on the location. I’m looking for something that doesn’t already have a legalization movement.

    • broblawsky says:

      Lysergic amide microdosing? Morning glory seeds are legal.

    • AG says:

      Man, there sure are a lot of poppy seeds in this muffin…

    • Kava. Although kava bars are already starting to take off in the US, apparently, so you’d have to move fast.

  19. Tarpitz says:

    I would like to revise an opinion I gave in a previous open thread in response to johan_larson’s question about the Mono-red Cavalcade deck in Magic. I believe the newly-spoiled Thorbran, Thane of Red Fell will have a transformative effect on the competitive viability of the deck, making it in all probability an excellent choice for post-rotation Standard, not a poor one as I previously thought.

  20. Well... says:

    I just listened to Barbara Tversky’s interview on Sam Harris’s podcast and it’s got me wondering how old uptalk is, as a vocal inflection/habit. We tend to associate it with young people but Tversky’s gotta be at least 70. Wikipedia provides no history, but does at least contain a link to an article about Sexy Baby Voice that you always knew you wanted to read.

  21. The year is 1884, and you have seized control of the International Meridian Conference. You convince the delegates to explicitly demarcate the International Date Line rather than merely implying one by determining the Prime Meridian.

    However, you are also the world’s greatest troll. By exploiting the 19th century’s love of drawing straight lines on maps, you guide all attending to agree that it would be so much simpler if the IDL was a meridian, and that it couldn’t possibly cause major problems. Where do you put the PM and IDL?

    I think the obvious choice would be to set the PM at what we call 178 degrees West, thereby putting the IDL at 2 degrees East and separating London and Paris. I would expect this to greatly annoy the British and infuriate the French. (A French troll might prefer to have the PM/IDL at 105 degrees East / 75 degrees West, slicing right through Philadelphia and separating New York City and Washington, D.C.)

    Are there any other options for maximum chaos?

  22. Le Maistre Chat says:

    Today I Learned that 1 in 68 Americans is born with autism.
    That’s 4.8 million of us.
    That’s about as common as being of Chinese descent in the US.
    We’re 7-8x more common than transgender.

    • Well... says:

      That explains all those autism awareness bumper stickers, I guess.

      I wonder, how are people with autism distributed? Like, are you X% more likely to have autism if one of your siblings does? Do people with autism tend to be underrepresented in rural areas? Etc.

      • Enkidum says:

        Like, are you X% more likely to have autism if one of your siblings does?

        There is a strong genetic component, so yes. Dunno about the rest.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        Having a sibling other than an identical twin who has ASD means you have a 2-18% risk.
        Parental age is supposedly a factor.
        10% of autistic people have nasty chromosomal disorders like Downs.
        44% of us are high-functioning.
        There is a racial component, which a lot of scientists ignore. For example, Somali children are at significantly higher risk than the population normally meant by “African-Americans”, and whites have a higher % than A-As.

        Rural vs. urban? I have no idea.

        • albatross11 says:

          I wonder about cultural effects on diagnosis, especially of edge cases. Some parents are likely to take their kids to multiple specialists and push to get a diagnosis; others aren’t. I suspect there’s a largish amount of undiagnosed high-functioning autism in the world, though it’s also not quite clear to me how much this is just being too far to the left of the mean on a couple of social-skill/intentions-inferring sorts of bell curves.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Yeah, we don’t know total prevalence because your parents’ culture plays a role in getting diagnosed, especially for edge cases. In Hans Aspergers’ day, tons of Aspies went un-diagnosed because “affluent eccentric” was a social category and no country had a middle-class norm of seeking diagnosis and support.
            It’s definitely an issue at the margin. Severe autism was getting diagnosed, of course. Asperger had to argue with the Nazis that a high-functioning version that contributed to genius at a mild level even existed.

        • Nornagest says:

          44% of us are high-functioning.

          Lower than I’d have expected. Where’s the line for “high-functioning” drawn in this context?

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Communicative enough to take an IQ test and score 100+, I believe. You could draw a line that includes more people by including IQs down to 85 + ability to communicate and deal with sensory overload/irritability/etc. enough to work a menial job.
            As I said, 10% are severely disabled with chromosomal disorders. Then there’s another, larger group who are low-functioning without that extra burden. Draw a low line for “high-functioning” and you may capture a super-majority of us with it, though.

          • Nornagest says:

            We’d expect only 50% of the general population to be high-functioning by those standards, autism or no. I suppose the category’s mainly concerned with the kind of support an individual needs, so the statistic might still make sense in that light, but in that case it shouldn’t be taken to say much about the severity of the condition.

          • Lambert says:

            100+?
            Doesn’t that make 50% of neurotypicals ‘low functioning’?
            i.e. only 6% are low functioning ‘due to autism’.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @Lambert: Some of these statements are calibrated against a psychotherapy background where autism was thought to be an intellectual disability by definition. The DSM-V doesn’t have Aspergers anymore, which was a separate diagnosis for us smarties named after the first (?) clinician to argue that we exist and are important.
            Compared to the human baseline, people with ASD are only 6% more likely to be intellectually disabled. But ASD is also a disability in itself: it’s harder to multitask, noise gets overwhelming easily, we’re at much higher risk of never making friends, etc.

  23. Anthony says:

    Spain and Portugal both had semi-fascist governments not deposed in WW2, and both eventually fell due to internal pressure for democratic reform.

    If democracy had been extirpated in Europe, would there be nearly so much pressure for democratic reform?

    There was also some significant amount of external pressure on Spain and Portugal.

  24. JPNunez says:

    Feature request: Could the XXX comments since yyyy-MM-dd notice be kept across computers?

    I post from two computers and when switching between them it just tells me that I have all the comments to read again.

    • Nornagest says:

      It’s stored in a cookie, so you need something that shares cookies between computers. I think some browsers will let you sync them across hosts, although I’ve never enabled the feature myself.

    • Mark V Anderson says:

      I post from two computers and when switching between them it just tells me that I have all the comments to read again.

      Is that your only issue? I post from only one computer, and half the time ~new doesn’t work. Sometimes I get no new posts and sometimes all new. In those cases I have to go by date, not the best substitute.

      • nkurz says:

        Speaking of ‘words’ that should be added to the banned term list…

      • Paul Brinkley says:

        I post from only one computer, and half the time [REDACTED] doesn’t work.

        Dammit, Mark…

        • Randy M says:

          lol, yes, he got me too, but just add another tilde

        • Mark V Anderson says:

          What?

          So this adds my comment to whenever you are looking for new comments? I should have said tilde new? Is that all why you are annoyed with me?

          • liate says:

            People are annoyed at you because they go through the comments by repeatedly searching-in-page for something like “[tilde]new”, and now they always will find your comment while getting to new comments.

          • Plumber says:

            @Mark V Andersonot

            Not annoyed and ’tis no problem, you did “~”+”new”, not “~”+”new”+”~”., so just doing “new”+”~” instead is no extra keystrokes, and gets the job done just fine!

          • Gobbobobble says:

            Oh noooo, I have to push enter one extra time!

    • Matt says:

      You should be able to copy/paste the string in the editable field in that widget. Right now, mine says:

      2019-09-16 09:27

      If I paste that my personal computer from my work computer, then it will treat all the same comments as ‘new’. In practice, I would just remember “today at 9:30” and change whatever the number is on my home computer to

      2019-09-16 09:30

      and maybe miss one or two comments.

      You really just have to make a good guess and fill in the field.

      • JPNunez says:

        What the fuck.

        This rules.

        • CatCube says:

          That’s how I do it when I’m, say, checking SSC at lunch from work. I know about what time I started reading this morning, so I just punch 06:00 into that field (a bit earlier than my normal “fire up SSC to check overnight posts” time).

      • Nick says:

        This is what I do. Sometimes I manually edit it if I refreshed the page by mistake or something.

        • What I usually do is to refresh the page, bringing the number close to zero, then edit the date and time on the basis of how long it is since I last read SSC. Fine tune if I notice comments I have read appearing unread or vice versa.

  25. J Mann says:

    So the NYT is reporting that some Yalie says that he saw (or heard about – I’m not sure), Kavenaugh drunk at a party, at which point some friends (a) led over a similarly drunk female friend and (b) then a number of the friends “pushed [Kavenaugh’s] [gavel] into the hand” of the female friend.

    – 100% serious question: If true, doesn’t that sound like both Kavenaugh and the female friend were subject to a sexual assault at Yale? Does the book discuss whether Kavenaugh was complicit in this supposed pushing, or is he a survivor of it?

    – Less serious question: does it actually require several friends to push Kavenaugh’s [gavel]? If I were falling down drunk, I think one friend would suffice or even exceed the available terrain.

    • The Nybbler says:

      Small hands or a very large gavel, that’s all I have to say.

      • albatross11 says:

        Isn’t the claim also that the woman involved doesn’t remember any of this?

        • J Mann says:

          Yeah, and it was weird that the Time reporters named her (both her name at Yale and her current married name) given that (a) she wouldn’t talk to them, (b) her friends say she doesn’t recall this, and (c) by their account, she’s an assault survivor.

          If she was drunk enough, it’s possible that she wouldn’t remember, of course.

          • albatross11 says:

            It seems like a continuing scissors statement. There’s a set of people who are convinced Kavenaugh is a sexual predator, and another set who’s convinced he’s an innocent man railroaded by ethics-free political operatives[1]. For the first group, this is still more evidence of the absolutely obvious fact that this guy is a sexual predator and a monster. For the second, this is still more evidence that partisans trying to smear this innocent guy. The actual evidence offered is extremely weak and ambiguous, so your priors determine your conclusions. And since people tend to be in a personal/media bubble, there’s plenty of overwhelming “social proof” of whichever viewpoint your tribe has.

            ETA: I wonder what fraction of people would end up with similarly strong evidence of being a sexual predator/pest, after the resources expended on finding such evidence for Kavenaugh. I’m guessing it’s a substantial fraction of the population.

            [1] It’s also possible he’s a sexual predator railroaded by ethics-free political operatives, but that doesn’t align to tribal positions so it’s not heard much.

          • Jiro says:

            I think that is disqualified from being a scissor statement–the interpretations aren’t equally reasonable.

            Slaveowners used to think that slaves tried to escape because of an illness that led them to want to escape. That doesn’t make “that slave tried to escape” into a scissor statement, because although it’s true that two sides interpret it differently, there’s only one natural interpretation and it doesn’t make sense to count “is interpreted differently, with sufficient motivated reasoning” as a scissor statement being interpreted differently.

          • bullseye says:

            @Jiro

            You say the interpretations aren’t equally reasonable, but I’m sure both appear reasonable to their supporters.

            I have *no idea* which one you think is more reasonable. I can assure you that I’m not trying to make excuses for the other side because I don’t know which side that is.

          • Jiro says:

            The victim remembering would be evidence that it happened. Therefore, by conservation of expected evidence, the victim not remembering must be evidence that it did not happen. There are scenarios where it happened even if the victim didn’t remember, but these are scenarios that happen despite the evidence pointing in the opposite direction; the evidence itself can only be reasonably interpreted as “it is less likely to have happened”, not that it is more likely.

          • At a slight tangent, how many of those who don’t take the story seriously reject it because the evidence is so weak, how many because they assume the event happened but do not regard it as sexual assault by Kavanaugh, or as a significant negative against him (beyond evidence that he sometimes got drunk).

          • Plumber says:

            @albatross11 says: "It seems like a continuing scissors statement..."

            “Scissor” indeed!

            During the Kavanaugh hearings was the only time that I renember the “culture war” showing up face-to-face amomg guys at work this decade, and it wasn’t pleasant!

            I haven’t read the newest allegations ‘cept in this thread, and as to the truth or falsehood of them I wasn’t in the room so I don’t know.

      • J Mann says:

        So you’re saying the President is a suspect? That explains a lot.

    • Randy M says:

      Is this going to be the new how-many-to-screw-in-a-lightbulb quip?

      • J Mann says:

        I couldn’t resist the joke, but I should have. The serious question is 100% serious, and not something I’ve seen discussed.

        • Randy M says:

          The serious question is 100% serious, and not something I’ve seen discussed.

          Really? I’ve seen it brought up plenty, that if the man and the woman are both drunk, how come only he is accused of rape? This is basically the same thing, with the additional detail that the drunk perpetrator had sober accomplices.

          • J Mann says:

            The accusation here isn’t that Kavanaugh put his junk in the female friend’s hand, it’s that his other friends somehow pushed his junk into her hand.

            My first assumption is that if multiple people are manipulating your genitals while you’re drunk, they’re assaulting you, absent some evidence that you consented.

          • Randy M says:

            The accusation here isn’t that Kavanaugh put his junk in the female friend’s hand, it’s that his other friends somehow pushed his junk into her hand.

            I assumed the implication was “and therefore we were right about Kavanaugh all along.” Otherwise, what’s the point?

    • Jaskologist says:

      Editors’ Note: Sept. 15, 2019
      An earlier version of this article, which was adapted from a forthcoming book, did not include one element of the book’s account regarding an assertion by a Yale classmate that friends of Brett Kavanaugh pushed his penis into the hand of a female student at a drunken dorm party. The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article.

      • Nick says:

        It’s to NYT’s credit that this correction was made. It’s to NYT’s immense discredit that it had to be made at all.

        At a tangent: I’ve noticed that folks who criticize media bias—the sort like, well, us, who sit around dunking on NYT or WaPo stories—have this hope at times that, if we just point out enough failures like this, share the right outrageous story, everyone will finally wake up. The evidence will at last be incontrovertible, and everyone paying attention will just have to admit media bias exists. I’ve heard more or less this said by e.g. David French and Alexandra DeSanctis on their National Review podcast, where they fisk a lot of articles.

        But polarizing interpretations are symptom, not disease. We’re not treating the underlying causes of polarization by showing where the New York Times gets it wrong. A few folks will be persuaded each time, but as the gap between our interpretations grows and common ground thins, this will get rarer. The result is that the NYT’s errors get worse, but the likelihood they see anything to correct goes down, too. We’re headed toward a time when they won’t see anything wrong with a case like the Kavanaugh reporting or the Covington Catholic misfire.

        • I don’t think the number persuaded ever goes to zero, because some misleading journalism involves issues where some people have first hand knowledge, independent of political bias.

          Consider Scott’s post on psudoaddiction. Even if a psychiatrist had strong left-wing anti-corporate sympathies, it would be hard to observe the examples Scott cites and not conclude that the anti-pseudoaddiction campaign was misleading.

    • EchoChaos says:

      does it actually require several friends to push Kavenaugh’s [gavel]?

      Depends on how turgid the terrain is.

    • BBA says:

      I think it’s unquestionable that Kav was a drunkard and a lout when he was a teenager. It’s not clear that by the standards of prep school kids/Yale frat boys in the 1980s he was anything out of the ordinary, or that anyone at the time would have considered him to have done much if anything wrong. “Boys will be boys” and all that.

      Thank god we have higher standards today.

      Anyway, this all seems so…performative? There’s no way in hell Kav is getting removed from the court, we all know it, yet we’re all obliged to argue about it some more.

      • I W​ri​te ​B​ug​s No​t O​ut​ag​es says:

        Yeah, this is such a lame rerun since there’s no confirmation hearing to provide dramatic tension. It’s like when they remade The Manchurian Candidate with corporations or whatever instead of the Communists.

      • Thomas Jorgensen says:

        As I said at the time, I really did not get why the republicans did not just pick someone else out of the federalist hat. Those justices are all interchangeable parts, finding one with less of a stank attached to them would have taken all of five minutes.

        I will add that I do, in fact, give it decent odds that will turn out to be a mistake, and he will get impeached off the bench. (20+%)

        Not for the sexual stuff. That is all too old to make finding something really actionable likely. But his finances stank to high heaven, that is a whole lot more recent, and if you dig you can usually find documentation for financial improprieties that rise well beyond the “He said, she said” level.

        • EchoChaos says:

          If they got to before Kavanaugh, they probably would have in retrospect, but once he became the target of Democrat attacks, which may or may not be baseless, they had to fight for him or risk looking weak to their base.

          It was a winning strategy too. The Senate was the one place Republicans did well this election.

        • Chalid says:

          This doesn’t matter. It takes a 2/3 majority in the Senate to impeach, which is way, way out of reach for either party. There is no way enough Republicans would vote to impeach him if a Democrat got to replace him. Kavanaugh could literally auction his votes to the highest bidder during oral arguments and he wouldn’t be impeached under a Democratic President.

          • albatross11 says:

            Chalid:

            +1

          • Controls Freak says:

            Kavanaugh could literally auction his votes to the highest bidder during oral arguments and he wouldn’t be impeached under a Democratic President.

            I want to briefly note that this isn’t really true. It’s a nice bit of hyperbole to say, “The bar is really high.” But this plays into claims that, “Actually, Kavanaugh is totally guilty and everyone knows it; it’s just party affiliation in the Senate that is preventing impeachment.” And that’s just not the case. If something legitimately incredibly serious like openly selling his vote (especially since this gets at a core matter of integrity of the Court) were undeniably true, I have no doubt that Republicans would turn and say, “Look, we weren’t on board with the other stuff, but this is unacceptable no matter what. You have to go.” I find it vastly more likely that Republicans are mostly judging the accusations to be insufficiently supported (to get over what is admittedly a somewhat-higher bar due to political polarization) than that political polarization has suitably insulated a sitting justice from impeachment over openly soliciting bribes.

          • Corey says:

            than that political polarization has suitably insulated a sitting justice from impeachment over openly soliciting bribes

            Counterexample: Presidency.

            One could make a small-d-democratic argument that voters knew what they were getting into and knew there would be no way for Trump to divest, or that Trump is slightly quieter about steering government business to his properties than holding auctions on C-SPAN, I suppose.

        • Nick says:

          But his finances stank to high heaven, that is a whole lot more recent, and if you dig you can usually find documentation for financial improprieties that rise well beyond the “He said, she said” level.

          Why didn’t anyone find it, then?? Given the enormous effort to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination, this makes little sense.

          • Thomas Jorgensen says:

            Optics of “I know people are reporting him for sexual assault, but we are going to try to bust him for what looks a whole lot like a gambling habit, very expensive mistress or something in that vein” were absolutely terrible so the democrats didn’t bother?

            Heck, it is even possible the dnc did the digging, know exactly where that “ticket” money went, but it would not actually be politically useful ammo. Like, he had a kid on the side 20 years ago, and it is the college fund.

            But cracking it would still make the bones of an investigative reporter.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Optics of “I know people are reporting him for sexual assault, but we are going to try to bust him for what looks a whole lot like a gambling habit, very expensive mistress or something in that vein” were absolutely terrible so the democrats didn’t bother?

            There is no need for it to be one or the other. If you find the bad finances you can still say you kept an alleged harasser out of office, and most moderates are probably going to be happy that you caught a crook before he became a SC justice.

          • Ketil says:

            Why didn’t anyone find it, then?? Given the enormous effort to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination, this makes little sense.

            Not that I believe they wouldn’t also have used financial misbehavior, but if you assume the accusers are doing this for their own benefit, perhaps it looks better for them to come out hard against sexual abuse against women? Like is pointed out, impeachment is very unlikely, and prominent democrats are all over Twitter condemning Kavanaugh.

        • Matt says:

          Someone else? If you let your political enemies destroy your political allies based on what your side assumes is a pack of baseless lies, who will volunteer to be ‘next’?

          • Thomas Jorgensen says:

            “Not getting on the highest court in the land” != “destroyed”.
            And “the 19 other candidates on the federalist list”?

          • albatross11 says:

            Having every major media source in the US spend a couple months discussing whether you’re some kind of sexual predator, and having partisans on the other side spend the next several months calling you a rapist, however, does look more like being destroyed. Especially if the result of that is that the administration withdraws your nomination and leaves you hanging out to dry. Do that a couple times, and your list of interested candidates for judgeships will dry up considerably.

          • Matt says:

            “Not getting on the highest court in the land” != “destroyed”.

            I presume that the list of candidates who want to be falsely accused of sexual assault, serial rape, and gang rape is zero. If you believe the accusations are false, but you see that the accusations will stick anyway because the administration will choose to abandon you, then who in the world would make the attempt?

          • John Schilling says:

            This usage of “destroyed” is literally always 100.00% the worst sort of hyperbole in history, so I’m not a big fan of it and wish Matt would have chosen a different word.

            But the point remains, a Brett Kavanaugh who hypothetically accepted a supreme court nomination, had his name dragged through the mud in the court of public opinion and the halls of the senate, didn’t actually get the SCOTUS job and had to go back to being the same ordinary federal judge he was before but with a diminished reputation, is at least substantially damaged. The remainder of his life will be less pleasant than it would have been if he had just said “no” up front.

            So if that becomes the likely outcome of accepting a supreme court nomination, lots of good judges won’t accept such a nomination. And the ones who still will accept, will be disproportionately weighted towards those who don’t care about reputation and (perceived) honor and who enjoy adversarial confrontations with the hated outgroup. That would be bad for the GOP and bad for the nation. We don’t want that.

          • One point that people may be missing is that even if there are 20 judges on the Federalist Society list, they are not interchangeable, for two reasons.

            One is that they may be on the list for different reasons. One obvious distinction is between libertarian views and conservative views. Is wanting to interpret the Constitution as severely limiting government action a plus or a minus? Depends on what sort of actions you want to limit. Different senators may disagree on that.

            A second reason is that different judges differ in how persuasive they are to colleagues, how influential their opinions are on the legal academy.

          • Randy M says:

            John Schilling speaks with clarity.

          • Matt says:

            Point taken about the language. I could have done better.

            Apologies

          • Aftagley says:

            So if that becomes the likely outcome of accepting a supreme court nomination, lots of good judges won’t accept such a nomination.

            This only holds true if you also believe that a majority of good judges ALSO have the kind of past that either contains several credible allegations of sexual assault or has been conducted in such a way as to open yourself up to numerous allegations of sexual assault.

            As someone who doesn’t hold this viewpoint, I think your overall point is incorrect. For example: look at Gorsuch as an example of a jurist that the dems emphatically didn’t want, yet didn’t get dragged through the mud in his confirmation hearings.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            This only holds true if you also believe that a majority of good judges ALSO have the kind of past that either contains several credible allegations of sexual assault or has been conducted in such a way as to open yourself up to numerous allegations of sexual assault.

            Or that your opponents will find people who can convincingly* masquerade as such

            *at least to their own choir

          • Aftagley says:

            Or that your opponents will find people who can convincingly* masquerade as such

            From literally the second half of my post:

            for example: look at Gorsuch as an example of a jurist that the dems emphatically didn’t want, yet didn’t get dragged through the mud in his confirmation hearings

            You are proposing that democrats will find or make up sexual impropriety in the past of anyone the republicans will appoint to the supreme court. I’m providing a recent counterexample where that emphatically didn’t happen. I’m further postulating that, even more than Brett, the democrats had every reason to try and sink Gorsuch during his confirmation process, yet the most divisive thing I remember from those was Al Franken yelling about unions and trucks drivers.

            Your theory doesn’t hold.

          • Randy M says:

            This only holds true if you also believe that a majority of good judges ALSO have the kind of past that either contains several credible allegations of sexual assault

            This only holds if you think those were credible allegations of sexual assault.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Aftagley

            From my perspective, the allegations against Kavanaugh aren’t particularly credible in any way that couldn’t be replicated by purely bad actors.

            And the big difference between Kavanaugh and Gorsuch was that Gorsuch didn’t shift the balance of the Court.

          • Aftagley says:

            This only holds if you think those were credible allegations of sexual assault.

            If you’re going to quote me, please don’t selectively quote only half of my argument /sentence when the second half directly addresses your point.

            …the kind of past that either contains several credible allegations of sexual assault or has been conducted in such a way as to open yourself up to numerous allegations of sexual assault.

            Whether or not you believe the specific allegations of sexual assault, at this point it’s not particularly controversial that Brett Kavanaugh has a history of excessive drinking, blacking out, and behaving in ways that don’t stand up to future scrutiny. His classmates both in school and at Yale have supported these claims.

          • John Schilling says:

            or has been conducted in such a way as to open yourself up to numerous allegations of sexual assault.

            At this point, I’m pretty certain that having lived as a cis-hetero adult-ish male in the 1990s or before, is sufficient to “open yourself up to” at least Avenatti/Swetnick level allegations of sexual assault, if someone with at least Avenatti-level power thinks it will actually serve their ambitions to conjure such accusations. And if it is seen as something that will actually swing a SCOTUS nomination, that level of power will be called in to play.

            I’m providing a recent counterexample where that emphatically didn’t happen.

            “Recent” by some standards, but pre-Kavanaugh. The claim is that the Kavanaugh allegations(*) represent a dangerous escalation, presumably part of a two-tits-for-a-tat cycle that dates back to Robert Bork. What happened pre-Kavanaugh is irrelevant to the claim that this is a dangerous escalation, just as all the justices whose nominations weren’t held up until the next election is irrelevant to the (IMO true) claim that Merrick Garland was a dangerous escalation.

            Also, “recent” but pre-#MeToo. In April 2017, it would have been blatantly obvious to anyone that an unproven accusation of drunken-fratboy level sexual assault was not going to derail a SCOTUS nomination with a supportive majority in the Senate. And it should have been obvious, just as it was actually true, that this wasn’t going to work in 2018 either. But #MeToo made it barely plausible that it might work, so in that environment it was at least tried.

            Many of us are raising the concern that, if such an attack against Kavanaugh were to succeed, it would set a dangerous precedent that would lead to false accusations in the future. You are claiming that the absence of false accusations, at a past time when the standing precedent was Clarence Thomas, disproves this. I do not find this argument to be convincing.

            * Whether fabricated from scratch or just raised and debated where they would previously have been ignored

          • Randy M says:

            or has been conducted in such a way as to open yourself up to numerous allegations of sexual assault.

            There were also not so many allegations against him as to overlook the incredibility of most of them.

        • J Mann says:

          1) In addition to using the issue to pump up their base, I think part of it was:

          a) “Pick someone else” was seen as playing into Dem hands. It was pretty clear at the time that the strategy was to run out the clock. If the next person turned out to have a skeleton in their closet, Dems would use it to try to get past the next election. (And if one uncorroborated accusation qualified as a skeleton, it was likely that one or more would turn up for the next candidate.)

          b) It’s possible that some of the Republicans honestly saw this as unjust.

          2) For what it’s worth, my prior on the financial argument is that it will turn out to be a nothingburger, based on the fact that:

          a) Most of the time a breathless but unproven accusation gets dragged to light, it turns out to be almost nothing, and

          b) The Dems had every incentive to catch him and didn’t. IMHO, the most likely scenario is that his financial records and witness testimony were consistent with his explanation.

        • Paul Zrimsek says:

          When you have a theory which predicts that no one on either side will care very much whether a particular candidate gets confirmed, it’s a problem when it turns out that a great many people on both sides care whether he gets confirmed.

      • J Mann says:

        It’s another step towards court packing – this will be another one of the list of wrongs that need redressing by adding another 5 justices to the court.

        I’m hopeful it doesn’t come to that, but if the base is convinced that the GOP knowingly put a rapist on the court and breached all tradition by refusing to vote on a judge, they may not settle for much less.

      • Thank god we have higher standards today.

        By current standards, I don’t think Kavanaugh did anything wrong (aside from getting drunk). Arguably someone else did.

        • matthewravery says:

          Depending on your perspective, there are a couple different things you could’ve thought were “wrong”:

          1) The alleged sexual misconduct
          2) The thoroughness of the FBI’s investigation into the claims of sexual misconduct
          3) Kavanaugh’s testimony

          I’ve found the discussion on the topic disappointing, since it seems to have focused on these issues in the order I listed them, which is also the order from most to least “eye-of-the-beholder”. In addition to being the thing for which we have the most clear evidence, (3) is also the issue most likely to tell us about how Kavanaugh will act in the job he was recently confirmed to.

      • Clutzy says:

        I assure you, the kids do not. Their generalized lewdness is much greater, which leads to our even greater reporting levels by people holding less open views.

        Indeed, the overlap between that which is privately expected, yet publicly condemned/criminal has not been this large since at least before the Reformation.

  26. Douglas Knight says:

    How much value is there in short theses? Sure, it’s good marketing, but what’s the point of people who haven’t read the book arguing over a short, vague thesis?

    If you think the thesis is so great, how about you read the actual book and report back? Better yet, forget the thesis and the book and instead read Fukuyama’s recent books on Political Order.

    • Douglas Knight says:

      As I’ve said before, short theses may promote your name, but they destroy your ideas. They send the message that people can pretend to engage with your ideas without reading them. They add noise to the world, drowning the signal of people who’ve actually read the book, making it harder to find each other.

      The interesting question is the fate of Fukuyama’s later ideas. Does promoting his earlier book encourage people to read his later books? Or does it encourage people to assume that it’s the same? Worse, to pretend that it’s the same?

  27. FLWAB says:

    I can still remember where I was when I first heard that studies had conclusively proved (the words of a newspaper headline, I’m sure that actual scientists would not be so hyperbolic) that free will does not exist. It was yet another high tech replication of an experiment performed in 1964, where German scientists observed brain activity while asking subjects to randomly tap their fingers, and to inform the experimenters at the exact moment they decided to tap. They found that while the subjects informed the experimenters about 150 milliseconds before the tap occurred, a large burst off brain activity (dubbed the Bereitschaftspotential) preceded that tap by 500 milliseconds. The conclusion drawn for decades was that the brain “decided” to move the finger before you had any conscious awareness of a decision to move the finger. In other words, we do not decide to do something and then do it, activity in the brain leads to doing something which makes us believe that we decided to do it. Free will was perhaps an illusion: the brain does was it does, and our feelings of volition play catch up. When I read about another more advanced study that confirmed the result I was taken aback. No free will? Ridiculous! Though I could find no fault in the study myself (being a layman) I concluded that it was wrong. Something must be wrong about the experiment or the conclusions reached.

    Why was I so confident? Cognito ergo sum. Out of all the things I know, the fact that I am a mind is the most foundational. That I had free will seems nearly as foundational. I experience free will much more directly than I experience the world around me: it would be easier to believe that the universe did not exist than to believe that I did not exist, and without free will “I” seems meaningless. I won’t go into he nitty gritty details, but with that as my prior I concluded the study must be wrong.

    Recently the study, and the ones before it, have been disproved. My faith in free will seems vindicated.

    As it turns out the observations were correct, but the interpretation had rested on false assumptions. The Bereitschaftspotential appears to not be directly connected to decision making but is rather a natural rise and fall in overall brain activity. It is brain “noise” in other words. Static. Sometimes it rises, and sometimes it falls. When it rises it seems like it is easier to activate our motor nuerons. Thus when participants are told to tap randomly: that is, to tap whenever they felt like it, with no external cue, they naturally tapped when their brain activity was high. That just seems like the best time to tap, absent any other input. This new study demonstrated that the Bereitschaftspotential was noise and not the brain’s decision making process by also observing subjects who were told to just sit quietly for the same amount of time. Both subjects, the tappers and the sitters, had bursts of Bereitschaftspotential regularly. The only relevant difference between their brain patters occurred 150 milliseconds before the tappers tapped: exactly when the tappers reported deciding to tap their fingers.

    In a bit more detail, from the article:

    From a bird’s-eye view, all these cases of noisy data look like any other noise, devoid of pattern. But it occurred to Schurger that if someone lined them up by their peaks (thunderstorms, market records) and reverse-averaged them in the manner of Kornhuber and Deecke’s innovative approach, the results’ visual representations would look like climbing trends (intensifying weather, rising stocks). There would be no purpose behind these apparent trends—no prior plan to cause a storm or bolster the market. Really, the pattern would simply reflect how various factors had happened to coincide.

    “I thought, Wait a minute,” Schurger says. If he applied the same method to the spontaneous brain noise he studied, what shape would he get? “I looked at my screen, and I saw something that looked like the Bereitschaftspotential.” Perhaps, Schurger realized, the Bereitschaftspotential’s rising pattern wasn’t a mark of a brain’s brewing intention at all, but something much more circumstantial.

    In a new study under review for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Schurger and two Princeton researchers repeated a version of Libet’s experiment. To avoid unintentionally cherry-picking brain noise, they included a control condition in which people didn’t move at all. An artificial-intelligence classifier allowed them to find at what point brain activity in the two conditions diverged. If Libet was right, that should have happened at 500 milliseconds before the movement. But the algorithm couldn’t tell any difference until about only 150 milliseconds before the movement, the time people reported making decisions in Libet’s original experiment.

    In other words, people’s subjective experience of a decision—what Libet’s study seemed to suggest was just an illusion—appeared to match the actual moment their brains showed them making a decision.

    The moral: if a study comes out claiming that you don’t exist, you should probably discount it.

    • Randy M says:

      Interesting. Thanks for the update.

    • Elephant says:

      This study is in no way a validation that free will exists; it’s simply a refutation of a (strange) neurological measure that (maybe) relates to the notion of free will. Moreover, denying free will is in no way claiming that you don’t exist. For better exposition on this, see for example Dennet’s Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting .

      • jermo sapiens says:

        When Christopher Hitchens was asked if he believed in free will, his response was “I have no choice”.

        But this seems to be a case where different people talk of different things. Free will as we experience it is obviously real. I can choose chocolate or vanilla ice cream. But I cant choose whether I prefer chocolate or vanilla ice cream. So when I am offered the choice, it’s not surprising that there is activity in my subconscious brain that tells my conscious brain to choose chocolate. And that subconscious activity is almost certainly predetermined based on my brain chemistry and wiring, which in turn is predetermined based on my genetics and the environment I grew up in.

        I’m open to the idea that we have a soul which is separate from the body (after all, we have absolutely no idea how to create consciousness from the building blocks of the universe like atoms, energy…), but we shouldnt expect this soul to be something that can be tested experimentally.

        • Winter Shaker says:

          As Sam Harris (and presumably others but he’s the one I’m most familiar with) has pointed out, even if we do have a non-material soul, that still doesn’t support the hypothesis that we have free will in the sense that philosophers seem to want – everything that our brains do, or that our souls do if we have them, would still be the product of some combination of determinism and randomness, with nowhere to stand outside the chain of causality and influence it.

          • FLWAB says:

            I think the problem is that free will can be difficult to define, and people use the term to mean many different things. As far as I can tell the crux of it is this: free will exists if it is possible to choose something different, regardless of whether you do, and free will does not exist if it is impossible for you to chose something different. If you offer me a choice between ice cream and death by torture, I will always choose ice cream. That doesn’t mean that it was impossible for me to choose death by torture. It is a fine distinction but philosophically important.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            yes, i agree with you. to the extent that what “philosophers seem to want” refers to a free will which is independent of any physical process, I’m not sure this is a particularly valuable concept. maybe it is for philosophers, but for normal people, the notion of free will as real is true and useful. Even Sam Harris admits that “my brain chemistry made me do it” is not a good excuse for anything.

          • Philosophisticat says:

            The majority of philosophers are compatibilists, and hold that free will does not require the falsity of determinism (or for us to stand outside the chain of causality, etc.). Indeed, it is one of relatively few issues in philosophy on which there is something like a dominant position. This is an example of why one shouldn’t get one’s understanding of philosophy from Sam Harris.

      • FLWAB says:

        This study is in no way a validation that free will exists; it’s simply a refutation of a (strange) neurological measure that (maybe) relates to the notion of free will.

        I agree. I don’t have the foggiest idea how you would design an experiment to prove free will exists. And while I agree I could potentially exist without free will, the existence of free will is far more evident to me than that, say, you or anyone else exists.

        • Viliam says:

          Free will as a psychological phenomenon exists, free will as a magical ability to avoid causality does not.

          At the core, it is the usual map/territory confusion. In our mind we perceive ourselves as “having multiple choices”, and then choosing one of them. This is our everyday experience.

          At the same time, if the brain is made of atoms that follow the laws of physics, all our activities — including making the choice — are predetermined. And this seems like a correct assumption to me. (Ignoring the quantum things for the moment, which simply add some randomness to the process, which is ultimately not what the proponents of “free will” mean by those words.)

          The solution to this apparent paradox is that “how my mind perceives itself” is of course not a 100% reflection of reality, but rather it’s simplification. Like, obviously, the mind cannot simulate itself with 100% fidelity. So instead of simulating every single atom of itself, it uses a simplification — a “black box” that has multiple options, and chooses one of them mysteriously (i.e. by a process that isn’t simulated in detail). So, the “mind as imagined by itself” is underspecified, and “free will” is the degree of freedom that exists as a result; but the actual mind is made of atoms, and fully deterministic. The mind just cannot see itself in a sufficient detail to observe this.

          • Elephant says:

            Very well put.

            To me this seems so obvious — the apparent paradox, and its resolution — but I suppose the alternative perspectives somehow seem obvious to other people!

          • FLWAB says:

            At the same time, if the brain is made of atoms that follow the laws of physics, all our activities — including making the choice — are predetermined.

            I agree: which is why I believe the mind must somehow be more than the brain. If the mind consisted of only what the brain does, then naturally our mind is predetermined. But if our mind is predetermined then, as you pointed out, “how my mind perceives itself” could not be a reflection of reality. But my perception is all I have access to: if my perception is fundamentally false, and my thoughts which I believe are the result of will and reason are actually the cascading of so many chemical dominoes then I cannot trust my mind to come to true conclusions. But if my perception of my own mind is false, then how can I trust the conclusion that my mind is the result of atoms following the laws of physics? I can’t.

            There is a thought that ends thought: there is a line of reasoning that ends all reasoning. If I am required to chose between believing that my thoughts are illusions or that my mind is more than atoms then the latter is far more believable. That my thoughts are real and that my will is real is far more evident to me than any theory about atoms, brains, and mind. If you really think that your thoughts and perceptions are only a low fidelity simulation, feel free. But I don’t know why I should trust the reasoning of a low fidelity simulation that only thinks that it is thinking.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @FLWAB:

            But if our mind is predetermined then, as you pointed out, “how my mind perceives itself” could not be a reflection of reality. But my perception is all I have access to: if my perception is fundamentally false, and my thoughts which I believe are the result of will and reason are actually the cascading of so many chemical dominoes then I cannot trust my mind to come to true conclusions. But if my perception of my own mind is false, then how can I trust the conclusion that my mind is the result of atoms following the laws of physics? I can’t.

            There is a thought that ends thought: there is a line of reasoning that ends all reasoning. If I am required to chose between believing that my thoughts are illusions or that my mind is more than atoms then the latter is far more believable.

            Thank you for taking the time to defend rationalism against the materialists like this.

          • Elephant says:

            @FLWAB

            and my thoughts which I believe are the result of will and reason are actually the cascading of so many chemical dominoes then I cannot trust my mind to come to true conclusions.

            Isn’t the opposite equally true? If you think your mind is somehow outside the bounds of causality, how can you trust it to come to true conclusions that will materially affect the world around you? Or does causality somehow a one-way-street, by which your mind affects the world, but is not affected by it?

          • FLWAB says:

            @Elephant

            If you think your mind is somehow outside the bounds of causality, how can you trust it to come to true conclusions that will materially affect the world around you? Or does causality somehow a one-way-street, by which your mind affects the world, but is not affected by it?

            I think this is looking at the problem the wrong way. I have far more direct evidence and experience that free will exists than that deterministic causality is universal.

            We live our lives and it is obvious (being obvious does not make it true, but it must be acknowledged that it is obvious) that there are things that choose and there are things that cannot choose. We go around making choices: it appears that rocks, dust, ropes, shoes, and countless other things do not. On the same token, our own bodies often resist our will: we might choose to fly, but our bodies fall to the ground regardless. Yet the fact that they resist our will just makes the odd dichotomy more evident: there is will, which can choose, and there is everything else, which can’t. If there was no distinction than the statement “against my will” has no meaning, yet things happening against my will is one of the most obvious facts about the universe.

            One explanation of this strange division is that will does not actually exist: that everything, including our will, has no choice. But this is only to say that will does not exist, yet our will is one of the most obvious, plain, and foundational facts of our existence. It is far more real than any theory about how atoms are supposed to behave. We don’t even know why the laws of physics work: we just suspect that they are because it matches our current observations.

            But we need to separate this from the idea of causality in general. Causality means that nothing happens for no reason: every change that occurs has a cause. But that doesn’t mean every outcome was set in stone. I woke up this morning because the dog tried to get into my bed. Eventually I got out of bed and put on my bathrobe. So you could say that my getting out of bed was caused by the dog getting into it, and that is exactly right. But I had a choice of what effect would follow that cause: I could have stayed in bed with the dog, or kicked the dog out of bed, or sat up and browsed the internet. Cause and effect remain, but not in a deterministic fashion. Why? Because my will one of those things that can choose, not one of those things that can’t. Rocks and steam can’t choose, my fingers can’t choose, but my will can.

            To put it simply: causality only demands determinism if the only thing that exists is things that can’t choose. If something exists that can choose than causality will work differently for it than for things that can’t choose. Saying that if everything doesn’t react to a cause the same way as rocks than causality is broken is like saying that if everything doesn’t react to a blowtorch the same way as paper than combustion is broken.

          • rahien.din says:

            @FLWAB

            Cause and effect remain, but not in a deterministic fashion. Why? Because my will is one of those things that can choose

            Therefore, if I identify the causes that led you to experience the choice to get out of bed, then I have proved that you don’t have free will?

            Causality means that nothing happens for no reason: every change that occurs has a cause. But that doesn’t mean every outcome was set in stone.

            If free will means “given the same factors, I could have chosen differently,” then the notion of free will rests on decisions that are inherently meaningless. And if the exercise of free will is essentially to make a choice in the absence of reasons, then free will is only exercised in nonrational nonvolitional circumstances.

            The situations you identify as “exercise of free will” are those in which it makes the least sense to say “I did it.”

            If my thoughts which I believe are the result of will and reason are actually the cascading of so many chemical dominoes then I cannot trust my mind to come to true conclusions.

            We only need to evaluate the position that “there exists an immaterial mind.” By our own reproducible experiences, such an immaterial mind can not function or be accessed without those chemical dominoes cascading in very precise and specific ways. If the brain becomes structurally or chemically disrupted, that does not simply alter the mind’s function, but alters access to the mind.

            Thus, even if you posit an immaterial mind, that immaterial mind is entirely beholden to and inseparable from the material brain. And if there is a divide between the immaterial and the material, we are trapped on the material side.

          • Elephant says:

            @FLWAB, the thing you keep stating is “obvious” is not free will, it is the perception of free will, which no one is denying exists. (See also Villian’s comments.) Simply repeating that it’s “obvious” doesn’t help your case!

            For example, you write: “I have far more direct evidence and experience that free will exists than that deterministic causality is universal.” That’s interesting, because I have no evidence at all that free will exists! I certainly have evidence that I act as if it does, but I’m also aware that I would act in the same way if I were a conscious being who doesn’t have omniscient insight into every sensory input to and component of my decision-making processes. It would feel just like the decisions are coming from “me,” which of course they are, but not in a non-deterministic sense.

          • FLWAB says:

            @rahien.din

            Therefore, if I identify the causes that led you to experience the choice to get out of bed, then I have proved that you don’t have free will?

            I don’t see how that follows based on what I wrote.

            And if the exercise of free will is essentially to make a choice in the absence of reasons, then free will is only exercised in nonrational nonvolitional circumstances.

            I never said or supported such a ridiculous idea. All our choices are made in the presence of “reasons.” You seem to be replying to an idea that I did not write.

            The situations you identify as “exercise of free will” are those in which it makes the least sense to say “I did it.”

            Again, I don’t see how this follows from what I wrote. All of my decisions are exercises of free will: from getting out of bed instead of sleeping in, to proposing to my wife and rocking my daughter to sleep.

            We only need to evaluate the position that “there exists an immaterial mind.” By our own reproducible experiences, such an immaterial mind can not function or be accessed without those chemical dominoes cascading in very precise and specific ways. If the brain becomes structurally or chemically disrupted, that does not simply alter the mind’s function, but alters access to the mind.

            First, I never posited an immaterial mind. I may have one, I may not. I posit that there are some things that choose, and some things that don’t. I make choices: it appears that rocks do not. However that came about, I am more sure of that than I am sure that rocks exist.

            @Elephant

            For example, you write: “I have far more direct evidence and experience that free will exists than that deterministic causality is universal.” That’s interesting, because I have no evidence at all that free will exists! I certainly have evidence that I act as if it does, but I’m also aware that I would act in the same way if I were a conscious being who doesn’t have omniscient insight into every sensory input to and component of my decision-making processes.

            If that is to be our standard of evidence, than I have to humbly point out that we have no evidence that deterministic causality exists, only that the things we observe behave as if it does. Now I would say that our perceptions of things behaving as if they had a certain nature is evidence that they have that nature. If you disagree that is fine, but it gives us just as much doubt about the laws of physics as it does about the existence of free will.

            You posit that free will could conceivably be an illusion. I would posit that atoms and the laws of physics could also conceivably be an illusion. When it comes down to it I have far more direct experience of will than direct experience of atoms and reactions. If free will is an illusion that means that decisions, choices, debate, internal conflict, repentance, stubbornness, submission, and loyalty are also illusions. That’s a big ask. That doesn’t seem to comport with our observations of reality.

            Right now I believe I am debating with a man. You believe I am debating with clockwork. If I am right than I will only convince you with the use of good logic, reason, and persuasion, and only then if you are willing to accept my view. If you are right then I will only convince you if my words collide with your clockwork in just the right way to turn on the agreement light. Which seems more likely to you?

          • rahien.din says:

            @FLWAB

            I never posited an immaterial mind.

            It appears we’ve reached a necessary question.

            You agree that if the mind consisted of only what the brain does, then naturally our mind is predetermined [link]. But, you also believe that (presumably like Kripke and Feser?) if thoughts are actually the actions of a material system, then the mind cannot be trusted to come to true conclusions [link]. You (therefore) believe that the mind must be something more than the actions of the brain [link]. You contend that you do not necessarily posit any immaterial mind [link].

            IE, you claim that the mind must consist of “something more” than material systems, and contend that the “something more” is not necessarily immaterial. A thing may either be material or immaterial. So, if the mind may consist of the material brain and a not-immaterial something, then the mind may consist of entirely of material systems… which permits determinism.

            That’s confusing. Help clarify. There are further questions, but this one seems fundamental. For instance, we need to know what you think “reasons” actually are.

          • FLWAB says:

            @rahien.din

            I did feel some regret after posting my comment about “not positing an immaterial mind”. While literally true, it is also true that as you have pointed out there really aren’t many other options given my premises. I mostly didn’t want to get into the weeds, you might say. How free will works is much less obviously evident than the fact that it works, so to speak. But you’re right, I was showing a lack of candor. Mea culpa.

            As far as what I think “reasons” are, a reason is a cause or explanation of an effect. I got out of bed in my example for multiple reasons: I wanted to go to work that day. I wanted to take a shower before going to work. I wanted to get to work on time. If I was going to achieve all these desires then I would have to get out of bed before too much time had passed. So, given those reasons, I chose to get out of bed. I made a decision. But I was capable of choosing otherwise, and if I had I would have had reasons for that as well. After all I also wanted to go back to sleep, and wanted to be warm. I was capable of deciding to follow those desires instead. I chose not to. My choice in either case would not have been without “reasons”.

            If my mind is purely deterministic in nature then all of those desires are simply illusions that are born out of complicated interactions of electrical potential in the brain. . I thought I was choosing and desiring, but in reality I was running out a program. Yet, I have much more direct experience with will than I do with neurons. If my perceptions are so completely untrustworthy then how can I trust the perception that neurons exist? If my perceptions are generally trustworthy then I should trust my perception that will exists, which is obvious to me, than that will is an illusion, with is very obscure.

          • rahien.din says:

            @FLWAB,

            Thanks for your reply! And moreover, it’s fair to not want to get into those particular weeds if we can help it.

            It may be difficult to make our ideas meet, though, if we can’t talk about the “how” of the mind. This seems to be the sticking point.

            Whether that “how” pertains to the source of our desires, or, the causes or reasons upstream from our actions, the information therein must somehow move from their source into the material world.

            Moreover, the more we come to understand the workings of the brain, the more we find that the mind’s functions (fluency, calculation, emotion) correspond to anatomical substrates, such that the disruption of a particular ion/molecule/protein/organelle/cell/gyrus/nucleus/region/network/assembly results in loss of mind-function. The strong implication is that the brain’s structure is synonymous with its operations – it does not seem you would object to this.

            It would be fair to point out that such correspondence does not indicate that these brain structures cause these mind-functions. But, it does indicate that these brain structures are entirely indispensable for those mind-functions. The mind’s expression within consciousness and its effects upon the material world – on every level – are dependent upon the operations of determined, stochastic, material systems. Being so dependent, the mind and our experiences thereof are subject to the limitations of material systems.

            So, whatever we posit the mind to be capable of, ultimately it can only perform the operations available to the brain. Whatever your conscious experiences, they would have been different if the physical state of your brain had been different.

            This is sort of the point of asking what you believe reasons are. If those reasons are things like “increased ADP concentration” or “homeostatic drives,” or “timing circuits,” then we approach a more mechanistic explanation, and the choice is less describable as “free” in the sense of “I could have chosen otherwise.”

        • Protagoras says:

          If you don’t have the foggiest idea how to design an experiment to prove free will exists, that is as much as to say you haven’t the foggiest idea how free will interacts with anything else. To me, it seem that this should make you less confident that free will is in conflict with materialism, or determinism, or anything else. I really don’t understand where the confident “compatibilism just isn’t real free will!” positions are coming from.

          • FLWAB says:

            If you don’t have the foggiest idea how to design an experiment to prove free will exists, that is as much as to say you haven’t the foggiest idea how free will interacts with anything else.

            I don’t have any idea how to design an experiment to prove that my mother loves me, yet I’m certain it is the case. Not all things that exist can be proven by experiment, and just because you can’t put something in a test tube doesn’t mean you can’t understand its nature.

            Edit (thoughts after posting): For instance, I could design a series of experiments to prove that my mother behaves as if she loves me but as love is not something that can be quantified or observed directly than I could not prove it: she could always be pretending. By the same token I am surrounded by beings who behave as if they had free will and made choices, but I don’t know how I could prove that they actually do and aren’t just clockwork.

          • Protagoras says:

            @FLWAB, Perhaps I’m missing something, but I don’t see in what way your response is relevant to my comment. You seem to be doubling down on your insistence that you know you have free will, but that’s not something I questioned.

          • FLWAB says:

            I was merely trying to clarify that I don’t have the foggiest idea how to design an experiment to prove free will exists because I think it is a category error to try. Just because I can’t design an experiment to prove the existence of something doesn’t mean I can’t have an understanding of how it works. I can’t design an experiment to prove the Pythagorean Theorem but I can have ideas about how it works.

          • Protagoras says:

            Yeah, I don’t think you understand what makes the Pythagorean theorem true either (I tend to think nobody does), but if you think otherwise, then I guess that’s my diagnosis of your mistaken views about free will; you’re massively overconfident about your understanding of things. Familiarity is not understanding.

      • Enkidum says:

        +1 to Dennett / Elbow Room recommendation. Best thing on the subject I’ve ever read – the other being Dennett’s postscript to a book going through the Libet experiment and related ideas, where he trashes basically everything that came before. I think the studies I’ve read are largely awful, because very few of the people designing them actually thought carefully about Dennett-style objections.

    • Machine Interface says:

      Since you can’t prove a negative, shouldn’t the onus of proof be on the side of those who claim that free will does exist?

      • FLWAB says:

        By the same logic you could say that the onus of proof is on the side who claim that you exist, and are not merely a trick or hallucination.

        • Machine Interface says:

          I am confortable with not actually existing being the default assumption. It happens not to bother me – I play with the rules I am given, even if it could turn out they’re illusory.

          • FLWAB says:

            And yet, cogito ergo sum. The fact that we exist is the only fact we can know with certainty. It is more foundational than any other fact. So while we can debate about free will, if anyone argues that you do not exist you can safely dismiss them. The world might be a dream within a dream, but you know that at minimum you are the dreamer.

          • Machine Interface says:

            I don’t understand how “cogito ergo sum” is a proof. It’s more like a tautology: “How do you know that you exist?” “Well, because I have thoughts that are mine” “How do you know those thoughts are yours” “Well, because I exist of course, so those thoughts have to be mine!”

            Being “certain” of a fact translates in Bayesian terms in being overconfident.

            And even if we accept cogito ergo sum, this has no bearing on free will; my computer has internal processes akin to thought, even if this thought is 100% determined by input and configuration — the computer has no free will, yet that doesn’t imply my computer doesn’t really exist.

          • FLWAB says:

            I don’t understand how “cogito ergo sum” is a proof.

            1. I think (more precisely, thinking is happening).
            2. The existence of thought requires the existence of a thinker.
            Therefore, I exist.

            More particularly, Descartes was trying to find the existence of a foundation of knowledge: something he could know to be true without having to trust anything. His exercise in radical skepticism showed him that the world and everything in it could conceivably be a hallucination or illusion: that his sense perceptions could conceivably be the same. But if there is a hallucination, there is a hallucinator. Though all his senses could be lies, somebody was being lied to. He doubted that he existed: but if he didn’t exist, than who was doing the doubting?

            We know that we exist far more securely than we know anything else. Everything else we have to take on faith, at least a little.

          • silver_swift says:

            The only thing you know with absolute certainties is that experiences exist. Descartes then extralopates from that (presumably without noticing it) that there is a single thing that is having these experiences and for that to be true, that thing has to exist as well, thus Cogito Ergo Sum.

            Now if we approach this from a Bayesian perspective, I do think that the existence of experiences that appear to form a coherent whole is damn strong evidence in favor of a thing existing that unifies these experiences, whether that be a metaphysical mind magical soul thingy or a real world brain from which consciousness emerges magically springs into existence, but it’s far from absolute proof.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @FLWAB:

            Though all his senses could be lies, somebody was being lied to. He doubted that he existed: but if he didn’t exist, than who was doing the doubting?

            We know that we exist far more securely than we know anything else. Everything else we have to take on faith, at least a little.

            I think science-oriented types assume materialism is more hegemonic with scientists than it actually was. For the last generation of great physicists (the ones who lived through WW2), belief in Mind was common, even up to monist idealism.

            “Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter.” — Sir James Jeans, 1937

          • “How do you know those thoughts are yours”

            I never understood this objection. Who else’s thoughts would they be? If the answer is anything other than “me”, it just sounds like a redefining of words.

          • Machine Interface says:

            We know that our brain can trick us into retroactively thinking we’ve been witnessing that we haven’t.

            Eg: when you move your eyes, vision stops working, then the brain reconstructs what the smooth transition “should” have been, and retroactively prints it into our memory. We think that we’ve experienced in the present the shifting of our field of vision, but we haven’t, it’s a false memory.

            From this, we can in fact imagine that there would be a perceiving and thinking being A, and a non-perceiving, non-thinking being B who happens to have all the experiences of A continuously implemented into their memory.

            B has all the memory of the A, and has the illusory belief that they’re A, that they’re thinking as A, that they’re acting as A. But it’s an illusion – even the passage of time is an illusion for B.

            In this particular thought experiment both A and B exist (well, maybe), but it shows that there’s nothing self-evident about “if I exist then my thought and perceptions are mine, I am the thinking being”.

          • FLWAB says:

            From this, we can in fact imagine that there would be a perceiving and thinking being A, and a non-perceiving, non-thinking being B who happens to have all the experiences of A continuously implemented into their memory.

            Experience without perception or thought is a meaningless concept. If being B cannot perceive or think then they cannot have experiences or memories. This thought experiment is akin to saying “Imagine that there is a flying bird A, and a stationary hunk of lead B who happens to be given all the flying of A. If B is stationary, then it isn’t flying and saying that it somehow has all the flying of A is just a nonsense statement.

          • @Machine

            In your example, there is still clearly an “I” that is doing the thinking. It’s just that it originates from A and not B. It’s not any different than if I was a brain-in-a-vat and the physical body I’m aware of was just an illusion rather than being the source of my thoughts.

        • Like you said, cogito ergo sum is proof that I do exist, so I don’t need to worry about burden of proof arguments. A better example might be philosophical skepticism. Is the burden of proof on those who claim what I see is real to prove that it’s real?

    • bullseye says:

      Even if the original interpretation of the experiment were correct, I don’t think it would disprove free will. They didn’t show that we don’t make choices, only that we can’t articulate those choices the instant we make them.

      • Machine Interface says:

        The problem with reducing free will to “ability to make choices” is — has a vending machine free will because it choses in which internal conduct to send the coins you feed it according to their size?

      • bullseye says:

        The more I think about free will, the less meaningful it gets, so I’m tempted to answer, “sure, why not?”. A more serious answer would be that the machine’s “choice” is determined ahead of time by its designer.

      • John Schilling says:

        They didn’t show that we don’t make choices, only that we can’t articulate those choices the instant we make them.

        In the late industrial age, Queen Victoria embarks on a process that seems a lot like evaluating evidence and considering alternative courses of action to make what seems like the decision, “if the Sultan of Zanzibar does not stand down, We shall blast his palace off the face of the Earth”. Because reasons, this decision is implemented by having her general staff compile a set of specific, conditional orders which were sent by telegraph to an Admiral in Cairo, who sailed with a fleet of Her Majesty’s steamships to Zanzibar. A few days later, they evaluated facts not yet known in London or Cairo and blasted the palace of a recalcitrant Sultan off the face of the Earth. A few days after that, said Admiral was back in Cairo and able to send a telegram to the general staff in London. Later that afternoon, Queen Victoria became aware of the fact that the royal palace in Zanzibar had been a smoking crater for several days now.

        Did Queen Victoria exercise free will regarding the destruction of the palace? Discuss.

    • anonymousskimmer says:

      Very interesting. I certainly know that my tics and tic-like impulses aren’t voluntary decisions, and I know that movements are voluntary decisions.

      I wonder what the bereitschaftspotential is in people with tic disorders.

  28. Le Maistre Chat says:

    Why Does the School Day End Two Hours Before the Work Day?

    I thought I knew the answer to this when I was like 14. When Prussia invented universal public schools, they determined with German efficiency how many subjects future citizens should learn five days a week and made school that many hours plus a meal break. And the homeschooling argument was based around the truth claim of whether or not individual attention from a non-expert (i.e. Mom) could deliver equal or better content in less time.
    Seeing school as a safe place to warehouse children for however many hours their parents work seems like a Mistake.

    • The Nybbler says:

      Seeing school as a safe place to warehouse children for however many hours their parents work seems like a Mistake.

      It might be a mistake as an “ought”, but it’s not a mistake as an “is”.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        It might be a mistake as an “ought”, but it’s not a mistake as an “is”.

        Yeah, I meant “parents ought not do this.” As I have kids, I’ll want to give them excellence. I ought not try to fit them into a self-prioritizing schedule.

        • Chalid says:

          Well, it’s hard to know what the right thing to do in education is. But you can at least know what is convenient. So why not judge on convenience?

          Similarly, I have a bunch of different preschools that I could send my kids to, with various different philosophies that I can’t really evaluate. I send my kids to the closest one.

        • Jiro says:

          Isn’t giving everyone excellence sort of like having everyone be above average?

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Isn’t giving everyone excellence sort of like having everyone be above average?

            If every set of parents could do that, there would still be individual differences, so we’d be looking at kids above and below a higher average. Or waterline, if you will. 🙂

          • Randy M says:

            I don’t think so; average is relative, excellence is objective.

          • ECD says:

            I don’t think so; average is relative, excellence is objective.

            I think that’s right. My school actually did quite a nice thing by neatly labeling the classes as either ‘curved’ (and therefore subject to the strict rules on proportions of grades, or ‘mastery’ which were not.

    • John Schilling says:

      The school day ends two hours before the work day because we are still trying to at least pretend school is still about education, where making children sit in classrooms for 8+ hours a day is clearly well past the point of diminishing and probably into negative returns, and because the school day has to begin well before the work day so that working parents can deliver their kids to school (or at least see them safely on the bus) before themselves heading off to work.

      We can make the state-financed child warehousing day run past the end of the standard work day, if there’s sufficient demand. But it will be expensive, and it will be increasingly difficult to pretend that this has anything to do with education, and even trying to pretend will make it even more expensive.

      • albatross11 says:

        Lots of schools (public and private) offer “aftercare,” which is basically just daycare for your kids till you can pick them up.

        • Randy M says:

          aftercare

          Your (or their) euphemism ability is failing. It’s clearly after school enrichment activities.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            “Aftercare” also means emotional care following a BDSM scene. Let’s hope no schoolteachers are into BDSM.

          • Anthony says:

            Let’s hope no schoolteachers are into BDSM.

            Ha! Teachers aren’t as over-represented among the BDSM community as they are in, say, historical reenactment, but I know a number of teachers into BDSM.

      • Thomas Jorgensen says:

        In your view, what would school look like if we explicitly designed it to serve the purposes of “Teaching” and “Keep kids out of trouble while the parental units are at work”?
        4 hours of teaching, then loosely supervised play time until they get picked up?

        • John Schilling says:

          Probably something like that. Ideally we’d track students individually, and for many of them the answer would be basically Unschooling in a learning-optimized environment with a side order of “No, you really do have to sit through readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic until we’re sure you’ve got them down pat” and a few other structured activities. Realistically, if a government is going to handle it, it’s going to be somewhat more standardized and more regimented than optimal, but hopefully not too much more.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            This. Maybe 8:45 to Noon would be the Three Rs separated by the traditional Prussian bells, then lunch and PE, then turn them loose in the school building with activities like the science lab to learn in?

          • Clutzy says:

            @Le Maistre

            Its foolish to not have PE in between classes, or perhaps even before. Its a boost to the mind, and a reset.

            Probably: Class > PE > Class > Lunch > Break > Class would work best. Or something similar. I don’t know, it would be an excellent and actually useful social study. But setting it merely at the end of the day is largely wasting it.

    • Well... says:

      Above comments are all pretty negative on before/after-care programs. Some women aren’t cut out to be stay-at-home moms (and one nice thing about our post-feminist age is that most of these women aren’t ostracized when they figure it out), but they still make great moms and should definitely be reproducing. I think the number of such women is high enough that our current school arrangement is decent enough. Yeah, it’d be great to go back to one-room schoolhouses where all the kids leave at 1pm and go home to help Mom with chores, but all the other things that would have to change to make that feasible would result in a world most people don’t want.

      Most offsite before/after-care programs are fine from what I’ve seen — basically lots of semi-unsupervised play with peers: 20-30 kids of mixed ages in a big room having fun (and sometimes the older ones starting on their homework) while an adult sits in a chair or prepares plates of snacks and intervenes in disputes if she hears any starting.

      These programs are not subsidized as far as I know, but discounts are available if you’re employed by certain companies or if you already have another child in the offsite facility. They’re not horrendously expensive anyway, at least not where I live.

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      All these articles just remind me how lucky I (and my parents) were to have my grandmother living with us. Grandma would watch us both before school and after school, Mom would be home by 4:30 and we’d have dinner by 5:30.

      Not really sure what we’d do. Theoretically I can have a “flexible” schedule, but that’s not really practical if I have to leave work every day at 2:45 to pick kids up.

    • baconbits9 says:

      This is why we can’t have nice things

      This mismatch creates a child-care crisis between 3 and 5 p.m. that has parents scrambling for options.

      Yeah, a problem known in advance that multiple generations have dealt with is a crisis?

      • baconbits9 says:

        Without an after-school program provided by their district, working parents in South Windsor are left to find an alternative on their own.

        Parents required to find care for their children on their own? The Horror.

      • Enkidum says:

        Multiple generations have not dealt with it, certainly not with the kind of prevalence that people deal with it today.

        • Nick says:

          Just a thought: we talk a lot on SSC about bad outcomes for children from divorces. Have we ever talked about bad outcomes for latchkey kids? Are there bad outcomes for latchkey kids?

          • baconbits9 says:

            Latchkey is harder to define though. I was a latchkey kid for a few years around age 10 when my mom went back to school to get her masters and started working again. This was fairly transitory for me though as I was doing at least 2 after school sports a year from 11-13 and one from 14-17. I would say that I would have spent 1 year as the oldest child home as a ‘latch key’, probably for less than 2 hours typically. Some of the time I would have been technically latch key, getting home half an hour or so before my mother, and some of the time my oldest brother would have been latch key in high school for a short period between school and the start of whatever sport was in season for him. Likewise my younger siblings would have had fairly different experiences.

            Divorce is closer to a hard line than latch key.

          • Clutzy says:

            Probably impossible to study, but I don’t see how it would reasonably be a negative with the right kind of parents and community. Its pretty “normal” for kids who don’t poop their own pants to have several unsupervised hours of life, historically.

        • baconbits9 says:

          Multiple generations have not dealt with it, certainly not with the kind of prevalence that people deal with it today

          Dual income families have been at roughly the same level since the early 90s, and single parent families peaked in the late 90s. That is 20-30 years of people figuring out this ‘crisis’ at this level, and roughly half of families were dual income (as in half of dual parent families) in 1970.

      • AG says:

        Not to mention the myriads of other nations who don’t have an issue with kids doing their own thing after school.

        • Clutzy says:

          The thing is, we WANT kids to be “doing their own thing” in a generalized sense. Its true we want them to also to have a central hub to run back to in case someone gets hurt, but realistically that is only one adult for a thousand+ kids over a gigantic area.

          The problem is that we have captured interests that prevent this normal state of things. Most kids over 5 can grab a lunch out of their fridge and run about all day with no incident. They just need a failsafe in case one of the ten kids steps on a rusty nail.

  29. Byrel Mitchell says:

    So, I’ve been reading some research indicating that most people primarily listen to music released in their teens-early 20s. While this makes some sense developmentally, I’d like to avert it personally by intentionally seeking out top quality music from the last decade or so.

    Does anyone have a go-to source or ranking for the best recent music? I’m not sure how well the Billboard rankings do as a long-term quality metric, but they only somewhat correlate with my perception of the best-regarded music from previous time periods.

    • rahien.din says:

      What kind of music?

      Why limit it to music from the most recent decade?

      • Byrel Mitchell says:

        Because I already appreciate an eclectic variety of music from pre-1990. It’s the modern stuff I’m missing all the referents for.

        • Plumber says:

          @Byrel Mitchell,
          I’m the same way, and not just regarding music, I simply remember books, movies, and television shows from the ’70’s and ’80’s better and I just had more time to explore culture then than now.

        • Well... says:

          I interpret rahien.din’s question to mean you could open up to new kinds of music more generally — they don’t have to be recent. There are undoubtedly artists who recorded great music while you were in your teens but you never knew about them or even their genres. And of course there’s a whole century of music recordings to listen to if you go back further.

    • albatross11 says:

      I’ve heard this claim and think it’s probably true on average, but I listen to a *lot* of music and even musical styles I had never heard of when I was a teenager. OTOH, for awhile I was driving to school with my son every day in an area where just about the only decent radio station was an all-80s-all-the-time station, and it was really entertaining how consistently I could name the song and artist after the first two or three seconds of the song, so that stuff clearly burned itself into my brain somehow.

      • Enkidum says:

        Yeah. I listen to very little that could be described as “classic rock” but I could probably name >70% of the songs that play on most classic rock stations within a few bars. Same for “80’s music” (which definitely includes things like Prince’s hits, but never something like Jane’s Addiction for some reason).

        • Well... says:

          “Been Caught Stealing” was Jane’s Addiction’s biggest hit, and the album it’s from, Ritual De Lo Habitual, came out in 1990. (“Jane Says”, off of Nothing’s Shocking, did come out in 1988, but it doesn’t get as much airplay. Also it lacks that over-produced, synth-heavy sound most people seem to look for in 80s music. And instead of the iconic 80s gunshots-as-snare-hits, Steve Perkins ditches the drumset entirely for a steel pan!)

          I don’t know how obsessive radio programmers are, but that probably disqualifies it from an all-80s station. 😛

          • Enkidum says:

            Yeah I realized as I was writing it that it there’s maybe two songs which could ever get radio play from Nothing’s Shocking (“Mountain Song” was kind of a thing for a while) and no one is ever going to play the first album outside of college radio.

            I dunno, Talking Heads or something like that makes the point equally well. But I guess they will play Psycho Killer.

            Fine, I’m just annoyed that radio isn’t as snobby as me.

          • Well... says:

            Heck, I’m annoyed that radio doesn’t play more Jane’s Addiction in general. Even “college radio” or “alternative rock” or whatever.

          • Enkidum says:

            At my high school prom they played “Been Caught Stealing” and all the freaks came out and danced. It was the only time I felt like one of the coolest kids in the room during those years. Because no one else knew what the hell was going on but they sure as hell wanted to feel like us.

            Makes it sound like I hold grudges, but I mostly don’t.

    • Enkidum says:

      When I listen to music I listened to in my late teens / early 20’s, with a few exceptions it’s almost a deliberate nostalgia trip. There are probably only 10 or 20 albums that I listened to all the time then that I still listen to at least once a year now. I’d guess most of what I listen to now is stuff I’ve discovered in the past decade (I’m mid-40’s).

      But as @rahien.din implies, the music one listens to at a given time need not be music from that time. If you listen to anything other than top-40 radio, it almost certainly isn’t.

      I think the best solution is to be extremely liberal in what motivates you to check something out. Band you like names an influence in an interview or in a song? Look them up. You read an article that compares band you like to some other band you’ve never heard of? Look them up. Friend mentions something she thinks you’d be into? Check it out. Etc etc etc. Even with a super low success rate, you’ll quickly develop far more new avenues of musical exploration than you can possibly have the time to fill. Especially if its an old and well-studied genre, there will be broad-scale agreement (somewhere) about many of the important foundational works, well-written introductions to all the major milestones, and even to many of the lesser works. Always worth checking those out, if you’re nerdy in that way at any rate.

      As for specific sources for recent music, I am definitively not the guy to answer that question. I think you’re right to avoid Billboard as any kind of a guide, way too poor a signal/noise ratio. I suspect podcasts are your friend here, though I don’t know any that fit the bill you’re looking for.

      • Byrel Mitchell says:

        My trouble is that I’ve got 2 kids, a job, and a side business going. If I don’t do something intentionally, it ain’t happening. So an opportunistic approach like that will end up in me not doing anything to improve my modern music fluency.

        I’m already pretty broadly versed in oldies; my wife is a big fan of some and I like others so I get decent coverage. I don’t have anyone close to me who’s into modern music, and so I’m really missing almost everything from the last decade ATM.

        • Anthony says:

          Ask your kids for recommendations.

          Or listen to a Top-40 station.

        • Enkidum says:

          Yeah fair, I get you. In which case, I’m sure there are podcasts specifically designed for people like you (and also me, tbh)?

          EDIT: what kind of modern-ish music do you like? You could probably get some recommendations here.

    • gettin_schwifty says:

      I’m not sure if my taste is good enough to answer this question. I almost avoid new music, as I’ve been catching up on the 50s-90s for the last couple years.
      Other than the heavier metal, I’d recommend Battles’ output, especially the instrumental album La Di Da Di (2016). There is a bit of an electronic feel with the guitar tones and the use of looping, and some of the melodies are unconventional, but it’s really interesting music, with a nice balance of weird and catchy.

      For progressive metal, Devin Townsend’s Empath (2019) is a mix of all sorts of genres and sounds, I recommend it if you can stomach the heavy metal, there are harsh vocals and aggressive instruments interspersed throughout. On the other hand, the song “Why?” is a mostly orchestral track that could fit in a musical. Thematically it’s barely metal at all, a lot of positivity on the album (and the closer is a 24ish minute track called Singularity, which may interest some here).

      The last decade hasn’t had much of interest to me, I feel I may check it out in another 20 years and pick out some more gems.

      • gettin_schwifty says:

        I forgot to mention, if any of this is interesting I can recommend more, but I know nothing about what you like.

        The Cactus Blossoms’ album “You’re Dreaming” (2016 or ’17) is a pleasant mix of 50s pop a la Everly Brothers and classic country, most songs center around the two harmonizing lead vocalists, really pretty music. It’s far less eclectic than my other recommendations.

    • A1987dM says:

      Have you looked at Acclaimed Music?

      • j1000000 says:

        I am only familiar with popular music (in the more expansive British sense of the term) but since we live in a poptimist era, these lists seem right in terms of what has been most critically acclaimed. Some stuff gets forgotten faster than others, though (or, if not “forgotten,” people just stop talking about it.)

        I’d say the albums that have had the strongest and most lasting acclaim are Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN (which won the Pulitzer Prize), and Beyonce’s Lemonade.

        My personal favorites are Yeezus and Lost in the Dream.

    • AG says:

      The Singles Jukebox scores songs along with their reviews, so you can conveniently see what their top scorers were for previous years in the sidebar. I believe that there are also roundup posts so you can see past the top 10 for previous years. (For the current year, anything scoring above 7 is in the sidebar. 5 is generally “mediocre” and 6 is “solid but not special.”)
      It’s pretty good for a starting point.

      I personally enjoy pop music, so if you like that, I’d also recommend Youtuber Todd in the Shadows’ yearly top 10 videos.

    • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

      Opinion: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly is the only great music of the millennium so far.

    • Paper Rat says:

      Not quite sure what you mean by “top quality”, since tastes are subjective and critics are not immune to this. If you want to broaden your horizons, then general rankings probably are a not the best place to look, you mostly get the same stuff slightly repackaged, also they are very much influenced by current trends/fashion which doesn’t always correlate with goodness (whatever “goodness” means for you).

      Listing your preferences in genre/style or even mood would give some much needed direction to people recommending you stuff (this goes for recommending rankings as well, cause say free jazz rankings would be very different from drum and bass rankings and so on).

      That said, here’s some scattershot recommendations of modern music:
      Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra (Germany) (IMO one of the most interesting contemporary collectives, compositions are really complex, but at the same time have amazing flow, words really don’t do them justice)
      https://andromedamegaexpressorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/vula
      they also perform live and it’s a real treat to watch:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkOamWGMuKE&list=RDzl0h4cwHLNI&index=5

      Phronesis (UK) (really interesting jazz trio, intricate rhythms, tasty clear sound)
      https://phronesistrio.bandcamp.com/album/walking-dark
      here’s them playing in a bike shop:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZIszxMLvOo

      TOO MANY ZOOS (US) (sorta brass techno house thingy, very (very!) danceable)
      https://toomanyzooz.bandcamp.com/album/subway-gawdz
      they play in subways:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMe6Y8GDVEI

      The Apples (Israel) (weird fusion funk with turntables)
      https://theapplesfunk.bandcamp.com/album/attention

      1/2 Orchestra (Russia) (brass bands had somewhat of a resurgence in recent years, here’s a slightly unorthodox example)
      https://polorkestra.bandcamp.com/album/half-and-half-2

    • bullseye says:

      I listen to a lot of music on Youtube, and I used to listen to a lot of music on Pandora; both introduced me to a lot of bands I like, and it’s mostly recent stuff (I’m 39). So my recommendation would be to pick a recent band in a genre you like, and follow the computer’s recommendations until you find something that sounds good.

    • A Definite Beta Guy says:

      I have no idea what you mean by best quality. I listen to primarily top Billboard music.

      The defining music of the decade (for me, anyways):
      -Kesha’s entire career
      -Most of Katy Perry’s career
      -Bruno Mars
      -That Macklemore guy
      -“Blurred Lines” aka “get the girls naked in the hot tub” song
      -Call Me Maybe (which has go to be one of the cathciest songs in history)
      -Taylor Swift at her peak
      -The Fast and Furious Paul Walker is Dead song
      -Lots of Halsey
      -Tove Lo
      -Despacito
      -Ariana Grande’s whole thing

      I’d say Top Billboard music stopped appealing to me after the summer of 2015. I see the #1s and I think they almost all suck. However, I really, really, really like Halsey.

    • Well... says:

      For discovering new artists, I’ve had good luck with Pandora.

      For discovering new genres, you’ll probably have good results by finding those people around you who are into strange or obscure things and asking them for recommendations. Since I’m kinda one of those people, I can probably recommend stuff if you first tell me what you already listen to.

    • Plumber says:

      @Byrel Mitchell says:

      “So, I’ve been reading some research indicating that most people primarily listen to music released in their teens-early 20s”

      That’s true for me

      ‘While this makes some sense developmentally, I’d like to avert it personally by intentionally seeking out top quality music from the last decade or so.

      Does anyone have a go-to source or ranking for the best recent music? I’m not sure how well the Billboard rankings do as a long-term quality metric, but they only somewhat correlate with my perception of the best-regarded music from previous time periods”

      What has worked well for me is to go to “Google” “Outdoor Miner Wire cover” (a song fron Wire’s 1978 “Chairs Missing” album) and check out all the versions that different bands have done of that song, most were recorded in the ’90’s, but some from afterwards and some of the bands have good original songs.

      Other songs by Wire such as “Fragile” and “Mannequin” have been covered well (and in a surprising range of genres), but not as many results.

      MC5, Stooges, and Velvet Underground songs have also yielded results.

      Going with Beatles, Chuck Berry, or Rolling Stones songs have also yielded a few good results, but too many bad ones to wade through as well, and too few good original songs by the cover artists along with all the bad ones (though a few of the good were very good), just so I recommend starting by thinking of a few of the more obscure songs you like, than see who else has done cover versions of those songs well, and then check out those bands original songs.

      If “Layla” by Eric Clapton pops up, stop and start over because that song is an abomination, hates it forever!

    • Dgalaxy43 says:

      Younger reader, I love music. Made an account to answer. I will try to give a mixture of quality popular acts and quality less popular acts that I think deserve more recognition. For the record, how much I am personally familiar with the works listed ranges from heard a few songs and intend on listening to more, to heard everything.

      I will attempt to give thorough but succinct descriptions of each artist and band. Succinct is hard however, so I apologize in advance for the wall of text.

      King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
      Band formed in 2010 in Australia. They are perhaps best known for their use of many musical styles. Just this year they released two albums about climate change, a softer boogie-centric album, and a harder thrash metal album. I recommend listening to their 2016 release Nonagon Infinity first.
      First song off of Nonagon Infinity

      Молчат Дома, or Molchat Doma
      Newer post-punk new wave band from Belarus. Very good. Found them due to YouTube algorithms recommending them to a lot of people for some reason. This has led to them gaining a bigger following in the US than in their home country of Belarus. After discovering them, I proceeded to repeatedly listen to their album Этажи (Etahzi).
      Full album

      Death Grips
      Perhaps my favorite band right now. They are very influential to many musicians, both modern and not. One such musician was David Bowie, who cited them as an influence for his last album Blackstar. Their sound varies between albums of course, but recurring genres are hip hop, punk, noise, industrial. Lyrics seem crass and often nonsensical at first glance, but upon analyzation are revealed to be extremely well thought out. Lyrical themes include but are not limited to excess, occultism, mental illness and paranoid delusions. Lyrics often hard to understand by ear, but they are aware of this and their lyrics in text are very easy to find. I will post three of their songs, each showing a different sound and lyrical angle. Gonna give a minor seizure warning on videos 2 and 3 to be safe.
      First song off of their debut mixtape
      First song off of their first studio album
      First song off of their second studio album

      Anderson .Paak
      Extremely talented drummer/rapper/singer. I recently discovered this guy. Great basslines, great drumming.
      Tiny Desk Concert

      Clarence Clarity
      Creator of really weird interesting pop music. Doesn’t have a big enough fanbase to tour outside the UK yet, definitely deserves to gain a bigger following.
      “Those Who Can’t, Cheat”

      I noticed somebody else recommended Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. It is considered one of the best albums released in recent years, and for good reason. Also worth mentioning that when David Bowie cited influences for Blackstar, he also cited this guy.

      Since you said you know a lot of music pre-1990, I’ll also include some from the 90s and the 00s

      Boards of Canada
      Electronic duo that makes down-tempo ambient music that is often beat-centric. No lyrics, still very emotion stirring. Two most well known albums are 1998’s Music Has The Right To Children and 2002’s very unsettling Geogaddi.
      Their most well known song
      Also well known song that is more representative of their sound

      Mr. Bungle
      The three albums to this bands name are all very different, but share a few things in common. They all are likely to change genres mid song, for one. Of all three however, I would most recommend their final album, 1999’s California. Their first venture into songwriting (rather than improvising and putting whatever sounded good on the album), it is a very good album from start to finish, covering genres such as beach boys style surf rock, lounge music, thrash metal, and too many others to mention. That sounds weird, having typed it out. But it’s worth a listen.
      “The Air-Conditioned Nightmare”

      Aphex Twin
      Well known, extremely influential electronic musician hailing from Cornwall. His wide range of works speak for themselves.
      “Rhubarb”
      “Alberto Balsalm”

      I’m gonna stop there, as I fear how long this post will be. I hope I was able to be of some help.

    • Corey says:

      If you want to pick out stuff with (albeit short-term) cultural staying power, look at what Kidz Bop is covering or Weird Al is parodying. I’ve found enjoyable songs via KB.

    • Zeno of Citium says:

      If you want sources for new music, I highly recommend Reddit’s Listen To This subreddit. It’s a relatively unfiltered stream of music from bands that don’t have huge followings, with a tendency towards newer music but plenty of older stuff as well. It’s gotten me into an entire genre (nu-disco) I didn’t know existed beforehand, as well as a bunch of bands.

  30. viVI_IViv says:

    So, carbon offsets seem to be the new cool thing.

    They’ve recently come into discussion in elite cultural circles regarding to academic air travel, but they are a broad part of cap-and-trade programs.

    Ostensibly, they are relatively cheap: with $ 50-70 you could pay some company to plant enough trees to offset the carbon emissions of a round-trip flight between the US and Europe. In practice they don’t seem to work very well (e.g. ref, ref). Either the trees aren’t planted, or they die of natural causes, or somebody cuts or burns them down.

    Intuitively, I don’t expect that cheap carbon offsetting is possible with current technology (tree planting). 1) There is a huge principal-agent problem: how I’m practically going to check that the company I’m paying to plant the trees isn’t going to embezzle the money in a thousand different ways? 2) On a first order approximation, wherever trees can grow undisturbed for decades, there are already trees. So these companies, even assuming they operate in good faith, are going to plant trees on marginal forest land where either the conditions aren’t ideal and the trees die, or where somebody will cut the trees for wood or burn them to clear agricultural land.

    The only way to make it work would seem to be buying up valuable agricultural land and converting it to forest, but by definition valuable agricultural land is not cheap, unless perhaps it’s in the third world, but then if you deprive third-world farmers of their agricultural land by outbidding them, you are probably going to raise the food prices in these countries, which sounds like a very nasty thing to do.

    So, do you think that carbon offsets are a viable environmental action or are they an indulgence market?

    • Lambert says:

      On a global scale*, it sounds like it makes more sense to stop people from cutting down existing trees than it does to stick saplings in the ground then wait 50 years for them to grow.
      If you buy a pasture in the Amazon and plant trees on it, how likely is it that the money you paid for the land is going to be used to buy and deforest another bit of land.

      *one might want to reforest a place for local reasons, such as soil integrity, to counter habitat loss or to make the area more pleasant to humans. I’m not talking about that.

      • mitv150 says:

        It depends on what you do with the cut down trees.

        A growing tree sequesters more carbon than a mature tree. As long as you don’t burn or otherwise cause the release of the carbon sequestered in the mature tree, it is likely more effective (carbon sequestration-wise) to chop down mature trees, build things out of them, and plant new trees.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          It depends on how fast these trees grow.

          But even if they grow fast enough, cut trees are mostly used to make wooden items and paper, which usually eventually end up in the landfill or incinerator, releasing most/all of their carbon back into the atmosphere. I guess in principle you could compost them to biomass fuel and then burn it at power plants with carbon capture, but isn’t easy to do in practice.

          • Eric Rall says:

            Landfill gas (emissions from anaerobic decomposition of organics in the landfill) can be captured. It’s about 60% methane and 40% CO2. The former can be sold for use as fuel, and the CO2 can be sequestered.

          • eyeballfrog says:

            How is the CO2 sequestered? Not doubting it can be, just curious what the methods would be.

          • Eric Rall says:

            There have been a bunch of methods proposed for carbon sequestration. The main ones I’m aware of are underground (drilling and pumping into porous rock formations that will trap gasses for thousands or millions of years), underwater (pressure-liquifying the CO2 deep underwater and releasing it to sink to the ocean floor), and chemical (CO2 reacts exothermically with several common metal-oxides).

            AFAIK, underwater is mostly or entirely theoretical at this point, while underground and chemical both have proof-of-concept operations in the pipeline.

        • albatross11 says:

          Could we grow trees and then sequester the carbon by, say, encasing the trees in concrete or burying them in a deep hole or something? Because we can probably grow a hell of a lot of trees and harvest them and bury them and plant more, and if that would have a significant moderating effect on atmospheric CO2, it would seem pretty worthwhile.

          • jermo sapiens says:

            The new environmental solution: burying trees in concrete!

            Sorry, didnt mean to be snarky. But you gotta admit, that’s funny.

          • albatross11 says:

            The thing is, when non-environmentalists take AGW seriously, we probably think of a lot of responses that very few environmentalists would have considered. This is probably a good thing–if it’s a serious problem, we need as many ideas applied to it as possible.

            I think this is generally true–it’s good to get important issues out of their ideological silos. It’s a better world when conservatives start thinking about income inequality or liberals start thinking about genetically-determined intelligence differences–they’ll think about a bunch of issues and angles that weren’t much thought about before!

          • DarkTigger says:

            Can we do that? Maybe?
            Can we do that with out producing more CO2 than we just removed, by digging or making concrete? Without any evidence I would say, it’s doubtful.

          • Lambert says:

            Probably. That’s how all the CO2 ended up in the ground as coal in the first place.
            But it might well be more effectve to burn the trees for fuel, to funge against mining more coal.

          • baconbits9 says:

            You don’t need to encase them in concrete, trees will take ages to decompose in low oxygen environments like the bottom of the ocean.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            Or, you know, build with them 🙂

            I recently read David Brin’s Earth, and it was a pretty damn good exercise in imagining how a working environmentally friendly world might look like. And I realized by far the most used material in the world would be… wood. And not just for construction. It’s extremely versatile as well – there are A LOT of things you can do to it to make it behave differently. With a bit of effort you can probably even cast it.

            As for growth time and other practical considerations, they’re very easy to fix. Just start by mandating a x2 ratio between planted vs harvested, and give free hand to harvest. Have a minimum way of making sure the trees will actually grow – for example force companies to buy crop failure insurance, with the gov as beneficiary. Then (and NOT from the beginning) tweak the system to favor whatever conditions you think are ideal – like certain kinds of trees etc.

          • albatross11 says:

            I don’t have any numbers, but cutting down trees and digging big ditches neither one emit a huge amount of CO2, even if the chainsaws and the backhoes used are burning gasoline. Probably the real process would be like:

            a. Maintain a grove of fast-growing trees, as the paper industry and Christmas tree industry already do.

            b. Periodically harvest the trees in the most efficient manner possible.

            c. Ship the trees off to the Giant Carbon Sink, which is probably an abandoned mineshaft or huge already-dug hole or something.

            d. Cart the trees down into the mineshaft and cover them over with dirt or concrete or water or something every so often.

            If trees are about 50% carbon by weight, then we’re basically running a coal mine in reverse here–with rather less carbon in the “coal,” but still this should be pretty efficient. In principle, we could power all this by burning some of the wood, which would be carbon neutral. But it would probably be more efficient to just use existing freight trains and mining equipment and chainsaws and trucks and live with the added CO2 emissions of running the operation.

            From some quick Googling: A car puts about 3-4 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere a year, a 20′ tree weighs about 3-4 tons, and carbon is around half the weight of a tree. So like 2-3 harvested trees is one car’s CO2 emissions for a year.

          • baconbits9 says:

            I would doubt trees are 50% carbon by weight, most living things are mostly water by weight.

          • eyeballfrog says:

            I’d just like to say that reverse coal mining is such a delightful idea, regardless of whether it turns out to actually work as a sequestration method.

          • JPNunez says:

            Wait, this has merit.

            Could we precisely convert current coal mines into reverse coal mines? Thus solving the problem of giving jobs to the towns around coal mines that get closed.

          • broblawsky says:

            Mass planting is a serious topic of investigation in inhibiting climate change, although the people advocating it don’t seem interested in chopping down the trees after they’ve been planted.

          • benwave says:

            You don’t have to use concrete, you can process the trees into biochar and use that to increase carbon in agricultural soils. This is valuable because it tends to increase the fertility of the land. Come to think of it I should probably look into if there are any carbon offset companies that produce biochar, they’d be more likely to meaningfully offset CO2…

          • albatross11 says:

            I know there are tree farms that are planted with fast-growing trees for paper factories. The current situation is that we grow those trees and chop them down every few years to make paper. Switching over so we grow way more such trees, and reverse-coal-mine with them, seems eminently doable to me. But I certainly haven’t run the numbers carefully, so maybe I’m missing something. I think the biggest question is probably how much land/fill you need to have a significant impact.

          • LesHapablap says:

            Rather than throw it down a hole in the ground at great cost, you could sell the wood to lumberyards for a profit. There’s no need to mandate growth vs. harvesting rules. As long as carbon is being taken from the air and used for building stuff that’s all that matters.

            Any system that will provide economic value will end up removing orders of magnitude more carbon than a system that is an economic dead loss. It doesn’t matter if there is some leakage in the system where lumber ends up going back to the atmosphere.

            An analogy: two machines are available to process the same amount of carbon and sequester a portion of it. One costs $500, and sequesters 95% of the carbon that it takes in and releases the rest to the atmosphere. The other costs $5, but only sequesters 60% of the carbon it takes in. You have $100,000,000 to spend on machines. Which machine do you buy?

          • albatross11 says:

            Yeah, this makes sense. As long as we can avoid having a whole town burn down at once or something, and as long as we can avoid having the carbon from torn-down wooden buildings/furniture/etc end up back in the atmosphere, this probably works just fine. Subsidized wood and paper products FTW.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Rather than throw it down a hole in the ground at great cost, you could sell the wood to lumberyards for a profit. There’s no need to mandate growth vs. harvesting rules. As long as carbon is being taken from the air and used for building stuff that’s all that matters.

            If you are looking for a technocratic solution the ideal would be along the lines of taxing carbon releasing technology and using that money to subsidies carbon capturing. Something like a tax on concrete and a wood subsidy for building purposes.

          • LesHapablap says:

            I don’t know much about construction, but isn’t wood already very cheap?

            I was thinking a solution like a “fair trade” label for coffee, except that a logging operation / lumberyard gets certified as ‘approved carbon sequesterer,’ which means that a good % of their lumber goes to building and not to paper etc. Then they market themselves to airlines or anyone that wants to buy carbon credits.

            Subsidies for ‘approved carbon sequesterer’ logging and lumber suppliers would be a good way to inject government funding into carbon sequestration as well, which would have the side bonus of lowering building costs.

          • Jiro says:

            The thing is, when non-environmentalists take AGW seriously, we probably think of a lot of responses that very few environmentalists would have considered.

            This may be a warning sign that environmentalist’s belief in the seriousness of the problem is motivated reasoning.

          • albatross11 says:

            Jiro:

            Perhaps, but it may also be a sign that a relatively closed group of thinkers needed an infusion of new ideas from outside. I see this the same way I see it when Paige Harden writes about what I’d call human b-odiversity concerns from a politically liberal[1] perspective. This is really valuable–the folks who have clustered around human b-odiversity issues are a pretty unusual bunch, and we’re likely missing all kinds of important stuff. Having someone as smart and well-intentioned as Harden or Turkheimer thinking seriously about these issues, from a completely different perspective with different mental tools and concerns, is going to lead to better ideas than just continuing to kick the ideas around with the folks who read Sailer’s blog.

            [1] Ironically, reading _The Bell Curve_ made me much more supportive of social safety net type programs and a little more supportive of some kinds of liberal-aligned paternalistic laws.

          • bullseye says:

            If the solution is to have more carbon in the ground, it seems easier to stop pulling it out of the ground (that is, stop oil drilling etc.) than to keep pulling out out and also put it back in.

          • albatross11 says:

            Sure, but the point is that:

            a. It looks hard to make everyone stop digging it out of the ground and burning it–that includes several countries trying to pull their people out of widespread poverty. This is a hard international coordination problem.

            b. There’s also some stuff (to some extent cars, and to a greater extent air travel) where we really benefit from the energy density of fossil fuels we can dig out of the ground. If I can continue taking a jet to go from Washington DC to Las Angeles instead of having to take a train, I may be okay with spending the extra money needed to sequester a few tons of wood to pay for it.

            c. We’ve already dug a lot of coal out of the ground and burned it. Pulling some carbon out of the air and back into the ground seems reasonable.

          • bullseye says:

            Burying carbon would cost money. Failing to dig up carbon would also cost money. I feel like the burying would cost *more*. Not digging means we don’t get the utility of burning that oil, but at least we also don’t have to pay for the drill and processing. Burying wood, on the other hand, means we give up the utility of burning it, and also have to pay for the burial. And if we were going to use the wood for something better than burning, then we give up even more by burying it.

            By “we” I mean the entire species; these costs would be borne by different people, but I don’t see that as relevant.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Here is a nice line to drive an environmentalist nuts.

            Googling: The US recycles between 50 and 80 million tons of paper annually, and the total US emissions were 5-6 million tons of Co2, so if 10% of those products were carbon by weight and we stopped recycling all those products, sequestered them and managed to replace them with products from new growth we could be carbon neutral.

            (maybe, this is just a first run through of stuff and not deeply thought about).

          • albatross11 says:

            If we have other non-CO2-emitting uses for the wood, then we just go ahead and use them. But it seems reasonable to cost out a CO2 sequestration operation that’s just growing trees, chopping them down, and burying them. Probably one side effect of this being done on a large scale is that paper and some wood products become extremely cheap.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            @baconbits9

            The US recycles between 50 and 80 million tons of paper annually, and the total US emissions were 5-6 million tons of Co2, so if 10% of those products were carbon by weight and we stopped recycling all those products, sequestered them and managed to replace them with products from new growth we could be carbon neutral.

            CO2 is 27% carbon by weight, paper is about 6% water and 94% cellulose ( (C6H10O5)n ), thus it’s 39% carbon by weight. Therefore, paper recycling involves 19 – 31 million tons of carbon, equivalent to 71 – 114 million tons of CO2.

            The problem is that US CO2 emissions are actually three orders of magnitude higher than what you googled: Wikipedia says 5.14 billion metric tons (= 5.67 billion US tons).

            Still, saving 71 – 114 million tons of CO2 by burying waste paper or turning it into something that doesn’t quickly decompose seems like a sweet deal.

            There might be second order effects though, e.g. if you don’t recycle but the paper demand remains the same, then more forest is replaced by paper tree farms, and it’s not clear that these fast growing trees can capture more carbon than natural forests.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Thanks for the correction.

        • fion says:

          “A growing tree sequesters more carbon than a mature tree.”

          Is this definitely true? I was under the impression that even mature trees keep growing in the sense of gaining mass (but most of it is put around their trunk in each new annual ring rather than more height) and that they grow faster (in terms of absolute annual mass gain) the older they are.

    • EchoChaos says:

      In addition, the first world is already reforesting pretty rapidly. It’s the third world where major deforestation is a problem, which is exactly where you aren’t going to be able to stop them from deforesting without giving the government reason to tack action.

      • Zeno of Citium says:

        Most places that are deforested are being deforested for (short-sighted) economic reasons, often by desperately poor people who need even marginal farmland to not starve but sometimes by perfectly well off people or governments that simply want more money. There’s some definitely room to just pay people to do something else. The problem is obviously enforcement, but you could pay out every year or even every month in exchange for access, and if you’re talking about land the size of the entire Amazon you can measure de/reforestation via satellite (it’s hard to disrupt that).
        Has someone done this? If so, where, and how did it work out?

    • RalMirrorAd says:

      A combined carbon tax plus an equivalent credit for carbon that gets captured and sequestered is probably easier to monitor than a whole forest where the fate of the tree[s] that are planted is very uncertain. You could theoretically set the price per ton roughly equal to the cost per ton to capture and sequester.

      The ‘indulgences’ would be handled by a much smaller group of people.

      Unfortunately this approach likely wouldn’t work with automobiles, only power plants.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        Unfortunately this approach likely wouldn’t work with automobiles, only power plants.

        I was thinking of the carbon offsets for air travel that the academics I’ve linked were talking about. Indeed, it doesn’t seem practically possible to do carbon capture on airplane exhaust, and direct air capture isn’t yet technologically possible, and probably not in the foreseeable future.

        • and direct air capture isn’t yet technologically possible

          It’s not only possible, it has been happening for about two billion years now.

          And is likely to happen faster as CO2 concentration increases, due to the effect of CO2 fertilization.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            Obviously it’s not happening fast enough, given that atmospheric CO2 concentration is still raising.

          • RalMirrorAd says:

            I think a better way of putting it is that pulling large amounts (relative to anthropogenic co2 production) of CO2 from the general atmosphere at a reasonable cost per ton isn’t economical. Not that it’s not possible to pull any co2 out of the atmosphere at any price.

    • DarkTigger says:

      There is a third problem. To offset a single car you need to plant ~2 hectar of trees every four years.

      ATM we pump the result of several dozend of millions of years of global forestation into the atmosphere. Offsetting that with planting trees, just can’t add up.

    • mitv150 says:

      Indeed. My general heuristic when considering credibility on AGW is as follows:

      If someone is proposing any solution to AGW that involves a substantial change to our current power generation mix that does not include significant use of nuclear power, that someone is not serious or credible.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        They could be credible as a serious policymaker. If yes, fight. If no, your implied “blow them off” is correct.

      • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

        If by “significant use of nuclear power” you mean “build new nuclear power plants” that isn’t true. Nowadays wind and solar is cheaper than nuclear.

        • Lambert says:

          Cheaper averaged over time.
          But solar’s really bloody expensive per watt during the night time.

          Batteries and transmission lines are not yet good enough to treat electricity as a fungible thing like oil.

        • Noah says:

          @thisheavenlyconjugation

          That may be true, but it doesn’t have to be. A lot of the cost of nuclear is excessive regulation (where by excessive I mean that if you wanted your nuclear power plants to be merely as safe on expectation as your average coal power plants, they would be a lot cheaper).

        • thisheavenlyconjugation says:

          @Lambert
          Yes, it’s certainly not sensible to shut down existing nuclear power stations because (as happened in Germany) you will just have to build coal to fill the role of consistent power production.

          @Noah
          Quite possibly. But it *is* true, which is the relevant thing when you’re planning your energy sources, unless less-regulated nuclear is cheaper than renewables even taking into account the cost of lobbying to deregulate, which I am fairly sure it’s not (it’s a very tough sell politically).

    • Tenacious D says:

      What about carbon offsets that go towards build-own-operate smokestack CCS? I’ve seen prices of $100/tonne CO2 or less, and apparently it’s getting cheaper. For reference, a roundtrip transatlantic flight has a footprint per passenger in the ballpark of 1 tonne CO2. Smokestack CCS has the advantage of being easy to monitor and verify–there are some ideas in this thread about trees that I like, but they’re harder to tie to offsets.

  31. Enkidum says:

    First time I’ve ever come across someone using “privilege” in the way I often see the-kind-of-people-who-don’t-like-that-word describing the way they usually perceive its use – as a blatant attack on someone’s essential humanity. I don’t think this validates all the objections to the term by any means, and I’m still pretty ready to defend the vast majority of uses of it I’ve ever encountered, but the deleted Guardian editorial on David Cameron is really quite disgusting, and written by someone whose political leanings (which probably aren’t that far off mine) have clearly affected them for the worse.

    • EchoChaos says:

      Privilege is probably the single most motte and baileyed term in all of social language, so it is in some way refreshing to see someone use it as both motte and bailey in the exact same way.

      But it does validate a lot of prior criticisms of the term.

    • anonymousskimmer says:

      You say political leanings, and certainly that had something to do with it, but could the editorialist also have personal reasons (such as seeking care for a “dying parent”, or using the “understaffed and overmanaged hospitals of much of England”, or having a significant acquaintance who did) as their primary motivation?

      • Enkidum says:

        Absolutely. I’m more than sympathetic to the main thrust of the editorial. But still, something needs to be recalibrated when that sentence can come out of your mouth/pen/computer.

    • The Nybbler says:

      Oh, Graniuad, the internet is forever. Chalk up another point for conflict theory.

    • Evelyn Q. Greene says:

      What’s so awful about it? I mean, I agree that it’s meanspirited, and I would agree with the statement that “privilege” is generally used to attack someone’s essential humanity(I quite like that phrasing too), but I’ve seen far worse, and that looks like a typical Guardian hit piece to me. But your reaction isn’t atypical since the Guardian deleted the article, so what did you find unusual/disgusting?

      • Enkidum says:

        His six-year-old child died in front of him, apparently after years of immense pain and suffering. I think it’s beyond thoughtlessly insensitive to say that his pain was limited and not as real as that of the rest of us.

        I don’t see privilege as being used that way in general. (For what it’s worth, I’m a fairly middle-class white man, from a reasonably well-off family that’s been reasonably well-off and extremely well-educated for well over a century now. Hell, I’m tall, kind of fit, reasonably healthy, etc. I am precisely who people are talking about when they’re talking about privilege.)

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          Perhaps “privilege” in leftist usage is pointing to a real thing, but in a nasty way. It redefines an existing word that refers to law (privy-lege) and loads it with bad connotations. Why should anyone feel bad about having successful and healthy ancestors or genetic luck? It’s not a zero-sum game.

          • Enkidum says:

            Why should anyone feel bad about having successful and healthy ancestors or genetic luck?

            You shouldn’t. I don’t think it’s generally used to suggest you should.

          • ECD says:

            Why should anyone feel bad about having successful and healthy ancestors or genetic luck?

            Okay, I don’t like the Guardian piece, but it literally said:

            “None of this is his fault. No one should be blamed for their parents or their luck.”

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            Okay, I don’t like the Guardian piece, but it literally said:

            “None of this is his fault. No one should be blamed for their parents or their luck.”

            Ah, my bad. I’m used to a harsher use of “privilege”, and the Guardian didn’t go there.

  32. johan_larson says:

    In an earlier OT, we discussed things that lived up to the hype. I would like to add “Avengers: Endgame” to that list. I just watched it, and feared that there was no way they could bring all those characters together into a decent ending. But they did. Nicely done.

    • GreatColdDistance says:

      Indeed! I feel that it is cool to trash on Marvel films due to their colossal dominance of the market, but they still make really cool films. Nobody else is telling stories on that scale, and Endgame really brought that home in a big way. I’m nervously excited to see what they can do next.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        I’m nervously excited to see what they can do next.

        2020: Black Widow (prequel) and The Eternals (Jack Kirby’s Ancient Aliens, where the mythical gods are a superior race created by the ancient aliens, who are kaiju-size mute mecha).
        2021: Shang-Chi (kung fu hero), Doctor Strange 2, Thor 4 (Queen Amidala as Thor)
        2022: Black Panther 2 and maybe Blade (if you don’t already know, imagine Shaft as a dhampir.)

        It’s not clear how this slate builds up to anything, the way the first slate led up to The Avengers and the phases after it teased Grape Ape and the Six MacGuffins.

    • Anaxagoras says:

      My big issue with the movie was that the time travel was absurdly overpowered and made taking the character deaths seriously impossible. It demonstrably let characters resurrect definitely dead people by pulling them from the past before they died, including at a large scale. Given that the technology is still there at the end of the movie, and the limited resource powering it is no longer limited (not least because the time machine ALSO functions as a matter duplicator), this really renders moot pretty much everything else in the setting. It’s possible this is addressed in Far From Home, which I’ve not yet seen, but seriously, a time machine as good as what the Avengers build in this movie makes the full Infinity Gauntlet look like a sharp stick.

      • RalMirrorAd says:

        I thought the thing about the time travel was that the resource used to do the time-travel was absolutely finite, so they only had one shot at it.

        • Nick says:

          They had a finite supply of Pym particles, but that’s because one of the people dusted was Hank Pym. After they got everyone back, he could have made more.

  33. RalMirrorAd says:

    Democracy: Any stable civilisation needs to have a way to safetly transfer power from one person or party to another, and I think Fukuyama gets flak for doing what a bunch of people have done, and treat democracy as a cause rather than an effect.

    (I also think this is true of markets to some extent, as high IQ tends to correlate with mild respect for property rights and markets, but more or less conscientious forms of central planning still tend to compare to allowing even basic markets)

    Nationalism: The joke about democracy is that things are defined relative to ‘The people’ [‘will of the people’ or ‘of by and for the people’] — Jettison nationalism completely and you have no people, just a collection of persons.

    People might look back on the present and say that ‘Yes, there should have been some effort on the part of leadership to promote unity amongst the polity’ — But ignore like with democracy and markets whether such things can merely be created from whole cloth, so to speak.

  34. Chalid says:

    I shop a lot on Amazon. They have enough data on me to know that I’m pretty price-insensitive on some things.

    Is there anything stopping them from showing me different, higher prices than they show everyone else, other than fear of bad publicity?

    • Well... says:

      I thought this was pretty much established as one of the things they do. For example, adjusting prices based on your recent browser history. If my memory’s wrong then I might be mistakenly substituting for a different online retailer though. I know SOME major online retailer does this.

      • Radu Floricica says:

        Airline companies are famous for that. Haven’t heard about retailers yet…

        • bean says:

          Airlines in general are famous for playing games with their prices and trying to squeeze as much surplus as possible out of their customers. At this point, it’s pretty much an established part of dealing with them. The same is very much not true for physical goods, and I expect any attempts by Amazon to charge people different prices for the exact same item to end very poorly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used this information to put a more expensive item at the top of your results, but I really doubt the price of an individual item will change.

          • The Nybbler says:

            Amazon has done this in the past. I don’t know if they still do.

          • bean says:

            I kind of doubt they do it on a large scale. Note that the examples given were from 2000, in an article from 2005. That’s several centuries in internet years, and Amazon is enough of a lightning rod for outrage that I suspect we’d know if they were still doing it. There are lots and lots of other ways for Amazon to use customer data to manipulate people into giving them more money without actually changing prices on a given item, and they’re all a lot less risky to their reputation.

          • Eric Rall says:

            From what I’ve seen, it looks like their main current strategy for price discrimination is to vary prices up and down at random-ish intervals. Price sensitive buyers will wait for the “sale”, while insensitive buyers will just buy it whenever.

          • AG says:

            What Amazon also does is that the “show search results in low-to-high price order” actually does nothing of the sort, because they jam in “featured/recommended/frequently viewed/etc.” products with higher prices in the list very frequently, with little to no sign to differentiate what’s genuinely in order and what’s not.

    • mitv150 says:

      Target was outed for something like this. The app would show the in-store price (often higher than online price) once you entered the store. It made it harder to price check items in the store.

      https://heavy.com/tech/2019/02/target-app-changes-prices-fix/

      • albatross11 says:

        Reason #991 to use a VPN all the time….

      • eyeballfrog says:

        It’s not clear to me this is a bad thing. If I’m physically in the Target store, I feel like I’d be more interested in what the prices are in that store rather than the theoretical online prices. If I was going to order online, I wouldn’t have gone to the store to begin with.

        • mitv150 says:

          I see your point.

          In response: If you’re in the store, you can check the prices on the shelves. You may wish to check the price on your mobile device to determine whether you should instead order it and have it shipped.

          For toilet paper, this is not likely an issue.

          For a big screen tv, it may very well be.

      • nkurz says:

        I wonder what Amazon does for mobile pricing if it determines that you are physically in a Target store. Since Target price-matches Amazon (http://help.target.com/help/subcategoryarticle?childcat=Price+Match+Guarantee&parentcat=Availability+%26+Pricing) it would be cruel if Amazon were to offer it’s rock-bottom lowest price only if you are standing in a Target. Heads Amazon wins, tails Target loses.

    • anonymousskimmer says:

      The camelizer lets you see the other prices.

    • DinoNerd says:

      In my limited adventures with economics/business courses, differential pricing at an individual level was praised. I don’t recall that specifically using an individual’s internet history was mentioned, even though this experience was recent enough for this to be possible. But I can’t imagine any properly educated executive believing there was anything morally wrong with doing this.

      • Chalid says:

        Well, it’s clearly bad in the sense that it raises transaction costs.

        If everyone is getting charged the same amount, I can go just buy things without fearing much that I’m getting horribly ripped off, because I can generally trust that the market price is reasonable.

        If a company is presenting me with personalized high prices, that encourages me to waste time with comparison shopping, and then lots of mental effort gets spent unproductively.

        • Well... says:

          It’s interesting that we will basically always assume our personalized prices are high prices rather than low ones. Somebody out there is getting the lowest price, dammit, but our brains will never permit us to believe we are those people.

          • DinoNerd says:

            FWIW, I watched this dynamic in action once, with one of those internet games that is supposedly free to play, but you can buy various advantages. (aka “cash shop” games.)

            As is typical, you spent real money for an in game currency, then spent in-game currency for the benefits. Prices quoted in in-game currency didn’t change.

            Prices to buy that currency were subject to various grades of special offers. I thought at first the offers were universal (available to all players), and then that they were random. But after comparing notes with many other players, I concluded that the price you would be charged would be higher, the more often you’d bought in game currency.

            That plus some other annoyances caused me to find a new game to play.

          • Chalid says:

            It’s not a cognitive bias or whatever. I would definitely get higher prices. I have a high income, I don’t spend time comparison shopping, and I’m generally not price sensitive. And Amazon has ample data to figure all this out about me.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            It’s interesting that we will basically always assume our personalized prices are high prices rather than low ones.

            It is the only reasonable expectation.

            Let’s be honest: no seller offers price discrimination for any reason other than maximising revenue. Offering many prices takes more effort – and therefore carries a higher cost – so you’re only gonna want to do it if it will make you more money.

            From a theoretical point of view, price discrimination exploits differences in price elasticity of demand: you raise prices where demand is price-inelastic (changes in price won’t affect quantity bought very much) and lower prices where demand is price-elastic (hoping to increase revenue through greater sales).

            Now, intuitively your personal demand is less price-elastic for stuff you want/need and more price-elastic for stuff you don’t want/can do without. Therefore, if you know that personalised price discrimination is being applied to you, then it follows that for anything that you really care about purchasing you are being charged towards the top end of what you are willing to pay.

            Somebody out there is getting the lowest price

            For much the same reasons as above, this person is paying the lowest price for stuff they don’t particularly want or need, and they could conceivably be better off not making the purchase at all (we’re talking about purchases where low price is the deciding factor, so – essentially – things bought “because they were on sale”).

          • Chalid says:

            @Faza

            You also have the situation where a poor person cannot afford to buy something, and Amazon drops the price to be within their reach.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            Chalid,
            That’s a plausible scenario – contingent on there not being anyone willing to purchase the item for a higher price (realistically, Amazon will have a limited supply of goods and maximises revenues by selling them to the highest bidders*).

            However, that doesn’t invalidate the main point. Consider two alternatives:

            1. Alice is poor and cannot afford a product being sold on Amazon. Amazon has no buyers able and willing to buy the product at the listed price, so they sell it to Alice at a price she can just about afford.

            2. Alice is poor and cannot afford a product being sold on Amazon. Amazon has no buyers able and willing to buy the product at the listed price, so they put it on sale at 50% listed price.

            Which is better for Alice?

            Well, that depends, doesn’t it? If Alice can’t afford the product even at half-price, scenario 1 is obviously better.

            However, if Alice can afford the product at half-price, in the best-case the two options are interchangeable, but more likely she’d be better off under scenario 2 (Amazon slashes prices across the board).

            To see why that is, let’s assume that Alice can’t afford the product at full price, but could afford it at 25% off (three-quarters of the price). If Amazon is capable of perfect price discrimination, they will sell it to her for 75% of the listed price.

            If Amazon is not capable of perfect price discrimination, but instead forced to offer across-the-board discounts in order to shift unsold inventory, and settle on a 50% discount, Alice stands to realise a 25% of price consumer surplus on Amazon’s inability to price discriminate.

            I honestly have a problem imagining any situation where buyers stand to gain from sellers’ ability to price discriminate, because price discrimination by sellers is specifically intended to extract the most money from the buyers that they possibly can (integrating the demand curve over entire stock in trade).

            * By “bidders” I mean people able and willing to pay a particular price, not a literal auction.

          • Well... says:

            I didn’t mean that we never expect items to be artificially lowered in price for us (which is indeed not a reasonable expectation), but rather that we know someone out there is getting the lowest price yet we never expect it to be us.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            I didn’t mean that we never expect items to be artificially lowered in price for us

            Indeed, I hadn’t read it as such, although my reply may have given that impression.

            but rather that we know someone out there is getting the lowest price yet we never expect it to be us

            I’m not sure whether we actually know anything of the sort, other than in a very general way (as in: if some people are taller than others, then obviously someone is shortest).

            Is the general question interesting at all? If I know that I’m getting a worse deal due to price discrimination (for reasons outlined above), is the knowledge that Bob is getting shafted even worse supposed to make me feel better?

            I mean: Bob can at least turn to me and say: “At least I’m good for it, unlike your sorry, broke ass.”

          • John Schilling says:

            Let’s be honest: no seller offers price discrimination for any reason other than maximising revenue.

            Mostly true for nonessential consumer goods, though even there you’ll see some price discrimination for advertising/marketbuilding reasons.

            For the essentials, when e.g. a big pharma company sells a $9.50 bottle of pills to a poor person for $10.00, it’s not because they’re desperate for the fifty cents. It’s because if they don’t, they’ll very publicly look (and very possibly feel) like a bunch of evil meanies.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            For the essentials, when e.g. a big pharma company sells a $9.50 bottle of pills to a poor person for $10.00, it’s not because they’re desperate for the fifty cents.

            Are you sure you actually wanted to say that?

            (I’m guessing you didn’t, but it looks oddly fitting in context.)

            Realistically though, how often does that happen? And shouldn’t someone tell Scott that we’ve got the whole “cost disease” problem solved?

          • John Schilling says:

            What part of it do you think I didn’t mean to say? But just to clarify: The bottle of pills costs $9.50 to manufacture and deliver. It is sold to poor people for $10.00, to preferred insurance companies for $30.00, and to rich or ignorant middle-class people for $100.00

            And this happens a lot. Knowing that, does not at all help with the cost disease problem.

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            Ah. I see what you meant now, although the “It is sold […] to preferred insurance companies for $30.00, and to rich or ignorant middle-class people for $100.00” bit really needs to be stated up-front.

            The way it read, in the absence of this rather important piece of additional data, was as a mistype of “sells a $10.00 bottle of pills [list price – Fz] to a poor person for $9.50”.

            Regardless, it is pretty clear how this applies to the “cost disease” issue (as in: “why are necessities so expensive these days”, rather Baumol’s formulation, which I consider trivial and uninteresting) – if pharmaceutical companies are applying a more than tenfold markup at the counter, there’s plenty of room for decreasing prices if you raise a stink (your stated reason for the $10-to-poor price being optics).

            And this happens a lot.

            I’ll admit I find this so contrary to my experience and counter-intuitive that I’d feel much better with some evidence. Not so much for the existence, but rather the prevalence of the phenomenon. It seems fantastic to me that wide-spread existence of such blatant price-gouging (remember, even the poor are paying more than the product cost the seller) would not result in a huge backlash.

            Then again, the things coming out of the U.S. never cease to amaze…

            ETA:
            Leaving everything else aside, it sounds like a business opportunity: buy drugs from poor people for $11, sell to middle-class for $15. Sure, it’s probably illegal AF, but when has that stopped anyone?

          • Nornagest says:

            blatant price-gouging (remember, even the poor are paying more than the product cost the seller)

            There is a word for businesses that sell products for less than they cost to acquire. That word is “bankrupt”.

            Leaving everything else aside, it sounds like a business opportunity: buy drugs from poor people for $11, sell to middle-class for $15. Sure, it’s probably illegal AF, but when has that stopped anyone?

            It happens, but mainly in cases where the drug’s in demand recreationally or as a performance enhancer, e.g. college students looking to score some Adderall to help them study.

            Middle-class people are mostly on some kind of insurance, which means they mostly have no idea what their drugs cost them, because they only have to deal with a nominal copay. The $100 there is for the cases where insurance can’t or won’t cover a legitimate prescription for something the patient really wants, which does happen, but those cases are rare enough that for any particular drug, there aren’t a whole lot of middle-class people who’re willing to commit what’s probably a felony to save themselves 85 bucks. Which means that there’s no consistent demand for any of these drugs (again, except for ones with recreational or performance-enhancing uses). Silk Road-style darknet markets might give you the scale you’d need to justify it anyway, but traditional black market logistics wouldn’t.

          • I honestly have a problem imagining any situation where buyers stand to gain from sellers’ ability to price discriminate

            It helps to be familiar with the economic analysis of the issue. For details, see these two chapters from my webbed Price Theory.

            Sellers ability to price discriminate may make it possible to bring to market a product that could not cover its costs at a single price. And it is likely to result in some buyers paying a lower price (and some a higher) than would be charged by a constant price seller.

            From my point of view, parts of this thread illustrate the problems of smart people trying to figure out something for themselves without being sufficiently familiar with the theoretical structure needed for the purpose.

            I was also struck by someone’s assumption that Amazon has a fixed number of units of a good available to sell. Amazon is getting goods from their producers.

            Who produce.

            I also notice a tendency to refer to the cost of producing something without distinguishinng between average cost and marginal cost.

    • J Mann says:

      I assume mostly competition. It’s fairly easy to install a browser add-on that shows you whether there’s a lower price available, and at some point, if you realize they are price discriminating, you’ll probably install it.

  35. Auric Ulvin says:

    What if it’s the case that democratic success is really just a butterfly effect stemming from American geography and a few accidents of history?

    1. Britain managed to secure the coast to half a continent with the best arable land, the best river networks and the best natural resources.
    2. Britain had egalitarian values congruent to democracy, which flourished given the distance to the motherland and led to their logical conclusion: democracy.
    3. The country that sat on and conquered the best parts of North America had the opportunity to enforce its ideology across the world and capitalised upon it.

    In WW1, it was the Americans who bailed out the Allies, it was the flood of US troops that forced Germany to launch the Spring Offensives and those same troops who were crucial in defeating it.

    In WW2, the US played a pretty substantial role. They beat Japan in the Pacific, they provided Allied manpower and industry for the Western Front. They spearheaded the air offensive that destroyed the Luftwaffe.

    In the Cold War, the US managed to capitalize on the fact that it cheaply secured the industrious regions of Germany and Japan. The Soviets got the poor half of Germany and a completely destroyed Eastern Europe in exchange for 27 million lives. The end was never in doubt.

    The US hasn’t faced a peer competitor in its own hemisphere. They have never lost tens of millions in a land invasion like the Russians. They had an immensely privileged position, dominating the entirety of a landmass around the same size as Europe and its only natural that their ideology would conquer the world.

    • Machine Interface says:

      In WW1, it was the Americans who bailed out the Allies, it was the flood of US troops that forced Germany to launch the Spring Offensives and those same troops who were crucial in defeating it.

      I question the narrative that WWI was a victory for liberal democracy. Both Germany and Austria, while they were still nominally empires, had been on a decades-long path of liberalization and democratization, and overall they weren’t much more authoritarian than the third French Republic or than the Kingdom of Italy (and they were certainly less so than Russia — which was in the ally side!) Them winning WWI wouldn’t have changed that, and if anything it may have made the transition smoother and given less breeding-ground to fascism.

  36. Radu Floricica says:

    current wave of right-wing populism

    Just had a small realization. There’s an old dynamic in my country’s history between population, nobility and king. The king was (almost) always the champion of the people, because he needed that to counterbalance the power of nobility and avoid becoming a figurehead.

    My first guess of the current wave of populism is that it’s a reaction to a perceived “Establishment”. Which, and that’s the realization, is the very same age old dynamic of Nobility asserting its control, and the population finding a champion to fight them.

    Of course, this doesn’t necessarily make the champion a good guy, and there is a real potential for a Very Bad Guy. But it does mean that at least on this particular dimension the interests align – he’ll have to be anti-Establishment because that’s both his biggest problem and that being so is the source of his political power.

    • Le Maistre Chat says:

      Just had a small realization. There’s an old dynamic in my country’s history between population, nobility and king. The king was (almost) always the champion of the people, because he needed that to counterbalance the power of nobility and avoid becoming a figurehead.

      My first guess of the current wave of populism is that it’s a reaction to a perceived “Establishment”. Which, and that’s the realization, is the very same age old dynamic of Nobility asserting its control, and the population finding a champion to fight them.

      Of course, this doesn’t necessarily make the champion a good guy, and there is a real potential for a Very Bad Guy.

      Isn’t Vlad Dracula a folk hero for doing things like having his castle built by the nobility’s forced labor?

      • Radu Floricica says:

        He’s famous for a lot of things, and we really really miss him. There’s a story on how the country got so honest (mostly though impalement of robbers) that he had a gold cup placed by a fountain at a crossroads. Many drank from it, admired it, but none dared steal it.

        Did I mention we miss him?

    • a reader says:

      @Radu Floricica: I don’t think so. Our country had just 4 kings. Charles I let the army repress brutally the peasant revolt in 1907, Ferdinand and Michael I were just figureheads, Charles II was a king-dictator and quite unpopular, especially at the end. The only one that resembles your description is Cuza, but he wasn’t a king, Romania wasn’t yet a kingdom (I think the title he used outside was “prince”).

      As for the princes who ruled the former states that later united into Romania, Michael the Brave (Mihai Viteazu) made serfdom stronger, forbidding serfs to leave the land. Vlad Tepes punished extremely harshly both nobles and commoners (@Le Maistre Chat: I never heard about him using nobles to build a castle; he was seen as a hero for fighting against Turks).

      • Radu Floricica says:

        I’m apparently very unpopular for saying so, but I never really got how they’re “our” kings. I definitely didn’t mean them.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        (@Le Maistre Chat: I never heard about him using nobles to build a castle; he was seen as a hero for fighting against Turks).

        He did a bunch of things, all popular with the commons (was my impression). Fighting the Turks was a big one, though he also converted to Roman Catholicism and got Papal support (the Wallachians were Eastern Orthodox).
        Cite for the Castle Dracula thing.

  37. CatCube says:

    Posted because it’s something that shouldn’t be good but weirdly works: Caramelldansen for banjo.

  38. LadyJane says:

    I agree with everything but your last two paragraphs. I think that nationalism is fundamentally incompatible with liberal capitalist democracy, because globalism itself is a consequence of liberalism, capitalism, and democracy. Capitalism has resulted in rapid technological progress, largely in the fields of transportation and communication, making the world a smaller place. And liberal capitalism seeks to spread out and expand as much as possible, fostering trade between nations; indeed, the fundamental essence of liberalism (in the International Relations sense) is that trade is preferable to war, on the basis that absolute gains are better than relative gains. Furthermore, liberal democracy is inextricably tied to methodological individualism and equality of opportunity, which are anathema to nationalistic outlooks; when you make a point of viewing people and treating people as individuals first and foremost, rather than making pre-judgments about them on the basis of some group identity, then it becomes harder to simply reject people who happen to have a different skin color or a different set of genitalia or a different sexual orientation. This becomes doubly true when you have a global communication system that allows people from all over the world to communicate with each other in real time.

    And I don’t find that Steve Sailer article you linked convincing at all. (In fact, I checked out that site’s weekly news roundup to get a sense of what it’s about, and I found it so utterly disgusting that I’m inclined to update my priors against anything posted there. But let’s put that aside for now.) The key problem is that Sailer doesn’t distinguish between liberal democracy and illiberal democracy. The oldest and purest form of illiberal democracy is, of course, mob rule – the peasants with torches and pitchforks that Sailer is describing, ready to drive out both the minorities below them and the elites above them. But while all democracies are built upon popular sovereignty, liberal democracies are also built upon civil rights and rule of law, which serve to protect minorities and individuals from the majority’s whims. Illiberal democracy may be incompatible with diversity, but liberal democracy is the best defender of diversity in existence, far better than the superficially cosmopolitan autocracies that Sailer mentions. It’s also telling that most of Sailer’s examples come from war-torn Middle Eastern countries that lack the sociopolitical stability to guarantee things like constitutional rights and equality under the law. It seems doubtful that anything similar would happen in stable developed nations with strong political institutions. Ultimately, the sort of right-populism you’re talking about is doomed to failure; its victories are, to use your terminology, contingent victories rather than fundamental ones.

    In my opinion, as someone who’s extensively studied both Fukuyama and his critics, the only problem with his theory is the timeframe. And even then, it’s less of a problem with the theory itself and more of a problem with the assumptions that it led people to make. They assumed that the triumph of liberalism would happen overnight following the fall of the Berlin Wall, whereas it’s bound to be a much slower and messier process that faces a lot of pushback along the way.

  39. eigenmoon says:

    Continued from this.

    ECD:

    I entirely reject the argument that the free market should decide how many immigrants a country can take in, how the poor should be fed/housed, or any of the other questions we agree need to be answered by a civilized society. The free market is entirely amoral and intelligence is no substitute for virtue.

    DavidFriedman:

    The free market is entirely amoral

    So is the political system.
    Morality comes in when we evaluate the outcomes of the alternative institutions.

    ECD:

    If you’re a pure consequentialist, which I am not.

    Oh, you want to argue for the morality of the government’s treatment of migrants, the government’s feeding the poor, the government’s housing the poor with libertarians, who see taxation to be as moral as robbery to begin with (unless maybe pure consequentialism, but you’ve just rejected it). Wow.

    I’ll start small and ask this: why do you assume that averaging people’s preferences by the market will produce an immoral result, but averaging people’s preferences by democracy will produce a moral result? Wouldn’t both systems, if they worked infinitely well, produce the same outcome? In the prophetic words of HL Mencken:

    As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

    • eric23 says:

      Democracy can compensate for many Nash equilibria in a way that individual self interest cannot.

      • eigenmoon says:

        Could you provide an example?

        • benwave says:

          I think the classic example is overfishing a lake. Using pure market mechanisms, everybody has individual incentive to take more than is sustainable and all the fishers lose. Using any method of shared decision making to make rules not to exceed the sustainable catch and punish anybody who does such that the individual incentives now support sustainable fishing. You could object that such rules could be made and enforced by non-democratic means, which is true, but it doesn’t contradict Eric’s claim that democracy can compensate for market failures such as this.

          • Lambert says:

            I’ll pre-empt the ‘make the lake private property’ counterargument by pointing out that while one person can own a whole lake, you can’t do the same for the atmosphere, ocean or airwaves.

          • eigenmoon says:

            OK, so government is useful to prevent polluting air or ocean by imposing taxes or prohibitions. Got it.

            So what needs to be done when the government is doing the exact opposite?

            Take air travel, for example. The Left becomes increasingly noisy about how unethical it is because carbon yadda yadda. But I’ve just checked – I can fly all across EU from London to Sofia for just 50€! How that’s even possible? Well, massive subsidies by governments of course, that’s how.

            Perhaps the democracy will fix this particular case. But the natural behavior of governments is to subsidize polluting the lake to protect the country’s market share. Only when the lake is small enough to fit into one country will the government behave correctly, but then you should just make the lake private.

          • benwave says:

            That is a problem neither markets nor governments have figured out how to solve yet. The free market is resisting paying for externalities such as carbon and other pollutants every step of the way. I don’t think it’s reasonable to claim such a thing as an advantage of markets over democracy.

            There isn’t really anything resembling democracy operating at the global scale yet. Those rules we currently have which bind multiple nations are cobbled together out of bilateral and multilateral agreements, but democracy doesn’t have a huge amount of say in how they go. I think it’s even plausible one could argue that markets have a bigger influence on them as is, given how often industry groups get their way in such deals – although I’ll caveat that by saying that RCEP and EU trade deals are now looking like they might not include ISDS, so things might be changing right now on that score.

            Perhaps there are good reasons we don’t have global democracy, perhaps it will never work, but nation states operating individually in their own interests does not a democracy make. I don’t think you can attribute the failings of that system to democracy.

      • Democracy can compensate for many Nash equilibria in a way that individual self interest cannot.

        I assume you mean inefficient Nash equilibria. Eliminating the Nash equilibrium that keeps everyone driving on the same side of the road does not strike me as a good idea.

        The problem is that democracy also replaces many efficient equilibria with inefficient ones. See the public choice explanation of why, more than two centuries after the discovery of the Principle of Comparative Advantage, two centuries during each of which one of the world’s most successful economies (U.K. then Hong Kong) practiced free trade, almost all countries still have tariffs.

        The reason is not that the politicians who support them are stupid.

    • fion says:

      I think calling the market (or democracy, for that matter) “averaging people’s preferences” is missing something important. I personally make decisions very differently if I’m making them collectively as opposed to individually.

      • eigenmoon says:

        I’m not sure I follow but would you say that politics brings out the best in you?

        • fion says:

          I’m not sure I follow either. I wouldn’t say politics brings out the best in me but I also don’t think shopping brings out the best in me. Perhaps it would help if you said what you don’t follow in my comment.

          • eigenmoon says:

            How is your decision making different in the collective and the individual mode? Do you optimize for well-being of your country in the collective mode and for your family only in the individual mode? Or do you arrive to a smarter decision by discussing it with everybody? Or do you do some shady individual stuff that you don’t want to show to the collective?

          • fion says:

            @eigenmoon

            No, none of those. Even if I’m acting only in my own self-interest, with the opportunity to consult wise people for advice, and where my actions are open for all to see, I would make different decisions if I was part of a collective decision-making process compared to an individual.

            Consider a boycott. I don’t boycott things individually because it doesn’t make a difference and I quite like the things I’m proposing to boycott. But if a large collective unit that I was a part of held a vote on whether to collectively boycott Big Bad Company then I might vote in favour.

            Consider a strike. If the workers continue the strike they will lose pay in the short run but may win improved pay or conditions in the long run, but for an individual worker it might be more comfortable to scab and keep getting paid. A worker who makes a decision as part of a collective will go on strike; one who makes a decision as an individual will scab. (Probably the real reason why individualism gained so much ground as an ideology. The powerful realised, somewhat counter-intuitively, that people who think for themselves as individuals are less of a threat than people who work together and see themselves as part of something bigger than themselves… but I shouldn’t go off on that tangent right now…)

            On a more local scale, a new supermarket opened in my town a few years ago. Where it was positioned was certain to mean much worse traffic getting in to my nearest city and I was opposed (silently) to its construction. Once it was built, it was cheap and convenient and I shopped there. Had I been given a say in a collective manner I would have spoken against it; instead I was only able to vote with my currency and I voted for it.

            Or a smaller and more trivial example still. Suppose you and your friends are hanging out and planning to order a carryout. You want pizza and you make the case for pizza, but most people want Indian. When they order Indian you go along with them because it means it’ll all arrive at the same time and probably have cheaper delivery costs. The collective decision you would have made was pizza, but the individual decision was Indian.

            I think this is almost always true. Your incentives are different as part of a collective compared to as an individual.

          • eigenmoon says:

            OK, now I see. But in terms of democracy, all that examples seem to be about having one party of like-minded people (or at least sufficiently like-minded that minor details like pizza can be swept under the rug). Now the averaging that I talked about starts when you discover another party in your neighborhood and start a race against them.

          • fion says:

            @eigenmoon

            Again I’m not quite sure I follow where you’re going with that question. If two groups exist close to each other, and they’re very similar within the groups and very different between the groups, then there’s likely to be some conflict between the groups.

            A given individual in group A will still have individual-mode decisions that differ from their collective-mode decisions. Perhaps their collective-mode decisions will encourage them to fight group B on behalf of group A even if it risks their well-being (or at least uses up their free time), whereas their individual-mode decisions would encourage them to avoid the fighting to preserve their own comfort even if it means group B is more likely to beat group A at whatever they may be competing over.

            To be clear, I do understand that there is something a bit like averaging going on both in democracy and in the market, but it works in a very different way. I think in democracy people make collective-mode decisions — they vote for whomever they think will make better decisions. But in the market people make individual-mode decisions, making spending choices based on what will make the biggest marginal improvement to their lives. So even if we do decide to call a democracy and a market “averaging” mechanisms, they’re averaging different things.

          • eigenmoon says:

            I don’t quite see your two modes of thinking as being completely separate, as market does not in principle forbid collective action. Vegans are engaged in sending both market and political signals. Your pizza example is basically a consumer cooperative, a completely valid market move. There are many things for which a government pretty much acts like a big Kickstarter.

            But there are indeed goals for which the market is very unhelpful, such as prohibiting an item or threatening another country. I guess that answers my original question as to why governments and markets arrive to different results.

      • Ketil says:

        Averaging people’s preferences through democracy could mean that the white…oh, wait, non-CW number, right? Er, the majority consisting of the elves vote in laws that prohibit providing certain services to dwarfs.

        Averaging preferences through market mechanisms means that individual elves may choose to not provide service to dwarfs, but dwarfs will still be able to obtain the service from other dwarfs or non-complying elves.

        So that’s a potential difference.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Averaging people’s preferences through democracy could mean that the white…oh, wait, non-CW number, right?

          This is a CW enabled thread. It’s only whole-number threads that aren’t.

          Averaging preferences through market mechanisms means that individual elves may choose to not provide service to dwarfs, but dwarfs will still be able to obtain the service from other dwarfs or non-complying elves.

          And note this is strongly correct. In the segregationist South, businesses were built to serve exclusively blacks that became very successful.

          • And there was a business finding jobs for blacks in parts of the South that treated blacks reasonably well for blacks in parts that didn’t. It was eliminated by state regulation which the Supreme Court, to its shame, upheld.

        • fion says:

          Exactly. Another difference would be a law enacted by a democratically-elected government limiting pollution, vs individuals polluting as much as they want and hoping other individuals stop.

          I’m not planning to get into the “Boo, Libertarianism; Boo, stateism” discussion right now; just criticising the use of the word “averaging” to imply correspondences that I don’t think are present.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Averaging preferences through market mechanisms means that individual elves may choose to not provide service to dwarfs, but dwarfs will still be able to obtain the service from other dwarfs or non-complying elves.

          How is this working out for this dwarf?

          • EchoChaos says:

            Alex Jones is pretty much the perfect example of this, just like the segregationist South.

            He has a market and can create his own platforms because there is a large group that wants to hear him that will bail if they’re excluded from regular social media.

            The people who are seriously hurt are the regular Joe who gets fired from his grocery store job because he made a badthink tweet, not the big figures like Jones.

          • viVI_IViv says:

            I’m not sure how well Jones is doing compared to before he was banned from all the big platforms, but even if we grant your point about Jones, the issue remains for the regular Joe fired from the grocery store.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @viVI_IViv

            I think that’s probably the case. Just like in the South the black business owners were partially hurt (restricted from doing business with whites), partially helped (captive and supportive black audience), but the regular working class black Joes really got it in the shorts.

    • Murphy says:

      The market is weighted by the personal wealth of the individuals.

      If Bill has 50% of the wealth he controls 50% of the “vote”, the system considers him and his whims more important than the vital needs of every other market participant.

      If Bob has no money at all he controls ~0% of the “vote” and the system effectively assigns even his life to have approximately zero value.

      Democracy, everyone gets a single vote. It can be manipulated but for that you need to manipulate the voters and get them to agree to support you.

      It’s effectively like saying “how is a system where 10000 members of the nobility control everything worse?”

      It’s worse because all choices end up being made to benefit the nobility such that one of them with a broken nail is considered more important than a peasant kid bleeding to death.

      Demoracy is awful but it’s better than the available alternatives.

      • Radu Floricica says:

        Just want to note that this happens without the nobility being evil. It’s just the market that prioritizes the broken nail.

        But there’s an interesting counterintuitive phenomenon here. In practice free market tends to pay a lot of attention to the common people. In a free market a company looks at the 10000 members of the nobility and realizes their needs are pretty much fully met – it’s not particularly easy to sell them yet another nail protector. But the poor(er) people have quite a lot of unmet needs, and in aggregate they’re quite wealthy. Bill Gates may “have” 100 billion, but his actual yearly expenses are probably 3-4 orders of magnitude lower. A poor(er) guy may earn $15k a year, but he’ll spend 100% of it. So the aggregate poor people market is actually quite a lot better for a prospective seller/producer.

        • Murphy says:

          Keep in mind: our system where few poor people actually starve to death is quite a recent thing.

          For much of the poor population the fact that they have even 10-15 K worth of “market power” is almost entirely a product of intervention by a democratic government to divert cash to them.

          Poor people with zero money still have zero value in the market no matter how cheap what’s being sold or how much utility they gain from it.

          zero times a trillion is still zero.

          Eflornithine was a particularly depressing example of such. Pills that cost a few cent… but because the people who needed them didn’t have those few cent they didn’t even keep the factories open with millions of lives on the line.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            My take is the causation is in the other direction. For most of history power was political, instead of monetary/free market. People starved because they couldn’t trade stuff for food (like, for example work).

            Once more or less free market become a reality people could work for food, then for shelter, then for education, then for color TVs and so on. The more they had the more tempting buyers they became and more power was accorded to them by the free market. Virtuous cycle.

            Which is why I really fear an overprotective government. It’ll say “you need employment for your own protection!” and then force drivers to chose between being employed by Uber or Lyft. This puts money in government’s pockets and in Uber’s pockets, but takes even more money from drivers and clients, not to mention quite a lot of freedom. Multiply this by 1000.

          • Murphy says:

            Markets don’t tend to remain terribly well functioning or free without some higher body enforcing it.

            For much of history there’s been an excess of available labor such that it’s value often dipped below the cost of staying alive.

            A huge fraction of modern government intervention is attempting to make sure the average citizen has *something* they can trade on the market like giving every citizen 14 or more years worth of education or just simply transferring some cash to the ones who still can’t cope.

            There’s no law of the universe that says that labor has to have a high enough value to keep you and your kids alive.

            For much of history the solution to this was to simply let people starve to death until the supply of labor dropped enough for the price to rise.

            If this an undesirable outcome then just trusting to the free market is less appealing.

          • Lambert says:

            For most of history, most people were subsitance farmers.

            Minimal wage labour and minimal trade.
            You grew what you ate and ate what you grew.

            If you starved, it was because your crops failed, not because you had nothing to trade for food.

          • Murphy says:

            If you starved, it was because your crops failed, not because you had nothing to trade for food.

            If someone had anything they could trade for food they traded it to avoid starvation.

            Assuming that there was available land for you to claim or work on. Something that wasn’t always the case.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            @Murphy I’m not an anarcho-libertarian, or however those people are called. I’m all in favor of having institutions and property rights enforced from above. Hernando de Soto among others made the case quite well that pure chaos isn’t profitable – you need to be able to make contracts and have them enforced.

            I’m less sure about the gov doing things like education and health care, in that I’m aware that there’s a commons problem and there are plenty of cases where it would be profitable for society to do X, but not for any individual actor to do X, so the state fulfills this role. I think however that the state should limit its involvement to strictly commons issues, and stop trying to solve everything, because it’s historically bad at it.

            I am very much opposed to the state thinking it always knows best and directing everything, from every detail of our children’s education to how and where we can build, to how exactly businesses should be conducted. That’s just plain wrong, on many levels, from morality to efficiency.

          • Murphy says:

            I think we have to be clear about what you mean re: “profitable”

            If something is good/desirable/high-utility for lots of poor people who have nothing to trade except low value labor, no land etc … and it’s worthless to the landed gentry….

            is it “profitable”?

            Keeping poor/sick/disabled people without money alive likely isn’t terribly profitable.

            But is it desirable vs the alternative?

            A democracy which weights the opinions of the poor people equally to rich people is likely to say yes, poor peoples lives matter a great deal too.

            A market system that weights the opinions based on spending on the other hand….

            Is the end goal to maximize GDP or something else?

            In a a hypothetical libertopia where the land has long been claimed and there’s no undiscovered country in which to claim a farmstead… where’s the line between “state”, lords, kings, nobility and the small collection of local major landowners or the company that owns the company town.

            is it somehow “better” if the company that owns the company town says no to you building a competing general store rather than the democratically elected town council of an identical town down the road?

      • LesHapablap says:

        It doesn’t really make sense to compare the market to democracy like this I don’t think. If Bill Gates prefers chunky peanut butter, it doesn’t mean I can’t have smooth peanut butter. So in that sense him being rich doesn’t mean he gets more of a say in what goods are produced, at least not in any way that matters to me.

        You’d really have to get down to specifics and argue about whether a certain good or service is better provided by democracy or a free market. It is not too controversial that peanut butter is better provided by a market, and a nuclear deterrent is better provided by a democracy, for example.

      • Paul Zrimsek says:

        If we buy Piketty’s assumption that the rich don’t spend anything, everyone gets to vote except the 10,000 members of the nobility.

        • EchoChaos says:

          Right. This seems the obvious flaw. The market is controlled by the most spending, not the most wealth. While the wealthy are also probably big spenders, contra Piketty, they’re not market dominant to the degree that the rest don’t matter.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          That is not Piketty´s assumption.

          • Paul Zrimsek says:

            It’s close enough to Piketty’s assumption that he thought he could get away with using “r>g” in place of “r(1-c)>g”.

          • Enkidum says:

            Are there detailed criticisms of Piketty which include the c term (I’m assuming c = spending of the ultra-rich?)?

          • AlesZiegler says:

            @Paul Zrimsek

            Well, yes, but in your original comment you converted reasonable if debatable assumption into obviously silly one.

          • DarkTigger says:

            @Paul Zrimsek
            Why? How is “certain entyties have bigger profits than others” equal to the claim “certain entyties don’t spend anything”?

          • John Schilling says:

            Why? How is “certain entyties have bigger profits than others” equal to the claim “certain entyties don’t spend anything”?

            Piketty’s ciaim isn’t just “bigger profits”, but rather “certain entities have profits so vastly greater than their spending that we can reasonably leave the latter out of the math”. Note the lack of a spending term in Piketty’s math.

            And “certain entities have profits so vastly greater than their spending that we can reasonably leave the latter out of the math” is equal to “certain entities don’t spend anything”, in the same way that zero is equal to epsilon. Technically incorrect in the literal mathematical sense, but practically correct in any context where it is reasonable to simplify the math that way.

            If the worst that can be said of Paul Z’s post is that he abstracted Piketty to “the rich don’t spend anything” instead of the more pedantically correct “the rich don’t spend enough to matter”, meh, I’m going to call that praising with faint damns and move on as the rest of you imagine you are destroying Zrimsek with your literalism.

          • Cliff says:

            That explicitly is Piketty’s assumption. Wealth grows at the rate r so if r>g, wealth will concentrate endlessly (because no wealth is consumed). Of course this is trivially false, but nevertheless it is his assumption. If there were consumption then wealth would not grow at the rate of r. And of course empirically it does not.

          • DarkTigger says:

            @John Schilling
            Okay, sorry for beeing imprecise. Replace “profit” with “net income”.

            How does entity A has an yearly average net income of 5% and entity B has an yearly average net income of 1,5% mean, that entity A does not spend anything?

          • AlesZiegler says:

            I see that I am stuck on this website with singular mandate to defend Piketty from endless attempts at strawmanization by resident libertarian cohorts. Alright.

            My problem with Paul Zrimsek´s comment is that he makes Piketty´s book sound like something obviously dumb.

            Piketty claims that that when r>g, income inequality usually increases, and backs that up with some empirical data, whose validity certainly could be disputed. Yes, that means that according to him, consumption by wealtholders is not so high that it would compensate for the difference between r and g. Perhaps he is wrong, but that is not an obviously dumb claim.

      • eigenmoon says:

        That’s all true, and I still say free market is better than democracy.

        I’ll stick to the topics highlighted by ECD: immigrants, feeding the poor, housing the poor.

        The rich are in general in favor of migration: more migrants means more labor supply. It is middle class that hates migration, believing that migrants will take their jobs or will sip welfare (some manage to believe both at the same time). Thus weighting the votes towards the rich helps the poor migrants.

        When somebody feeds and houses the poor, it’s not rich that object to this – it’s middle class “concerned citizens” (I’ve linked some examples in the post). The rich probably live on their own islands and don’t really care. Again, here the poor have to suffer because the middle class can outvote them.

        The problem with democracy is that preference strength doesn’t count. A middle-class man who doesn’t want to meet a poor person on the street gets one vote and a poor person who doesn’t want his only abode to be demolished gets one vote.

        • benwave says:

          Surely it is best to have tension between markets and democracy so that there are protections from the extreme failure modes of each?

          • albatross11 says:

            benwave: +1

            In general, I think it’s healthy to have multiple power centers and decisionmaking processes in the society, so they all don’t end up getting captured and swallowed up by the same movement/person/party/whatever.

          • eigenmoon says:

            I agree, and this argument can be frequently heard from agorists. Governments overregulate everything, do increasingly crazy things with money supply, and are hell-bent on destroying all alternatives even up to private mail companies. This is exactly why a black market is necessary: to protect and preserve vitally needed alternative systems.

        • ECD says:

          Most of my issues have been addressed by others, but I do want to flag a minor point:

          I’ll stick to the topics highlighted by ECD: immigrants, feeding the poor, housing the poor.

          I was mostly pulling those because of the discussion we were having below on virtue signalling where you said:

          This occurs more often on the far ends. But on a lot of issues Left and Right want basically the same thing: they want the country to be prosperous, the poor to be fed, the sick to be healed, the young to study, the old to be cared for, the workers to have jobs.

          (which I misremembered as including housing for the poor) and

          I’m not convinced it really is about just different priorities. It would be much simpler to negotiate if that was the only problem. Something like “hey Left, how many migrants do you want? What about you, Right? OK, let’s target the average of those two figures”.

          They would not be my models for moral government behavior. Historic refugee policy can be pretty good (and is still good in some places), as can some foreign aid, as can a lot (though not all) environmental regulation.

      • baconbits9 says:

        The market is weighted by the personal wealth of the individuals.

        If Bill has 50% of the wealth he controls 50% of the “vote”, the system considers him and his whims more important than the vital needs of every other market participant.

        Democracy works this way with everyone getting assigned a number of votes to use, but in a market Bill only gets 50% of the vote AFTER the rest of the market decides to give him 50% of the vote. Starting from this point is like saying that the electoral collage gives a handful of people the power to pick the president.

        • benwave says:

          I don’t know if that’s a reasonable objection. In elections, the assigned votes go back to being equal per person every four years, whereas in markets that never happens. There is not a single time when I’ve been alive where the responsiveness of the market to my desires is the same as its responsiveness to everybody else’s.

          • baconbits9 says:

            You don’t want to reset equality every few years because that takes savings out of the picture. If every day you have an option of a Coke or a Pepsi or nothing that is a very different scenario from a Coke, or a Pepsi, or keeping your dollar and having two dollars to vote with tomorrow. The second scenario makes markets way more responsive, and the ability to save votes is one of the main reasons calling voting ‘revealed preference’ is bogus (for the economic definition of revealed preferences).

          • benwave says:

            Well I don’t particularly object to that, but doesn’t that show that democracy is Not like markets in that way? That was what I wanted to point out above

      • anonymousskimmer says:

        Voting in the market is quite a lot like voting in party politics.

        Unless you’re rich, connected or talented enough to start your own party, or, market-wise, start your own company or pay extra for a bespoke service, you’re limited to voting for the choices others decide to give you. And what they offer you is contingent on both what others are offering, and what the majority in a demographic wants. Even niche non-bespoke offerings don’t go too niche.

      • If Bill has 50% of the wealth he controls 50% of the “vote”, the system considers him and his whims more important than the vital needs of every other market participant.

        That’s a misleading way of putting it, because market spending isn’t a vote. If I get 51% of the vote, my candidate is elected and yours isn’t. If I spend 51% of the money on the grain market, I get 51% of the grain and other people get 49%.

        Further, in the market context, the usual reason I get 51% of the income is that I am producing and selling 51% of the society’s output (rough approximation–I’m blurring lots of economic details). Hence my existence does not reduce the amount the other people get.

        There is no equivalent relation in the democratic context, which is one of the reasons some people oppose immigration.

        • Plumber says:

          @DavidFriedman >

          “…There is no equivalent relation in the democratic context, which is one of the reasons some people oppose immigration”

          I’m not following that train of thought, can you elaborate a bit more?

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            DavidFriedman:

            “…There is no equivalent relation in the democratic context, which is one of the reasons some people oppose immigration”

            Plumber:

            I’m not following that train of thought, can you elaborate a bit more?

            In extremis, if all you need to get 100% of the resources is 51% of the votes, then it makes rational sense to devote your existing resources to just getting those votes. This is also true if it gives you anywhere from 52% to 99% of the resources (although the less you get, the less attractive certain strategies become, and the more likely they are to leave the table). This is especially the case since (as Friedman says in his book) money runs out, but votes never do.

            If 51% of the votes only gets you 51% of the resources, then getting votes is only about as attractive as getting those resources via other means, but you still have that problem of votes never running out, as long as you can get people to keep pulling that lever. That’s why a lot of people oppose any strategy that enables that, uh, leverage.

          • Plumber says:

            @Paul Brinkley,
            Ah!

            “Skin in the game” then.

            Thanks!

    • Paul Zrimsek says:

      Why would I have to be a pure consequentialist? If you have any consequentialist in your moral makeup at all, you should be able to evaluate consequences.

      Anyhow, the idea that we can’t morally judge what the market does at all is an exceedingly odd one, and I doubt the continued-OP really meant to argue it.

    • RalMirrorAd says:

      At risk of making a low effort post;

      The market represents what an individual does
      It doesn’t represent what an individual thinks he ‘ought’ to do
      More importantly it doesn’t represent what that individual thinks other people should do.

      _____________

      High effort post

      Sometimes this is a good thing, because people’s opinions about matters that don’t directly involve them often involve decision making with zero skin in the game. There’s seldom if ever a feedback mechanism between -> votes representative -> experiences policy.

      Any kind of collective action problem where the benefits are diffused and only occur when a large number of people do something, but the costs are immediate tends to require a direct or indirect state solution. One example would be pollution. Though there are more or less market-oriented solutions to this. The law can assign a price to pollution [or a carbon tax in the case of CO2] and people opt for different strategies to manage this new cost. A less market oriented solution would be to control the quantity of energy use directly.

      _____________

      • Garrett says:

        What remotely justifies one person applying their ‘ought’ onto another person with force? How is this anything other than bullying with extra steps?

        • Enkidum says:

          Tragedies of the commons.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Democracy creates a new commons for there to be a tragedy of.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @baconbits9

            Democracy creates a new commons for there to be a tragedy of.

            Instinctively I love this statement. I will definitely have to ruminate on it.

          • anonymousskimmer says:

            @baconbits9

            Didn’t tribal democracy come first though? So wouldn’t it be better to say that other forms of government narrowed the commons?

          • Enkidum says:

            Democracy creates a new commons for there to be a tragedy of.

            This sounds very pithy and cool but I’m going to confess I don’t know what it means.

            At any rate, viVI_IViv gives the longer version of what I was gesturing at below. Dealing with free-riders who benefit from solutions to tragedies of the commons without themselves helping (one form of what Garrett is objecting to) is a very important part of the sustainability of societies.

          • DarkTigger says:

            This sounds very pithy and cool but I’m going to confess I don’t know what it means.

            I think he want’s to hint at the abuse of social services/security.

          • baconbits9 says:

            This sounds very pithy and cool but I’m going to confess I don’t know what it means.

            The government itself acts as a commons, it is un-owned but is highly valuable to control. It is easiest to see in kleptocracies where the graft is often explicit but in democracies it still happens (at the basic level its called rent seeking behavior).

          • Enkidum says:

            Thanks, that makes sense, and I think I agree. But I wouldn’t say that’s all it does (and I don’t think you were implying it was).

        • Everyone does that. It’s called morality.

        • RalMirrorAd says:

          (I’m not intentionally trying to be patronizing in my response)

          Nothing justifies anything except subjectively. You condition it on some subjective criteria and then everything else follows from said criteria.

          Then as long as the ‘rules’ get followed [or not in practice] some set of consequences results — consequences of rules are not subjective even if you subjectively like or dislike them.

          So for example if you condition that anything is justified as long as it is the result of voluntary transactions. (Ignoring the thorniness of deciding whether voluntary means informed consent and some other things.) Then most all government actions are unjustified.

          Taxation is theft in the same way abortion is murder, or if you’re a vegetarian, meat is murder. Most non-libertarians don’t accept this premise as an absolute, and they’re not necessarily going to be convinced by pointing out that state action is coercive for the same reason most people aren’t convinced to become vegans when you point out that meat is murder.

          ___________

          But my OP was more narrow; if the market represents what individuals do, why doesn’t it represent what is moral [from the perspective of the individual]

          I’m just conditioning on whatever morality is defined as for the individual. Pollution’s an example of something an individual might want fixed for ethical reasons but market action doesn’t necessarily facilitate it since it’s a commons or collective action problem.

          Also note that ‘market vs democracy’ =/= ‘market vs state’ at least as i imagine it– a lot of people want collectively imposed solutions to problems that voters generally won’t agree to anyway. (climate change ranks very low for voter priorities) But it’s easy to imagine that voters will vote for a higher amount of government aid to the poor on average than the same voters would contribute themselves privately [because of the skin in the game issue i mentioned]

      • eigenmoon says:

        I agree that government might be useful to limit pollution, especially in the carbon tax variant. But note that all this fits entirely within consequentialist framework: let’s set a goal, compare how effective different institutions would be at achieving this goal, and then – only then – assign some moral weight to implementing the best institution. I was wondering what’s with ECD’s “Government is Moral!” button that lets them dodge all this and bring out morality from the start.

    • viVI_IViv says:

      I’ll start small and ask this: why do you assume that averaging people’s preferences by the market will produce an immoral result, but averaging people’s preferences by democracy will produce a moral result?

      The market doesn’t average people’s preferences, at least not to the same extent that democracy does. The market can fall into tragedy of the commons situations (essentially many-players prisoner’s dilemmas) where it will select an outcome that is not preferred by anyone.

      This is relevant to the examples you are discussing here, since treatment of migrants, feeding the poor, and the housing the poor are all scenarios where there is a tradeoff between a common good and individual self-interest. E.g., I might want to use part of my disposable income to feed the poor, but if I donate to charity and my competitors don’t, they might outcompete me and drive me out of business. If instead everybody is forced to give X% of their income to feed the poor though taxation, then nobody is specifically put at disadvantage as long as X is not too large.

      In general the purpose of the government is to solve hard coordination problems that can’t be easily solved by direct private negotiation or social praise and shaming.

      • mitv150 says:

        Many instances of “we need the government to solve this hard coordination problem” can be better addressed by instituting appropriate market mechanisms.

        E.G.: Government regulation isn’t necessary to solve the tragedy of the commons, property rights will usually do the trick just fine.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          E.G.: Government regulation isn’t necessary to solve the tragedy of the commons, property rights will usually do the trick just fine.

          I’d be delighted to know how a system of property rights for the immaterial communal good of having the poor being feed would work.

          • mitv150 says:

            I’d be delighted to know how a system of property rights for the immaterial communal good of having the poor being feed would work.

            Lack of clarity: I was addressing the portion of your comment regarding markets falling into a tragedy of the commons.

            Feeding the poor is not a tragedy of the commons.

            There is no market mechanism that I’m aware of that operates to feed those that are poor and unable to work.

            There is, of course, a massive market mechanism that operates to feed the working poor.

      • eigenmoon says:

        if I donate to charity and my competitors don’t, they might outcompete me and drive me out of business.
        By this logic nobody would ever be giving to charity, with or without taxes. But people did, and still do. I remember reading that people gave much more before the advent of the welfare state but I can’t find the link now.

        If your business is in an unsaturated market and you can expand it, then doing so isn’t an evil act. You create new jobs and hire people that would be receiving charity instead. Unless you’re in a luxury business, you create useful things for people, including poor people, and everybody’s better off.

        But if government gives someone a job, it’s only because it destroys a job somewhere else with taxation – where else is the money coming from? If the government gives welfare to a poor person, about half the job is destroyed. And the people on welfare don’t produce anything and are disincentivized from working: by the welfare itself, by the tax on working, by occupational licensing.

        So any help that the government brings happens at a great cost. California just now enacted rent control which will make sure that no cheap housing will be built, and it also ordered Kanye to destroy the homes he built for the poor. That is how the government really helps the poor. At what point is the cost of having a government too much?

        In general the purpose of the government is to solve hard coordination problems that can’t be easily solved by direct private negotiation or social praise and shaming.
        I think that more than 50% of government-coordinated problems could and should be solved on kickstarter, and the rest would be solvable once US society stops nonsense such as shaming billionaires for helping.

        • Plumber says:

          I think you’re being too absolutist on this @eigenmoon.

          Sure, North Korea with it’s heavy handed government doesn’t much thrive, but neither does Somalia with no central government.

          Singapore and Sweden both do thrive, and neither of them (in different ways) would I call Laissez faire.

          If instead you’re arguing with full Marxists, there just aren’t that many among frequent commenters here to engage with, overwhelmingly by far Americans “on the Left” point to Canada, not Cuba, as their goal.

          They’re just plain not much more who want to re-animate Stalin than there are who want to re-animate King James 2, more than 9/10th want both private industry and government.

          From my perspective of having both worked in private industry and as a government employee, the Rights criticisms of government are true as are the Lefts criticism of unregulated private industry, and for me to convinced that a strong movement towards either libertarianism or full socialism (not just a Sanderist dilute form) I want a thriving contemporary society pointed out, and so far to me right over the border in Canada looks like it, so God Save the Queen!

          (we do have better cuisine and music here in the U.S.A. thanks to the southern states though, and I wouldn’t want to lose that).

          • eigenmoon says:

            Somalia might not be Sweden, but it’s still better off as it is now; see “Better off stateless: Somalia before and after government collapse” (PDF). Of course that might be because Somalian government was horrible to begin with. Also Somalian society is pretty weird so it’s not exactly a shining beacon of ancap.

            US is already taking about as much government revenue as Switzerland (27.1% for US, 28.5% for Switzerland but US borrows a lot on top of that). So… why aren’t you Switzerland? As in: US got enough tax money already to have its social care on Swiss level, so…?

            But you say the Left wants to be Canada. Canada gets a bit more tax revenue: 32.7%. Surely you can raise the taxes accordingly, but wouldn’t the Left then say that the new target is Sweden or Denmark? I thought that’s what they say already.

            Sweden takes 44% GDP as tax revenue, Denmark does 46%. That’s about the same as Italy (42.4) and France (46.2). So can we be sure that raising the taxes will make you Sweden/Denmark and not France/Italy?

          • If someone told me they would rather live in Somalia than Tanzania or Kenya, I wouldn’t believe them. People have a much higher preference for not getting blown up than they do for better telecommunications.

          • Plumber says:

            @eigenmoon > “.wouldn’t the Left then say that the new target is Sweden or Denmark?..”

            I was using “The Left” for”median Democratic Party voter”, but your quite right, historically “The Left” has meant “folks who want the full Cuba”, but if we slip in-between using “Left” as one half of the Nation that votes, and “Right” as the other half into certain select political positions held by a small minority of people it gets confusing, to give one example fully “socialized” medicine is a position of some in the Democratic Party, two of the top four polling Democratic polling Presidential candidates support it (and another sometimes does, sometimes doesn’t, depending on when you ask her), but a majority a registered Democrats say they don’t want private insurance eliminated (nor does the front runner candidate), so if you go by the “divide the Nation into a more Left half of voter and a more Right half of voters” model than fully socialized medicine isn’t the position of the whole “Left”, if instead you define “Left” as “people who believe on an ideology that I pick that word to mean”, then sure, it can be anything, this is why I like reading Gallup and Pew – to get a better idea of what most actually support. 

            “…So can we be sure that raising the taxes will make you Sweden/Denmark and not France/Italy?”

            You hardly can in any way.

            We discussed this in the last Open Thread, Democrats rule both California and Massachusetts, Republicans both Mississippi and Utah, California and Mississippi both have higher rates of poverty than Massachusetts and Utah, just as being ruled by Social Democratic Parties didn’t turn Germany into Greece,  or Greece into Germany, what the ruling policies are aren’t the only factor. 

            Massachusetts and Utah were both founded people descended from English Puritans, so maybe that’s a factor? 

            California and Mississippi’s southern borders are both further south than Massachusetts and Utah,  so maybe that’s a factor? 

            Another example is Cuba and North Korea are both ruled by Marxist regimes, and I think best will agree that North Korea is the by far worse of the two.

            So if political policies aren’t the only factor why am I so confident that a social democratic capitalist welfare state is the right choice?

            Because most thriving places do follow that model, and (without any other practical tools) political policies might help, and what I would think would help more, going door-to-door and convincing folks to have higher empathy/solidarity/trust in their neighbors regardless of what governments do and doesn’t do, just isn’t practical.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Plumber

            I have an alternative theory. Look at the freedom ratings for countries and US states ( and economic). I wish there was fiscal rating of countries, too.

            You’ll see that France is #71 and Italy is #80 on the economic list (below Kyrgyzstan), while Sweden is #19, US is #12 and Canada is #8. Also Mississippi’s fiscal freedom is even below California. It fails under Republican rule precisely because they govern it like it’s New York.

            To thrive, society needs economic freedom, which is basically the absence of government. You can in principle stick high tax on top like the Nordic countries do, but then all other kinds of economic freedom must be top-notch, otherwise you’ll have Italy. My problem with the Left (however you define it) is that they don’t seem to value economic freedom that much, but no society is thriving without it.

          • Plumber says:

            @eigenmoon.> “…To thrive, society needs economic freedom, which is basically the absence of government. You can in principle stick high tax on top like the Nordic countries do, but then all other kinds of economic freedom must be top-notch, otherwise you’ll have Italy…”

            I see merit in that argument, one or two threads ago there was a discussion of the 1950’s, U.S.A., and back then there were higher top marginal income tax rates, a larger amount of direct Federal government employees relative to the total population (especially when you include the larger standing army of then and you don’t include the huge number of “government by proxy” contractors, and subsidized NGO’s of today), immigration was more restricted, plus Truman sometimes had industries nationalized, but in very many other ways the mid 20th century U.S.A. waa less regulated than now, and had an economic growth rate not equalled since.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          By this logic nobody would ever be giving to charity, with or without taxes. But people did, and still do.

          People donate trivial amounts compared to the taxes they are willing to pay. And yes, I said willing to pay, because it is an average preference revealed by their voting behaviors, regardless of what taxes-are-theft libertarians say.

          I remember reading that people gave much more before the advent of the welfare state but I can’t find the link now.

          I seriously doubt that before the welfare state people were giving to charity any amount comparable to what they now give to the welfare state through taxation.

          If the government gives welfare to a poor person, about half the job is destroyed. And the people on welfare don’t produce anything and are disincentivized from working: by the welfare itself, by the tax on working, by occupational licensing.

          And without welfare people who have no employable skills or inclination either starve or turn to crime. I suppose that for some people this is an acceptable outcome, but for people who value the chronically unemployed being feed, the market offers no viable solution.

          California just now enacted rent control which will make sure that no cheap housing will be built, and it also ordered Kanye to destroy the homes he built for the poor. That is how the government really helps the poor.

          And without housing regulations California would probably contain more slums than Kenya.

          • The Nybbler says:

            And yes, I said willing to pay, because it is an average preference revealed by their voting behaviors

            As Lincoln is said to have noted, calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it so. And saying people are individually “willing to pay” taxes (as opposed to coerced into doing so) because of what their democratically elected representatives may have voted for isn’t “revealed preference”.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            but for people who value the chronically unemployed being feed, the market offers no viable solution.

            (because SSC loves spelling pedantry) Sure there is, haven’t you heard of Soylent Green?

          • eigenmoon says:

            But of course there’s a market solution for people who value the poor to be fed, namely: if you value a poor guy having an apple more than having an apple yourself, you’re going to give it to him. Now we have a paradox: people are not willing to give enough (at least according to you) but they’re willing to vote for being forced to pay up. And the resolution is, I believe, obvious: people vote for high taxes because they hope that somebody richer than them will foot the bill. And about that they’re mistaken, since few take into account that tax burden is distributed throughout the market by prices.

            And without housing regulations California would probably contain more slums than Kenya.
            And that would be an improvement over sleeping in cars.

            @Gobbobobble
            It’s also environmentally friendly. Looks like Sweden has the solution to all problems.

      • The market can fall into tragedy of the commons situations

        And the political system starts in a tragedy of the commons situation and never leaves it.

        Your implicit assumption is that the democratic process results in the government acting like a wise and benevolent tyrant. But the government isn’t a person, it’s the outcome of a political market, one which lacks the features that make the market, at least to first approximation, actually act like a wise and benevolent tyrant.

    • DinoNerd says:

      Bizarre. Neither the market nor the government average people’s preferences.

    • Guy in TN says:

      I have an idea. Instead of voting on policy democratically, we will use a free market in “Decision Tokens”, where people place bids on policy using these tokens. The policy with the highest amount of bids wins.

      The initial starting point for decision tokens will be 100 a person, with the following modifiers:

      +5000 for socialists
      +10000 for incomes less than $40,000 a year

      -All tokens removed for incomes of more than $80,000
      -50 for libertarians.

      These Decision Tokens will operate in a pure free market, where anyone can use them to buy or sell any sort of policy they want, and they can even be exchanged.

      As many commentators have noted, this method is superior to democracy, in that we can gauge the magnitude of preference, rather than a simple binary.

      As supporters of markets, I assume you all won’t have objections to my free market proposal.

      • eigenmoon says:

        How does buying and selling policies work?

        • Guy in TN says:

          Say there’s a question of what to do with an area that is currently a vacant lot. A bid is placed on the question “what to do with the vacant lot” and the winner of the bid (the person who spends the most Decision Tokens) gets to be the decision maker. That person can later transfer that power to someone else in exchange for Decision Tokens, or anything really.

          It’s just a normal free market, with the starting position being that Leftists and poor people have all the power, and wealthy people and libertarians (and maybe just a list of people I don’t like) having none.

          It’s a pure free market with only voluntary transactions. Every exchange is mutually beneficial between the parties. Can’t think of any reason why people would object to this.

          • EchoChaos says:

            As long as the decision tokens are non-renewable, it would end up with an equilibrium essentially similar to free markets today.

            Fools and their money would soon be parted, and we would end up with a capitalist system more intense than our current one.

            If you get that many tokens every year, then there would quickly be a monetary revaluation to reduce all incomes by at least an order of magnitude, everyone would declare themselves a “socialist” and we’d move on as before.

          • eigenmoon says:

            So the winner pays tokens to who?

            The decision tokens is just another currency and after some initial period it will have a quasi-stable price (like Bitcoin). At this point it this system should be basically ancap. Is this what you mean?

          • Guy in TN says:

            If you get that many tokens every year, then there would quickly be a monetary revaluation to reduce all incomes by at least an order of magnitude

            My employer doesn’t reduce my salary when he finds out I received an inheritance. I don’t think supply/demand works like that.

            everyone would declare themselves a “socialist” and we’d move on as before.

            It would be based on past internet-posting history.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Guy in TN

            My employer doesn’t reduce my salary when he finds out I received an inheritance. I don’t think supply/demand works like that.

            Yeah, but the people in charge of the money supply are the ones losing power here. One short sharp deflation later, and they miraculously make under $40k new American dollars, each of which is a lot more valuable than before.

            This real effect has happened before, incidentally. In the 1950s with sky-high marginal tax rates CEOs were making wages not much more than their employees, but got lots of benefits like company purchased cars, houses, even airplanes.

            It would be based on past internet-posting history.

            In the strangest coincidence, my LinkedIn with my real name now spreads the good word of socialism!

          • Guy in TN says:

            So the winner pays tokens to who?

            The decision tokens is just another currency and after some initial period it will have a quasi-stable price (like Bitcoin). At this point it this system should be basically ancap. Is this what you mean?

            They pay the tokens to the groups who are currently holders of the decision-making titles.

            The issue at hand, is that government currently has certain “properties”, e.g. the power of taxation, environmental regulation, state-owned industry. And these powers are currently controlled democratically, which doesn’t measure the magnitude of how people value them well.

            The typical ancap proposal is that these government powers/properties should be divested to people who are willing to pay for them in dollars.

            I propose, that instead of accepting dollars, the government should accept Decision Tokens, which will be issued to groups of people that I personally like.

            This is no more arbitrary than the government choosing to issue and divest using dollars. After all, dollars aren’t distributed equally either.

          • Plumber says:

            @Guy in TN & @EchoChaos,

            You two are cracking me up with this!

            Please consider my vote/dollars/decision tokens all in!

          • eigenmoon says:

            There’s an important feature of ancap missing, which is that the bid must be proportional to the territory you wish to cover. Otherwise the “decision-making group” would propose a law to kill me and I would be forced to give it all my tokens to repeal this law.

            Once you get ancap right, except with decision tokens, I’ll take it. Very soon socialists will lose the ability to tax me. Your distribution of tokens simply means that Ancapistan would be quite small. But it’s still better than the current territory of Ancapistan (zero).

          • Controls Freak says:

            Say there’s a question of what to do with an area that is currently a vacant lot. A bid is placed on the question “what to do with the vacant lot” and the winner of the bid (the person who spends the most Decision Tokens) gets to be the decision maker.

            This part is bad enough. In particular, who gets to determine when there is a question which must be decided? Can I just pose, “There’s a question concerning whether or not Controls Freak should get all of Guy in TN’s money/possessions. Who’s going to give up Decision Tokens to decide this?”

            So the winner pays tokens to who?

            They pay the tokens to the groups who are currently holders of the decision-making titles.

            This makes it worse. Rather than having a bidding process for each question, you’re putting a bidding process on a title (basically “representative for deciding Class X”). That means that answer to the previous question is probably, “There is a question-making Czar title, too.” But it’s still not clear how the exchange system works. I’m sure you want to say that all of the exchanges are voluntary, right? That means that if someone wants to become the new question-making Czar, they have to not only outbid everyone else, but they also have to get the current question-making Czar to voluntarily give up the title in exchange for the top offer of Decision Tokens.

            It’s pretty obvious that not only is this simply a spoils system masquerading as a representative government masquerading as a market, but also whoever gets to become the first question-making Czar can trivially become dictator and never voluntarily give up his position in any exchange.

            Quite aside from the reasons that this can’t be described as a market, it gives further reason to what I said in one of our previous conversations. The question is not whether there is going to be some coercion through government versus no coercion in government (sorry, DF). The question is one of political legitimacy and whether/how far that coercion is going to extend beyond, “You can’t steal people’s stuff.” This proposed spoils system fails miserably in political legitimacy.

      • baconbits9 says:

        Are you using the tokens to pay for the policies you want? If not then it isn’t a market.

        • Guy in TN says:

          Yes, you use the tokens to pay for the policies.

          A slight change, the modifier on incomes less $40,000 should be +100,000.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            Does selling tokens constitute income?

          • Guy in TN says:

            The issuing of Decision Tokens is a one-time thing, so that shouldn’t matter.

          • albatross11 says:

            Prediction: In a few years, your skewed initial distribution of tokens will be washed out, and the wealthiest people will own enough of the tokens to do more-or-less what they like, if they agree on it. Elections will be a matter of getting the wealthy token-holders on the same page. Perhaps a few non-corporate organizations (unions, churches, interest groups) will also collect some tokens, but when the choice is give your token to your church or sell it to ExxonComcastPalintirNabisco for $1000, well, it’s easy to see what most people will choose.

          • baconbits9 says:

            Yes, you use the tokens to pay for the policies.

            And when everyone votes for a pony for everyone why are the sellers of ponies taking these tokens as payment?

          • Guy in TN says:

            Prediction: In a few years, your skewed initial distribution of tokens will be washed out, and the wealthiest people will own enough of the tokens to do more-or-less what they like

            It seem unlikely there will be any extreme wealth disparity once the poor have bought (on the free market) policies from the government such setting the taxation rate.

            [You seem like a decent person albatross11, so I’ll let you in on a secret: I don’t actually support any of this policy I’ve proposed. It’s bad. But the reason my policy is bad, is the same reason that every else’s proposals to switch from democracy to a non-democracy are also bad. Namely: “Markets” are exchanges of non-market authority (property), which is inherently determined politically. So saying “let the rich people decide” is as arbitrary as saying “let people I agree with decide”. Commentator’s emphasis on the “free market”, as usual, just serves to obscure what’s really going on here.]

          • John Schilling says:

            It seem unlikely there will be any extreme wealth disparity once the poor have bought (on the free market) policies from the government such setting the taxation rate.

            The poor, collectively, won’t be buying any actual decisions, because each poor person individually will be selling all of his decision tokens for cash money to the highest-bidding oligarch in their neighborhood.

      • Controls Freak says:

        That’s not a market. Simply having an object that is transferred is not sufficient to constitute a market. It’s not exactly on point for this discussion, but this was a really good Econ Talk podcast where they discuss some of the factors that are needed. There’s not 100% agreement on every detail, but this proposal clearly misses the cut.

        In general, I would recommend following Econ Talk. There are many other episodes that get into these necessary background assumptions, which cut through a lot of the silly fake market talk. He also regularly brings on folks who he disagrees with, and the conversations are generally pleasant and educational.

    • ECD says:

      Okay, well, that will teach me to go to work instead of staying home (and to start at the bottom in the few comments I had time to make before work today.

      Fortunately, the vast majority of the points I would make have already been ably made by other people (thanks folks)

      One point however:

      Oh, you want to argue for the morality of the government’s treatment of migrants, the government’s feeding the poor, the government’s housing the poor with libertarians, who see taxation to be as moral as robbery to begin with (unless maybe pure consequentialism, but you’ve just rejected it). Wow.

      Not particularly. Part of being moral is the potential for immorality. If you are amoral (as, I contend the free market is) then morality is irrelevant and your immorality by external standards is equally irrelevant. It’s only if you’re playing in a moral dimension that immorality is relevant/possible.

      I accept that other people have differing views on what is moral and that, in a democracy (which I contend is preferable to even ECDistan, for reasons of humility and understanding that I would not hold absolute power for long barring supernatural action) the morals of other people will sometimes win out. I don’t like to lose, but it’s inherent in democracy. But with my government, ‘you can’t do this, it’s wrong,’ is an actual argument for why they should not do it (it’s probably not a winning argument, but I’d like it to be a relevant argument), whereas making that argument in the free market is…completely orthogonal to its purpose.

      Now, maybe I can make the ‘this will revolt our customers and lose us money argument,’ but those aren’t actually the same thing.

      The rest of your comment has been ably addressed by others, but I’ll also say, besides the point made that averaging isn’t what’s being done in either case that my answer to this:

      I’ll start small and ask this: why do you assume that averaging people’s preferences by the market will produce an immoral result, but averaging people’s preferences by democracy will produce a moral result?

      Is that they’re trying to do different things. The market is trying to make money (with various caveats) the government is, or should be, trying to govern justly and morally. It should be no surprise that things with different goals end up in different places.

      Now, it may well be that the government will end up being schizophrenically immoral due to the differences in moral judgments and preferences of its people, but that’s a different problem [link is to youtube and Yes Minister] and without very strong evidence of it (which cannot, alas simply be evidence of governments doing things I think are immoral for the reasons discussed above), I prefer to still be able to make moral arguments for my preferred policies.

      • eigenmoon says:

        The market isn’t there to make money. It’s there to maximize everybody’s utility. If you have voluntarily traded an apple for an orange, that means your utility has increased, otherwise you wouldn’t agree to it, and so did the utility of the other party. So every trade increases the sum total of utility. You can express the utility using money but that’s not essential.

        There’s no reason why this utility shouldn’t include moral considerations, nor there is any reason why voting is about morality rather than about self-interest. If you want to build a home for a homeless person on your land, it’s a free market decision, reflecting your values. Although as Kanye’s example shows, then concerned neighbors come up and vote for those homes to be demolished.

        You say that you like to make moral arguments, but you can do that without fighting for the access to the government, can’t you? What you really mean, it seems, is that you’d like to force other people to follow your morality, and you recognize that this is a tug of war, and sometimes other people will force you to follow their morality instead, but it’s OK, you prefer it that way.

        Well, I have a problem with that. I don’t want to force anybody to follow my morality, I don’t want to be forced by anybody to follow their morality, I don’t want to play the tug-of-war or even care about it. The Left wants to murder their babies? Fine. I don’t approve but I can’t figure out any punishment more severe than the action itself, so whatever.

        The entire morality tug-of-war fan club starts with a premise that taxation is moral, which I already disagree with. viVI_IViv here tells me that if not for the tax, the poor would remain hungry. With that I also disagree; but if not for the tax, the children of Yemen bombed by US for unclear reasons would not go hungry in the first place.

        It looks like the most prudent course of action is to ensure that nobody is able to govern me ever again, especially not those who want to govern justly and morally, for it is precisely that kind of people who would ignore the strength of my own preferences.

        • ECD says:

          You don’t want to impose your morality on others, just ensure that nobody is ever able to govern you ever again and bar all taxes.

          Okay. I’ll think this is a contradictory position, but that’s fine.

          The market isn’t there to make money. It’s there to maximize everybody’s utility. If you have voluntarily traded an apple for an orange, that means your utility has increased, otherwise you wouldn’t agree to it,

          Except, you’ve smuggled in an assumption there, “voluntarily” which isn’t generally true in market interactions. All the other options are worse is not the same as ‘voluntarily.’ And I strongly disagree that the market is there to maximize everyone’s utility, it’s there (optimally and ignoring market failures/monopolies/etc.) to allow optimal allocation of resources where ‘optimal’ means most profitable available (allowing for the presence of other actors).

          And I probably could make moral argument in market interactions, people do, hence the existence of various funds which invest in ‘good/moral’ companies. However, I don’t actually think the market is either good at this, or the right tool for this. It is, when properly regulated, good at what it does. Trying to make it into something else seems risky and unlikely to succeed.

          What you really mean, it seems, is that you’d like to force other people to follow your morality, and you recognize that this is a tug of war, and sometimes other people will force you to follow their morality instead, but it’s OK, you prefer it that way.

          If your view is taxation is theft and legislation is imposition, then yes. But I don’t actually agree with those points and so I’m not going to agree with this restatement of my position, uncharitably phrased or not.

          I’m going to mostly ignore the digression into abortion politics, but in the interest of not doing what I’ve claimed is done here and ignore a potentially important point, I disagree that the “Left wants to murder their babies”.

          Anyway, at this point I think we’ve hit the point of irreconcilable disagreement. Interesting conversation.

          ETA: Removed irrelevant aside, which made no sense after I changed course mid-sentence.

          • John Schilling says:

            Except, you’ve smuggled in an assumption there, “voluntarily” which isn’t generally true in market interactions. All the other options are worse is not the same as ‘voluntarily.’

            There is a finite range of options available, none of which are ideal. Alice chose what, to her, seemed the best option in that range. All other options were, by her standards, worse. How is this not the essence of a voluntary transaction by Alice? What meaning does the word “voluntary” have, if this isn’t it?

            If “voluntary” for Alice means that we have to coerce Bob into offering her a better option than would exist for her absent such coercion, then that’s a sort of “voluntary” that is I think skewed into meaninglessness. Also, I’m pretty sure you intend for me to play the role of Bob far more often that that of Alice in your preferred system, and so I consider myself justified in coercing the hell out of you in regards to not establishing that system.

          • Guy in TN says:

            There is a finite range of options available, none of which are ideal. Alice chose what, to her, seemed the best option in that range. All other options were, by her standards, worse. How is this not the essence of a voluntary transaction by Alice? What meaning does the word “voluntary” have, if this isn’t it?

            Okay. Given that the state has the power to tax, you have a finite range of options such as 1. Paying taxes 2. Not paying and going to jail 3. Leaving the country.

            You choose the best option in this range, to pay taxes to the IRS. Is this a voluntary transaction?

            Also, I’m pretty sure you intend for me to play the role of Bob far more often that that of Alice in your preferred system, and so I consider myself justified in coercing the hell out of you in regards to not establishing that system.

            Hey, as long as we all agree that it’s coercion all-the-way-down, then we can finally start talking about what the optimal economic system is, given that everyone here relies on coercion to achieve their ends. (i.e., thus rendering a “free market system” an ideological impossibility).

          • ECD says:

            @John Schilling

            If “voluntary” for Alice means that we have to coerce Bob into offering her a better option than would exist for her absent such coercion, then that’s a sort of “voluntary” that is I think skewed into meaninglessness. Also, I’m pretty sure you intend for me to play the role of Bob far more often that that of Alice in your preferred system, and so I consider myself justified in coercing the hell out of you in regards to not establishing that system.

            Yep. you’ve caught me. I definitely mean to…I don’t know, steal your stuff and give it to other people?

            I certainly couldn’t mean that the government should maybe make sure, for example, that there is a minimum wage which is actually liveable.

            Now, to be more charitable than I think you’re being. I said “generally true” when I should have said “necessarily true”. Given that the vast majority of market interactions (especially various stock transactions) probably fit even my definition of voluntary.

            ETA: Grammar correction.

          • eigenmoon says:

            So legislation isn’t imposition but wanting to live separately is imposition? Huh. Indeed, the difference might be irreconcilable.

            [Edited: you’ve already answered that to John]

            OK, we did a good talk. At least I hope you got some info on what others consider to be good, which is something you’re interested in. I wonder if you can roleplay a libertarian by now.

          • John Schilling says:

            Okay. Given that the state has the power to tax, you have a finite range of options such as 1. Paying taxes 2. Not paying and going to jail 3. Leaving the country.

            Conspicuously missing from that range of options is 0. No deal/mind your own business/nothing changes. When someone actively removes the zero option from the table, then the transaction ceases to be voluntary. That’s the big red line between both selling and panhandling on the one side, and robbery on the other. You know this, you’re just being an ass about it.

            The market, almost always includes the zero option. The state, not so much.

          • All the other options are worse is not the same as ‘voluntarily.’

            So from your standpoint, there are no voluntary actions–with perhaps the tiny exception of choosing between two entirely equivalent alternatives?

          • that there is a minimum wage which is actually liveable.

            Can you offer any definition o “liveabble” consistent with this defense of the minimum wage substantially different from “a wage which I would find tolerable to live at”? That’s the only candidate I can think of.

            Possibly relevant data: The estimate of economic historians is that average real income in modern developed societies is twenty to thirty times higher than the average was for most of history. The median U.S. income for a full time wage or salary worker is about $900/week. One twentieth of that is $45/week. For someone working a 40 hour week, that’s a wage of a little over a dollar an hour, about a seventh the current minimum wage.

            If you are proposing anything higher than that, or supporting that, or even supporting something half that, you have to claim that one cannot live on the income on which most of the people who ever existed did live.

            Or recognize that “liveable wage” is dishonest rhetoric, designed to pretend that a value judgement is an objective fact, taking advantage of the ignorance of most of the population about how rich they are.

          • Ketil says:

            Can you offer any definition o “liveabble” consistent with this defense of the minimum wage substantially different from “a wage which I would find tolerable to live at”? That’s the only candidate I can think of.

            What’s wrong with that definition? (Or, for some consensus level, rather than any particular individual)

            I would like to live in a place where everybody has a roof over their head, access to adequate nutrition, education, a library, the internet, necessary health services, and so on.

            I would also like for working people to enjoy material gains beyond this minimum level, both because taxation is necessary¹ to provide for those who can’t or won’t work (and probably defense and similar responsibilities) and taxpayers should be rewarded for their contribution, and also to provide an incentive for productivity over nonproductivity.

            Now, I don’t think a minimum wage is the best way to achieve this, but in combination with Basic Jobs, it could be a plausible proposal.

            ¹ Isn’t it?

          • johan_larson says:

            Can one live in our society without breaking any laws or regulations while making only the sort of $1-5/day income that most people historically survived on? It seems to me there are a lot of regulations setting minimum standards, such as housing construction codes, that make it difficult, perhaps impossible.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @johan_larson
            A lot of poor people in Southern Europe live in garages converted into small apartments. From the government’s viewpoint it’s illegal but if it starts enforcing it there will be a riot, so the government pretends not to notice.

          • Guy in TN says:

            @JohnSchilling

            The market, almost always includes the zero option. The state, not so much.

            States and markets are compatible, e.g. states trade goods with eachother all the time.

            But sure, within the boundaries of the of the state it doesn’t always act like a market (due to the law of the state). But the same is true for within the boundaries of private property (due to the authority of a property owner). Neither one presents a “zero option” for their inhabitants.

            The dichotomy of the market and the state is as usual, a bad one, that only obscures the authority of property ownership.

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            If you are proposing anything higher than [the current minimum wage, given how much higher it is than the historic living wage], or supporting that, or even supporting something half that, you have to claim that one cannot live on the income on which most of the people who ever existed did live.

            Or recognize that “liveable wage” is dishonest rhetoric, designed to pretend that a value judgement is an objective fact, taking advantage of the ignorance of most of the population about how rich they are.

            Putting on my stickler hat, I can see another way, which is that certain people really meant a wage that permitted flourishing – living long enough to raise children at the same standard of living or better – and used the term “living wage” by mistake.

            I have seen a few people express concern about this. The idea is that you could live at the historic wage in modern society, but you would be at a disadvantage among other people. This would impact your ability to “be fruitful and multiply”, and only because there exists this other culture that crowds you out. If not for them, you’d be fine, albeit poorer.

            I don’t know the usual principled free market response to that argument. “Your culture isn’t owed the right to flourish” might be accurate, but more coldhearted than I’m used to. I’m more used to something like “well, you always have the option of expanding the frontier and settling new territory”, which still somewhat true even today, but I think growing less so, barring a breakthrough in space tech.

            Meanwhile, ditto johan_larson’s question.

          • John Schilling says:

            Can one live in our society without breaking any laws or regulations while making only the sort of $1-5/day income that most people historically survived on? It seems to me there are a lot of regulations setting minimum standards, such as housing construction codes, that make it difficult, perhaps impossible.

            Pedantically, it’s probably not possible to live on $100-500/day without breaking any laws or regulations, so let’s take that to mean “laws and regulations that people actually care about in isolation, and would bother enforcing even if there wasn’t an anti-homelessness crackdown”.

            Pretty sure it is still possible to do this if you’re up for tent-camping in a quasi-wilderness within walking distance of a town with a decent general store. Not sure how much land there is where you’d be allowed to step up from tent-camping to e.g. a log cabin.

            Sleeping rough in a warm-ish city is probably also still possible, but much trickier due to the regulatory thicket. State or church-funded shelters would help quite a bit, if we don’t count their price against your $1-5/day.

            I don’t think there’s much in the way of US cities or towns where building codes and zoning laws would allow the construction of apartments that could be viably rented in that price range, and those usually do get enforced.

          • acymetric says:

            @John Schilling

            Pedantically, it’s probably not possible to live on $100-500/day without breaking any laws or regulations, so let’s take that to mean “laws and regulations that people actually care about in isolation, and would bother enforcing even if there wasn’t an anti-homelessness crackdown”.

            Pretty sure it is still possible to do this if you’re up for tent-camping in a quasi-wilderness within walking distance of a town with a decent general store. Not sure how much land there is where you’d be allowed to step up from tent-camping to e.g. a log cabin.

            How much land is there where long-term camping is allowed that is also within walking distance of a town with a general store (we would probably also need to restrict this to climates that are reasonably temperate year-round, so i.e. holing up in a spot outside Boone, NC or anywhere in Wyoming might not be viable during the winter)?

            There is also the question of whether that money affords you enough hygiene supplies that the townsfolk generally and the people running the store specifically continue to tolerate your presence (I think the answer there is yes, soap isn’t terribly expensive, but it can’t be totally ignored).

          • acymetric says:

            It also strikes me that the places where it might possibly be viable from a techical, legal standpoint are probably some of the places you would be most likely to run into something along the lines of:

            “You better just git on down the road, y’hear?” *sound of shotgun cocking*

            From one of your new “neighbors”, which is a social as opposed to legal limitation.

          • Putting on my stickler hat, I can see another way, which is that certain people really meant a wage that permitted flourishing – living long enough to raise children at the same standard of living or better – and used the term “living wage” by mistake.

            “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”

            When millions of people, including presidential candidates, senators, professors, journalists, and commenters here, make the same false claim in support of their position, I don’t think “mistake” is a plausible explanation.

            Some may be the victims of fraudulent claims by their allies.

          • Paul Brinkley says:

            Ha! That’s fair.

            However, I do still hope I find a response to the steelman. What’s the best way for free marketeers to address wages that might not give their earners much participation in modern society, even if it’s more than enough to live on?

          • ECD says:

            @David Friedman

            Can you offer any definition o “liveabble” consistent with this defense of the minimum wage substantially different from “a wage which I would find tolerable to live at”? That’s the only candidate I can think of.

            Possibly relevant data: The estimate of economic historians is that average real income in modern developed societies is twenty to thirty times higher than the average was for most of history. The median U.S. income for a full time wage or salary worker is about $900/week. One twentieth of that is $45/week. For someone working a 40 hour week, that’s a wage of a little over a dollar an hour, about a seventh the current minimum wage.

            If you are proposing anything higher than that, or supporting that, or even supporting something half that, you have to claim that one cannot live on the income on which most of the people who ever existed did live.

            Or recognize that “liveable wage” is dishonest rhetoric, designed to pretend that a value judgement is an objective fact, taking advantage of the ignorance of most of the population about how rich they are.

            Except, I didn’t actually say that. I said:

            I certainly couldn’t mean that the government should maybe make sure, for example, that there is a minimum wage which is actually liveable.

            Which doesn’t actually say whether it should go up or down, but rather that it should be set by the government rather than the market, which was what we were discussing.

            Now, since you’d like to discuss what a wage which was livable actually is, I think the MIT Living Wage calculator is a good place to start.

            I’m not an economist, but I wonder how much of the estimates you’re providing depends on charity, state support, religious support, welfare (of the bread and circuses variety) or the ability to have access to property to camp/hunt/grow your own food?

            Amusingly, for someone who lives where I do, in my condition, the living wage would actually be below the current minimum wage for my state.

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            @ECD

            Now, since you’d like to discuss what a wage which was livable actually is, I think the MIT Living Wage calculator is a good place to start.

            This is great, as I’ve been looking for a source that calculates what is truly a minimum from a micro-economic stand-point. Federal poverty guidelines are very macro-economic based and so don’t match reality very well.

            Except the link doesn’t actually give any numbers; it only talks (in vague terms) about a living wage calculator. Do you know where the actual numbers are?

          • ECD says:

            Whoops, sorry, linked to the description, not the calculator: https://livingwage.mit.edu/

          • ECD says:

            Duplicate comment deleted–not sure how I created it…

          • Now, since you’d like to discuss what a wage which was livable actually is

            Before discussion how much it is, I first want to discuss what the term means. Moderns take for granted a standard of living out of the reach of what most of the population of the world lived on.

            In an old blog post, I offered as a possible definition a wage at which it was possible to live in a way that gave you an life expectancy at least half that of the average person. That avoids the binary life/death criterion–if “liveable” means “you don’t instantly drop dead,” then zero would be a liveable wage.

            Feel free to tweak it as you like. For a starting point, do you know what the minimal cost of a full nutrition diet is?

            The MIT calculator says it is calculangon for “a minimum tolerable standard of living.” That isn’t what “liveable” means.

            My guess is that they would not consider a family of five living in one room to be a minimum tolerable standard of living, but it describes how quite a lot of people through history, including a recently as Moscow a few decades back, actually lived.

          • ECD says:

            @David Friedman

            Do you also object to me saying “I make a living” as well?

            After all, I’m clearly making more than the bare minimum needed to live. You can tell because I’ve got clothes (okay, you can’t see that, but trust me), and electricity and a computer, or phone capable of internet access.

            How about ‘death tax’? There’s a false term. What’s being taxed isn’t death, but inheritance.

            Look, if you want to be a quasi-prescriptivist, that’s fine, but it’s also not how politics, advertising, or people are likely to work, nor is it a convincing argument to anyone who doesn’t agree with your position.

            I’ll also say, no, living wage does not mean a

            wage at which it was possible to live in a way that gave you an life expectancy at least half that of the average person.

            I’d call it a term of art intended to mean basically what the MIT folks say it is and which you’re pretty close to here:

            Can you offer any definition o “liveabble” consistent with this defense of the minimum wage substantially different from “a wage which I would find tolerable to live at”?

            I’d phrase that differently, a living wage is the minimum needed for the life a hard working person is entitled to. This will vary by region and there will be any number of disagreements about it. Fortunately, we have a political system to help us sort out those disagreements.

            ETA: concluding thought. Also, your historical argument seems a fully universal argument against attempts at improvement. Also, I attempted to address it in my previous response:

            I’m not an economist, but I wonder how much of the estimates you’re providing depends on charity, state support, religious support, welfare (of the bread and circuses variety) or the ability to have access to property to camp/hunt/grow your own food?

          • ETA: concluding thought. Also, your historical argument seems a fully universal argument against attempts at improvement.

            Not at all. Only against demagogic exaggerations of the improvements being proposed.

            I’m not arguing about whether a minimum wage is a good idea. I am arguing that your rhetoric in defending is either dishonest or the product of massive ignorance.

            And you have come back to where I started. When you say “a liveable wage” what you mean is, roughly, a wage you wouldn’t too much mind living at.

        • Guy in TN says:

          @eigenmoon

          Well, I have a problem with that. I don’t want to force anybody to follow my morality, I don’t want to be forced by anybody to follow their morality

          Enforcement of property tho.

          • eigenmoon says:

            Correct. Some left anarchists think that they can do without property and contract enforcement. I’m willing to let them live like they want but not willing to let them have my property.

          • Guy in TN says:

            Well, there you go: already making demands upon others about how they should act.

            Do you not see any tension in “I just want to let people do what they want” and “Don’t violate my property”?

            It’s the same tension if I said: “Hey, I don’t want to force anybody to do anything. Just so long as they don’t violate the law of the state.”

          • baconbits9 says:

            Morality presumes the individual, rendering this point moot.

          • Guy in TN says:

            I wish we had an upvote system so I could tell whether I was the only one to find that sentence/argument completely incoherent.

            Literally the first person to use “the individual” in this minithread, and it’s the subject of your sentence.

          • eigenmoon says:

            Of course there’s a tension, for example what’s with some libertarians (Spooner) arguing for infinite copyright term and others (Kinsella) arguing for no copyright whatsoever. Land ownership is also frequently questioned.

            But there are several order of magnitude difference between that and a state. Your argument sounds exorbitant, something like “There should be at least a rule against stealing therefore it’s totally permissible to steal everybody’s money and build a stadium because we really like football and stuff”.

          • @eigenmoon

            You aren’t understanding how the state and property are tied together. Hypothetically, if there was a famine, and one guy had all the grain, then the state using violence to protect it from anyone trying to take it is presuming some kind of morality. It’s not a neutral position to use that violence.

          • Nick says:

            I think Guy in TN and Wrong Species are right here. Property rights are not pre-moral.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Wrong Species
            Presuming some kind of morality… of the state? You mean the country where cops steal more than burglars?

          • baconbits9 says:

            I wish we had an upvote system so I could tell whether I was the only one to find that sentence/argument completely incoherent.

            Literally the first person to use “the individual” in this minithread, and it’s the subject of your sentence.

            You are substituting one definition of force for another’s, you argument based on this misdirection. Virtually no one discussing morality bins ‘rape’ and ‘defending oneself from rape’ as being the same thing. Yes they both can use one definition of force to be accomplished, but that is clearly not the definition being used above.

          • @eigenmoon

            I’m not making any claim about the goodness of the state or even about the rightness of libertarianism. I’m just saying you clearly do want to enforce morality, contrary to what you said earlier.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Wrong Species
            Basically baconbits9 nailed it.

            Enforcing as in sending cops against everyone in the country who doesn’t obey my legislation and enforcing as in posting a guard in my shop are two very, very different meanings of “enforcement”.

          • And yet both of them use a moral claim to justify violence. I honestly don’t want to get in a whole argument about libertarianism. I just want you to stop claiming that you don’t want “to force anybody to follow my morality” because even if you were right about everything else, you’re quite clearly wrong about that.

          • Guy in TN says:

            @baconbits
            @eigenmoon

            My definition of “force” is very neutral: the initiation of violence against another human body.

            You seem to think that it’s “force ” for the state to collect taxes, but not “force” to use an armed guard to prevent people from taking things from a store. But these are the same physical actions! The only difference is that you think the store is justified in initiating force, but the state is not.

            It’s clear that what we’re really talking about is the question of *entitlement*, i.e. Who should be entitled to use force and when.

          • Plumber says:

            @Guy in TN > “…My definition of “force” is very neutral: the initiation of violence against another human body.

            You seem to think that it’s “force ” for the state to collect taxes, but not “force” to use an armed guard to prevent people from taking things from a store. But these are the same physical actions! The only difference is that you think the store is justified in initiating force, but the state is not.

            It’s clear that what we’re really talking about is the question of *entitlement*, i.e. Who should be entitled to use force and when”

            +1

            It baffles me that some feel Pinkertons hired by ol’ man Rockefeller will be less oppressive than police hired by a city council that you vote for (the history of the actual use of private police and private armies of the company towns in the 19th century seems to me to show otherwise!).

            I have to think that the preference for “one dollar one vote” over one man one vote is from always imagining that one will have dollars, which isn’t a chance I’d risk!

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Guy
            With sufficiently high bird’s view you could look at the American Revolutionary War and say: hey, two groups of people are doing the same physical action to each other! Clearly they’re fighting for who’s entitled to be the King.

            Your definitions are tailor-made to miss the point, which you then accomplish. Libertarianism isn’t an alternative state any more than liberal democracy is an alternative dictator.

          • Guy in TN says:

            Could you spell out what you think the difference is between libertarian property ownership and the state for me?

            If they are clearly apples and oranges, surely there is at least one difference that is easily articulated.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @Guy
            In libertarianism collective rights normally do not exist, that is, a group of people may do no more than its members may do. “Normally” means that there are some nuances around dealing with criminals, but the ideal is that a large group of people can’t overpower just by numbers.

            The state on the other hand is entirely built around various groups such as political parties overpowering each other by numbers, and most importantly, the state overpowering individuals. All this is extremely undesirable from a libertarian viewpoint.

            If a guy may not put a gun to my head and take my money to buy a football ticket, then millions of people may not put a gun to my head and take my money to build a football stadium. Even if they’re waving a colorful piece of cloth. Even if they’re singing their gang’s theme song. Even if they have selected the gang boss by an election.

          • Guy in TN says:

            The state on the other hand is entirely built around various groups such as political parties overpowering each other by numbers,

            Your objections applies only to a democratic states. In a non-democratic state, you wouldn’t have to worry about the majority overpowering the minority by sheer numbers. Instead, you can be assured the minority will overpower the majority (as they do when the enforce the libertarian concept of private property).

            So this objection seems not to be against the state per se, but against democracies.

          • Guy in TN says:

            If a guy may not put a gun to my head and take my money to buy a football ticket, then millions of people may not put a gun to my head and take my money to build a football stadium.

            But can you put a gun to a guy’s head to keep him from using money to buy a football ticket, if you think you are entitled to that money (e.g. you are the owner of the money)?

            Again, I suspect your objection to the state turns entirely on the question of “who is entitled to what”, rendering the presence a gun a red herring.

          • Compbiocheminfo says:

            @Guy I think you may be missing (or it hasn’t been sufficiently mentioned) the distinction between the use of force and the initiation of force. Under the (right-wing) libertarian model if I earned the money, I would be justified to use force to keep it. It’s not about not using force, but fundamentally concerned with not “drawing first blood.”

            I don’t think it necessarily follows that property rights must be enforced by the state. I could personally enforce them, negotiate an arrangement with neighbors, make an agreement to defend the property rights of my neighbor if they’ll help protect mine, hire private security on mutually agreed terms or just broadly convince others that taking property isn’t something that will be productive long-term.

          • eigenmoon says:

            Indeed I have objected specifically to a democratic state, for the other kinds of states are little more than a bunch of bandits controlling a territory, so the objections to them should be obvious. Some states (the Ottoman Empire) were even openly started by a band of bandits.

            Throughout the history folks who didn’t like the state found refuge among mountains. This means their terrain is shitty, their soil is infertile, and some of them purposefully grow only those crops that spoil fast to disincentivize robbers (such as taxmen). According to you (and ECD) those guys impose their morality on others and are a minority overpowering a majority. Seriously?

            It might indeed happen that experiments with cryptocurrencies and related technology will render some industries untaxable, thus massively imposing libertarian morality on the larger society. If that happens, I’d say that the society deserved it 100%, and the reason I’d say so boils down to this bizarre idea that highlanders rob from the people of the plains by preventing themselves from being robbed.

            If you believe that the right to have property and indeed the right to very life itself comes down to you from the State, then I submit to you that y’all Americans are still in an unlawful revolt against the English Crown and must bow to Her Majesty and offer her appropriate reparations. If you say that it was proper for Americans to rise against their King, then clearly rights come from below, that is, from an individual.

            And is not the present-day US government pretty much the new King? The old King was quartering large bodies of armed troops among Americans; the new King militarizes the police, giving them toys that they shouldn’t have at all. The old King was protecting them [the troops], by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States; the new King protects the policemen with “qualified immunity”. The old King was cutting off US Trade with all parts of the world; the new King does that with China. The old King was imposing Taxes on US without Consent; and you’re telling me that I’m imposing something on society by not consenting to the taxes?

          • ECD says:

            . According to you (and ECD) those guys impose their morality on others and are a minority overpowering a majority. Seriously?

            If you want to hide in the mountains and never see anyone. And you succeed. I will agree that you have not imposed your morality on anyone. But, when the next refugee arrives at your mountain farm and you drive him off with your pitchfork, yes, you are imposing your morality on him.

            You may well be right to do so (especially if you substitute bandit for refugee), but you are still doing so. Whether you are doing so and whether you are right to do so are two different questions.

            Also, whether you are attempting to do so and whether you are succeeding at doing so are different questions (hence the minority imposing its will on the majority conundrum you have created).

            If you believe that the right to have property and indeed the right to very life itself comes down to you from the State,

            I can’t speak for Guy in TN, but I don’t believe this and I think it’s orthogonal to our entire conversation.

            and you’re telling me that I’m imposing something on society by not consenting to the taxes?

            Yes. Especially if you actually don’t pay them, as opposed to don’t consent to pay them. Again, you might be right to do so (in this case, i do not think so), but that’s different from whether you are imposing something on society by refusing to abide by its rules.

            Let me give you a different example. If I lived in a society which required all members to get married and have children to support the community going forward, and I were gay and refused to do so, that would be an imposition on the society. I believe, for moral reasons, that this would be an imposition that it was right to make, but it would still be an imposition.

            From my perspective, it really seems like you want to have it both ways, you say

            Well, I have a problem with that. I don’t want to force anybody to follow my morality, I don’t want to be forced by anybody to follow their morality, I don’t want to play the tug-of-war or even care about it.

            And then you make a whole series of moral arguments. There is a case that libertarianism is moral, which you obviously know because you’re making it. Pretending otherwise just confuses the issue.

            Or at least confuses me.

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Compbiocheminfo

            I think you may be missing (or it hasn’t been sufficiently mentioned) the distinction between the use of force and the initiation of force. Under the (right-wing) libertarian model if I earned the money, I would be justified to use force to keep it.

            Are you saying you would be justified in initiating force (“drawing first blood”) in order to keep it?

            @eigenmoon

            Indeed I have objected specifically to a democratic state, for the other kinds of states are little more than a bunch of bandits controlling a territory, so the objections to them should be obvious.

            My position, since I haven’t spelled it out, is that libertarian property is essentially indistinguishable from a non-democratic state. So pointing out the difference between libertarian property and a democratic state isn’t very interesting to me, since we both already agree about the difference on this axis.

            According to you (and ECD) those guys impose their morality on others and are a minority overpowering a majority. Seriously?

            Yep, if he is enforcing property rights. If there is a fight between one property owner vs. two non-property owners, and the property owner wins, then this situation is quite literally a minority overpowering a majority.

          • Compbiocheminfo says:

            @Guy

            I suspect you’ll disagree, but I think the taking itself would be initiation of force. I don’t consent to you taking my $item, you then apply force that overrides that consent. You may not believe in property, but taking something I built (or traded for using value I created) is no different from forcing me to build it for you.

          • eigenmoon says:

            @ECD
            I see. According to your definition of imposing morality, if the society decides to sacrifice me to Baal but I escape, I’m imposing morality on the society. Under that definition, I do indeed want to impose. I just defined it differently, in this example it involved destroying statues of Baal.

            @Guy
            Again, seriously? The difference between libertarianism and monarchy is the presence of a King. There, spelled it out for you.

            Although there’s also an anarcho-monarchist Hoppe who makes me go wtf.

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Compbiocheminfo

            I suspect you’ll disagree, but I think the taking itself would be initiation of force. I don’t consent to you taking my $item, you then apply force that overrides that consent.

            Notice how the term has shifted. At first we were defining force, as you put it, as “drawing first blood”. But now you have expanded the term to include “applying force” to use of an object that overrides the consent of the person you think is entitled to it.

            But this just loops us back to where we started. Because basically everyone is in agreement, libertarians, communists, monarchists, run-of-the-mill centrists, that if someone is entitled to a thing, then they should only be parted from that thing with their consent. We all just disagree on who is entitled to what.

            And since its your theory of moral entitlement which is doing all the work of determining whether an action constitutes “initiation of force”, you can’t point to the lack of “initiation of force” as evidence of a superior economic system.

            Let me flip it, so you can see why:
            “Libertarianism is bad, because it relies on the initiation of force. This is because I think the state is entitled to the tax money. So when people, without the IRS’s consent, force the IRS not to be able to collect what is rightfully theirs, that’s initiation of force. I just wish people would respect the rights of property owners (the IRS)”

            ^This is the equivalent to what I hear when I talk to libertarians

          • Guy in TN says:

            @eigenmoon

            The difference between libertarianism and monarchy is the presence of a King. There, spelled it out for you.

            What powers does a king have over his dominion, that a libertarian property owner doesn’t have over his property?

          • eigenmoon says:

            There are some differences, like if you come to my house as a guest I can impose a smoking ban on you but can’t rifle through your wallet.

            But I think this is not really the issue. There was an interesting society in early modern Poland that is basically ancap but only for nobles. Libertarianism is that but with everyone being noble. Monarchy is that but with only one noble.

          • Compbiocheminfo says:

            @Guy I don’t think the term has shifted in terms of “drawing first blood.” I think the first non-voluntary interaction meets that standard.

            There is an underlying reality in the sense that not all claims are equally legitimate. I don’t think that the state or it’s agents (appointed or elected, etc.) can claim to be acting defensively/voluntarily to take, $item that I myself built (or to consider me the aggressor in not surrendering). This is because that $item (or it’s equivalent value) wouldn’t exist, except for the part of my life used to create it.

            From your perspective, me denying the use of my life by others might constitute the initiation of force, but I think there’s a strong case that I am acting in defense of my life (even if just a portion, I’m guessing that even a very temporary kidnapping would still be initiation of force by just about everyone’s standards).

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Compbiocheminfo

            This is because that $item (or it’s equivalent value) wouldn’t exist, except for the part of my life used to create it.

            All material things consist of a natural component. Even the most technologically advanced items, for example a computer, rely on silicon and plastic. So all items you help create consist at least of labor+natural resources.

            Because of this, when you claim property on an item, you necessarily claim property over an uncreated natural resource. And by doing so, you prevent other people from accessing that same natural resource, making them worse off.

            From your perspective, me denying the use of my life by others might constitute the initiation of force, but I think there’s a strong case that I am acting in defense of my life

            So while you may be tempted to think of a resource you used your labor to help create as “nature+your labor”, and therefore the item is essentially an extension of yourself, it is more accurately thought of as “people made worse off+ your labor”, since that includes what happens when you claim property over a piece of nature.

            So should people who are made worse off, have in say in their change of condition? I would think so.

          • Guy in TN says:

            And apologies for piling on too hard, but the idea that labor+capital results in the laborer owning the capital isn’t how property works, even in libertarian theory.

            If you hire me to plant crops in your field, I don’t become the owner of part of your field. But why not? The fact that you payed me should be of no relevance, because under this metaphysical framework my labor was added to the capital of the field, which now means that the field is literally an extension of myself.

            The libertarian “homestead theory” attempts to solve this problem by saying that only the first laborer is the one who matters. But this makes no sense: if labor+capital means you become part of the capital, then any labor plus capital should mean the same thing. But this would result in mass collective ownership, which is not typically what people who deploy this line of thinking are going for.

          • Compbiocheminfo says:

            @Guy I don’t think you’ve been disrespectful at all, and I hope I haven’t come off that way either.

            However, I completely disagree with your premise in how you are thinking of a resource. That is, I don’t think a thing is a resource until human ingenuity finds a use for it: finding oil was once considered a nuisance in trying to dig wells for water, unrefined nuclear fuel would have once been called just “dirt” a hundred years ago. To clarify, you might think about the quantity of oil reserves up until the 18th century . Even now, the more oil we use up the more oil we seem to have:

            https://www.indexmundi.com/energy/?product=oil&graph=reserves

            Because we keep finding more uses for oil we keep redefining what counts as an oil resource through better technology.

            This is more evident if you look at GDP per capita (the best proxy I can think of for human well-being over time – https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth), we keep “using up” more and more stuff, and human well-being keeps increasing. If the effects were so negative (if it was really the atoms and not the time/effort/talents), I would expect to see wealth decreasing as population increases.

            If I buy a computer, I may deny the specific atoms of metal, plastic, and silicon to others, but I would argue that these don’t really have intrinsic value to begin with – they were worthless without the time, effort and talents that made them into a computer, which is what I am really purchasing through my own money (which is just a measurement of my own time, effort and talents). Even beyond this, I’ll use the computer to benefit others through entertainment and productivity, etc. (I wouldn’t make the purchase unless the value was greater to me than the money and I wouldn’t sell my time unless the money was worth more to me than my time).

            Yes the Earth technically has a finite mass, but it is effectively an infinite resource as we keep finding more clever ways to use different parts of it. Of course, you may also have concerns beyond maximizing human well-being, but generally only harm to other human beings would count from a libertarian perspective.

            You mention land use a few times and while it’s true that I would be preventing someone else from using the land, that land had to be made valuable somehow – even for fertile farm land there are still concerns of irrigation, maintenance, etc. and there’s plenty of land that is effectively worthless – at least at the moment. I would still argue that the exchange is primarily for of the time/effort/talent to create the value.

            While it’s true that virtually everything was conquered at some point and there isn’t an infinite chain of voluntary exchange of values throughout all of human history. However, for the vast majority of value, this would still be true (GDP is many orders of magnitude greater than it used to be, so value creation would have to be much, much greater than mere value transfer). After N degrees of separation (and X generations) it wouldn’t be possible to provide just compensation to the victims of the initiation of force anyway (who receives and who pays for The Norman Conquest?).

          • Guy in TN says:

            If I buy a computer, I may deny the specific atoms of metal, plastic, and silicon to others, but I would argue that these don’t really have intrinsic value to begin with – they were worthless without the time, effort and talents that made them into a computer

            The idea that value comes from a combination of both labor and nature should be pretty straightforward.

            For example, it takes roughly the same physical amount of labor to dig up a piece of coal as it does a piece of gold. But why then, do people value the gold more? The obvious answer, I think, is that there are intrinsic properties of the gold that people deem valuable compared to the properties of the coal. While the labor necessary to acquire the gold is certainly factored in, that’s not the only source from where the value is derived.

            we keep “using up” more and more stuff, and human well-being keeps increasing. If the effects were so negative (if it was really the atoms and not the time/effort/talents), I would expect to see wealth decreasing as population increases.

            All this shows is that the creation of property can make people better off in aggregate, which is quite different from the question of it makes individuals worse off.

            For example, if I steal money from a drug addict to fund a factory (transforming $1000 worth of value into $10,000,000), you could say that I made everyone better off as a collective. But I can’t make the argument to the drug addict that my action’s don’t have a negative effect on him.

          • Guy in TN says:

            You mention land use a few times and while it’s true that I would be preventing someone else from using the land, that land had to be made valuable somehow

            If the arg is “yes, the creation of property makes some people worse off, but its worth it in the end because of how much better off it makes everyone on average”, you won’t get any disagreement from me.

            But I would also then ask why that same logic isn’t extended to taxation and welfare by the state. Yes, it makes a few people worse off (the rich), but the utility gains by the poor vastly make up for it.

            After N degrees of separation (and X generations) it wouldn’t be possible to provide just compensation to the victims of the initiation of force anyway (who receives and who pays for The Norman Conquest?).

            I find this argument to be structurally interesting.

            The importance of establishing a chain of voluntary transfers isn’t something that I actually care about. It’s irrelevant to my philosophy. The “chain of voluntary exchange” is a libertarian concern, primarily used to argue why the state’s power is supposedly illegitimate, while private property is legitimate.

            So when a Leftist such as myself points to private property, and asks if it follows a chain of voluntariness, it’s not because we are secretly deeply concerned with voluntarism. That’s not an axis that we even judge the moral legitimacy of the ownership. I’m just seeing if the libertarian is willing to consistently apply their standards to other power structures besides the state.

            So the next move, one I think that was popularized by Bryan Caplan, is what you argue for here. Something along the lines of “Meh, we can’t re-litigate the past, and a chain is voluntariness isn’t important anyway, so we shouldn’t worry about it”. Which is interesting, because I thought the lack of voluntary acquisition was the core argument against the sovereignty of the state to begin with.

            Like, if the chain of voluntariness doesn’t matter, what’s the argument against the state’s territorial claims of sovereignty again?

          • Compbiocheminfo says:

            @Guy We’ve come to an incredibly fundamental point of disagreement. I think it is entirely/almost entirely the ingenuity that provides the value, and not the atoms and that the evidence strongly supports this.

            If the atoms were intrinsically valuable, then the amount of wealth should be relatively fixed, but it isn’t. Since total wealth has increased by orders of magnitude, I would have to conclude that at the very least, the vast majority (and increasing) share of the value in a thing is due to the ingenuity and not inherent. If the mix between ingenuity and atoms’ intrinsic contribution were relatively even in the creation of wealth, then I would expect GDP per capita to stay flat (as we grab more atoms), but it is exponentially increasing.

            Gold mining and coal mining are completely different processes, so it’s not surprising they produce different amounts of value. There might be the incredibly rare situation that a person just trips over a nugget of hundreds of pounds, but I think this is rare enough (and constitutes such a small fraction of total wealth) to be negligible.

            If the property owner is 99.99+% defending legitimately acquired wealth and <0.01% Bogarting the intrinsic wealth of atoms, I'm completely fine with updating my "don't initiate force" principle to "minimize the initiation of force," and saying the proper minimization is to protect property rights.

            I can apply a similar logic to the case of conquest, if the initiation took place far enough back and only accounts for a tiny percentage of the total, then 99+% is voluntarily acquired and I'm okay with simply minimizing the initiation of force. Whereas if I take something in the present, a retaliatory/defensive response can get us closer to the voluntary ideal.

            I know it's tangential to the initiation of force question, but I think that you'll still end up with less overall flourishing taking the property and redistributing it due to secondary, tertiary, etc. effects through perverse incentives, but that's not really our topic.

        • Guy in TN says:

          Markets necessarily rely on the existence of property, which does not include the “zero option” any more than the law of the state does

          Evidence of which, is what happens if I violated your property. It’s an exact parallel to if I violated the law of the state

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            I am kind of curious here, Guy. You are technically correct that violence to defend one’s property is indeed not a zero option (as defined by John), unless one treats owning property as a kind of baseline. I think private property is treated as a baseline by John and by eigen, so that taking one’s personal property is kind of equivalent to attacking one’s body. I personally am pretty much on John’s and eigen’s side. I do think that attacking one’s body is worse than taking one’s property, but still they are somewhat equivalent. I don’t think you agree, since the existence of property seems to violate the zero principle in your mind.

            So I am trying to understand your point of view. You apparently don’t consider taking one’s property in any way equivalent to protecting one’s body. Do you believe in private property at all? IS there some ownership principle where people have the right to protect “their” property? Say property that one has produced oneself, or property traded for with other property one has produced?

          • I can’t speak for Guy but it’s not about proving that private property is bad. It’s about showing how intertwined it is with the state. The real question here is how square your claim that attacking the body is worse than theft while also claiming they are somewhat equivalent. Libertarians can take private property as a “baseline”(smuggling in some complicated claims with that word), but that’s not based on some objective feature of the world. It’s your own normative belief that is not a priori better than what everyone else believes.

          • Guy in TN says:

            I think private property is treated as a baseline by John and by eigen, so that taking one’s personal property is kind of equivalent to attacking one’s body.

            You are correct to note that much of this argument is really about what the “baselines” ought to be, i.e., who is entitled to what, not about “use of force”.

            To help illustrate why, let me flip it around. Let’s say I defend taxation by saying
            A: “Taxation is good, because it doesn’t rely on the use of force”. B: “But of course it relies on force, see all the government men with guns?”
            A: “Ah, but you don’t call it ‘use of force’ when initiating violence to defend property you believe someone is entitled to, right? Well I think the state is entitled to the tax money”

            So the first sentence, where I talk about “force”, isn’t actually doing any argumentative work here. If I want to defend taxation in a less tautological manner, I should instead do so on grounds that I think the state is morally entitled to the tax money, since that’s what the question is actually hinging on. And likewise, that’s the argument the libertarian needs to make as well.

            So I am trying to understand your point of view. You apparently don’t consider taking one’s property in any way equivalent to protecting one’s body. Do you believe in private property at all?

            I don’t support “private property” in the libertarian/ancap/liberal economic conception of it. I do support “private property” in the sense of the legal construct that exists in today’s modern economies, i.e. the state setting up a system where individuals are granted certain decision-making powers over resource use, with the state retaining the highest sovereignty, including the rights of taxation, regulation, and confiscation.

            IS there some ownership principle where people have the right to protect “their” property? Say property that one has produced oneself, or property traded for with other property one has produced?

            No I don’t think so, at least not in the “natural right” sense that you are probably using the term. I also don’t think there’s a “natural right” to protect a person’s body.

            But for both cases it makes sense, from a practical perspective, to create a legal right for the protection of human bodies, and also the protection of property, in certain circumstances. But this isn’t based on any underlying axiomatic principles (is not based on “voluntary transactions”, “self ownership”, “homesteading”, ect) and could be revoked/changed depending on the context of the situation.

          • Mark V Anderson says:

            @Guy

            No I don’t think so, at least not in the “natural right” sense that you are probably using the term. I also don’t think there’s a “natural right” to protect a person’s body.

            Well I don’t believe in “natural rights” myself, being a consequentialist, not a deontologist (sp?). But it very much makes sense to me that people will generally be happier and more prosperous when there is a presumption that each person’s body and one’s property (however that property is defined) is safe from attacks from others, and that defending such is not considered an offense. I would like to see such a presumption be both cultural and governmental. I do think that such presumptions do mostly exist in today’s Western society, so I bring this up for philosophical reasons, not because I am looking for change in the world on this matter. Also, I think property can be defined in quite different ways (such as intellectual property, land, inheritance). What is important in my schema is that however personal property is defined, people have the right to defend it.

            I say the above to explain why I think John’s concept of zero option makes sense and is important. Individuals have the option of participating or not in any potential private market transactions. Individuals do not have the option not to participate in governmental transactions. To me the point is that government inherently is more confining and less free. IMO, government is necessary for some things. But I think the default should be voluntary transactions to satisfy needs.

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Mark

            But it very much makes sense to me that people will generally be happier and more prosperous when there is a presumption that each person’s body and one’s property (however that property is defined) is safe from attacks from others, and that defending such is not considered an offense.

            I agree as a general principle. However, I think there should be certain caveats. For example, in order for “protection of property” to have meaning, there must be an exception to the protection of people’s bodies. Otherwise, you would have no recourse, no means of defending, any legal property that you owned from people who try to take it. All you could do to a thief is be like “Hey, don’t do that!”.

            So, right off the bat, if we agree that people should be able to defend what they are entitled to, that necessarily implies that they should be able to initiate bodily violence against other people. And critically, by doing so, this precludes any system that protects property from being “voluntary” or based entirely on “free exchange”.

            Which I am fine with. I support the creation of legal property, as well as the institutions of taxation and state regulation.

            Also, I think property can be defined in quite different ways (such as intellectual property, land, inheritance). What is important in my schema is that however personal property is defined, people have the right to defend it.

            While this is an admirable advocacy of respect for the rule of law, I cannot bring myself to be so agnostic on the question of how property is defined. I think the content of the property law has too strong of implication for human well-being to do so. For example, if I was living in a system where the rule was “the King owns everything”, I would think this system to be unjust, and fight against the King’s ability to defend his property.

            I say the above to explain why I think John’s concept of zero option makes sense and is important. Individuals have the option of participating or not in any potential private market transactions. Individuals do not have the option not to participate in governmental transactions.

            But you don’t have the “zero option” of choosing not to participate when you are within the boundaries of the authority of the property owner. And sure, you could just leave, but the same argument could be applies to the boundaries state.

            The more underlying issue, is that John is working with a bad dichotomy here. The appropriate comparison to state authority isn’t market exchanges (since after all, states can participate in markets), but rather private authority. And likewise, the inverse of markets is simply non-markets, which occur under the authority of both states and private entities.

      • But with my government, ‘you can’t do this, it’s wrong,’ is an actual argument for why they should not do it (it’s probably not a winning argument, but I’d like it to be a relevant argument), whereas making that argument in the free market is…completely orthogonal to its purpose.

        The market isn’t a person, you can’t make arguments, moral or otherwise, with it. Neither is the political market that determines what the government is doing.

        All of the choice, and all the potential for moral or immoral actions, is with people–to whom you can make arguments. You can try to persuade voters, legislators, lobbyists, bureaucrats, judges, the people whose actions determine what the government does, of things, including moral things.

        In exactly the same sense, you can try persuade consumers, workers, stockholders, … the people whose actions determine market outcomes, of things, including moral things. In that respect the situations are identical. You are being fooled by imagining the government as a person. It isn’t.

        The difference comes in the ways in each system maps individual preferences into outcomes. In that respect the market is much preferable, for reasons I can go into if you are sufficiently curious.

        • ECD says:

          I appreciate your position, but I think you’ve expanded the definition of market here to the point where everything is a market and given it is and remains my position that markets are amoral, I’m going to disagree with that position.

          I also have to say, it’s hilarious to me that we’ve arrived at discussion of the political market in a discussion which began with Eigenmoon arguing why government, unlike cultural or the market, is not subject to the forces which cause those to be ‘superintelligences’ subject to the stresses and forces which mean, maybe, we should be careful about screwing with them…

  40. Clutzy says:

    I need new business cards because of various contact info changes. I am a patent attorney. Anyone have any designs for cards that they found to be actually effective instead of the typical 95% chance of it going directly into a wastebasket after the person leaves?

  41. BBA says:

    I wish I could be more certain. Lately I’ve been envying the kinds of people who can dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as a bigot and believe it. This is bad for the overall health of the discourse, but probably much better for the mental health of the participants to not have to agonize over the details and nuances or worry that the wrong person got cancelled. Overall, moral clarity is a good thing to have…except when it led us to trick ourselves into invading Libya…there, see what I mean?

    I find myself arguing most fervently for positions that I have the most doubts about, because I’m trying to convince myself more than anyone else.

    Can anyone even relate to this, or am I just a freak?

    • ECD says:

      Certainty is a hell of a drug, one I’d occasionally like to sample, indeed.

      • Plumber says:

        @ECD,
        Well, how I induce this in myself is to work unscheduled overtime, be very tired, drink a lot of coffee or tea to be alert enough to drive, be unable to sleep, hear something on the radio or read online, and then fly into glorious umbrage at someone else’s opinion.

        Not quite the same as joy, but I find it chases the blues away for a bit.

        Recommended.

        • CatCube says:

          I’ve not yet had the “infuriated by something on the radio” experience yet, but I’m starting to get sick of the overtime. We’re in the middle of an emergency at work, and I finally got an 8-hour day yesterday and slept for 12 hours. Today was, thankfully, 8 hours as well.

        • ECD says:

          @Plumber

          Tempting, but I’ve been wrong so often I find it hard to get sufficiently heated up.

          • Plumber says:

            @ECD,
            Ah yes, unfortunately when you have a calm state of mind and your full facilities and empathy ones ability to do some good ranting is hindered.

            It really is burdensome.

            A little alcohol unfortunately increases my seeing the common humanity in others, but I imagine a lot combined with enough coffee could have the opposite effect, but then enough manual dexterity may be lost that being a keyboard warrior becomes difficult, so some trial and error is necessary for the right mix.

          • bullseye says:

            Nothing could go wrong with using speech recognition software to record your drunken rants!

          • Plumber says:

            @bullseye,
            So true!

            And it’s’s a totally beneficial and worthy use for new technology!

    • Murphy says:

      I’ve been going the other direction.

      I used to try to believe that people we mostly generally decent.

      But there’s a … particular group that I shall not name… where I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that the claims of bigotry surrounding them are actually well founded and largely true for a significant majority of their group.

      I’m intentionally not naming the group…

      But imagine it was Alabamans. (it’s not)

      It wouldn’t have affected me like that if I’d been searching out racists to argue with. I could argue with KKK members all day without it meaning anything much about the average resident of Alabama. But if I walked up to different random Alabaman’s in different places at different times regularly to talk about their views…. and they kept starting to talk about how great the KKK is…. I’d start to worry about the average Alabaman.

      Topics come up where this group and their position comes up and when I look at their supporters and their post history and… 75-80% of the time it’s a string of posts about how disgusting muslims are, how asylum seekers are all criminal scum, how gay marriage is “wrong” and gays are sinful, [nation name] for the [native ethnicity] and rants about how whites are gonna be genocided if we don’t strike first.

      At what point does pretending that this group **isn’t** massively bigoted and racist simply self delusion?

      And the worst of it is that it’s often the same people complaining about being called biggots.

      3 post ago in their post history they’re ranting about how we need to keep blacks out and how Obama is “disgusting”…. then they’re posting about how it’s totally unfair that they get dismissed as bigots.

      • Enkidum says:

        Keep in mind that rather a lot of these “people” are almost certainly bots – this is true of all of the issues I can think of which your general description might apply to.

        At any rate, I think while this might give you a decent way of predicting how a given conversation is going to go, it’s usually not a very useful way of actually governing your interactions with any given person, even according to your (let’s face it, kind of made up) statistics, 1/5-1/4 of them show no overt signs of the behaviours you’re objecting to.

        • Murphy says:

          I wish it was made up, I started keeping track in a notebook ticking off when one did start ranting about Muslims or similar and when they didn’t.

          It’s why it’s extra depressing from a starting position of trying to believe that people are mostly decent.

          If they’re bots then someone has gotten good at writing bots that can pass the Turing test.

          How much of a group have to be decent to mean you have to pretend they’re decent by default?

          Continuing the KKK/Alabamans comparison, I be surprised if there’s not at least one member of the KKK out there who’s actually a really nice person and doesn’t actually believe any of the stuff about non-whites.

          Does that mean I should pretend they’re all non-bigoted, good and decent?

          What’s the threshold? 1 in 100? 1 in 10?

          When the majority of a group are actually garbage humans… there’s a point where pretending otherwise is just delusion and the sane thing to do is just model the group as a group of bigots who’s motives are highly linked to that bigotry.

          • Enkidum says:

            Fair. I guess as EchoChaos suggests, remember that Facebook/Twitter/whatever is not necessarily representative of meatspace. But some groups are just pretty toxic, and I mean if I see someone being very vocal about their support for them, my opinion about that person will be adjusted downwards. Just the way life works.

          • EchoChaos says:

            When the majority of a group are actually garbage humans… there’s a point where pretending otherwise is just delusion and the sane thing to do is just model the group as a group of bigots who’s motives are highly linked to that bigotry.

            One thing that might be good is to update your model of bigots (or anyone) from “garbage humans” to “regular humans who have this one major flaw”.

            It will make you feel less bad.

          • gbdub says:

            How sure are you that you’re getting a representative sample of the group? Like, maybe you think you’re talking to random Alabamans, but really you’ve unknowingly been talking exclusively to Alabaman Klansmen?

          • Murphy says:

            sampling is an issue, but then how much does validity apply it to people you encounter through the same sampling method?

            If I sought out KKK message boards it would definitely be sampling bias if I wanted to take what I got from there and draw conclusions about a much larger group. But it seems valid to draw conclusions about KKK members from those same discussions.

            If I sample by talking to a groups evangelists and the people who argue for them on online forums, sure it’s hard to say that grandma who is part of the same group but who never uses the internet is the same…..but can I eventually reasonably draw conclusions about their evangelists and people who argue for them on online forums?

            When I’ve asked dozens of their evangelists encountered by method X about their beliefs and most have come back with bigotry.. at what point is the sane thing to assume that the next one you encounter by method X is probably pretty similar.

          • gbdub says:

            Well yes, it’s certainly valid to predict the results of your next sample based on the previous results of sampling the same way. I think that puts us in violent agreement – but your other comments seem to suggest you’re considering judging a broad group that you know you aren’t sampling based on the comments of the “evangelists” you are sampling.

          • Murphy says:

            True, you are right. I shouldn’t judge the whole group as harshly, but it does still move my priors for them somewhat.

          • John Lynch says:

            Good rule of thumb for dealing with the internet:

            1. Only say something if you have something to add to the discussion which hasn’t been said, or is unlikely to be said by someone else. Most people only talk for the sake of talking.

            2. Don’t throw pearls to swine. If you aren’t going to change any minds or share understanding, don’t bother. Even Jesus didn’t waste his time with some sinners, because his time on Earth was limited. So is ours.

            Both precepts are about wasting time. Don’t waste the time of others, but also don’t waste your own time. Time is better spent on other things. Like doing your laundry.

            If you are constantly confronted with people who believe X and you aren’t changing their minds, then you should start ignoring them.

      • Radu Floricica says:

        Well, I’d suggest to accept the prior that this group of people are… however you find them to be. If you find they statistically they’re so, then believing so it’s just a better fit to reality. (Another example that’s useful for perspective is that black people are more likely to be criminals.)

        Then try to avoid thinking a lot in terms of category. Sounds like it’s a good idea, but it’s usually not.

        And thirdly, remember that even the paranoid have enemies. Them being however they are doesn’t necessarily make each and every one of their opinions wrong.

      • EchoChaos says:

        The important question is how much do you need to interact with this group and why?

        I have a very similar issue with some real life people I know, and my conclusion is that Facebook brings out the worst in people because of its feedback loops and non-interactive conversation.

        If you don’t need to deal with them, just ignore them.

      • Paul Zrimsek says:

        Topics come up where this group and their position comes up and when I look at their supporters and their post history

        Am I to understand that “this group” and “their supporters” are two distinct collections of people? I can think of a few different ways in which judging the one by the words of the other could go wrong.

        • Murphy says:

          In this context

          supporters = people who evangelize their belief system.

          The people who go on message boards to explain/defend their beliefs and try to convert others or the people they put on stands handing out leaflets or going door to door.

          “this group” is the wider group of those who have converted and throw their support behind the group.

          The silent ones could all be terribly nice… but they seem to then be totally ignoring a lot of the stuff coming out of the mouths of their associated evangelists without disapproval or enough disapproval for it to put them off in any way.

          • gbdub says:

            The most vocal members of a group are also often the most extreme. It would be nice if people spent more time pushing back on the more fringey views of their fellow travelers, but politics, particularly online politics, being what they are, this problem is common for basically every position.

            And how general is the group you are judging? The broader it is, the worst your heuristic might be. E.g. if it’s a specific policy, and the only arguments you hear in favor really are bigoted, maybe that does say something about all the “silent” supporters. But if it’s a broad coalition (e.g. Democrats or Republicans), it’s less fair to judge the whole by the sample of loud online supporters.

            What would people think of you if you were judged by the most extreme proponents of the positions you hold? How much of your time online do you spend decrying the less savory ends of your own coalitions?

      • The Nybbler says:

        This is a rhetorical foul; you’re claiming a set of facts which you are careful to make unverifiable, and you’re winking in the direction of calling a certain set of people bigots while being able to deny you meant them if push comes to shove.

        • EchoChaos says:

          I was assuming he was calling a non-standard group of bigots, because if he wanted to call out Southerners (he specifically said it wasn’t us) or right-wingers he could’ve just said it.

        • Murphy says:

          How would you talk about it in the abstract? Because it is a general problem.

          what do you do when a group appears to *actually* be mostly witch?

          ignore the black hats, the gingerbread houses and way they keep cackling and flying around on broomsticks because it’s impolite to call people witches?

          The goal isn’t to start a fight on the specific issue or I’d just name them.

          It’s hard to avoid that some people will know what groups I argue with.

          So I’m trying to make it general enough that a member of a Mormon 1978 anti-black schism group reading the comment or members of a certain Voat community would also feel attacked and think I’m talking about them.

          • EchoChaos says:

            How would you talk about it in the abstract? Because it is a general problem.

            Try to avoid a sin that is perceived to belong only to one side of the culture war. I think there are as many or more lefty bigots, but that’s an idiosyncratic view.

            If you just said “witches” from the start you’d get a less negative reaction, I think.

          • nkurz says:

            I agree with EchoChaos (or at least what I think he’s suggesting). If your goal is to remain in the abstract, use literal black-hat-wearing broomstick-flying witches. People will still wonder what group you are actually referring to, but they won’t be as distracted.[1]

            But depending on your goals, I wonder if you might be better leading with the witches, and then revealing the actual group at the end. Sometimes the specificity will allow a more accurate response, possibly from someone from the inside who can explain why you are reaching an incorrect conclusion from the evidence you are seeing.

            [1] Although this being the internet, it’s possible that there is a large enough population of black-hat-wearing broomstick-flying non-witches that you might get specific pushback.

      • a reader says:

        Topics come up where this group and their position comes up and when I look at their supporters and their post history and… 75-80% of the time it’s a string of posts about how disgusting muslims are, how asylum seekers are all criminal scum, how gay marriage is “wrong” and gays are sinful, [nation name] for the [native ethnicity] and rants about how whites are gonna be genocided if we don’t strike first.

        At what point does pretending that this group **isn’t** massively bigoted and racist simply self delusion?

        So you dislike those people because they make generalizations about groups – and then you are tempted yourself to generalize about the group they belong to.

      • Jiro says:

        The devil is in the details.

        Telling you whether your conclusions are correct based on what you described is like convicting someone without seeing the evidence or letting them respond to it. It’s impossible to list all the reasons why your principles might not apply to every single case, and it’s certainly impossible for anyone familiar with the details to explain why your perceptions are just inaccurate if you haven’t told anyone any details.

        • Murphy says:

          treat it as a thought experiment.

          Assume a reality where what I claim myself seeing is something I’ve actually seen.

          you can assume I’m actually delusional in the real world, but if you found yourself in the universe where my claims were true, what would the sane reaction be? Pretend everyone is nice and non-biggoted or other?

          • Faza (TCM) says:

            You can’t get an “ought” from an “is”.

            If you have indeed interpreted what you’ve seen correctly, you will be able to predict how the people in question will act given a specific set of circumstances with a decent degree of accuracy.*

            What you choose to do with that knowledge is up to you.

            * If you can’t make such predictions accurately, it means your model is wrong.

      • Clutzy says:

        At what point does pretending that this group **isn’t** massively bigoted and racist simply self delusion?

        I’d think this answer is quite simple and easy to come by:

        After you’ve engaged with their best non-strawmen arguments and determined they lack credibility.

        • Murphy says:

          This is, it’s not the argument I’m talking about, rather the people.

          There does appear to be a small subset of people who have normal, non-racist reasons for their position, they’re a minority but they’re there.

          And a subset of them have fairly reasonable arguments, they’re not arguments that personally move me, but I can recognize that they’re reasonable and fairly solid if you share their precepts.

          It’s the people, the motivation of a seemingly sizable majority of the group that’s my issue.

          It’s relevant because while that problem-majority mostly parrot the more socially acceptable reasons they simply flit between them as arguments-as-soldiers because they don’t actually care about those.

          As such any argument/policy/sollution that addresses those publicly stated arguments is ignored because what they actually want, what they really really want is to just get rid of the muslims and everything else is just noise.

          • AG says:

            Have you read this post by our host, and its comments? Might have some useful discussion.

          • Clutzy says:

            If there exists a subset of people who, in your words, “who have normal, non-racist reasons for their position,” that means that the position is not necessarily wrong. What you should then ASSUME (and I know its hard) is that all other people holding that position are simply intuiting that same position, but do no possess the rhetoric to say it in the same way.

            This is simply the foil of a pretty standard argument made by “anti-racists” who oppose the normalization of IQ gaps and the like. Most anti racists do not possess the skill rhetorically or logically to persuade a child that “all humans are created equal”, there is a top 1-2% that make such arguments in a way that isn’t terribly embarrassing (children inherently perceive who in their peer group is better/worse at things). But the same is true of the “anti-anti-racists” who compose a group of people that generally have noticed that it is much safer to invite 70 year old ladies into your house than it is to let in 16 year old boys.

    • Enkidum says:

      That sounds like a pretty normal, healthy way to approach things. I think especially if you can tune into the kind of self-awareness necessary to produce this post while you’re engaging in these arguments, recognize in the heat of the moment that you’re less sure than you might come across as, and adjust your wording accordingly. But that is a difficult skill to master.

      Edited to add: I don’t think unkindness and not considering the consequences of your actions for other people should be thought of as “better for your mental health”. It’s just being a sociopath.

      • BBA says:

        Now I’m wondering if most of humanity since the dawn of time has been sociopathic in this sense. If so maybe it’s the non-sociopaths who are freaks.

        • eyeballfrog says:

          I would think it lies in the middle. Everyone has a point where others become other enough that they stop caring about the consequences for. For some it might extend only to themselves, or their immediate family. For others, it might be the entire country. Probably the mean is around tribe-level.

    • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

      I’m much less certain about things than I used to be (‘things’ meaning politics and politics-relevant issues). I’ve become much more aware of my ignorance / lack of expertise.
      Coincidentally I also argue about politics much less, although that may be because I now have a job and have less free time to argue on the internet.

    • Ketil says:

      I wish I could be more certain. Lately I’ve been envying the kinds of people who can dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as a bigot and believe it.

      I agree that it sounds comfortable to have a feeling of moral superiority, and to ignore all consequences and collateral damage.

      But do you really want to be that kind of person?

      • albatross11 says:

        I think it’s best to want to believe that which is true, and want to disbelieve that which is false.

        • BBA says:

          Truth is a social construct. If people around me are saying “Flint still doesn’t have clean water” I don’t want to be the guy who says “well, actually, they’ve managed to bring lead levels down substantially since the scandal broke.” Nobody likes a mansplainer.

          • roystgnr says:

            I do!

            And to use your specific example, Kevin Drum still seems to be popular enough; and he’s not just pointed out “down substantially since the scandal broke”, but also that lead levels are down enormously since a generation ago and were even at the peak of the scandal, which is even more contrary to the outrage narrative.

          • John Schilling says:

            There’s definitely a thing that is a social construct, that you will suffer social penalties if you deny. Flint having unclean water so long as any one of (Flint mayor, MI governor, POTUS) is a Republican, is a part of that thing. But I very strongly object to using the word “truth” to describe that socially-constructed thing. Indeed, I am tempted to assert that using the word “truth” to describe that socially-constructed thing will literally result in the apocalypse.

            “Pravda” will do for now, but we could probably use a better word for this thing. Any ideas?

          • Paul Zrimsek says:

            “Truthiness” has served us well and earned its place in the memeworld.

          • albatross11 says:

            BBA:

            That works great, as long as you’re not using that “truth” to make any actual decisions. But as soon as you start using your socially-defined but not factually-correct truth to make decisions, you find yourself invading Middle-Eastern dictatorships in search of nonexistent WMDs, locking teenagers up for life + infinity convinced that they’re (nonexistent) superpredators, having outbreaks of measles caused by parents avoiding the (nonexistent) risk of MMR making their kids autistic, etc.

            I mean, if we’re all just having a bull session with nobody making any decisions based on it, feel free to go to town with whatever the popular socially-defined truth is–young-Earth creationism, the Lizardmen secretly controlling the world, the oil companies suppressing the 100 MPG carburetor, the Fed having finally solved the business cycle so we’ll have only prosperity from now on, AIDS being caused by unhealthy lifestyle instead of HIV, etc.

            The problem is, it’s natural to decide what’s true using social mechanisms that are very susceptible to “social truth” that isn’t actually literally true. This is a mostly harmless tribe-building exercise for many beliefs, but then we all get together in markets and elections and make decisions, and those decisions are largely informed by those socially-true-but-not-really-true beliefs. And the result is that we make really bad collective decisions. And also, decisionmakers in our society are mostly not all that much smarter than average people and are probably mostly not as smart as the average SSCer[1]. So they make direct decisions about court cases and government policies and employment and such, based on the socially-true-but-not-true-true knowledge in their heads.

            [1] I’m thinking people like city managers/mayors, police chiefs, local prosecutors and judges, executives of large corporatioons, Congressmen, governors, military officers, high-level civil servants, school board members, etc. These folks are on average smarter than the average bear, and know their area of expertise well, but probably get their broad understanding of the world from the same place as most everyone else–vaguely remembered stuff from college, what’s been in the newspapers, maybe a popular book or two, what’s on TV every night.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @John Schilling:

            There’s definitely a thing that is a social construct, that you will suffer social penalties if you deny. Flint having unclean water so long as any one of (Flint mayor, MI governor, POTUS) is a Republican, is a part of that thing. But I very strongly object to using the word “truth” to describe that socially-constructed thing. Indeed, I am tempted to assert that using the word “truth” to describe that socially-constructed thing will literally result in the apocalypse.

            +101 truth-seeking Dalmatians.

    • Randy M says:

      I find myself arguing most fervently for positions that I have the most doubts about, because I’m trying to convince myself more than anyone else.

      No, over time I’ve gotten good at not arguing or even really identifying positions I don’t feel strongly for. (I think my posting history backs this up, but will update if corrected)

      But on the other hand, I’ve realized my writing comes across as weak with filled with qualifiers. Say what you think, and count on people to know that if you are stating something, it’s obviously your opinion, and doesn’t have to be qualified as such unless you are really tentative. I’m trying to cut down on little fillers like “I mean” “like” or “well…” (except when used as a proper noun, of course), without sacrificing precision too much.

      As far as personal presence goes, I’m not one usually brimming with confidence, but it is useful to be able to come across as self-assured if you have an interview or even just meeting people socially for the first time.

  42. WarOnReasons says:

    A scientific theory should be able not just provide a nice sounding explanation for the things one already knows, but also to predict the things one does not. What did Fukuyama predict that actually came true?

    Since 1992 (the year “The end of history” was written) no major country abandoned autocracy in favor of democracy, while several countries (notably Russia) went into the opposite direction. Several democratic countries have been successfully invaded and lost territory to their autocratic neighbors with little more than a token protest from the major democracies. If that’s what’s happening when the West still has material advantage, how will the global politics look like when China’s economy gets significantly ahead of the US?

    • cassander says:

      Since 1992 (the year “The end of history” was written) no major country abandoned autocracy in favor of democracy, while several countries (notably Russia) went into the opposite direction.

      Picking 1992 strikes me as a bit of cherry picking here, given it’s just after the fall of communism. But you do have countries becoming more classically liberal, like mexico. And if you look at freedom house you’ll see a big shift in the 90s to early 2000s.

      • John Schilling says:

        Picking 1992 strikes me as a bit of cherry picking here

        Perhaps, but it was Fukuyama who picked those cherries, and Fukuyama whose thesis was chosen by the OP as his “hot take”.

        • cassander says:

          Fukayama was writing in the context of post-soviet states transitioning to becoming democracies. He predicted that they’d succeed, and most of them have. You can’t leave then out, they’re a big part of his thinking.

        • Hoopdawg says:

          He predicted that they’d succeed, and most of them have.

          Most of them have not. Those that had are all EU members now, meaning that no “post-soviet state transitioned to becoming democracy” without ongoing external material incentives. As trust me, as a person living in one, that it’s the only thing keeping us from reverting to autocracy right now.

          The reason for this is obvious. Liberals misunderstood and overplayed their hand. The liberal democracy of Fukuyama’s time was no longer the social democracy of a few decades before. Faced with grim realities of now-ruling neoliberalism, and unable to revert back, post-soviet societies took refuge in strong authoritarian states and personalities who could at least rein and counterweight the liberals’ excesses.

          Maybe it’s unfair for Fukuyama personally to have become a poster child for liberal hubris, but someone had to.

        • eric23 says:

          > Those that had are all EU members now

          Ukraine and Georgia are reasonably democratic and not EU members.

          Also, they achieved this (admitted flawed) level of democracy despite massive influence from Russia working *against* democracy.

        • Hoopdawg says:

          I’m not convinced that Georgia or Ukraine are reasonably democratic, and to the extent that they are, it requires plenty of popular unrest (which is not treated kindly by those in power). I’m also pretty sure Russia’s aggression actually “helps” here – it makes them look away from Russia’s example. And the very fact that they look westward for allies against Russia may be distorting the perspective, making them appear more alike western democracies than they actually are. Either way, both are hardly success stories at this point.

          But I believe I have missed one particular former soviet satellite state that from my faraway vantage point appears to be a functioning democracy – Mongolia.

        • EchoChaos says:

          @Hoopdawg

          I am now really curious how Mongolia is actually doing in a transition. It’s in a tough place caught between two authoritarian powers. Does anyone here have knowledge on that?

        • Lambert says:

          Mongolia ahas a ‘Third Neighbour’ policy of actively cultivating ties with countries other than Russia and China.

      • AlphaGamma says:

        I also don’t think it’s necessarily true.

        Indonesia in 1992 was ruled by Suharto, a dictator who had come to power in a military coup in the 1960s. I’m not sure how well it currently functions as a democracy, but it holds what at least appear to be free elections and has a 2/7 rating from Freedom House for political rights (where 1 is the best). In their words,

        Indonesia has made impressive democratic gains since the fall of an authoritarian regime in 1998, establishing significant pluralism in politics and the media and undergoing multiple, peaceful transfers of power between parties.

        Nigeria also came out of a period of military rule in the late 1990s. While the former dictator Olusegun Obasanjo won the first two elections after the official resumption of democracy (which were widely condemned as unfair), more recent elections have been considered free and fair by international observers. In 2015, for the first time the incumbent President lost the election and peacefully handed over power.

  43. John Schilling says:

    Get back to me when the liberal capitalist social democracies have had stable debt-to-GDP ratios, and TFRs of ~2.1 excluding immigration, for a few generations. Until then, the supposed “end state of history” is sustaining itself by consuming non-renewable resources at a non-trivial rate. Any actual end state of history will be, A: some non-trivial development of liberal capitalist social democracy or B: Mad Max and its sequels(*) or C: whatever outmoded forgotten systems cling to life on the ash heap of history until LCSD is too weak to stop them from taking charge.

    * Possibly including optimistic far-future sequels that I could imagine if I felt like it.

    • JulieK says:

      Why is immigration from high-fertility countries a non-renewable resource?

      • LadyJane says:

        I don’t understand why this is an issue either. The obsession that people on the right have with reproduction and birth rates is downright baffling to me. The chances of human civilization breaking down simply because we don’t reproduce enough seem negligible.

        • Clutzy says:

          Because old age retirement programs exist and are, essentially immortal in a traditional neoliberal political sense. In other words, they will only be reformed/dismantled in a revolution or in the wake of a breakup.

          Just in America we have Social Security and Medicare, which have payout projections that mirror or eclipse total government revenues in the near future, even with tax rate increases.

        • ECD says:

          @Clutzy

          Because old age retirement programs exist and are, essentially immortal in a traditional neoliberal political sense. In other words, they will only be reformed/dismantled in a revolution or in the wake of a breakup.

          Except Social Security and Medicare are reformed all the time, see the giant list of bills reforming them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_(United_States)#History

          Just in America we have Social Security and Medicare, which have payout projections that mirror or eclipse total government revenues in the near future, even with tax rate increases.

          I’m going to ask for a source for this, as what I’m able to find indicates:

          “The annual cost of Social Security benefits represented 4.0% of GDP in 2000 and 5.0% GDP in 2015. This is projected to increase gradually to 6.4% of GDP in 2035 and then decline to about 6.1% of GDP by 2055 and remain at about that level through 2086.” Wikipedia, referencing the Social Security Trustee’s report from 2012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_debate_in_the_United_States)

          While federal receipts as a percentage of GDP sit at about 16%. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S. Again, I’m not an economist, or particularly economically literate, so perhaps I’m misunderstanding, or misreading.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          The obsession that people on the right have with reproduction and birth rates is downright baffling to me.

          Because some people do not wish that their ethnic group disappear or be dispossessed from low birth rates.

        • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

          @jermo sapiens

          That doesn’t help clarify the issue particularly because that doesn’t seem a plausible outcome to many people. The confusing thing is why that seems like it needs to be combated.

        • EchoChaos says:

          @NostalgiaForInfinity

          Why would it be implausible? White Americans will no longer be the majority in our own country within my expected lifetime. That seems pretty plausible to me.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          It is an issue if you don´t want immigrants in your country.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          That doesn’t help clarify the issue particularly because that doesn’t seem a plausible outcome to many people. The confusing thing is why that seems like it needs to be combated.

          Well the people for whom this outcome doesnt seem to be plausible are not the ones obsessing over birth rates, obviously. And the people for whom it does seem plausible have an interest in publicizing the issue as much as possible.

          The underlying facts however, are not really in dispute, and are even celebrated by some.

        • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

          @EchoChaos

          “No longer a majority” is far from “disappear or be dispossessed”. There will still be 180 million or so white Americans. That’s not disappearing (although it is fewer than there are now), and dispossession seems unlikely.

          @jermo sapiens

          A charitable interpretation would be that people weren’t mourning the decline in the disproportionate influence of a certain group of people. It’s insensitive but is hardly an endorsement of the disappearance or dispossession of white people.

          As I said above, it is likely that the US will become a majority non-white country soon, but I don’t see why it should be interpreted as an existential crisis for white America.

        • EchoChaos says:

          @NostalgiaForInfinity

          I’ll politely disagree and leave it at that.

        • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

          @EchoChaos

          Fair enough. I would like to understand the position though. I struggled to articulate a response to jermo sapiens that wouldn’t seem obviously ridiculous to someone for whom this was a concern (not sure I managed it).

        • EchoChaos says:

          @NostalgiaForInfinity

          If Scott wants a “discuss the roots and mentality of WN” thread he’s welcome to allow it, but like certain other buzzwords on his policy page, we steer clear of that here.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          A charitable interpretation would be that people weren’t mourning the decline in the disproportionate influence of a certain group of people. It’s insensitive but is hardly an endorsement of the disappearance or dispossession of white people.

          I dont fear the disappearance of white people, nor am I a WN (to also answer EchoChaos’s last comment). But disappearance could occur as a result of very low birth rates, which is why I mentioned it initially.

          Much more likely is dispossession, by which I mean “losing their majority status”, the sense that they will lose their influence over the affairs of their country, as you note yourself in the above quote.

          So, what is the charitable interpretation of an intentional reduction in an ethnic group’s influence within their society? Is there anyway to view that policy as anything but aggression against that group? Are there other ethnic groups for which it is OK to dispossess of their influence in society?

          I know this is dangerous territory, but I have difficulty listening to Paul Krugman in that clip I linked above and thinking this would be ok to say about anyone else. I’m genuinely curious as to what is going on here. If I were asked by a WN to defend what Krugman is saying, I’m not sure I could do a good job.

        • albatross11 says:

          One non-WN reason to be unhappy about low birth rates is that it suggests that things aren’t working out very well for a lot of people–they’re not able to get set up in a stable marriage and have kids, which is one of the best ways we know for people to have worthwhile and satisfying lives. To the extent that the low birth rate reflects people feeling too pressed by their circumstances to be able to afford kids, or unable to find a satisfactory partner to have them with, this seems like a bad thing we should care about. To the extent it’s just people deciding that life with no kids and more money is a better deal for them, I’m not sure it’s much of a problem. (Other than the potential for population collapse or big changes in population makeup that might be unhealthy for other reasons.).

          I’ve seen the argument (I think from Interfluidity) that you can say the same thing about unwed births. The idea is that women at the bottom of the social/income/intelligence distribution tend not to have a lot of great choices available for husband material, and so face a choice of no husband + a kid or no husband + no kid, and opt for at least having a kid. This reflects, not just some kind of bad cultural values or something, but a lousy situation in which lots of left-tail-of-the-bell-curve men have few prospects and jailhouse tattoos, and so the approximately matching women don’t marry at all rather than marrying as poorly as they’d have to. (Mass incarceration also has a huge impact here!)

          To the extent that the Republicans get most of their voters from whites, it’s probably also pretty easy to see why Republicans who are worried about the future of their party might not be thrilled to see a declining fraction of the population be white–they’re worried they’re going to start losing elections. (This is also part of why one thread in the party involves outreach, particularly to hispanics. The Bushes are closely linked to this, but it’s not so popular with a lot of the base.). And similarly, it’s not hard to see why both ethnic activists and Democrats might view more hispanics in the US with enthusiasm–it will make their jobs easier.

        • RalMirrorAd says:

          Low TFR and falling population isn’t a problem necessarily, even from the perspective of a “For ourselves and our posterity” (foaop for short).

          It does tend to put strain on old age/retirement programs.

          It *is* a problem from the foaop perspective if it’s combined with replacement migration. Since replacement migration means that the countervailing pressures of rising wages and falling property values don’t kick in and automatically subsidize family formation.

          Also replacement migration doesn’t even necessarily solve the retirement issue if the replacements aren’t life-time net taxpayers. People often migrate at peak working [taxpaying] age so the short-run tax outlook is rosier than it appears.

          Ultimate “foaop” anxieties are about the answers to these questions:
          1. how long the sub replacement TFR will continue
          2. given #1, how small a % of the population the “op” in “foaop” will remain.
          3. Without being too explicit, will the anti-racism of the future be an inclusive, understanding, and morally consistent type, or a cynical, triumphalist, and opportunistic variety.

        • The Nybbler says:

          The obsession that people on the right have with reproduction and birth rates is downright baffling to me.

          You know the whole thing about the meaning of life? A lot on the right think they’ve got it figured out. The traditional find it in religion, and most surviving religions are pretty big on the whole “be fruitful and multiply” thing. The less religious seem to be even MORE traditional, holding that propagation of their line (and of allied lines) is itself the point of life.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          One non-WN reason to be unhappy about low birth rates is that it suggests that things aren’t working out very well for a lot of people–they’re not able to get set up in a stable marriage and have kids

          Your point is well taken. But I find it unfortunate that you need to qualify this reason as being non-WN. Shouldnt we be concerned about birthrates being lower than replacement for basically any living thing (maybe not the cane toad in Australia, but any non-invasive species)? I just want to express my dismay that concern for lower than replacement birth rates is coded as WN such that you felt the need to formulate your opinion with an anti-WN disclaimer.

          If the green spotted newt of central california was exhibiting lower than replacement fertility, it would be normal to express concern, global warming would be blamed, and legislators would be petitioned to act now to save the green spotted newt from extinction.

          Similarly, I can express concern for the low birth rates in Japan and nobody will accuse me of being a japanese nationalist. It should be entirely natural to express concern for lower than replacement birthrates of anybody or anything.

        • albatross11 says:

          jermo:

          It’s a reason for being concerned with low birthrates that doesn’t turn on any form of white nationalism. This seems relevant, in a discussion in which it seems like some people think that only white nationalists are concerned with the issue.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          it seems like some people think that only white nationalists are concerned with the issue

          Yes, I understand. That is what I find to be deplorable.

        • Enkidum says:

          Shouldnt we be concerned about birthrates being lower than replacement for basically any living thing

          Not if that living thing has increased its population by orders of magnitude in recent history, and you’re coming at it from a strictly ecological perspective?

          From some environmentalist perspectives, at any rate, there’s a great deal in common between the cane toad and humanity.

        • jermo sapiens says:

          Not if that living thing has increased its population by orders of magnitude in recent history, and you’re coming at it from a strictly ecological perspective?

          From some environmentalist perspectives, at any rate, there’s a great deal in common between the cane toad and humanity.

          Well, at least that’s honest. In the context that we are discussing this however, replace environmentalist with progressive, and humanity with white americans.

        • Cliff says:

          Consider the counterfactual. What if Europeans/whites had a TFR of 6 and Africa (or wherever else has a high TFR) had a TFR of 1.3, tens of millions of whites were emigrating to Africa each year, Africa would soon be majority white and was trending more and more white over time, etc. Would anyone be concerned about that at all, and would that concern seem in any way justified?

          How do you feel about Hawaii? Native Hawaiians are now about the same population as pre-contact. Do you think they should have been at all concerned about immigration or reproduction?

        • albatross11 says:

          Enkidum:

          Wouldn’t that concern apply a lot more to trying to slow down places with extremely fast population growth, rather than to opposing efforts to get TFR back up to replacement levels?

        • albatross11 says:

          Also, it really does seem like a life well-lived, for most people, involves marrying and raising some kids. People not doing that seems like a bad outcome.

        • Plumber says:

          @LadyJane > “…The obsession that people on the right have with reproduction and birth rates is downright baffling to me…”

          On this and that among “the Right’s” wishlist I think they should get their way, or I just wouldn’t be much bothered if they did, but on most of the stuff that most motivates me to vote I’m still “on the Left” so I really can’t speak for “The Right”, but I do worry about birthrates, not because (as I’ve heard some “on the Right” say) of a fear of cultural changes, in many ways newer immigrants and their children seem to me to be more interested in preserving aspects of American culture than those who were born here of parents born here are, plus I have a strong belief in the “founder effect” – otherwise (judging by the plurality of where Americans ancestors are from) we’d be speaking German instead of English.

          Instead what worries me about low birthrates is what they seem to be symptoms of: historically people tend to have more children when they’re optimistic about future prosperity – i.e. low in the ’30’s during the Great Depression, and high in the ’50’s during the post war boom.

          Birthrates dropped in 2009 in the wake of the Great Recession but, despite an improving economy since 2011, birthrates haven’t come back, that plus the lower life expectancy of Americans after 2014 (largely due to alcohol, drugs, and suicide) indicates lingering despair – and that worries me.

        • Enkidum says:

          @albatross11

          Wouldn’t that concern apply a lot more to trying to slow down places with extremely fast population growth, rather than to opposing efforts to get TFR back up to replacement levels?

          Depends on how worried you are about the change in population over the entire globe, in which case you want to decrease population overall (which, honestly, I think I do).

          But that’s a very different topic, probably.

        • LadyJane says:

          @TheNybbler: Even from that perspective, I don’t really get it. White Europeans are not being overtaken by some alien species; their “replacement” does not have to entail the end of any White European’s individual bloodline. If I reproduce, and my children and their children reproduce, then I’ve succeeded at passing on my genes. And if some of my descendants end up mating with Blacks, or Asians, or Latinos, or non-European Caucasians, that doesn’t erase my genetic contribution to the species. Some of my descendants might not look like me, but that’s a shallow concern, and it wouldn’t be true for all of them anyway, since some mixed people look mostly or entirely White. It’s only a cause for concern if you believe that non-European races are genetically inferior (or at least genetically distinct in ways that go far beyond appearance and climate tolerance), or if you adhere to some modern version of the one drop rule. Needless to say, I reject those notions.

          And if you’re coming from a religious rather than Darwinian perspective, it makes even less sense. If your goal is to ensure the survival of your faith, then surely American Christians should be thrilled about the fact that there are so many devout Christians immigrating here from the southern border. (Granted, Latino immigrants are almost exclusively Catholic, while most conservative Christians in the U.S. are Evangelical Protestantism, but I don’t think that’s the central issue here.)

        • LadyJane says:

          @jermo sapiens:

          Shouldnt we be concerned about birthrates being lower than replacement for basically any living thing (maybe not the cane toad in Australia, but any non-invasive species)?

          If the green spotted newt of central california was exhibiting lower than replacement fertility, it would be normal to express concern, global warming would be blamed, and legislators would be petitioned to act now to save the green spotted newt from extinction.

          Humanity as a whole is not in danger of going extinct, and comparing a human ethnic group to an entire species or even sub-species is a false equivalence. There are “races” (i.e. phenotype groups) of gray wolves that are endangered, and even a few that have recently gone extinct, but they seem to be very low on the priority list for most conservationists.

          Now, would I be sad if calico cats stopped existing? Sure, and I don’t want to see a world where humans with pale skin or blonde hair or blue eyes or Caucasian facial features stop existing either. But I don’t think that’s what “White extinction,” as the ethno-nationalists describe it, would entail. Not only are human races not real species or sub-species, they don’t even correspond to actual human phenotype groups that well. In terms of genetics, claiming there’s a “White race” makes as much sense as saying that all white-furred dogs, from pomeranians to great danes, comprise a “White breed.”

          The genetic difference between “Pygmy” and “Non-Pgymy Sub-Saharan African” is much greater than the genetic difference between “Non-Pgymy Sub-Saharan African” and “European,” and I’d say Pygmies are far closer to extinction than Europeans are, yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone claiming we need to take drastic efforts to preserve their genetic heritage. 200 years ago, most people didn’t consider Irish and Italian people to be truly White. 100 years ago, most people didn’t consider Jewish or Slavic people to be truly White. Today, people don’t consider Middle Easterners or Indians to be White, even though many ethnic groups from the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent are fair-skinned and nearly all of them have Caucasian facial features. One of the most Aryan-looking people I know, a pale woman with blonde hair and blue hair and sharp features, is actually Persian.

          So really, I see no more reason to mourn the eventual disappearance of the poorly-defined ethno-cultural grouping known as The White Race than I do the mourn the disappearance of the Scythians. This “extinction” won’t involve the mass extermination of individuals, or the end of specific bloodlines, or the disappearance of genetic or phenotypal traits; it will merely be the end of a specific categorization, one that wasn’t even internally consistent and didn’t particularly match the actual reality of the world.

        • LadyJane says:

          Similarly, I can express concern for the low birth rates in Japan and nobody will accuse me of being a japanese nationalist.

          Clearly you don’t spend a lot of time in progressive groups! There are a lot of immigration enthusiasts who use the Japanese birth rate crisis as a perfect example of why we need immigration, and harshly criticize the Japanese government and Japanese culture for being so strongly opposed to it. Among leftists and progressives with a focus on immigration rights, Japan is basically the ultimate example of what we should strive to not be like.

          For instance, this was recently posted to a pro-immigration Facebook page I follow:

          “no joke tho japan really is on the brink of a massive demographic disaster

          their extreme nationalism that rejects nearly all would-be immigrants, combined with their extremely low birthrate (a common feature in post-industrial, urban economies–the us is seeing this as well), has led to a median age in japan of almost FORTY SEVEN years old–immensely, dangerously higher than the world median of just over 26

          a shrinking population means fewer people to fill job positions, fewer people to innovate ans start businesses, fewer people to buy products and services, and more. a declining population is devastating for the economy, and that’s without even mentioning the cost of caring for the nation’s elderly

          however, all this could change, all these negative effects could be avoided, if the land of the rising sun can manage to just get the fuck over itself, stop being so xenophobic and conservative, and just TAKE IN SOME DAMN IMMIGRANTS”

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          @LadyJane:

          White Europeans are not being overtaken by some alien species; their “replacement” does not have to entail the end of any White European’s individual bloodline.

          I would surmise that’s not what most anti-immigration Europeans are concerned about. Even the right-wing democratic leaders of Hungary told the EU “Give us Christian immigrants. Those are the only ones we’ll accept.” White men worrying about the extinction of their haplogroup has got to be a very non-central thing.

          Japan is going to have a harder time perpetuating its culture with immigrants than, e.g, Hungary, because where are you going to get high TFR Mahayana Buddhists who will also practice Shinto?

          On Latinos: the IQ-100 objection to an open border with Mexico is “Speak English!”, IME.

        • LadyJane says:

          @Le Maistre Chat: That explains why conservative Christians in both the U.S. and Europe would oppose immigration by Muslims, but not why they’d oppose Latino immigrants (most of whom are devoutly Catholic), or Christian immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, or Christians refugees from Muslim countries. Or why their British equivalents would be so opposed to Polish immigrants, who are both White (at least by the current American definition of the term) and largely Christian.

          My point is that I don’t think the demographics issue is really about religion, except to the limited extent that religion serves as a proxy for race and/or culture. I’m not sure if the primary motivator here is race (either in the strict genetic sense, or in a looser tribal sense) or culture, but I think both of those are more central to the debate than faith is.

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          @LadyJane: I mean, do Americans oppose Christian refugees and English-speaking African Christians? I grew up Midwestern Red and have zero experience of that. Complaining that Latinos won’t learn English, yes, but that’s all.

          Working-class Britons being mad that Poles took their jobs processes as “Sounds weird but OK, seems to be a true truth claim.”

        • LadyJane says:

          @Le Maistre Chat: That was actually a recent source of conflict between the religious right and the nationalist right. A lot of the Evangelical Protestants pleaded that Trump’s ban on immigration from Muslim countries should include exceptions for Christian refugees, whereas the more secular branches of the social/cultural right (especially the alt-right ethno-nationalist types) wanted blanket bans for everyone in those countries. In the end, the latter group won, although largely due to outside intervention in the form of the explicitly religious ban being declared unconstitutional by the federal courts.

        • albatross11 says:

          LadyJane:

          I think you’re pushing on the wrong lever there.

          There are some physical differences across racial groups. They’re usually not very important except in a social sense, but occasionally they are. Forensic anthropologists and DNA tests can both distinguish racial groups pretty well from dead bodies/DNA. There are real differences that go down to genes and basic functioning of the body, though the most striking of these tend to be for smaller groups than a whole race. (Sherpas have a ton of high-altitude adaptations, for example.) Doctors do and should sometimes provide different medical advice to members of different racial groups, and some medicines are known to work differently in different racial groups.

          Whether race is a useful category for analysis depends on what you’re doing–this isn’t some moral question, just a practical one. For medical research, for example, it’s a better world when the people researching drug side effects and dosing and such check it out for members of multiple races. In at least that context, race is a valid and worthwhile scientific category. Similarly for using DNA to unravel prehistoric populations and migrations. And probably dozens of other things.

          But what I think you’re trying to argue for is that race isn’t a useful or meaningful moral category. That is, what you seem to be arguing for is that nobody should be especially concerned if they see (say) all the Australian Aboriginees disappearing from the Earth via some kind of voluntary action like not having kids. Or that if it turned out that the black population in the US were collapsing, but not because of anything bad, just because of heavy takeup of birth control and abortion, that this would be a silly thing to be upset about. We’re all human, after all.

          I don’t think you can ever get from that is-statement about whether race is a useful scientific category or has any meaning to an ought statement about whether or not anyone should care if one racial group is going away or being supplanted by another. This is purely a matter of values and priorities and tastes. Perhaps Alice is upset that whites are becoming less common in the world, Bob is upset that Catholics are becoming less common, and Carol is upset that Yiddish speakers are becoming less common in the world. I don’t think there’s an obvious way to decide which of these peoples’ concerns are more or less reasonable. (Except by pointing out actual numbers showing that their groups aren’t disappearing–which I think works out fine for Alice, is a little worrying for Bob, and isn’t going to make Carol feel any better at all.)

          Now, just to be clear, whites aren’t remotely going away–shifting to no longer being the majority in the US is a change, but not an extinction. And I think much of that phenomenon turns on considering hispanics nonwhite in much the way that a previous generation wasn’t quite ready to label Italians as white. And some of the change also has to do with mixed-race children, which isn’t any kind of extinction, it’s just people marrying/having kids with people of other races.

        • The Nybbler says:

          Even from that perspective, I don’t really get it. White Europeans are not being overtaken by some alien species

          Now you’re talking about white nationalists, not worries on the right about different issues. The white nationalists are easier to understand, but hard to find common ground with if you reject their ideas of racial purity.

          If your goal is to ensure the survival of your faith, then surely American Christians should be thrilled about the fact that there are so many devout Christians immigrating here from the southern border.

          I’m fairly sure Christian sects are not fungible.

        • albatross11 says:

          OTOH, I think the Catholic Church has generally been pretty comfortable with mostly-Catholic immigrants from Latin America….

        • Plumber says:

          @albatross11 says: “OTOH, I think the Catholic Church has generally been pretty comfortable with mostly-Catholic immigrants from Latin America….”

          The Spanish language Mass at the Catholic church near my house,has far more attendees than the English language Mass a few hours earlier, and most of the parishoners at the Protestant churches nearby have either grey hair or Asian faces (by far most with American accents so at least second generation, or came while young), the historically black church in my old neighborhood is still going strong even though the neighborhood hasn’t been majority black since the late ’90’s, but with less parishioners than before.

          As a guess, non-whites (if you include Latinos in that category) are at least half the practicing Christians within 10 miles of my house, and by far the most who are under 50 years old.

          Young whites (not including Hispanics) just don’t go to chuch much in my area, and to me it looks like without the immigrants that have come here in the last 30 years there would hardly be any practicing Christians here at all.

        • Nick says:

          @Plumber, @albatross11
          And growing up in America, most of those young people won’t be Christians either, and in a generation or two none of them will be. Americans are better off materially, but their kids will be immensely worse off spiritually. Given what’s at stake (the soul), that’s not a happy outcome.

        • LadyJane says:

          @albatross11:

          There are some physical differences across racial groups. They’re usually not very important except in a social sense, but occasionally they are. Forensic anthropologists and DNA tests can both distinguish racial groups pretty well from dead bodies/DNA. There are real differences that go down to genes and basic functioning of the body, though the most striking of these tend to be for smaller groups than a whole race. (Sherpas have a ton of high-altitude adaptations, for example.) Doctors do and should sometimes provide different medical advice to members of different racial groups, and some medicines are known to work differently in different racial groups.

          Whether race is a useful category for analysis depends on what you’re doing–this isn’t some moral question, just a practical one. For medical research, for example, it’s a better world when the people researching drug side effects and dosing and such check it out for members of multiple races. In at least that context, race is a valid and worthwhile scientific category. Similarly for using DNA to unravel prehistoric populations and migrations. And probably dozens of other things.

          As I said before, race is not phenotype, and only corresponds to phenotype in a very loose way. At best, racial groups are a very rough approximation of phenotype groups.

          An American doctor may be inclined to assume that a Black patient has sickle-cell anemia, since that disease predominantly affects Black people. But it’s not really “Black people” who are prone to sickle-cell disease, it’s a handful of West and Central African ethnic groups; people from Ethiopia or South Africa aren’t any more likely to be born with it than Europeans or Asians. It’s just more convenient for American doctors to think about “Black people” because that’s a category they’re much more familiar with, and most of them wouldn’t be able to visually discern between a West African and an East African. The same goes for recommendations on medicine: pharmaceutical companies wouldn’t put out an ad warning “this medicine may have harmful effects on people of Yoruba and Igbo descent,” since most Black people in the U.S. aren’t even aware of their ethnic heritage.

          As for Sherpas, they’re an extremely small and isolated ethnic group, much like the African Pygmies I mentioned earlier. I’d agree that they are an actual race, in a real physical sense, but as with the Pygmies, they’re an exception that proves the rule. If someone generalized from the Sherpas and claimed that “East Asians have a greater tolerance for high altitudes than other humans,” then they’re clearly making a major categorical error. (The statement might technically be true in a statistical sense, since the Sherpa people may bring up the overall average for high-altitude tolerance enough to put East Asians as a whole slightly above other races. But even then, it’s highly misleading, since the majority of East Asian ethnic groups and the vast majority of East Asian individuals don’t have greater high-altitude tolerance.) Speaking of “the White race” and “the Black race” and “the Oriental race” is mistaking a particularly old and faded map for the territory.

          Now, just to be clear, whites aren’t remotely going away–shifting to no longer being the majority in the US is a change, but not an extinction. And I think much of that phenomenon turns on considering hispanics nonwhite in much the way that a previous generation wasn’t quite ready to label Italians as white. And some of the change also has to do with mixed-race children, which isn’t any kind of extinction, it’s just people marrying/having kids with people of other races.

          Yes, that was largely my point.

        • LadyJane says:

          @TheNybbler: I agree that Christian sects aren’t fungible, but at the same time, with the sole exception of Jack Chick’s comic strips, I’ve never seen anyone oppose Latino immigration on the grounds that it would result in Catholics displacing Protestants. Anti-Catholic rhetoric like that hasn’t been a part of the anti-immigration movement – and definitely not a central part – since it was Irish and Italian immigrants that Nativists were complaining about.

          @Nick: I’m not really sure what your point is. Are you saying that Catholics should oppose Latino immigration to the U.S. because it would be bad for Latinos, in the sense that they’d stop being religious? That’s certainly not an argument I’ve heard before.

        • Nick says:

          @Nick: I’m not really sure what your point is. Are you saying that Catholics should oppose Latino immigration to the U.S. because it would be bad for Latinos, in the sense that they’d stop being religious? That’s certainly not an argument I’ve heard before.

          No, you understood.

        • Plumber says:

          @Nick,
          Exactly why religious beliefs have dropped so much recently in the U.S A. is curious, my understanding is that Britain and Europe have been less religious than the U.S.A. for decades earlier and the U.S.A. was the exception to a general loss of faith among NATO countries, but that’s less true now.

          African-Americans are still notably more religious than other Americans, for a long time white Evangelical Christians were actually increasing, but now there’s less of them as well, Mormonism held steady for a long time, but their numbers have started to drop lately as well, I haven’t read any reports on this, but well the decline of “mainline” Protestant churches in the U.S.A. has been long noted in my area the parishioners are increasingly second generation Asian-Americans who’s parents came from majority non-Christian nations, I suppose that Asian Christians were just more likely to emmigrate?

          I’ve seen some reports Thad this is partially because of political partisanship, as the Republican Party became more identified with Christianity more Democrats became atheists, again the exceptions being new Hispanic immigrants, and African-Americans, with American blacks being just about the only subgroup that increased church attendance correlates with voting Democratic Party (atheism doesn’t correlate among American blacks with voting Republican though, it correlates with not voting at all), among most every other demographic frequent church-going correlates with voting Republican. First generation immigrants tend to be both Democrats and religious, third and up generation Americans tend to be Democrats or religious, with American blacks and to a lesser extent Jews the exceptions.

          Exactly why this is the case I invite suggestions.

        • Le Maistre Chat says:

          @Plumber:

          the decline of “mainline” Protestant churches in the U.S.A. has been long noted in my area the parishioners are increasingly second generation Asian-Americans who’s parents came from majority non-Christian nations, I suppose that Asian Christians were just more likely to emmigrate?

          Vietnam has a 7% Catholic minority (higher before the Communist victory: they were converted by French missionaries, and South Vietnam had a Catholic dictator for a time) who were heavily over-represented among Vietnamese refugees to the US. There may be other examples among Asian peoples.

      • A Definite Beta Guy says:

        Because eventually those nations will no longer be high fertility. They will eventually go through the demographic transition.

        More broadly, if the US sustains itself via brain drain from LDCs, what happens when LDCs catch up? This is probably more relevant for certain industries. For instance, many Western medical systems sustain themselves by poaching intelligent young doctors from South Asia. Once this talent pool is no longer available, are Western medical systems sustainable? If they aren’t sustainable, the political consensus underpinning the Western government isn’t sustainable either.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        Why is immigration from high-fertility countries a non-renewable resource?

        The “end state of history” hypothesis include the notion that liberal capitalist social democracies will eventually spread to most of the world. If that is the case, then where will the immigrants come from?

        Of course you could weaken the claim and make the “end state of history” mean just the “end state of Western history”, assuming that large regions of the world will forever remain sh*tholes endlessly supplying the West with cheap immigrant labor. But this hardly seems like a stable equilibrium either.

        • Enkidum says:

          The “end state of history” hypothesis include the notion that liberal capitalist social democracies will eventually spread to most of the world. If that is the case, then where will the immigrants come from?

          This strikes me as a really great problem to have. I look forward to learning about the solutions my great-great-great grandchildren come up with to it.

      • John Schilling says:

        Why is immigration from high-fertility countries a non-renewable resource?

        Because, as others have noted, Fukuyama’s thesis at least strongly implies that all those high-fertility countries are going to convert into low-fertility liberal capitalist social democracies. They’ll produce some finite number of excess babies before that happens, after which “they” are “us” and we collectively are going to need a new source of babies.

        More generally, it is highly unlikely that the effective TFR (i.e. after emigration) of the non-LCSD nations will exactly match that of the liberal capitalist social democracies ins the long run. Maybe the non-LCSD nations will maintain a higher net TFR in the long run and yet somehow avoid Malthusian catastrophe. If so, their population will grow so vast that the LCSD nations will be a tiny footnote in the history of humanity. Maybe the non-LCSD nations will maintain a higher net TFR for a time until they do undergo collapse. If so, that collapse and its aftermath going to look an awful lot like history continuing to happen. Also, after one multitudinous generation of refugees, the future supply of immigrants will be greatly diminished. Or maybe the non-LCDS nations will see their net TFR decline (probably by emigration or conversion to LCDS “universal culture”), in which case again the non-LCDS world will diminish to the point where it can no longer meet our demand for immigrants.

        @LadyJane:

        The chances of human civilization breaking down simply because we don’t reproduce enough seem negligible.

        What, in the hypothetical where the future of humanity is the democratic west writ large and forever, is the alternative? Liberal capitalist democratic socialists as we know them, reproduce at less than replacement rates. Absent immigration, each generation will be smaller than the last. Eventually, there won’t be enough people to maintain the machinery of civilization, and civilization will collapse in a most historic faction. After which there won’t be any factories to make birth-control pills, and the TFR will climb again.

        Or maybe, as noted, LCDS civilization will be forever a minor part of humanity, surviving and even thriving on the basis of defectors from the larger non-LCDS world. Could happen, but probably those non-LCDS types are going to keep perpetrating history. Or maybe LCDS civilization as we know it will transform itself into something whose population reproduces at replacement rates. Could happen, but that’s not a trivial change and probably implies at least one more big and unforseeable bit of history.

        I’m guessing it will be a mix of all three, but what all three have in common is more inbound history and if there is a stable end state it isn’t the eternal dominion of LCDS Universal Culture as we know understand it. What else have you got?

        • LesHapablap says:

          If we knew why low TFRs were happening, it would be much easier to predict the future.

          I suspect that the insatiable human drive for safety and comfort, combined with enough prosperity to achieve high levels of both has led to cultural changes in the way we live our lives and raise children. Those children have grown up to be so immature and risk averse that they shy away from risky and scary things like teenage sex, marriage. These kids are so neurotic that the “Kingdom of Fear” that Hunter Thompson wrote about in the early 2000s has entered a feedback loop, and the younger generations are convinced that the civilization will collapse by the end of the century.

          And maybe they are right. There does seem to be something ‘off,’ economically, which gives a sense of foreboding about how jobs and careers and housing markets are really going to work in 30 years.

          Then there is also the dropping sperm count, which as far as I’m aware has no obvious cause either.

          The topic would make a good effort post for Scott, I think.

        • RalMirrorAd says:

          Something worth noting for TFR is that Western countries have sub-populations (not all of them ethnic in nature) that have above replacement fertility rates; the highly religious for example.

          I do not believe TFR remain low indefinitely, but if whichever groups remains will be one that is largely immunized against LCDS incentive structures (urban, family planning, get a college education, etc.) — which may be a good or a bad thing depending on your POV.

        • RalMirrorAd says:

          @LESHAPABLAP

          Well we can infer at least these two proximate causes

          1. Abortions, in the sense that Some portion of pregnancies that would have produced children do not do so anymore
          2. Delayed Marriage / Delayed Childbearing — Either people delay marriage for college or they delay marriage due to economic insecurity [often both]

          What remains of the TFR would be all the factors that on average encourage people of the same age to consciously have fewer total children than they did in the past (i.e. controls for age of marriage). That’s where the real uncertainty lies in my opinion.

        • LadyJane says:

          @John Schilling: I think we’ll figure something out eventually. I tend to worry more about the actual problems of the present and the immediate future than about various potential problems that are centuries away. As Enkidum said above, that seems like a really great problem to have!

        • John Schilling says:

          I think we’ll figure something out eventually as well. But for Fukuyama’s thesis to be correct, this unknown thing we will eventually figure out has to A: not be of historic significance and B: not fundamentally alter LCDS culture. And most of the obvious candidates would do at least one of those. Hence, my request that Fukuyama’s defenders come back when they’ve actually figured out a specific thing and shown than it works.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Then there is also the dropping sperm count, which as far as I’m aware has no obvious cause either.

          Dropping sperm count, dropping testosterone level and increasing BMI.

          Therefore men have reduced baseline libido due to reduced testosterone, and both them and their potential partners are more likely to be fat, making them both even less sexually attractive, thus reducing the chance of mating, and when they do mate the chance of pregnancy per intercourse is lower due to reduced sperm count, even without taking birth control into account.

          What causes this is not clearly known, but my money is on “gay frog” environmental xenoestrogen pollution.

          Anyway, whatever the cause, below-replacement TFR is maladaptive, which means that evolution will eventually take care of it (*). Even in the lowest fertility countries there are individuals who reproduce above replacement, whether they are less risk averse, or more resistant to xenoestrogens, or whatever, as long as the traits that give them higher fertility are heritable, they will prevail. Low TFR is on the wrong side of biology.

          (* or drive us extinct, but there are too many of us for this to be a serious risk for now)

        • AG says:

          Or maybe the human population is above equilibrium, so evolution is propagating below-replacement rates to push the population to numbers better suited to thriving in the existing environment?
          Isn’t that one of the cases where homosexuality occurs in the animal world?

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Or maybe the human population is above equilibrium, so evolution is propagating below-replacement rates to push the population to numbers better suited to thriving in the existing environment?

          This is a group selection argument. In general, group selection is very weak compared to individual selection, and arguably not existent for modern humans as a species since we don’t really compete with anything comparable to us.

          Isn’t that one of the cases where homosexuality occurs in the animal world?

          Not that I’m aware of.

      • Viliam says:

        Why is immigration from high-fertility countries a non-renewable resource?

        I understood it as immigration being a consumption of a non-renewable resource.

        Suppose that one of the reasons why your country sucks less than some other country is genetic. Certain gene is more frequent in your population than in other populations. Maybe there is a loop where the genes cause certain policy, and the policy in turn gives advantage to people with the gene.

        Now, if you import too many people, you are diluting the gene in your population.

        The same argument could be made even if you assume that the thing that makes your country suck less is actually cultural. If the speed of immigration is greater than the speed of the immigrants acquiring your culture, you are diluting the culture.

        Generally, if there is anything about people that makes the country great, immigration reduces it, unless immigrants are chosen for having the same traits.

        (Arguments like “it’s not people, it’s the laws” won’t work in long term. In democracy, people will change the laws. Even before that, they can stop obeying them, or stop enforcing them. Or maybe the laws only work in combination with certain behavior, and without that behavior they do more harm than good.)

    • eric23 says:

      The dictatorships (China etc.) also have subreplacement fertility.

      The debt ratios have never caused significant harm as far as I’m aware.

      • viVI_IViv says:

        The dictatorships (China etc.) also have subreplacement fertility.

        China does by design (one-child policy), other dictatorships have super-replacement fertility.

        The debt ratios have never caused significant harm as far as I’m aware.

        Countries with high debt/GDP like Japan or the PIGS are still considered first-world, but they do have severe economic issues primarily affecting the younger generations. Unsurprisingly, these are also the large countries with some of the lowest TFRs. PIGS countries also have the highest rates of youth unemployment among first-world countries, while the Japanese youth are usually counted as employed but many of them are financially dependent on their parents.

        I don’t know which one of these phenomena causes the others, or whether they are in a self-sustaining vicious cycle, but clearly this doesn’t look like a sustainable equilibrium.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          Russia and Iran also have very low fertility rates.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Russia and Iran also have very low fertility rates.

          According to the Wikipedia article I linked, according to the 2019 UN data, they both have higher fertility rates than the EU average and the US, and in fact Iran has almost replacement TFR.

        • DarkTigger says:

          @viVI_IViv
          Below replacement is still a low TFR. Espacially since Iran does not have the imigration rates as the EU and the US.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          But comparing the data from 2017 to 2019, the TFR of Russia and Iran is growing while the TFR of Europe and the US is declining.

          I wouldn’t be surprised if in a decade or so Russia and Iran are both comfortably above replacement, while I don’t expect this to happen for Europe or the US.

        • AlesZiegler says:

          @viVI_IViv

          Russia and Iran are both substantially poorer than EU, and fertility generally gets lower as a country gets richer. So the fact that they have comparable fertility rates with the EU (as that wiki article you helpfully linked shows) means that they are sort of underperforming on this metric.

          Btw. I do not think that year by year comparisons tell us anything useful on fertility. For any conclusions we would need longer term data.

        • @AlesZiegler

          What cruel nasty things does Iran try and do to improve fertility rates? I naturally assumed that being a theocracy they have effectively tried to make females into brood mares, but if even that isn’t increasing birthrates, then what will?

          What is it about even the barest taste of modernity that makes so many people not want to breed?

  44. bullseye says:

    Was nationalism an issue in the Arab Spring? Wasn’t it Arabs rebelling against other Arabs?

    • eric23 says:

      Mostly that is correct. But in some places, like Syria and Bahrain, it was Sunnis rebelling against Shiites or the reverse – an ethnic identity basis, not far from nationalism.

    • ECD says:

      Sorry if I’m misreading, but I think you can clearly have nationalism even if the rebelling and rebelled against are both members of the same ethnic group.

      • EchoChaos says:

        Pretty much this. The American Revolution was a nationalist revolution of British v. British.

        • bullseye says:

          The American Revolution is an interesting example because the revolutionaries invented a new nationality; the old one was too closely identified with the Crown and government.

          Going back to my point, I didn’t mean that the Arabs aren’t nationalist. I meant that nationalism didn’t make sense as a reason for Arabs to fight other Arabs.

        • ECD says:

          I think it does. You can have nationalism which is not ethnic nationalism. Now, whether this is the case for the Arab spring is a question I don’t have an answer for.

    • viVI_IViv says:

      Arabs are tribal.

      Generally speaking, the largest groups they recognize an allegiance to are tribes or tribal confederations with sizes ranging from ten thousand to one million people. Membership to tribes is defined by patrilinear ancestry: a man can never join another tribe, a woman can only join another tribe through marriage, but this is discouraged too, most marriages are endogamic. This pattern of social organization is replicated in a fractal-like fashion down to the level of individual family units. In fact marriages between first cousins, double cousins or uncles and nieces are common. Within a tribe, there isn’t a clear cut difference between relatives and strangers, trust and allegiance smoothly decrease with ancestral distance: “I am against my brother, my brother and I are against my cousin, my cousin and I are against the stranger”.

      There used to be a pan-Arab nationalist movement between the 19th and early 20th century, mostly appealing to intellectuals and politicians, but it is now mostly dead. The Salafi movement and its attempted implementations such as al-Qaeda and ISIS sought to establish a Sunni Muslim theocracy, but these were never broadly popular with the general Arab population, or even with the Sunni Arabs, and are now mostly defeated.

      Most of the conflict in the Arab world can be attributed to them being stuck into post-colonial nation-states ultimately resulting from the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, which map poorly to the existing tribal divisions. Thus in each state you have an emir or strongman president supported by a single tribe or small alliances of tribes and propped up by foreign interests, ruling with an iron fist on mostly unwilling subjects who don’t recognize his legitimacy. When the power balance shifts, as in the Arab Spring, conflict ensues, and finding new stable equilibria has proved to be very hard.

      • Douglas Knight says:

        Arabs are diverse. Libya and Syria are tribal. Tunisia and Egypt are not. Don’t trust me, consult Lee Kuan Yew. That fact yields a pretty good prediction of the divergent paths of the Arab Spring.

        • viVI_IViv says:

          Well, the Arab Spring in Egypt, while nowhere approaching the mess of Libya and Syria, didn’t really improve over the status quo. el-Sisi is as much of a dictator as Mubarak, if not more. Heck, Trump recently called him “his favorite dictator” to his face.

          Tunisia seems to be the only country where the Arab Spring really succeed. But it’s a small country at the margin of the Arab world, both geographically and culturally, hence I would consider it a non-central example.

      • bullseye says:

        They marry their nieces? The Koran has a clear list of which relatives a man isn’t allowed to sleep with, and nieces are on the list. (Cousins aren’t.)

  45. I think something to bring into this is that we won’t see an end of history if you believe that superintelligent general AI is coming soon (mid this century/early next century), since that will completely disrupt the current battles between competing systems without us being able to see them come to their fundamental conclusion.

    • LadyJane says:

      Sure. Fukuyama’s predictions likewise won’t come to pass if another Chicxulub-sized asteroid strikes the Earth, or if the Zeta Reticulans take over the world and force us all into slavery, or if the Evangelical Protestants were right all along and the Rapture suddenly occurs. But it would be rather exhausting for social scientists to preface every new theory with “assuming some unforeseen, unprecedented, and incredibly unlikely event doesn’t wipe out or irreparably alter human civilization first…”

      That said, Fukuyama has addressed the subject of transhumanism and the dangers it could potentially pose to liberal democracy.

      • Yeah, but very smart people working in the relevant field consider it likely within the stated time period, whereas I don’t give the Zeta Reticulan apocalypse theorists much credibility.

        That said, Fukuyama has addressed the subject of transhumanism and the dangers it could potentially pose to liberal democracy.

        Sadly can’t read this due to the pay wall, but I’m glad he’s addressed it, because to me the weird thing would be if it wasn’t relevant.

        • LadyJane says:

          Yeah, but very smart people working in the relevant field consider it likely within the stated time period, whereas I don’t give the Zeta Reticulan apocalypse theorists much credibility.

          While I do think there are plenty of ways for advanced AI to cause massive economic and infrastructural problems, largely just due to systemic overreliance on it, the Skynet scenario seems incredibly unlikely to me, especially within the next few decades. An actual AI cataclysm is much more likely to be along the lines of “we have this one AI controlling the world’s air traffic systems and it suddenly broke down,” which could still be devastating but wouldn’t end humanity and probably wouldn’t end modern civilization.

        • @LadyJane

          I made quite a substantive response to this but it keeps being eaten, so apologies. I’m trying to find what banned word is doing it. Hopefully multiple versions don’t appear at once.

        • EDIT: Found out why it was being deleted. F4k3 n3wz is a banned term. I understand why though I was using it indirectly.

          @LadyJane

          the Skynet scenario seems incredibly unlikely to me, especially within the next few decades

          That’s not my go to either. I would like to think we’re not so dumb to put AI in charge of whether nuclear weapons would be fired, but who knows what game theoretical nightmares are in store.

          An actual AI cataclysm is much more likely to be along the lines of “we have this one AI controlling the world’s air traffic systems and it suddenly broke down,” which could still be devastating but wouldn’t end humanity and probably wouldn’t end modern civilization.

          That’s just one system. Technology fundamentally changes everything. I don’t know about “destroy humanity”, but you don’t need to do that to disrupt human centred politics like liberal democracy and its populist antagonist. I was only born in 1987 and things have radically changed in my lifetime in such a way that liberal democracy is more in peril, not less, and many of the reasons may have a lot to do with modern communication technology. At least many esteemed media outlets put a lot of weight on f4ke news being behind the right populist push, and the nature of social media allowing powerful interests to manipulate the outcome in a way that is assumed to be predictable enough to be worth putting resources into. Trump then adopted it and all sides now throw the charge at each other. You add deep f4kes to that and produce something like deep f4ke news, and the ability to have faith in information is harmed, and since information is very important for the democratic process the implications aren’t minor.

          There’s definitely something to historical materialism (though I think technology broadly is the factor, and “the means of production” is a bit too narrow). The industrial revolution provided the material base for liberal democracy AND populism, and it may be that the information and intelligence revolution provides the basis for something else entirely. We’re still reeling from the impact of the internet, and now smart systems are entering the scene. Even if their capability tops out at a human level that’s going to radically change everything, because suddenly you have access to rapidly reproducible and near perfectly loyal slave armies.

          This paper shows how non-violent democracy movements can succeed with very small numbers behind them. Unless the liberal democratic countries have the power to conquer and forcibly convert all of the autocratic countries, this will be the main mechanism by which the slow convergence towards the liberal democratic end of history occurs. Even human level automation radically disrupts this mechanism, by allowing the military to shrink towards the command level.

          From the paper:

          Internally, members of a regime—including civil servants, security forces, and members of the judiciary—are more likely to shift loyalty toward nonviolent opposition groups than toward violent opposition groups. The coercive power of any resistance campaign is enhanced by its tendency to prompt disobedience and defections by members of the opponent’s security forces, who are more likely to consider the negative political and personal consequences of using repressive violence against unarmed demonstrators than against armed insurgents.

          Divisions are more likely to result among erstwhile regime supporters, who are not as prepared to deal with mass civil resistance as they are
          with armed insurgents. Regime repression can also backfire through increased public mobilization. Actively involving a relatively larger number of people in the nonviolent campaign may bring greater and more sustained pressure to bear on the target, whereas the public may eschew violent insurgencies because of physical or moral barriers.

          The ability for the above mechanisms to affect autocratic regimes is diminished if technologies arise that
          A: Make the opinions of the masses easier to centrally coordinate
          B: Make the masses redundant

          We’re arguably in the early stages of A due to social media, and in the future automation is going to fulfil B in the economic and military field. Strikes won’t work because there will be very few workers, and the government can simply lower your s0cial credit score, lowering your privileges and government stipends. If people do try to organize and go Ghandi, the backfire effect will be quenched when the government needs fewer loyal subjects to enforce order, and relies on a much much smaller group of well paid techs, rather than masses of lower paid grunts whose sympathies lie among the populace.

          There will still be the international dimension to consider, and it’s possible that liberal democratic countries could go to war to free other peoples, but ultimately I think the jig will basically be up for democracy once A and B are even halfway fulfilled. You start talking about superintelligent AI and then maybe the jig is up for everyone, and perhaps not due to a lurid Terminator scenario, but simply because we slip into comfy irrelevance as a species.

          It’s possible liberalism in the sense of a permissive legal system may still persist, but this would effectively have to be granted at the behest of the real power, as the material basis for bottom up “people power” would have been undermined.

  46. mrdomino says:

    China is often raised as an example of a state offering a sustainable non-democratic political model, but I don’t think that it falsifies this theory, at least not yet. China industrialized recently and is still a middle-income country, with a PPP adjusted GDP per capita of around $18,000, lower than those of Argentina, Greece, Portugal and Chile. It’s certainly conceivable that it won’t follow the trajectory of South Korea, Taiwan and Japan in eventually becoming and staying democratic as it develops, but it’s not clear to me that that’s a sure thing.

    I think Francis Fukuyama would agree with a version of this argument-he recently appeared on bloggingheads.tv with Bob Wright and argued his vision of “history” meant an end state. He did not think anything other than liberal democracy would be the final stage and in the discussion with Wright he talks he was more worried about the rise of right wing populism in established states than the rise of China as disproving his theory. The reason for his concern more with right wing populism is Fukuyama was talking about the triumph of “Western liberal democracy” in his essay and he talks about “illiberal democracy” as a threat in the discussion with Wright. That is not quite the same thing as diversity but he sees, say, Modhi’s actions in Kashmir or Erdogan’s rise in the Turkey as threats to his thesis, not because they will abolish democracy or capitalism but because they are degrading constitutionalism and separation of powers ect the “liberal” components in “liberal democracy”. If you say the end of history triumph of “nationalistic illiberal democracy as the end state of history” his thesis changes.

    Still…I can’t help feel the comparison to Japan and Taiwan may be the wrong goalpost. As you point out, China’s per capita income is basically second world level or 25% of America’s. But it was third world level in the early 90s (equivalent to India) and more importantly China’s GDP now is about 70% of America. That is closer than Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union ever came (lazy googling gives me Soviet GDP of less than 50% of America in 1977 for example-.7 trillion vs. 2 trillion vs China’s 12 trillion vs America 19 trillion in 2017.)

    You can say thats a function of capitalism and you may be correct but its decidedly a non-Western style of capitalism. China also seems to be growing more authoritarian as it gets richer (see Xi becoming leader for life) not less.

    In some ways America and European geopolitical planners better desperately hope China never hits S. Korea or Japanese GDP per capita income/first world status-if it comes to pass that 1.3 billion Chinese have gdp per capita of over 50% of America’s 300 million then you aren’t talking about a Chinese economy that is narrowly surpassing America’s. You are talking about a Chinese state that has a GDP what, 3x-4x America’s? Such a state would be clearly dominant over the nearest Western rival (although maybe an India that also somehow achieved first world gdp per capita could give it a run for its money.) Maybe a mishmash of all these predictions will happen and 2050 will feature a faceoff between a newly (illiberal) democratic and fiercely nationalistic China and a democratic India suffused with Hindu nationalism and led by a right wing populist that is not overly concerned with diversity. That world wouldn’t be completely foreign to an observer in 1991 but it also wouldn’t resemble a world dominated by “Western liberal democracy.”

  47. Lambert says:

    Sounds like he mistakes >500 year processes and cycles for eternal trends.
    One could have said in the year 100 that Imperium has made astonishing strides since the Punic Wars.
    That any defeats by barbarians are mere contingent events. etc.

    • Lambert says:

      I never said liberal democracy would be rendered damnatio memoriae, nor that it would never have any effects after more history happens.

      See: me using the word ‘like’, whose roots are very much non-Roman.

    • viVI_IViv says:

      I don’t think that the Roman Empire’s impact on European/world history was negated by its eventual fall

      No, but the Roman Empire both as a state and as its institutions and form of government definetely collapsed and were replaced by different states with different institutions, mostly feudal monarchy (with some instances of oligarchic republics more similar to the ancient Greek poleis than to SPQR).

      So would a first century Franciscus Fukuyamus declare that Imperial burocracy was clearly the “End of History”? According to this logic, he should have.

      • LadyJane says:

        In fact, there were Romans who claimed exactly that. The Greco-Roman scholar Polybius once said that the only task left to future historians would be to explain how the Roman Republic accomplished so many great victories and triumphs. (Compare and contrast Karl Rove’s quote that “we’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”)

        So what separates Fukuyama from Polybius? For starters, Fukuyama never claimed the U.S. or any other existing nation would dominate the world forever – although some of his readers, like the aforementioned Mr. Rove, may have interpreted him that way. Nor did Fukuyama claim that specific systems of government or societal structures or modes of production would remain in place indefinitely; the governments and societies of the future may look very different than the governments and societies of today. His claim was merely that future sociopolitical systems will be built upon the foundation of liberal democracy, rather than on opposing systems like fascism, communism, or monarchism.

      • JPNunez says:

        Polybius seems to have been right for longer than Fukuyama, at least.

    • DinoNerd says:

      I wouldn’t go so far as to propose cycles, let alone periodic cycles – but I basically agree.

      There is a difference between “who’s in power” and “has the Overton window moved (far enough to exclude the old ways)” – I actually thought that was what the OP meant by “contingent” vs “decisive”. Reading e.g. a defense of the “divine right of kings”, or for that matter one *against* it, feels like walking into delerium to a modern person. (I.e. it’s well outside the window). And yet – I actually see a resurgence of ideas tending in that direction over the past 60 or so years with similar cultural spaces being explored in fiction, rather than merely attributed to “benighted” or “barbaric” ancestors.

      Ideas and ways of seeing the universe come back. Sometimes they become dominant again, though often with new names and other important differences.

  48. zeno1 says:

    “If a Neo-Nazi walked up to you while you were waiting for the bus and asked you to skim/read a 5-page essay on why they believe Hitler was right, what would you do?”
    Could this question be used to determine whether someone is extremely open-minded? For example, if they say they would read it, then they are very open-minded, if they scoff at the idea then they are too close-minded to see past their initial views of an idea, and if they say no because it’s boring then neither?
    This is something I have not fleshed out, just an interesting thought. I think it would be interesting if you could come up with one question that could weed out very open minded people from somewhat open-minded or close-minded people.

    • Joseph Greenwood says:

      One obvious confounder is if the person being asked is generally very busy. If they are the sort who studies flashcards or reads books at bus-stops, then they might prefer those activities to reading about why Hitler was right.

    • Are they handing me a leaflet to read in my own time like the people who sell charity “newspapers” like the Big Issue, or are they hovering around demanding my thoughts on it?

      • zeno1 says:

        The former

      • Ok, well I would definitely read it then. I already have some strong expectations about what would be in the leaflet, but any kind of political extremism is fascinating to me (kind of in the same way as a train anorak), and I would be low key excited to find it in my area even if I would be upset and worried to see it become popular on a national level. I have enough white privilege (and I mean this seriously, not mockingly) to be amused and entertained by silly Nazi men as long as they remain a weird minority.

    • Trofim_Lysenko says:

      Not really, too many confounders. E.G., I would blow them off (politely if possible, about the same way I respond to unsolicited religious tracts, please-sign-this-petition political activists, and the like), but not because I’m not willing to consider the merits of Hitler’s theories of race, politics, and world order. Precisely because I have read a fair amount on the subject of National Socialism, World War Two, and various Anti-Semitic theories of history that my prior for a random dude at a bus stop having an argument I haven’t heard before is very, VERY low.

      They would have to be -extremely- convincing with their verbal pitch to make me think there’s something completely novel in their five page essay.

      • Well... says:

        I’m kind of in the same boat as you, but there’s also a (very big) part of me that would want to pull a Daryl Davis. Later he’d have to tell his buddies “Hey, I walked up to this Jewish-looking guy with the essay, and he was totally cool about it. He read the essay, didn’t get offended or dismiss any of the points out of hand, and even said he could understand one or two of the conclusions in it. Then we talked for a while until the bus came. He was friendly and interested in what I had to say. We even swapped email addresses so we could talk more.” That’s a guy who isn’t going to stay a neo-Nazi for long.

    • brad says:

      Openess is one of the big five personality traits. Presumably there’s some kind of standard instrument to measure it, no?

      • zeno1 says:

        True, I was looking for one question that could be used to quickly gauge someone’s open-mindedness, while the Big Five is a battery of questions. But perhaps I could find a question in there that itself is a good enough indicator openness.

    • Etoile says:

      This hypothetical Neo-Nazi reminds me of two minor characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Universe from a very, very religious country, named Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets and Smite-the-Unbeliever-with-Cunning-Arguments.

    • flakyflakyhermit says:

      I would definitely read it. I am sure of it. I think I can lend 10 minutes of my time to see how someone justifies something I believe to be utter nonsense.

      • Garrett says:

        I’d at least skim it, but with a low threshold for dismissing it. I’m not going to go out of my way to parse poorly-worded sentences, bad spelling, whatever. Likewise for substantially unsupported claims.

        But I’d skim it at least to see if there was anything I hadn’t heard before. And then later on research any claims which seemed to be even passably correct to stick in my head.

    • Radu Floricica says:

      I think this was discussed somewhere on LessWrong. Exposing yourself to a biased but skilled persuator is not “information”, in the sense of improving your view of reality. Depending on specific conditions, this may still be so even if you’re aware of it and trying to compensate – but that’s a lot less likely.

      I’d read it while being aware it’s propaganda. The small risk of becoming biased pro-hitler is more than compensated by a general tendency to be open to counter-arguments to your current views. And one document is well within reasonable limits. Hell, sometime I’ll have to find the time and finish Mein Kampf – I got bored well before I got to the saucy bits.

      As an aside, I find Christchurch manifesto prison-enforced ban to be morally repugnant. No strong opinions on the voluntary media ban.

      • eric23 says:

        Isn’t that how courts work – exposing the judge/jury to biased but skilled persuators from each side? Does anyone have a better idea for how to obtain justice? And why should political discussions be different from criminal justice in this regard?

        • Radu Floricica says:

          The courts work in a context that’s carefully tuned to balance the two sides. But OP’s question was about a singular event. Note that my final decision is to read it – more variety of persuators means better view of reality overall. Key word here being “variety”, not sheer number.

      • zeno1 says:

        Do you know of the LessWrong post? I’d love to read it. The only two relevant ones I can think of are SSC but are the epistemic learned helplessness one and hardball questions about the superintelligent AI changing your view.

        • Radu Floricica says:

          No, sorry… LW is huge and it was a long time ago.

          • zeno1 says:

            That’s fair, no worries.
            But along your point of a biased but skilled persuader, how do you function during meetings or 1:1 debates if someone is advocating for a certain point and is not backing down? In the end you have to make a decision, but you also know that you may become biased towards their view (just like becoming slightly biased pro-hitler) if you only hear their side of the argument.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            @zeno1

            It’s perfectly ok to get a bit biased towards hitler after that conversation, it would be odd if you weren’t. It would mean he was very shitty persuader. Fortunately it’s just one interaction among many, so long term it evens out to a (hopefully) accurate image.

        • Zeno of Citium says:

          I remember this post and was able to find it by searching for the metaphor it used: The Bottom Line, by Yudkowsky. It’s part of the original sequences. IIRC there’s a few later, related posts, but this is the core post on how to update on evidence present by a source you know to be both biased and highly persuasive.

    • Lambert says:

      I’d not read some person on the street’s pamphlet, even if it wasn’t about Hitler.
      The Public Transport system is not a place for conversation.

    • Murphy says:

      I think it’s gonna be polluted by context.

      if a sterotypical Neo-Nazi (intimidating skinhead) walked up to me while I were waiting for the bus… that’d probably be a tad intimidating and my interest would be in getting the hell away rather than their leaflet.

      In a personally safe format like online I know my response:

      “skim through it and if it’s totally batshit dismiss the person as mentally unwell, if it’s sort of coherent pick out the factual inaccuracies and respond pointing them out”

      Unless it’s the same old copy-pasta in which case you know the person is just parroting and it’s boring to respond to the same thing over and over.

    • JPNunez says:

      Do you have time for everyone who approaches you to hear the good news about _(whoever)_, let alone a neonazi?

      I mean a bunch of them are scammers, or they are trying to sell you some product, which may or may not be a scam in itself independent of what the person approaching you believes/knows about it.

      Telling the well intentioned true believers, it’s hard, but a good rule of thumb is “ignore them all”. Which would include the neonazi guy in my case.

      People have abused the social etiquette of approaching another random person for help to sell stuff, and it is a shame.

    • eyeballfrog says:

      I think it’d depend on the guy. If he seemed a little off-kilter, I’d probably decline and remember that I forgot something at home. Interacting with crazy people is always a risky endeavor. If he otherwise seemed normal, I’d probably go for it. Bus rides tend to be rather boring and it might even lead to an interesting conversation.

    • ECD says:

      I’m likely to treat it as a personal threat, since Hitler would have had me killed.

      ETA: Also, you’ll want a non-political one, otherwise the political skew would probably swamp your results. At least (this is not an accusation) unless the goal of the study is to produce a study with the headline: Neo-Nazis Most Openminded Group!

  49. cassander says:

    Firstly, capitalism has quite decisively triumphed over communism. This is a quite remarkable fact about recent history that I don’t think is considered enough. There are still lots of problems with and competing visions of capitalism, but the theory that collectivization of property and state central planning would produce a vastly more prosperous and just society than capitalism can seems to have been seriously discredited.

    I wish this were the case, but it really isn’t. just see the cheerleading that hugo chavez got a few years ago for promoting collectivization and state planning. the word communism is discredited, but not the underlying ideas.

    • cassander says:

      The collapse of the Venezuelan economy, one of the worst outside actual warzones, seems to have been widely and accurately attributed to the unwise policies of Chavez/Maduro.

      Those polices were celebrated as they were being implemented, the anti-democratic nature of the regime excused. They were only condemned after their inevitable failure became obvious, and even then there is not a small amount of excuse making about oil prices, US sanctions, etc.

      Time seems to favor the latter model over the former.

      It does in the sense that the neoliberalish policies actually work and chavismo doesn’t, but the appeal of chavismo seems to remain undimmed no matter how many times its failure is demonstrated in practice.

    • LadyJane says:

      I think Atlas covered that with his distinction between contingent victories and fundamental victories. The rise of Chavismo seems like a near-perfect example of a contingent victory.

      the word communism is discredited, but not the underlying ideas.
      If anything, I feel like the opposite is true. People keep throwing around the terms “socialism” and “communism,” with less and less idea of what they actually mean. Something like Chavismo isn’t really based in Marxist or even Leninist principles, it’s just typical populist strongman rule with some half-baked leftist fiscal policies thrown in for good measure. And the “socialism” that modern American leftists support is even less socialist than that; as far as I can tell, the majority of them are really just confused welfare capitalist social democrats who only think they’re socialists because they internalized the conservative idea that socialism just means high taxes and welfare programs.

      • cassander says:

        Something like Chavismo isn’t really based in Marxist or even Leninist principles, it’s just typical populist strongman rule with some half-baked leftist fiscal policies thrown in for good measure.

        I disagree with this very strongly. If anything, it’s a lot of self consciously and explicitly left wing policies with some strongman rule thrown in. Chavez actively cultivated the far left, buddied up with castro for no reason other than ideology, and was largely celebrated for it by the international left.

        And the “socialism” that modern American leftists support is even less socialist than that; as far as I can tell, the majority of them are really just confused welfare capitalist social democrats who only think they’re socialists because they internalized the conservative idea that socialism just means high taxes and welfare programs.

        If they think that, why did they applaud Chavez so consistently and loudly? And frankly, we’re not talking about just a welfare state, we’re talking about effective nationalization/price fixing huge swathes of the economy. Healthcare, education, finance, tech. the lust for the commanding heights hasn’t abated, it’s just switched targets.

        • Plumber says:

          @cassander >

          “..we’re talking about effective nationalization/price fixing huge swathes of the economy. Healthcare, education, finance, tech. the lust for the commanding heights hasn’t abated, it’s just switched targets…”

          Lets go down your list;

          Healthcare: How well do the Brits do with their system?

          Education: The parochial schools seem to do better for most students than the majority of locally controlled public schools and maybe a fully nationalized public school system would be better, but I doubt it.

          Finance:For much of the 20th century U.S. post offices also were banks, I haven’t really read that they did badly but I presume there must have been some reason that was stopped?

          Tech: Oh Hell yes!

          Not because I think it would be done well, but because I hope it will go badly!

          The Soviet Union was notorious for allocating products badly, but in the last twenty years it’s become increasingly difficult to source replacement parts and damn near everything, with merchants and vendors telling me “Oh that’s obsolete, you can’t get that anymore, you have to buy this whole new thing” (and by the time I get familiar with the new thing, it’s obsolete), so what is there to lose!

          To Hell with that!

          The Soviets kept making a copy of a 1937 German motorcycle into the 1990’s!

          That is AWESOME!

          Stop all this ****ing change cold and let a man have time to get used to how things are!

          Maybe still allow a tiny little bit of progress for the kids (like my son) who are into new stuff, but for me slowing Tech advances way the Hell down sounds like a winner!

          Plus maybe the Tech workers will stop moving here and bidding up housing!

          Kill that golden egg laying goose dead, dead, and DEAD!

          All in on this central plan!

          It’ll be great!

          EDIT: I just had the thought that foreigners would still be doing innovation dagnabbit! While there’s still the side benefit of stopping Tech in this nation keeping housing from being bid way the Hell up, for the progress slowdown to work trade with other nations has to be curtailed, and since most things often require materials and parts if not the whole item coming from overseas now we’d have to deliberately keep innovations from coming across our borders, and that requires competence to do instead of just trusting that attempts at progress would be bungled by a now nationalized Tech.

          Foiled, damn it!

        • cassander says:

          Lets go down your list;

          Healthcare: How well do the Brits do with their system?

          the NHS employs 1.5 million people just in england, with a population of 55 million. That means the US NHS would employ a minimum of 9 million people in theory, and in practice considerably more than that. However the UK does with their system, it’s not something that can be replicated in the US

          Education: The parochial schools seem to do better for most students than the majority of locally controlled public schools and maybe a fully nationalized public school system would be better, but I doubt it.

          Finance:For much of the 20th century U.S. post offices also were banks, I haven’t really read that they did badly but I presume there must have been some reason that was stopped?

          It was deemed unnecessary given the spread of retail banking, and probably lost a lot of money.

          Not because I think it would be done well, but because I hope it will go badly!

          I believe we’ve discussed before how I don’t consider your desire to make the bay area more conducive to your lifestyle to be a sound basis for public policy.

          The Soviets kept making a copy of a 1937 German motorcycle into the 1990’s!

          That is AWESOME!

          Not if you wanted a modern motorcycle it wasn’t. Or modern cancer treatments, or a house that didn’t leak, or the million other things the soviet union was deficient in because of it’s low productivity.

  50. imoimo says:

    Is anyone else here a fan of Pewdiepie? I’m not looking for a flame war, but would like to hear if/how watching him as affected you personally.

    • AG says:

      The only Youtuber I watch regularly is CarlSagan42, who streams mostly Mario Maker. He hits the sweet spot of entertaining, competent, and sincere, but that’s because streaming isn’t his day job. (Every so often I also watch a bunch of GDQ footage in a row.)

      Everyone else, the algorithm rat race has either made their content not appealing enough to follow regularly, or not worth it to produce content frequently.

      Part of this, though, is because I’m into Japanese idols, so that fandom emotionally fulfills a large part of why people get into any particular internet celebrities.

      • imoimo says:

        Well now I want to ask about your interest in Japanese idols. Do you just watch lots of music videos? Do they make other content? Do you follow them like celebrities?

        • AG says:

          Consider the people at Rooster Teeth. They put out stuff as “artists,” i.e. as actors for sketches and cartoons and films. They also put out a lot of unscripted stuff, for talk shows and podcasts/vlogs and interviews and documentaries and candid self-filming.

          Idols are basically that. They put out MVs and do concerts and lives, and also talk shows and act in TV/film, and do fashion photoshoots, and also radio shows, and documentaries and candid self-filming. Some of them are also doing Let’s Play streams now, even.

          With regular celebrities, they have some sort of primary day job (actor, music artist), and the adulation by the fans of them as a person is a side effect. They might take advantage of that (promoting themselves on social media and in interviews), but that part isn’t the main thing.
          With the idol model, promoting themselves is the main thing. Taking an acting or singing gig is the mechanism to get fans interested in the person.

          The “Golden Age of Cinema,” in the heyday of the studio system, was running off of the idol model. You went to see A Judy Garland or A Cary Grant film.

  51. Plumber says:

    Reading In Coal Country, the Mines Shut Down, the Women Went to Work and the World Quietly Changed from gave me some tears, and since misery loves company for those who’d rather not click on the link, here’s some of it:

    […]In the pre-dawn hours when all is dark and quiet, Amanda Lucas leaves her house and begins the long drive to her job at a hospital an hour away.

    In years past, it was the men who would empty out of the hollows of Letcher County before sunrise. All day long they would be underground, digging out coal as their fathers and often their grandfathers had done. Ms. Lucas’s husband, Denley, had a job with one of the big mining companies, with good benefits and an income approaching six figures when all the overtime was added. She stayed at home to raise their four children.

    “We had a good life,” she said.

    Then everything changed.

    It has been a hot and mean summer in Letcher County, with a rash of coal mine bankruptcies and layoffs even crueler than the ones that came before. From the barstools at the American Legion post to the parking lot of the unemployment office, there was little debate: The coal business around here is going under. The only question was what would keep everyone afloat.

    These days, the answer has been: women. From 2010 to 2017, Letcher County saw a greater shift in the gender balance of its labor force than almost any other county in the United States.

    The share of women in the work force rose substantially in places throughout Central Appalachia, as well as in parts of the industrial Midwest and the rural South. But few places have seen a more dramatic change than Letcher County, in hilly Eastern Kentucky, where for generations the archetypal worker was a brawny, coal-dusted man in reflective overalls. Just 10 years ago, nearly three-fifths of the work force was male. Now the majority is female.

    “The mines have shut down and the women have gone to work,” said Billy Thompson, a district director of the United Steelworkers union, which represents thousands of medical support workers in the region. “It’s not complicated at all.”

    There are over a thousand fewer coal mine jobs in Letcher County than there were a decade ago, and virtually all of those lost jobs were held by men. The number of mining jobs, according to state figures, fell to under 50 in 2017, from over 1,300 at the beginning of 2009. The number has inched back up; this summer it was 100.

    Coal mining has always been boom-and-bust, but it is hard to shake the feeling that this might be the last bust. Some men picked up and left at word of mining jobs elsewhere, some went to work as linemen or truck drivers, and others, figuring they were too old or physically broken to start over, just dropped out of the labor force. It was as if the very identity of a Letcher County man had been declared insolvent.

    “I could always tell the man who worked in the mines,” said Debbie Baker, a cleaner in Whitesburg, the Letcher County seat. For one thing, “they had money.”

    She recalled a family who lived comfortably where she grew up; the father worked underground and his sons followed, one by one. “The next would get old enough and get a wife and go working in the coal mines,” she said. “I don’t think any of the men did anything else.”

    “When the mines left, they all ended up on drugs,” Ms. Baker added. “And their women went to work.”

    Women in coal country always found paying work in greater numbers during the lean times, cleaning houses or making burgers, earning enough to get the family by until the mines picked up again. When that happened — and it always did — wives often returned home or cut back on hours because they could and because someone had to, child care being an elusive commodity. But just tiding the family over is not enough anymore.

    There is little hope of finding work that could replace a miner’s income; women in Letcher County still on average make substantially lower salaries than men. But in a place stricken by chronic disease and opioid overdoses there is one area where workers are in constant demand: health care. Signing bonuses for nurses can reach into the five digits.

    It is impossible to miss driving into Whitesburg. Heading in from the east, there is an outpatient mental health clinic taking up a roadside mall and then, on a perch overlooking downtown, the county’s major hospital, founded by the miners’ union in the 1950s and recently expanded. Coming in from the west, there is a brand-new heart, vascular and neurology clinic that opened in the old Super 8 hotel building, and just beyond it, across from the grocery store, is the 75,000-square-foot Mountain Comprehensive Health Corporation clinic.

    This is the region’s economy now, and its work force. At the regional network of M.C.H.C. clinics alone, there more than 110 nurses, according to Mike Caudill, the chief executive. Four of them are men.

    “We wouldn’t have half the nurses that we do if we still had coal mines,” said Ciara Bowling. She certainly wouldn’t have decided to go to work herself. As far back as she can remember, she wanted only to be a coal miner’s wife.

    But Ms. Bowling, 25, came out of high school into the coal bust. Her boyfriend, already laid off, drove the county roads asking about openings at the mines, while she earned their living at the dollar store, then the Pizza Hut, then the McDonald’s. Most of the women she worked with, she said, were wives of out-of-work miners.

    The idea was always to quit when the men found jobs. This was the arrangement articulated by a friend of Ms. Bowling’s, a former miner named Jody Ray Rose: “A man works and does what he’s supposed to do, or has to do,” Mr. Rose said, “to take care of his family.”

    But without the mines this was nearly impossible. Ms. Bowling and her boyfriend sold their TV and refrigerator; at one point they had their water cut off. He never found a mining job. After they split up and Ms. Bowling started seeing a new man — also looking for work underground — she enrolled at the local community college to become a medical assistant.

    “Take care of your husband, that’s all you want to do,” she said. “But when that doesn’t work out, you’ve got to go to work.”

    This is the conversation Ms. Lucas, the hospital worker, and her husband began having when the coal business started falling apart. Even before he was laid off, the Lucases, with four young children and a mortgage, had been watching mines shut down one after another. More than a decade after dropping out of college, Ms. Lucas, 38, raised the idea of going back to school.

    “To be honest, I wasn’t real crazy about it to start,” her husband said, sitting with Ms. Lucas in a living room noisy with children on a Fourth of July afternoon. He saw it as his obligation to ensure that she didn’t have to work, an obligation he’d kept for 18 years. But she wanted this, he said, so he didn’t get in the way.

    As it was, they needed it. A state program for miners’ families not only paid tuition but, critically, also provided money for living expenses. Ms. Lucas spent long days studying while her mother and sister-in-law helped Mr. Lucas with the children.

    After graduation, Ms. Lucas went straight to work as a respiratory therapist. The job comes with health insurance, but it doesn’t draw the salary Mr. Lucas used to earn in the mines. That is a reality common to care workers, looking after people who made more money than they likely ever will. She sees former miners suffering from black lung and other ailments she has known firsthand in her own extended family. She thinks of the work as an act of reciprocity.

    “They helped us to establish everything around here, and now I can help them,” said Ms. Lucas, who is now training other wives of out-of-work miners at the college. “I’ve always heard if you love what you do it don’t seem like a job, and that’s how I feel right now.”

    The family has learned to live on less. Mr. Lucas works construction jobs when the opportunity arises, but he hasn’t ruled out going back underground.

    “I liked it pretty good the way it was and I’m sure she did too,” he said, nodding toward his wife. It was true that working in the mines was rough, and he appreciates his wife’s success. “I’m sure she’s glad she’s done what she did, and I understand that,” he said.

    “But,” he repeated, “I did like it pretty good the way it was.”

    “Things Have Just Changed”
    Ms. Bowling had ultimately found a life like the way it was, or the way she’d long wanted it to be. Her fiancé, Blake Johnson, had found a job in the mines. Every day he went in before sunup and came home 12 hours later, exhausted and coated in coal dust.

    “We as a community are so proud of our miners,” Ms. Bowling said. She was sitting on a hot afternoon at the Hemphill Community Center, in a building that once housed a long-shuttered grade school. In the parking lot stands a shrine to those who died in the nearby mines, the names listed on black marble of miners “who gave so much that future generations may benefit with a better life.”

    Mr. Johnson’s father was killed in the mines. His brother was laid off this summer, after decades with one company. He had few illusions about coal work. He wanted to go back to school himself and when he got a good job, he said, Ms. Bowling would no longer have to work.

    She has different ideas. “Things have just changed,” she said[…]

    […]A short drive from the community center up Coal Miner’s Highway, in a house his grandfather built, Mr. Rose considered the way Ms. Bowling went about things, and the way preferred by men like himself.

    “We’re definitely a dying breed,” he said. He had been released from prison a few weeks earlier — drugs — and was now delivering merchandise for a hardware store. Getting back underground was the aim, but he wanted his sons to see how it was supposed to be: him hard at work and their mother at home with them.

    This was getting harder to sustain, though. And fewer people seemed interested in holding onto it.

    “The way of life is changing so bad,” Mr. Rose said. He grew quiet. “You’ll get overwhelmed if you think about it too hard.”

    I can already imagine some responses:“”They should’ve moved and learned to code”, coal has to die to save polar bears’, “This empowers women”, , and it reads like a dying community of broken men, and working women that is increasingly supported by semi-nationalized health insurance.

    For me the parallels with the Hunters Point neighborhood in San Francisco after so many shipyards jobs disappeared in the ’70’s are obvious. These folks weren’t raised their whole childhood that their chief goal in life is to fashion yourself to go away to a selective college and then again move for ambition, and they don’t have family tales of striving immigrant grandparents, instead much of their families have been their for centuries, and they have deep roots where they live.

    If past is prologue, and their fate of these rural whites does follow the once majority black neighborhoods of the San Francisco bay area I don’t inagine much to be optimistic about, I suppose subsidies to move to places with more opportunities, but I’m not sure how many would want to move far from the graves of their ancestors anyway. 

    • brad says:

      These folks weren’t raised their whole childhood that their chief goal in life is to fashion yourself to go away to a selective college and then again move for ambition, and they don’t have family tales of striving immigrant grandparents, instead much of their families have been their for centuries, and they have deep roots where they live. … I suppose subsidies to move to places with more opportunities, but I’m not sure how many would want to move far from the graves of their ancestors anyway.

      How many centuries are we talking here? San Francisco has only really existed since 1849, only 170 years ago and 1) how many of those shipyard workers are descended from ’49ers and 2) those ’49s weren’t exactly homebodies if we think wanderlust is heritable. The coal mining towns of West Virginia are even younger, dating from the 1880s or after. Those mine workers were by and large new-commers to the region (African-Americans from the deep south and new immigrants from Europe).

      • Plumber says:

        @brad,
        I was thinking of parallels and differences, and I failed to communicate that

        Folks who lived in the Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco (and similar near shipyard neighborhoods in Oakland, Marin City, and Richmond) in the ’70’s and ’80’s mostly came or their parents in the ’40’s and ’50’s, and San Francisco is filled with newcomers, the general impression I had of Kentucky and the rest of Appalachian ‘coal country’ was of folks who’s ancestors mostly arrived in the 17th century, and I thought that with those deep roots it would be even harder to move.
        What you said about West Virginia surprised me, so thanks!

        • brad says:

          Appalachian history is pretty interesting. There are the famous (at least ’round here) boarders, but they were hardly the only wave. Before the big coal mine influx there were waves of German* and Irish immigration coming to the area almost continually from the early 19th century. And even after coal mining took off it still competed for quite a long time with logging and associated industries.

          * and much of the country for that matter, the extent of German immigration is for various reasons not that well known in the US

    • broblawsky says:

      Yeah, this is brutal. And there’s no obvious way to fix it, unfortunately. Telling people to move away is essentially telling them to gamble their communities and their family ties on the possibility of getting a better job somewhere, but where can an older person without a college degree get a job today in the US?

      The worst part is, there’s no real chance of this fixing itself the way these people want it to. As long as natural gas remains cheap and mini-mills remain more efficient than conventional blast furnaces for steel production, coal will continue to die. Environmental regulation is only one (unfortunately necessary) element of what’s killing coal.

      • AlphaGamma says:

        I live in a former coal-mining area where the government made the decision to close all the mines (which were all state-owned) in 1965 due to the discovery of natural gas fields which were a more economical source of energy. The last mine closed in 1976.

        There was a period of high unemployment, but it is now not hugely above the national average, as the government worked to provide alternative employment (and the former state mining company transitioned into chemical processing while staying in the region).

      • brad says:

        where can an older person without a college degree get a job today in the US?

        There was an article in the Times over the weekend about a shortage of Border Patrol officers. Not sure about the education or age requirements.

        • nkurz says:

          In order to consider joining the Border Patrol, an applicant must possess the following qualifications:
          U.S. citizenship
          39 years old or younger
          Valid driver’s license
          No prior criminal convictions
          Possess minimum vision and hearing functionality
          Ability to perform strenuous physical activity

          U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not require that applicants possess a college degree, but it may be necessary or advisable to have an associate’s or bachelor’s in criminal justice to be considered for some of the more challenging or demanding positions.

          Spanish is a requirement to serve in the Border Patrol, so those applicants already proficient in Spanish have a competitive advantage, especially if they are assigned to the southern border. Spanish does not have to be an applicant’s major, as interactions with a wide variety of foreign nationals is highly common; demonstrating proficiency in any foreign language should be sufficient to convince the US CBP that the applicant has the ability to readily learn to converse in Spanish.

          If the applicant does not possess a college degree, they may also satisfy the requirements for some advanced positions in the Border Patrol by serving in law enforcement or the military.

          The GL-5 entry level position is also available to prospective Border Patrol agents without a college degree or law enforcement experience, but applicants may not be very competitive while in the running for these in-demand jobs.

          https://www.borderpatroledu.org/become-border-patrol-agent/

          This is not intended as a rebuke, I was just interested in what the listed requirements actually were. I’m surprised by the hard age limit, and find the Spanish requirement interesting.

          • S_J says:

            About this requirement:

            39 years old or younger

            .

            A Border Patrol agent is a variety of law-enforcement. There are many Federal/State/Local jobs of that type: police officer, game warden, State-University campus security officer, Federal Marshal, Postal Inspector, welfare-fraud investigators, Transportation inspectors, Border Patrol Agent, etc.

            All of these jobs have a minimum physical fitness requirement, almost always with an age limit. It’s not that all people over age 39 are unfit for duty. It is that the bell-curve for physical endurance/stamina in that age range has a very small section for ‘can pass the physical part of training’.

            People can remain in those jobs past the age of 39, by passing physical fitness tests (or being re-assigned/promoted to positions which have lower physical fitness requirements).

          • John Schilling says:

            Insofar as they already do up-front and recurring physical fitness testing, I am skeptical that the 39-year requirement is based in the statistically superior fitness of youth. Rather, I believe it is about culture formation. Law enforcement cares very deeply about its institutional culture, moreso than almost any corporation (but less so than the military), believing that shared culture is necessary for mission success. Young people can usually be indoctrinated or assimilated into a new culture in a way that old people can’t.

          • Randy M says:

            That was the point of view expressed by the precinct chief in about their older new recruit played by Nathan Fillion in The Rookie.

      • Chalid says:

        As long as natural gas remains cheap and mini-mills remain more efficient than conventional blast furnaces for steel production, coal will continue to die.

        and it would die much faster if we properly penalized it for all the lung cancer deaths it causes.

      • baconbits9 says:

        but where can an older person without a college degree get a job today in the US?

        Total job openings for construction are just off their 20 year high, probably an all time high but the graph only goes back 20 years, as are total retail openings, and job openings in manufacturing and trade/transportation/utilities.

        The issue does not appear to be ‘where can a person with no college degree get a job’ but a combination of ‘where can you earn near 6 figures with no degree’ and ‘why won’t these unemployed people move to where jobs are’.

        • CatCube says:

          There’s definitely a boom. You can hardly get construction contractors right now, everybody’s so busy. However, it’s not a huge mass of people with a “strong back and a weak mind” anymore. While there are some laborers, even much of that work is done with mechanization which requires skills, and even the fewer laborers will add more value if they don’t need to be closely supervised to get anything done.

          Steel prices are through the roof, so we’ll see if that has a slowing effect; it’s negatively impacted a couple of contracts I’ve tried to let, but it’s hard to disentangle the more expensive steel from the more expensive contractor profit to get them out to your site given that it’s a seller’s market.

          • Radu Floricica says:

            Miners fit the bill. You don’t thrive… well, you don’t even survive in the mines with a weak mind. They should convert relatively easy to construction.

      • Garrett says:

        I had a conversation with someone in the local 911 dispatcher business. Apparently, they are unable to hire/retain employees, despite typically paying around $25/h. No credentials required, though some background in public safety is preferred. They are hiring/training dozens at a time and only a few accept job offers afterwards. Obviously this is not a huge sink for unskilled workers. But I was surprised at how much trouble they are having staffing/retaining these positions given the pay.

        • AlphaGamma says:

          Possibly it’s the stress of listening to 911 calls all day every day (with a non-trivial chance that you are listening to someone die). Certainly the person I know elsewhere online who worked as a 911 call dispatcher found the job extremely difficult for that reason.

        • John Schilling says:

          Interesting. Furthermore, there doesn’t seem to be any reason 911 dispatchers couldn’t be outsourced to e.g. Appalachia, whereas there are reasons (linguistic and cultural fluency, politics) why one might not want to outsource it to India. This isn’t going to be a cure-all for what ails the coal towns, but it might offer a little bit of help.

          • AlphaGamma says:

            I think that some level of local knowledge is desirable for a 911 dispatcher (callers may not know exactly where they are, a dispatcher might be able to help locate them).

            British company call centres are often in the North-East of England, which is a former mining area. Part of the reason for this is the high unemployment in the area after the loss of both mining and a lot of the other major industries (like shipbuilding), and part of it is that British people associate the local accent with friendliness and trustworthiness.

    • Radu Floricica says:

      I can already imagine some responses:“”They should’ve moved and learned to code”, coal has to die to save polar bears’, “This empowers women”, , and it reads like a dying community of broken men, and working women that is increasingly supported by semi-nationalized health insurance.

      Nah, I’m going to say something else. This looks a lot like a return to normality, after a very non-normal period where men could make enough money to sustain a one-income family. Same thing that happened to everybody 50 years ago.

      I’m not being cynical here, that’s, I think, a critical observation if you want to fix things. Mind tends to go to different kinds of solutions in the specific vs general scenarios.

    • baconbits9 says:

      My response isn’t ‘they should learn how to code’, but it is ‘why are some of these men so inflexible? Ok, I get the 55 year old who has spent 30 years as a coal miner being lost when the jobs dry up, but the article talks about a 25 year old woman who had two different out of work coal miner boyfriends and a 38 year old married women. Unless these people are dating/marrying much older men you have guys with 10-20 years in the mines basically giving up on any other work.

      • Nabil ad Dajjal says:

        It seems pretty obvious to me.

        One half of it is sticky wages, where most people are unwilling to take a nominal (never mind real) pay cut. The other half is the existential despair of going from a miner who can support his family to a grocery bagger who can maybe keep his family off welfare if his wife works too.

        I’d like to see how some of the glibber posters here would react if they woke up and found out that the only paying work they could get is scrubbing toilets for minimum wage. I don’t think that any of us are more “flexible,” we just have much more marketable skills which allow us to avoid demeaning work.

        • baconbits9 says:

          One half of it is sticky wages, where most people are unwilling to take a nominal (never mind real) pay cut. The other half is the existential despair of going from a miner who can support his family to a grocery bagger who can maybe keep his family off welfare if his wife works too.

          The latter jobs are a gross exaggeration contradicted by the piece. The wives/girlfriends of these people are taking zero job history and going back to school and are making more than minimum wage.

          I’d like to see how some of the glibber posters here would react if they woke up and found out that the only paying work they could get is scrubbing toilets for minimum wage.

          I made significant money playing online poker years ago until federal regulations killed it, after that I worked part time as an entry level tech in a biology lab for less than $15 an hour, and when grant money dried up and jobs were scarce during the great recession I eventually shifted to midnight to 8am shifts at a bakery that started at $10 an hour. I have also literally scrubbed toilets (summer job in high school) worked basically every job in restaurants including high volume/low pay dish washing, and moved 500 miles away from my parents, 5 siblings and 9 (and counting) nieces and nephews (only 2 at the time of the move) to get married because my wife kept her income during the GR and I lost mine.

        • Cliff says:

          Men can be nurses too. I don’t think it’s immediately obvious that I would rather be strung out on opioids than a nurse.

          • Nornagest says:

            I imagine it’s somewhat harder to retrain as a nurse than as a grocery bagger. It might even be harder than retraining as a coder, depending on talents, personality, and what sorts of coder are in demand at the moment.

        • HowardHolmes says:

          I’d like to see how some of the glibber posters here would react if they woke up and found out that the only paying work they could get is scrubbing toilets for minimum wage. I don’t think that any of us are more “flexible,” we just have much more marketable skills which allow us to avoid demeaning work.

          No work is demeaning. Toilets need to be scrubbed and the scrubbing of them is honorable and necessary and contributes to society. If it is judged demeaning this tells us something about the judger, not the work.

          My wife and I are retired and live on less than we would take home with minimum wage jobs like you describe. If social security disappeared and we had to go to work scrubbing toilets we would both gladly do so and experience no diminution of quality of life nor would we find the change stressful in any way.

        • albatross11 says:

          +1

          You’re talking about people taking a huge loss of income and prestige. You can expect people to do that to survive, but they’re never going to like it!

          I recommend the following substitution:

          “Learn to code” –> “Learn to play NBA-level basketball”

          or

          “Learn to code” –> “Learn to do publishable work in theoretical physics”

          Say, if someone tells me that the way I can get back to a respectable middle-class income level is to become a professional athlete/theoretical physicist, it turns out that’s just another way of saying I can’t get back to a respectable middle-class income.

          • AG says:

            baconbits9 already said that their reaction isn’t “learn to code.” It was literally their first sentence. Their reaction is similar to mine, though, which is if there are these job openings that all of these women with little to no job history/training are taking (which are not coding, either), men could be taking those same jobs.

    • Peffern says:

      These folks weren’t raised their whole childhood that their chief goal in life is to fashion yourself to go away to a selective college and then again move for ambition, and they don’t have family tales of striving immigrant grandparents, instead much of their families have been their for centuries, and they have deep roots where they live.

      This might be the single most point anyone has made on this subject that I’ve ever read. Specifically, this cuts right to the core of why I’ve found it so difficult to really understand the closing-the-coal-mines/opioid-epidemic/middle-america-unemployment cultural force:

      The concept of people having fundamental “roots”/deep ties to the land they live on and their way of life is fundamentally alien and confusing to me. It’s hard for me to explain just how strange this concept is to someone who was brought up in an environment of “family tales of striving immigrant grandparents” (I’m fourth-generation not third- but the point stands. I knew my great-grandmother long enough to hear it from her).

      Part of the reason this is so hard for me to wrap my head around is that I cannot see myself or my family (either my ancestors or my hypothetical descendants) arriving in this kind of situation. I basically don’t understand how these “roots” come about from a place where they don’t already exist. I think it’s in some way tied to nationalism – I’ve always seen through the lens of “I live in this country” not “I am this country” and I can imagine how someone with deeper ties to the land might think in terms of the second.

      This does explain why arguments about retraining for new industries, or impetus from environmental protection, or invocations of the dangers of lung cancer and other safety hazards seem to fall on deaf ears.

      I don’t have a point, I just felt like I suddenly had an epiphany upon reading your comment and wanted to let you know.

      Also, I’ve deliberately avoided stating my specific ethnic background for this comment since I want to avoid assumptions, but I’m wondering if it’s pretty obvious.

      • Le Maistre Chat says:

        I think the concept of ethnicity has a built-in tension between “We are this land. The food it grows becomes the cells of our body. We are literally it.” and “In other lands, everyone whose language I can understand is more kin to me than the rest of humanity.”

      • Viliam says:

        The concept of people having fundamental “roots”/deep ties to the land they live on and their way of life is fundamentally alien and confusing to me.

        Can you imagine having a large social network that gives you a lot of value, but you cannot coordinate them to move with you?

        • albatross11 says:

          I’ll bet the tendency toward feeling a strong connection with the land/town of your birth/etc. varies a great deal by individuals, and also to some extent across cultures and may be partly genetic.

          The US, especially the West, was settled by a lot of people who pulled up stakes and moved somewhere more promising a few times. Whatever of that is genetically driven, plus whatever of that is cultural and has been passed on, is presumably still with us.

        • Anthony says:

          The number of people I know who really should move out of the Bay Area to have a decent quality of life, but don’t, makes this very easy to imagine.

          Even though enough of those social networks have moved to Portland and Seattle to count as coordination.

          • John Schilling says:

            Bignum*Dunbar’s Number of atomic individuals moving from the Bay Area to the Pacific Northwest, does not necessary constitute the movement of even a single social network. Those individuals may have each decided to abandon their Bay Area social network in the expectation of joining a new social network drawn from the same general culture.

            Not having lived in either the Bay Area or the Pacific Northwest, have you seen examples of actual social networks, as opposed to individuals, migrating as a unit?

          • Anthony says:

            @John Schilling – the only time I’ve seen full social networks migrate is the annual migration to Gerlach, Nevada, and from the Bay Area to Irwindale (RenFaire). But they come back.

      • Plumber says:

        @Peffern >

        “…I’m fourth-generation not third- but the point stands. I knew my great-grandmother long enough to hear it from her…”

        “…I’ve deliberately avoided stating my specific ethnic background for this comment since I want to avoid assumptions, but I’m wondering if it’s pretty obvious”

        I have a guess based entirely on projection and my memories of one of my great-grandmothers.

        FWLIW, so you don’t have to guess, my great-grandparents were:

        One born in the U.S.A., family name Irish or Scottish (Mc….)

        One from Ireland, family name unknown.

        One from Ireland, family name Irish (O’…)

        One from Germany, family name German.  

        One from Austro-Hungarian Empire, family name unknown. 

        One born in U.S.A., family name English, allegedly descended from 17th century immigrant to Massachusetts. 

        One unknown to me, gave birth in Kansas. 

        One unknown to me, gave birth in Massachusetts. 

        Grandparents are:

        One from Massachusetts, family name Irish or Scottish.

        One from either New Jersey or Ireland (I’ve heard both stories, both of her parents were Irish in either version), family name Irish.

        One from Kansas, family name English.

        One from California, family name German.

        My parents were from California and New Jersey. 

        I’m born in California and both work and live within 20 miles of my birthplace, and my wife wasn’t, her mother is still alive and foreign born, so my son’s are the fourth generation born in California, have ancestors that have been on this continent for even more generations than that, and also have still living immigrant ancestors, and since they’re both mixed race it’s likely that they won’t just get called “one of the Irish guys” at work as I have been, but maybe they will just based on the name?

        Hard to tell what will be in decades to be, last and previous years had plenty in the San Francisco Saint Patrick’s Day parade that visibly have at leassome non-Irish ancestors, cause that’s how just we roll!

        • EchoChaos says:

          This is fun, so I’ll do mine too.

          Greatgreatgrandparents:

          Two from the Great Lakes region, German surnames
          Five from Virginia, English surnames (these go back to Jamestown)
          Two from Pennsylvania, English surnames (these go back to Plymouth)
          Two from the Great Lakes region, Norwegian surnames
          Seven from Iowa, Irish surnames.

          All born in the United States, although at the fifth generation back (great-great-greats) the Norwegians and Germans are immigrants (they were born here and married in their own communities). The Irish are tougher to tell, but they were probably immigrants in that same generation because that’s when the first wave of Irish showed up (1830s-50s)

          • Plumber says:

            @EchoChaos,
            That’s impressive, it looks like you know all the branches of your family from way back!

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Plumber

            Genealogy is something I really enjoy. The English lines I can trace to the 1600s or earlier, including my descent from this guy:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rich,_1st_Baron_Rich

            Note: He was a very bad person.

            The German and Norwegian lines I can trace back to point of immigration, but I haven’t gone foreign language to go further than that.

            The Irish are always tough to tell as they’re bad at record-keeping in America, let alone in Ireland and they generally arrived before detailed immigration records were kept, but I am pretty sure the prior generation were the immigrants. It’s also possible they were Scots-Irish (Borderers) who went to Iowa to blend into the Irish immigration there, but no records either way to prove it.

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @EchoChaos:

            Genealogy is something I really enjoy. The English lines I can trace to the 1600s or earlier, including my descent from this guy:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rich,_1st_Baron_Rich

            Note: He was a very bad person.

            Was he a bad person as a child?

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richie_Rich_(comics)

          • Nick says:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rich,_1st_Baron_Rich

            Note: He was a very bad person.

            in 1533 Rich was knighted and became the Solicitor General for England and Wales in which capacity he was to act under Thomas Cromwell as a “lesser hammer” for the demolition of the monasteries, and to secure the operation of Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy. Rich had a share in the trials of Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. In both cases his evidence against the prisoner included admissions made in friendly conversation, and in More’s case the words were given a misconstruction that could hardly be other than wilful.[8]

            On 19 April 1536 Rich became the chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, established for the disposal of the monastic revenues. His own share of the spoil, acquired either by grant or purchase, included Leez (Leighs) Priory and about a hundred manors in Essex. Rich also acquired —and destroyed— the real estate and holdings of the Priory of St Bartholomew-the-Great in Smithfield. He built the Tudor-style gatehouse still surviving in London as the upper portion of the Smithfield Gate.[11] He was Speaker of the House of Commons in the same year, and advocated the king’s policy. In spite of the share he had taken in the suppression of the monasteries, the prosecution of Thomas More and Bishop Fisher and of the part he was to play under Edward VI and Elizabeth, his religious beliefs remained nominally Roman Catholic.

            Rich was also a participant in the torture of Anne Askew, the only woman to be tortured at the Tower of London. Both he and Chancellor Wriothesley turned the wheels of the rack to torture her with their own hands.[12]

            Rich took part in the prosecution of bishops Stephen Gardiner and Edmund Bonner, and had a role in the harsh treatment accorded to the future Mary I of England. However, Mary on her accession showed no ill-will to Rich. Lord Rich took an active part in the restoration of the old religion in Essex under the new reign, and was one of the most active of persecutors.

            I hate this man!!!

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Nick

            I told you!

            He’s a villain in a lot of stuff for a good reason.

          • Betty Cook says:

            I’m from one of the migrating families that Plumber finds odd; in three generations, one person has settled down and raised kids in the same state where he or she grew up.

            Paternal grandparents born in California and Iowa, grew up in Iowa, settled in Massachusetts (he was a lawyer.) Both were of long-term American ancestry, English and Scottish surnames.

            Maternal grandparents born in New York and Connecticut, settled in NY (he was an engineer). At least some of his family had been in Connecticut since the founding of the New Haven colony, her grandparents included one German, one daughter of German immigrants, and two mixed Scottish/Irish/long-term American.

            Parents settled in Ohio; the four of us are now in California, Colorado, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. All of this was following jobs.

            I’ve moved several times, and rebuilt a network through things like finding a church, the local Society for Creative Anachronism group, other music or dance groups, depending on what I could find.

            And my husband has four immigrant grandparents, his father born here and his mother came over with her family as a toddler.

            Plumber is right that we grew up expecting to go to college and then go where the jobs were, though once we got there most of us settled down–I’ve moved more than any of the others have, and I have still been where I now am for 25 years.

        • brad says:

          You have some of the deepest attachment to place of anyone I’ve even heard of and not especially long-standing generational ties. It makes me think that the two aren’t as connected as you are saying but is instead more of an individual personality trait.

          • Plumber says:

            @brad,
            Sure, outliers exist, but I strongly guess that collegiate class folks being raised to expect to move makes it more likely that they will.

          • brad says:

            I agree that class probably has something to do with it, but my point is that probably once you have grandparents, parents, and your generation all growing up in the same place additional generations don’t contribute much to the chances that someone is going to be extremely place oriented.

    • Bamboozle says:

      @plumber

      sounds a lot like what happened when industry and shipbuilding left the west coast of scotland, with local men turning to heroin and alcohol instead in areas like Greenock and Glasgow.

      This same scene is playing across the north of england, scotland, wales, and ireland, and also in the north of Queensland in Australia where I am now. Sad and difficult problem that seems impossible to fix.

      • johan_larson says:

        I’m not sure why it has to be impossible to fix. The answer is probably to let the 55-year-olds whose jobs have just plain disappeared to retire early, (funded if necessary,) tell the 35-year-olds whose jobs have just plain disappeared to find other work and offer assistance with retraining. The 15-year-olds who grew up expecting to follow their fathers into jobs that have just plain disappeared don’t need anything; they should already have gotten the message that the world has changed.

        • Bamboozle says:

          So we just crowd everyone into a few major cities except for farmers and their support? I’m not saying we should fund people who prefer living in rural areas instead of cities, but surely we can manage society in such a way that not everyone has to live in their countries megacity?

          Or should london comprise roughly 65 million further down the line?

          • brad says:

            If that’s the way it works out, sure why not?

            On the other hand I don’t see why that needs to be the equilibrium. It looks to me like smallish countries with their capital co-located with their commercial center get one mega metro area e.g. Ireland, Austria, SK, and Japan. But plenty of other countries don’t–like Germany, US, France, and China.

      • Lambert says:

        > This same scene is playing across the north of england

        They can always retrain as male strip​pers.

        I think it’s a cyclical thing. Some bit of Glasgow or Brum or London is nasty and run-down. Then either investment comes in top-down or it builds a reputation from the bottom up. Then it gentrifies. Then whatever sustained it moves away or it just decays over time back into a bit of a dump.

        General post-industrialism is a broader problem, but places like Manchester and Leeds seem to be on the up right now.

        • Bamboozle says:

          the cities are on the up, places like Blackpool or the Highlands and Islands are slowly bleeding out. Is the ultimate goal to have everyone in the country commuting into the city for their service job, with a lucky few who want to work with their hands able to make the few things that are not cost-efficient to automate?

    • S_J says:

      This article reminds me of something else.

      In Michigan, there are many areas that used to be mining boom towns.

      I became familiar with the story of one of the mining regions while I studied at Michigan Tech University (formerly Michigan College of Mining and Technology) in the city of Houghton. In the 1840s, surveyors discovered copper deposits in the region. By 1880, the area around Houghton was a major population center in Michigan, and millions of dollars of copper were mined and shipped annually. Peak production was during World War I, though production remained high until the time of the Great Depression, and recovered somewhat during World War II.

      Population of the region also peaked in the boom years between 1910 and 1930. Since then, most towns are half their peak size, or less. Many towns have a few nice-looking buildings that are relics of the opulent years a century ago.

      Local business is now almost all support for tourism, or support for the lumber business, or support for institutions like Michigan Tech. Though apparently some mines have re-opened in limited ways since I was in the area.

      During the decline, many people shifted to whatever local business they could find…or moved to the growing industrial areas elsewhere. Alcohol was the drug-of-choice for people who hit hard times and didn’t/couldn’t move. The Prohibition came and went during part of this time, but I can’t tell if it had any impact at all on the choices of people who were hard up.

      I had no family or historical connection to that area. I was a student, one of a large population that comes in, stays for a few years, and moves elsewhere. Yet learning that history gave me a little perspective–and empathy–for the stories about declining towns in the Rust Belt, or in Coal Country, or other areas that have seen business dry up.

  52. Procrastinating Prepper says:

    Here’s something I didn’t see mentioned on last OT’s discussion about virtue signalling (defined herein as doing something that looks virtuous even when you know it’s not): is it fair to use virtue signalling as a tactic in asymmetric negotiation?

    I started thinking about it because of this tweet*. The negotiation to reduce GHG emissions is asymmetric because most emissions are produced by a small number of companies. Your attempts to e.g. recycle or install solar panels on your house will have close to zero or even negative effect on worldwide GHG reduction. Assuming you care about this issue, should you do those things anyway in order to credibly state to large companies, “I’ve done my part, now you do yours!”

    *Full disclosure: on digging up that tweet for this post I came across other claims that Johnson misrepresented the cited study by not distinguishing direct and downstream emissions. I’m posting anyway because I think “do a small thing to guilt others into doing big things” is still a common dynamic falling under the umbrella of virtue signalling. If the example above is too distracting, feel free to substitute your own.

    • cassander says:

      >The negotiation to reduce GHG emissions is asymmetric because most emissions are produced by a small number of companies.

      No, they’re produced by a large number of customers, customers who would suffer a huge amount if those companies stopped producing the fuels they’re burning. The quote is nonsense, implying that companies are making carbon for funsies, not because people want to hear their homes and drive their cars.

      • ECD says:

        As I’ve said, my views on global warming are non-standard for a liberal, but I will point out that this is literally the first response and discussion which occurs below the tweet in question, at least on my screen. To which he replies:

        I don’t think anyone thinks Exxon is extracting oil for the lolz. It’s important to note who the driver of the problem is and blaming it on nebulous market demands leaves everyone guilty and thus no one guilty.

        when it comes to smoking-related illness we long ague decided to start stigmatizing tabacoo companies and producers while gently nudging individual consumers. We don’t talk about the problem of smoking without targeting those producing and profiting off of it.

        I don’t necessarily buy that, but his position is more nuanced then you’re suggesting.

        • cassander says:

          market demand isn’t nebulous, and exxon isn’t driving the problem. People who like driving cars are. Exxon is just serving their need, and the author falling back to “well I don’t think exxon is really to blame, but we have to blame someone and they’re an easy target” is a wierd sort of motte and bailey and deeply immoral to boot. And we absolutely do talk about the problem of smoking without targeting producers, cynical legal cash grabs by lawsuit aside.

          • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

            Exxon in particular took the same strategy as tobacco companies and devoted a lot of money to obscuring the science around the effects of their business. While any company and industry might be expected to do this, it suggests a level of culpability beyond “satisfying consumer desire”.

            They presumably also lobby for the various tax breaks and subsidies that artificially cheapen fossil fuels and are continuing to lock the economy into fossil fuels in the short to medium term.

        • Anthony says:

          The anti-smoking campaigns weren’t terribly gentle nudges of individual consumers.

        • thevoiceofthevoid says:

          I think there are a couple fundamental differences between tobacco and oil that break down that metaphor:
          1. Society at large can continue to function without tobacco. Yes, the elimination of smoking is a noticeable change, but not one that would completely upturn modern civilization.
          2. Tobacco contains a chemical that literally hacks your brain to make you want more of it. Gasoline doesn’t.
          3. Cigarette companies pretty aggressively advertise their products to get people to try and get hooked on them (see point 2). Oil producers and gas stations barely need to at all–if you drive a car, you’re going to need to fill it up with gasoline. No persuasion required.

      • Procrastinating Prepper says:

        That’s stretching the definition of “produced” further than I’m willing to tolerate. Customers want heat and personal vehicles, they’re not paying the company to ship in those products from who knows where. Even if they were, “I was paid to do it” isn’t a great defence against criticism.

        The problem with putting the onus on the customer to vote with their wallet is that multinational supply chains are pretty much (intentionally) illegible to outsiders more than one or two steps back, and put disproportionate pressure on the end mile distributor. That information imbalance is part of why I consider pollution an asymmetric problem.

        • The Nybbler says:

          The problem with putting the onus on the customer to vote with their wallet is that multinational supply chains are pretty much (intentionally) illegible to outsiders more than one or two steps back

          If you look at the list of 100 corporations, it’s mostly fossil fuel companies and they’re counting the emissions from the product as well as incidental emissions. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know the supply chain, gasoline or oil or natural gas are going to be responsible for roughly the same amount of fossil fuel emissions no matter where you get them. Electricity a little less so, but only a little; if you’re not literally an aluminum company you likely won’t go much wrong by assuming you’re using the mix of fuels in your grid region.

        • John Schilling says:

          Even if they were, “I was paid to do it” isn’t a great defence against criticism.

          Criticism for what? Pumping oil out of the ground results in essentially zero GHG emissions, ditto pumping gasoline into a customer’s tank. There’s some overhead in the intermediate stages, but ExxonMobil’s part of the process could be made net carbon-neutral without too much trouble, if anyone cared. No one cares.

          The part that releases GHG into the atmosphere, is the part where a retail consumer burns his gasoline in his car because he wants to drive somewhere and didn’t want to accept the limitations of a ZEV. And yet we’re arguing about whether the oil companies have a defense against criticism.

          • eric23 says:

            The part of smoking that kills is when the customer smokes the cigarette. Not when Philip Morris harvests tobacco or rolls the cigarette or lies about the health effects of smoking. Philip Morris is totally innocent here, right?

          • John Schilling says:

            For making and selling cigarettes, yes, and even more so than the oil companies – it is at least possible to use cigarettes in a responsible manner that doesn’t endanger third parties. Tobacco companies have also been accused of other misdeeds (e.g. corrupting the relevant science) for which a different defense would be required and maybe no adequate defense is available.

            And the same could be said of the oil companies, though I think it would be a bit more of a stretch in their case. But when so much of the criticism is simply for EvilBigCompanies having manufactured tobacco or gasoline, or guns or sugary soft drinks or whatnot, I’m pretty confident that I’m seeing people who want a sufficiently unpopular scapegoat, not a fair assessment of responsibility.

          • albatross11 says:

            The frustrating bit from the tobacco company lawsuits is that the claim was that the tobacco companies lied and misrepresented the science to mislead customers into buying their cancer-causing product, leading to many deaths and illnesses. If we accept that claim, then those companies should have been wiped out, but no additional restrictions should have been placed on new companies that rose to take their places, which didn’t misrepresent science or mislead customers. (“Smoke Coffin Nails brand–it’ll have you walking around with an oxygen tank before you’re collecting Social Security!”). But the actual goal was to impose political and regulatory changes, not to do any kind of justice.

          • Enkidum says:

            But the actual goal was to impose political and regulatory changes, not to do any kind of justice.

            Confused by this. What’s “justice” here? Revenge? Isn’t making the world a place where less people smoke just?

          • albatross11 says:

            Getting fewer people to smoke is a public health goal, but has nothing to do with the guilt or innocence of tobacco companies in slowing public knowledge/acceptance of the dangers of smoking. To do justice w.r.t. that bad behavior would not necessarily decrease the number of people smoking, it would just sue the offending companies into oblivion and give the proceeds to their victims.

          • Paul Zrimsek says:

            One pretty big difference between the two cases is that when the truth finally came out about smoking, people started doing a lot less of it– while they still seem about as willing to burn fossil fuels now that The Science Is Settled as they did back when the oil companies had the science locked up in the secret vault next to the 300-mpg carburetor.

          • albatross11 says:

            Smoking causes you, personally, to have a bunch of health problems. Driving an SUV may contribute in a very small way to your grandchildren someday having some climate-related remediation or adaptation to do.

          • JPNunez says:

            The frustrating bit from the tobacco company lawsuits is that the claim was that the tobacco companies lied and misrepresented the science to mislead customers into buying their cancer-causing product, leading to many deaths and illnesses. If we accept that claim, then those companies should have been wiped out, but no additional restrictions should have been placed on new companies that rose to take their places, which didn’t misrepresent science or mislead customers. (“Smoke Coffin Nails brand–it’ll have you walking around with an oxygen tank before you’re collecting Social Security!”). But the actual goal was to impose political and regulatory changes, not to do any kind of justice.

            What was the guarantee that the new companies would not do the same again?

            You may reply “the threat of getting destroyed like the companies of yore”, but the new companies may try to bribe politicians and corrupt the system so it does not happen again. Whereas if the regulation is in place, they will have to corrupt the system to first remove the regulations, so that’s a step removed from doing the same again.

          • albatross11 says:

            The companies that had done the harm weren’t sued into oblivion, they were sued for a lot of money and strong-armed into not opposing a change in regulation. This may well have been a good direction for our policies w.r.t. smoking to move, but it didn’t have much to do with justice.

          • Lambert says:

            There’s two separate things going on:
            The negative effects of smoking and the ethical problem of misrepresenting the science.

            Given that tobacco is so addictive, I don’t see a problem in banning advertising and imposing a sin tax. My liberalism is based on the fact that people generally do what’s best for themselves, and lots of smokers say they wish they could stop.

            Saying misleading things about the health effects of your product is its own issue. The tobacco compaines are in the same bucket as VW was with the emissions scandal. The companies involved should be punished pour encourager les autres.

          • John Schilling says:

            What was the guarantee that the new companies would not do the same again?

            Do what? Lie to people and tell them that smoking tobacco is perfectly safe? I suppose there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t do that, but since nobody with three functioning brain cells would now believe them, it would be both pointless and harmless so I’m not terribly worried.

            R.J. Reynolds et al, at least fibbed and probably frauded when it still mattered.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            but since nobody with three functioning brain cells would now believe them

            Sounds like they’ll still have their thriving teenage market 😛

          • JPNunez says:

            Do what? Lie to people and tell them that smoking tobacco is perfectly safe? I suppose there’s no guarantee that they wouldn’t do that, but since nobody with three functioning brain cells would now believe them, it would be both pointless and harmless so I’m not terribly worried.

            They would lie again to people and people would believe them again. Maybe not as many people as the first time, but they would be believed.

            evidence: global warming deniers, flat earthers, all the constant studies funded by food companies promoting this or that diet, all kinds of cults, etc, etc, etc, etc.

          • John Schilling says:

            If the future market for cigarettes is comparable in scale to e.g. flat-earthers and religious cultists, I’m going to declare the problem close enough to solved as makes no difference and not really care very much about whoever is serving that market. Your other examples are in no way settled science the way the tobacco/cancer link is, no matter how much you would like to believe otherwise.

          • JPNunez says:

            You think that in the counterfactual world where tobacco companies got destroyed, salt was sown where they stood, and then no legislation was passed against tobacco would have _less_ smokers than this world?

            re: global warming: Exxon helped fund studies and orgs denying global warming. Like tobacco companies did at some points.

          • albatross11 says:

            If the previous companies have just been sued into bankruptcy for lying about the risks of smoking to their customers, then I’d expect the replacement companies to avoid doing that so they don’t follow their predecessors into bankruptcy.

            I’m not talking about the best policy for decreasing smoking, but rather about seeing justice done. I also don’t think that the policy that most decreases smoking is automatically the best one. (Though it’s overall a good thing that fewer people are smoking.)

            And I am really, really uneasy about the precedent that says that you can be sued into oblivion for financially supporting research that led to some bad social outcome, or for expressions of opinion/ideas that would normally be protected by the first amendment. I can imagine this precedent being used for really bad things. Indeed, every couple years someone proposes suing the oil or gun companies on the same theory. In both those cases, the way it looks to me is that the folks wanting to sue recognize that they can’t get their policy enacted via normal democratic processes, and hope to bypass those and get them enacted a different way. In some hypothetical future where Republicans have a dominant position in the courts, I expect this very idea to be applied to abortion clinics and pro-abortion organizations. At which point Republicans and Democrats will mostly swap positions about whether this is reasonable, because most people don’t have principles, just a side.

          • benwave says:

            Setting a precedent where company owners can reasonably expect that if they lie to and harm their customers they will not lose commensurable money for doing so even when they’re discovered seems like a No Good Very Bad Thing. I would be pretty tempted to err on the side of financial over-punishing than under-punishing

          • JPNunez says:

            If the previous companies have just been sued into bankruptcy for lying about the risks of smoking to their customers, then I’d expect the replacement companies to avoid doing that so they don’t follow their predecessors into bankruptcy.

            Well the replacement companies may just not lie about it anyway; without legislation, why would they even need to? just buy more marketing than the general surgeon and now you can advertise to children anyway, to make up the difference in smokers who quit due to health concerns. To be fair, it’s not like in the current world they don’t try to sneakily advertise to kids anyway, but still.

            And I am really, really uneasy about the precedent that says that you can be sued into oblivion for financially supporting research that led to some bad social outcome, or for expressions of opinion/ideas that would normally be protected by the first amendment.

            That’s a fair concern, tho dunno if it should be extended to companies who have internal research that clearly says bad-social-outcome-will-happen and then fund research that says bad-social-outcome-won’t-happen, without the part in the middle of funding research that tries to avoid bad-social-outcome

          • Clutzy says:

            The frustrating bit from the tobacco company lawsuits is that the claim was that the tobacco companies lied and misrepresented the science to mislead customers into buying their cancer-causing product, leading to many deaths and illnesses. If we accept that claim, then those companies should have been wiped out, but no additional restrictions should have been placed on new companies that rose to take their places, which didn’t misrepresent science or mislead customers. (“Smoke Coffin Nails brand–it’ll have you walking around with an oxygen tank before you’re collecting Social Security!”). But the actual goal was to impose political and regulatory changes, not to do any kind of justice.

            That is probably frustrating because the plaintiffs never proved such a thing in court. Phillip Morris never lost a major class action to smokers, instead they lost various lawsuits to Medicaid on dubious legal theories that boil down to: We have these programs, and paid for additional medical care as a result of cigarettes. This theory is a perfect example of lawlessness, because we would never allow a private charity that takes care of DUI victims recover against Budweiser on such a theory.

            So yeah, cigarette company comparisons are rarely good analogies. I’m basically here to inform you a significant part of this thread was based on a lie.

          • ECD says:

            @Clutzy

            That is probably frustrating because the plaintiffs never proved such a thing in court. Phillip Morris never lost a major class action to smokers, instead they lost various lawsuits to Medicaid on dubious legal theories that boil down to: We have these programs, and paid for additional medical care as a result of cigarettes. This theory is a perfect example of lawlessness, because we would never allow a private charity that takes care of DUI victims recover against Budweiser on such a theory.

            I don’t think this is correct. The tobacco companies entered into a master settlement agreement with the states, which included dissolving two “research organizations” and release of documents (as well as big piles of money, see: https://www.naag.org/assets/redesign/files/msa-tobacco/MSA.pdf) and in the subsequent years preceded to lose a lot of cases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_politics#Litigation and see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_USA_Inc._v._Williams). Now it’s true, as far as I can tell that they never lost a major class action, but from my brief research, that has more to do with issues of class similarity and need to prove individual harm than any notion that there wasn’t fraud.

      • Ketil says:

        Ah, the companies extracting fossil fuels, I take it? If so, the solution is easy: just buy the companies and shut them down. Oh, you¹ don’t care that much to save the planet, you say? You would rather that somebody else’s money were used according to your wishes at no cost to yourself?

        Virtue signaling. Plonk.

        ¹ In case it wasn’t clear, not any particular ‘you’.

        • Lambert says:

          I don’t think that’s how these things work.
          Once you’ve checked behind the sofa and found $950,000,000,000 in loose change and bought out the entire petrochemical industry, somebody else is going to go and start mining coal somewhere else.

    • RalMirrorAd says:

      ‘Blame’ is one of those things that creates more trouble than it’s worth.

      It’s not terribly mysterious that fossil fules make very cheap sources of energy, especially for cars. There’s plenty of natural embedded incentive to extract and refine those resources for use.

      ‘Assymetric Burden’ feels like it’s missing the mark here. No matter what *specific policy* is adopted, the outcome would be roughly the same. INDIVIDUALS must be kept from using fossil fuels for energy and as a result, people who extract and refine those resources need to find something else to do. If a policy targets [blames] individual consumers, the businesses that supply those goods are affected, if a policy targets [blames] companies, the consumers are effected.

      If you outlawed fossil fuel extraction completely [or taxed it to the point of doing the same] you drive an industry out of existence but in the short term and possibly the long term greatly increase the cost of electricity and transportation.

      If you imposed punitive carbon taxes based on fuel type, assuming consumer behavior shifted sufficiently, this would also raise energy prices in the short term and encourage people to shift over to alternatives. This has the same effect on oil/coal companies.

      Alternatively think of it in terms of consumer profit. If a ZGHG energy bill is double what you’re paying now, that’s the individual’s ‘profit’ from fossil fuels. Add that up across all consumers and you get a number that is in all likelihood much higher than the commodity profits of the oil industry. Also bear in mind that since all industrial processes use energy to some extent, the cheapness of energy is embedded into all consumer products not just personal electricity bills.

  53. Canyon Fern says:

    Presenting: Slate Star Showdex.
    -#-
    Scott Alexander leans back in his chair. He brings a smooth, hot MealSquare to his lips.

    Scott ‘Slate’ Alexander. He’s scholarly. Hard-working. Unflappable. A psychiatrist by day, he leads a double life as an investigator — and nothing escapes his notice.

    “There’s only one thing I don’t understand,” Scott says.

    He scowls at the the lizardman.

    “Why are you here?”
    -#-
    This episode of Slate Star Showdex brought to you by:
    MealSquare.
    “The only rational choice.”

    At MealSquare, we’ve maximized smoothness for your enjoyment. Nothing delivers flavor with more efficiency than MealSquare. Meet your needs with four MealSquares — or use a competitor’s product twice as often? You don’t need decision theory for that choice.

    MealSquare will satisfy — so you should believe that MealSquare will satisfy. Don’t delay: “make it a MealSquare.”

    • Rana Dexsin says:

      Who eats MealSquares hot‽

      They’re not actually very smooth at all; the texture is pretty chunky and dense. Not exactly in a bad way, but putting some smooth peanut butter on them makes them more palatable, so I usually do that in the morning. Having to reheat them would defeat the point of “easy to grab and consume”.

      • neciampater says:

        I have eaten over 500 mealsquares over the past 2 years and I usually eat them cold right out of the refrigerator. Sometimes they sit in my car and get hot which is fine, but the melting chocolate usualy leaves a mess.

      • The Pachyderminator says:

        I usually put them in the microwave for 30 seconds. They’re mildly enjoyable when warm; when cold, they’re so dense and dry that eating them is a chore.

        • moonfirestorm says:

          I agree that cold MealSquares end up dense and dry, but heating them introduced this strange acidic taste that lingered in my throat after eating. Had almost a hint of dairy in it, so I wondered if it might be the lactase enzyme they add to help with lactose intolerance.

        • Rana Dexsin says:

          I tend to take the remaining mild choreness of the texture as a benefit. With foods that go down too easily, it’s also easier to eat too much, especially with the delay on hunger signals. A beverage is also obligatory—currently black coffee for me, though I want to start putting a little cream(er) in it.

          The other main alternative I’ve tried for “easy nutritious breakfast food” has been the Nabisco belVita packets, and that’s much cereal-ier, less complete. And it’s easy to be tempted to have two and then I feel kind of sick afterwards; I don’t know whether that’s because of an overdose of the B-vitamin enrichment in those or what.

    • Incurian says:

      That was fantastic, please continue.

    • AG says:

      So many Prairie Home Companion memories, but is this corner meant to parallel Guy Noir, or English majors?

      And are MealSquares the power milk biscuits, the ketchup, or the rhubarb?

      (The Slate Star Companion?)

      • Canyon Fern says:

        “Noir” was the general idea, though I am not a writer, but rather a plant.

        The (apparently controversial) “smooth, hot MealSquare”, and the following advertisement, were inspired by cigarettes.

  54. DragonMilk says:

    Kids these days. What do we think of how social media is affecting teen girls in particular? Haidt did an interview with rogan, highlights of which are that Haidt says girls and boys are equally aggressive, but boys are physically so while girls are relationally so. With smartphones and social media, he thinks the doubling to tripling of self-harm or depression rates among girls (depending on age group) is something that requires to a changing of norms to deal with.

    Also hits upon callout culture, nanny state, and overall fragility

    • Tarpitz says:

      I don’t know any teenage girls, but if you’re interested in what seemed to me an astonishingly perceptive fictional take on the question, I cannot recommend the recent movie 8th Grade highly enough.

      • imoimo says:

        Your comment made me go watch the movie. Agreed it was very perceptive (and shockingly well acted). Concerning @DragonMilk’s question, the movie seemed kinda neutral. It largely avoided bullying and cyberbullying as topics, which made it more nuanced. But it easily could have gone that direction, and things would’ve gotten a lot darker fast, I’d suspect.

    • Peffern says:

      It was my understanding that suicide was a primarily male issue. Am I just totally off base or something wrong with your framing?

      • Plumber says:

        @Peffern,
        I haven’t seen any new statistics in years, but IIRC more girls/women attempt suicide then boys/men do, most often by trying to poison or cut themselves, boys/men are much more likely to use a gun in their attempts and do kill themselves

      • DragonMilk says:

        Hospitalization for self harm (e.g., cutting) is higher. Actual suicide may well have boys succeed in the act more than girls in line with men shooting themselves vs. women trying to OD.

        The charts show baseline rates for boys rising much less than girls.

      • Garrett says:

        From my very, very limited and restricted experience in EMS, almost all of the suicides or suicide attempts I’ve encountered have been men or boys. I think I’ve only encountered a single woman/girl.

  55. johan_larson says:

    You are invited to describe how to reform English spelling. Do not dwell on the actual reforms themselves. There are many reasonable proposals. Instead, describe how to bring them about, as an institutional, political, and cultural matter.

    • Radu Floricica says:

      Local (small country) spelling changes went like this:
      – highest scientific forum said “now spelling is X”
      – schools started teaching X
      – television said “spelling is now X”.

      This may work for english as well, with the biggest caveat that any change that hopes to be successful needs to start simultaneously in at least 3 major english speaking countries (UK, US and one other).

      • johan_larson says:

        The US federal government tried to move the country to metric back in the seventies. The effort was broadly unpopular, and failed. Americans can be an ornery bunch.

      • bean says:

        Wait, why does it need to start in 3 countries at the same time? The weird British obsession with the letter u persists to this day. Your best option is definitely to start in the US and hope it spreads via osmosis to the rest of the Anglosphere.

        • Radu Floricica says:

          The weird British obsession with the letter u persists to this day.

          That’s why :)) Unless it gets enough momentum from the start…

          On the plus side, in 20 years we’ll have enough specialized AI that we can all be using different spellings and have software auto-convert between them.

    • Machine Interface says:

      The following assumes you’re already president of the US and your party has a complying majority in both chambers of congress and in the supreme court.

      Step 1: propaganda – using, on all avalaible channels, a wide network of bipartisan media personalities sympathetic to the idea of a spelling reform, run many regular documentaries, inquirries, op-eds, etc on various negative aspect of English spelling: the many exceptions, the etymological nonsenses, the cost of teaching such a complicated system, the wasted opportunities of competent people with bad people turned away from jobs, etc – fit the angle to the audience, emphatize taxpayer costs for republicans and inequalities and outdated norms for democrats. Also show that English spelling and pronunciation have constantly evolved since the language first appeared in the middle age, but do not mention the idea of a spelling reform directly. Do this for at least 6 months.

      Step 2: introduce the idea of a spelling reform. If step 1 worked, it should now have wide bipartisan support.

      Step 3: have the new spelling voted as a constitutional amendment. The implementation needs to adress three critical points: publication, government usage and teaching.

      For publication, put into the amendment that new publications in English will be refused a legal deposit if they do not comply with the new spelling.

      For government, seemingly require that all English written communication by all branches and levels of government should conform to the new spelling only.

      For education, require that any college entrance examination or college aptitude test require a small composition exercice in English, which must conform to the new spelling or get a failling grade (that is, the student must show they are aware of the new spelling, even if the composition ends up containing many mistakes).

      Make sure cases of States defying this amendment are judged in priority by the supreme court.

      Step 3 should all be done as fast as possible before the whole thing loses steam.

      Edit: it is assumed other English speaking countries will follow, since nowadays America pretty much sets the norms for English.

      • Tarpitz says:

        I think your edited-in assumption is… bold. The British public would go ballistic if you tried to get them to change their spelling simply because America had. People would no doubt familiarise themselves with the new system, because there’s a lot of Amerenglish on the internet, but they wouldn’t start using it.

      • SuiJuris says:

        The following assumes you’re already president of the US and your party has a complying majority in both chambers of congress and in the supreme court.

        Assuming you’ve got all that, your priority is spelling reform?

        • Machine Interface says:

          Surely you can work on more than one project at once (especially since the spelling one requires at least 6 months where you’re just letting the propaganda roll out)/

    • emiliobumachar says:

      Brazil reformed spelling some 10-ish years ago, as part of a treaty with other Portuguese speaking countries, to iron over differences before the languages drift apart to much.

      I could be wrong, but AFAIK they just made it the only acceptable spelling in all government, including the highly sought exams for civil service and free college, and it’s mostly working, though taking a long- ish time.

    • Jake says:

      Create a new technology that is convenient and desirable for young people to use to communicate. Severely restrict the method of input to that technology, such that it is easier to communicate with the reformed spelling than it is with the previous spelling. The changes should work themselves out in the long run.

      imo, its not 2 long b4 ev1 uses it!!!

      On a similar note, I’ve noticed a lot fewer misspellings ever since autocorrect has become standard. Changing the spellings there would probably be a quick way to get people to adopt new spelling.

      • DinoNerd says:

        *chuckle* I notice many more incorrect spellings, particularly things like random choices between its and it’s. Some auto-corrected messages approach verbal salad, but the components are all real words.

    • Winter Shaker says:

      Galaxy-brain: it will be much easier to reform the English spelling system if we first replace the Latin script with another. Nothing too complicated, not an abugida or anything, but an alphabet with plenty enough letters to cover a good fraction of the sounds. Pick something that looks cool, too. Georgian would do, though we might want to repurpose some of its letters for non-English sounds as vowel letters, since, like English, it only has five vowel letters and we need some more. But once we’ve agreed on the new writing system, agreeing to spell everything phonetically in it shouldn’t be too difficult. თის კუდ ვირკ.

    • Anthony says:

      Suborn the people at Microsoft, Google, and Apple that standardise the word lists in their various spell-checkers to introduce your preferred spelling. Reform can be slow – small changes in your preferred direction, so long as you can keep those people on board. You may want to get the folks at Corel, IBM, and the keepers of /usr/dict/words on board, but they’re less necessary.

  56. A Definite Beta Guy says:

    A disjointed rant. I both love and hate my Industrial Engineers, but that’s only because I really hate everyone else.
    Okay, so high level background, in two parts. You probably know all the stories about how crazy efficient Japanese firms are, how every employee has permission to stop everything on the line, how we all need to be Six Sigma and need to Kaizen and blah blah blah.
    A lot of that is driven by your Industrial Engineers. The Wiki definition is:

    Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy and materials

    Basically they try to make factories run better, not necessarily by designing machines, but by making processes run better. They are the kinds of guys that do time studies and try to figure out optimum placement of your arm in relation to the direction of the Moon and ask you to fill out a bunch Gannt/Ghant/Gennt/Gary charts about how your project is going.
    They might try to patch machines, but their attitude is as follows (paraphrased from boss’ boss)

    And when you’re having a world class production shift, you should stop, nail everything in place, and then start up again so nothing will change

    We have a lot of them. A lot of them. They are everywhere throughout the whole organization. I never encountered an Industrial Engineer prior to working at a factory, and heard nothing but bad things prior to starting: my friends and family engineers basically don’t consider them “real” engineers. They don’t do math, they don’t design electrical systems, they don’t really design machines: they aren’t engineers as you might understand them.
    But my god do they understand how to improve a goddam factory. Or, rather, they are the only people that care to improve a goddam factory.
    I’ll relay a story from a former coworker, who worked at a food processing company that made….let’s say pizzas. And let’s say you have a production line that fires up the dough, just enough to parcook it to get out some of the nasties, and then it goes under a big cannon that shoots the dough full of tomato sauce.
    For some odd reason, the cannon would misfire on every fifth pizza, and shoot tomato sauce all over the floor.
    For years, no one really noticed or cared about this problem. It wasn’t until the Industrial Engineer saw it, stopped the line, and did a 5Y (why is this broken? Why is that broken? Why is that broken? Ask “why” at least 5 times in the hopes it leads to a correctable behavior) that they actually identified the problem and fixed it.
    Our plant, and other plants, are full of stupid losses like misfiring tomato sauce cannons. People at my factory still tell me stories of how some management trainee right out of college improved several lines that have been there for 15 years. You’d think the people with decades of experience would have got these pretty close to optimum. Nah. Clearly, the guy shotgunning beers a year ago is our best option.
    Plus, our Industrial Engineers are far more data-driven than anyone else on our team. There’s real benefit, especially around budget season, to data, because now we have historical trending going back years, right up to the point where the IE folk started running things.
    So, why do I like our IE folk? Because no one else knows how to problem solve and run a business. It’s all tribal knowledge, duct tape, and a lot of luck. That’s good enough to keep a business going for quite a while, but it’s hell when you start running into problems, because no one knows how to prioritize and fix problems. I’d consider everything IEs do “common sense,” but apparently it’s not common at all.
    So, why do I dislike IE? Jesus H, there’s no need to complicate everything!
    For instance, if you don’t hit your production, there’s no immediate reason to get a damned meeting of 6 people together. Just go out to the production line and see what’s broke. You might need a more in-depth meeting to figure out how to fix what’s broke, but initial problem-solving shouldn’t be that damn hard.
    What’s particularly annoying are those damn fish-bone diagrams, where you try to find everything that can possibly be wrong. Here’s the thing about manufacturing, everything that can go wrong is at least a little wrong, unless you’re doing some real precision stuff where tolerances are low. It’s just not worth the time or money to fix everything. So if you try to diagnose everything wrong with the line, you’re going to find a lot of problems. And most of them, we’ve already decided aren’t worth the time to fix.
    Really, you need some rough idea of what baseline operations are, and when you aren’t performing to rate, an idea of what your general failure points are. You also need a plan to improve your baseline when capital becomes available, so you don’t have to brainstorm every year. All of this stuff should be documented and saved (another thing that Industrial Engineering likes, that Production doesn’t: record retention).
    Plus, there is an assumption that a magical “standard” will fix everything. Let’s go back to what my industrial engineering boss’ boss said:

    And when you’re having a world class production shift, you should stop, nail everything in place, and then start up again so nothing will change

    That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!
    I’ll give an example. We have a production line with a couple different stations, with a central vacuum pulling dust from each station. Turns out, the vacuum pressure was too high, and actually damaging the product. We can’t actually turn down the vacuum, so we installed dampers to regulate the pressure.
    Some Industrial Engineer had the bright idea to centerline each damper. Now, I am abusing the term “centerline,” but I am using it as the Engineer actually used it (and he didn’t use it the correct way AFAICT, but let’s ignore it). Basically, each damper had a line drawn it to show its exact position when we were having a world-class shift. So, theoretically, no more problems from the vacuum!
    So what happens when one of the stations goes down?
    Oops. Guess it wasn’t so simple to just set one uniform standard for every situation for all time.
    Stuff like this irritates me. The solutions are one-size catch-all, and assumed to be permanent solutions. There’s also an obsession with standards, when standards need to be audited for them to really take. But there’s no concern about the effort it really takes to audit standards, so that all gets hand-waved away.

    So ends my rant. We have a few weeks left to finish a budget, and our Industrial Engineers just finished updating all of our production estimate. Once we get a sales forecast (on Monday…hopefully….) we should be able to guess how many labor hours we need this year, which means we should also know how many labor dollars we need to spend. That clock is ticking, and it’s starting to sound like a bomb.

    Also, go Bears.

    • Randy M says:

      Sympathies. Sounds not dissimilar to being at the customers trying to figure out why your product is malfunctioning, with both sides pointing fingers at each other.

    • Rack says:

      Very interesting. I should tell my older son to consider studying IE – it may be his thing.

      Also, Roll on you Bears!

      • A Definite Beta Guy says:

        I’d say give it a shot. We have a bunch of people with IE backgrounds in our company. You can rise pretty far with relatively modest education.
        I can only emphasize that you will be graded on your GSD. You need to take on projects and you need to complete them on time, or else no one will take you seriously. These IE guys, particularly the ones that advance, are very project focused. They are basically mini project managers.

    • johan_larson says:

      Is the profession of industrial engineering in decline? I seem to remember hearing something about programs being closed at some colleges. I don’t remember what the symptom was, perhaps a lack of quality applicants or graduates having trouble finding relevant employment.

      • Peffern says:

        I am currently in my last year of undergrad, and this is pretty much exactly what I am studying. However, it isn’t what you’ll see on my degree, since as you said, it doesn’t exist as a department at the school I attend (or any of the schools I applied to). I don’t know if the need for the profession is decreasing, but for whatever reason the masters of credentialism seem to think so. I had to put together a double major in order to learn everything I wanted to and have had no trouble at all looking for work even so.

    • J says:

      Bureaucracy is structure without meaning. -me

      There’s a certain amount of detail orientation and desire for structure needed to do a job like that, and its failure mode is for the structure to take over while the meaning drains out.

      In software, that leads to waterfall design. So eventually, the improvisor personality types who have an instinctual sense for where meaning lies (and whose failure modes are to never unpack their suitcases because who knows, maybe they’ll take another trip someday, and frequent existential crises) come up with extreme programming, which over time morphs into slavish devotion to the latest agile buzzword. It’s the circle of life.

    • John Schilling says:

      What’s particularly annoying are those damn fish-bone diagrams, where you try to find everything that can possibly be wrong.

      +1 on this, and fault trees for the win. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, start at the point where it is broke. What, immediately, is the cause for the break? The tomato-juice cannon is either being fired to command at the wrong time, or it is firing without being commanded. See if you can rule out one of those by, e.g., monitoring the command line to the tomato-juice cannon. Then go back one immediate step for each branch you haven’t pruned, adding a small number of sub-branches for possible immediate causes. Lather, rinse, repeat until you’ve got something you are willing to consider root cause.

      Fishbones, listing everything that could possibly go wrong, er, is on the standardized list of things that often go wrong, and checking off each one without logic or common sense, are a recipe for wasted effort. Their one virtue is that they can be used by rote by people who aren’t experts in failure analysis, and guard against their carelessness missing something important. I’d think it would be a sign of professional incompetence for anyone calling themselves an “Industrial Engineer” to use such a thing.

      And then there’s the abomination my old manager calls a “fishtree”, where someone makes a halfhearted attempt at a fault tree but insists on filling out all the branches before doing any pruning and uses their memory of a standard fishbone to lay out those branches.

      • Peffern says:

        In my experience, fishbone diagrams are a symptom of a classic failure mode, that being the “a smart person did a thing once, but we no longer have the smart person, so we are trying to get a bunch of stupid people to do the thing the smart person did by copying their methods”. Honestly, that’s not even a bad strategy, especially if you only have stupid people to work with. But it becomes a nightmare when a new smart person shows up, but can’t do the work their way because the organization is stuck in somebody else’s ways.

    • Tenacious D says:

      For some odd reason, the cannon would misfire on every fifth pizza, and shoot tomato sauce all over the floor.

      And then it gets hosed down the drain and becomes the problem of the process wastewater pretreatment plant operators.

    • Betty Cook says:

      Did you ever read Cheaper By the Dozen? It’s the story of one of the founders of this kind of analysis, as told by two of his kids, the family being large enough that he applied his professional expertise to making the family work.

  57. doug1943 says:

    I would be interested in everyone’s comments on the following question/proposition:

    When is separation of a region from a nation-state supportable?
    Imagine the following idealized thought experiment, from which messy pratical
    details have been removed, to allow us to focus on the pure case.

    A the population of a certain region of a country, unanimously and as a matter of its
    considered, settled, judgement, wants to separate and found a sovereign nation.

    Doing so will pose no economic nor military/security threats. Problems of joint
    property, liability for debts, pensions — all will be settled with serious inconvenience
    to the country which is losing territory.

    It seems to me that under such (idealized) conditions, the right to leave and form a
    sovereign state is a fundamental democratic right. It’s a logical extension of the logic
    of democracy. (Note that I’m speaking about the right, not the wisdom, of separation.)

    Thoughts?

    • ECD says:

      There’s also the question of preservation of the rights of former citizens of the larger country, in the newly separate bit. Now, accepting your premise that they are unanimous (and not in the ‘we asked all the voters, after we’d successfully restricted the vote to me and the other five people in this room’) a lot of this is resolved and I would tend to agree that it is the right of this region to withdraw, though there will be edge cases that need to be addressed in negotiation.

    • cassander says:

      Always, assuming that the separation leaves both states as viable, independent entities. Why should any group of people have a right to force others into a single polity?

    • Leafhopper says:

      I don’t really know how to justify this, but my instinct is to say that, while your idealized case is not necessarily supportable, it’s not necessarily _not_ supportable either. Whether I’d support it would depend on the specifics which you’ve abstracted away. In my mind there’s a wide difference between (for example) “we want to secede because you conquered us recently/your legal system denies us rights” and “we want to secede because we are a distinct ethnic group and this gives us the right of self-determination.”

      (Also, not really important, but do you mean “settled with serious inconvenience to the seceding region” or “settled withOUT serious inconvenience to the larger nation”? “Settled with serious inconvenience to the country which is losing territory” seems to bias the abstract case towards not allowing secession.)

    • eigenmoon says:

      I do not believe in rights that are completely disconnected from being enforced by someone.

      Suppose that some country in Europe has a region that wants to go, but the country said ¡no! to that. What should its neighbors do? Invade it?

      I’d be totally for something like a tribunal in Hague for the said country but something tells me it won’t happen.

      I think the actual question sounds like this: how do you win independence?

      • Trofim_Lysenko says:

        Be strong enough (in economic leverage, political leverage, and force of arms) to make it stick against efforts at economic sanctions and/or conquest by your neighbors/former state. And it’s worth noting that in practice, economic and political leverage tends to really mean “Make a third party with sufficient force of arms use force or the threat of force on your behalf”, so to reduce it even further:

        Be strong enough to defeat (via insurgency or conventional war) attempts to conquer/reconquer you, or be able to convince someone else strong enough to defeat those people to act in your interests.

      • doug1943 says:

        Comrade Lysenko has put it well. But let’s not go there, although of course as adults we all know that old Bismarck was right when he said that all serious questions facing mankind are finally settled not by parliamentary majorities, but by blood and iron.

    • Radu Floricica says:

      Democracy isn’t a God-given thing with sacred powers. It’s just a system that seems to work, in its very various implementations. Also, it’s very much not about just voting, but about rules, institutions, culture and so on. Two wolves and a sheep voting what to have for dinner is valid majority voting, but I wouldn’t bet on the welfare of the sheep.

      To translate this to your example – a region voting to secede may or may not be a good idea. For an obvious counter-example: the 90% richest parts of the country could always vote to secede from the poorest 10%. Repeat until you are left with just London.

      There are also other considerations. For example, it may not be “just”, for various reasons.

      The string of secession votes we’re seeing lately mostly (all?) happen in EU, where, to be perfectly honest, it’s mostly a matter of labeling. People, money and trade can still move freely regardless of the vote.

      • Tarpitz says:

        I think in every real world case, tribal identity will trump the sort of economic motivations you suggest. The economics may determine some swing votes in a referendum, but if there isn’t a large base who emotionally identify as a nation distinct from the larger existing state, as in Scotland or Catalonia, the movement will never get off the ground. And in every case where such a sense of national identity exists and there is evident widespread desire for independence, it is appropriate to determine the matter in some democratic way, probably most often a referendum.

        • doug1943 says:

          Usually, that is the case. The Selfish Gene wants to be ruled by its near replicants. But … consider the Americans. Consider the Confederacy. Consider the South Koreans and the Taiwanese.

          My own reading of news from America, and my experience on various on-line forums, is that the hatred that exists between Left and Right in America today is at least equal to Hutus vs Tutsis, or Sinhalese vsTamils, or Greeks vs Turks, or Sunni vs Shia. And if the two American cultures were geographically separated even more than they are now .. if there were a cluster of 90% Red states surrounded by a ring of 90% Blue ones… then perhaps separation would begin to move out of the realm of the ridiculous and unthinkable into the realm of a possible solution that would remove the two sides from each others’ detested embrace.

        • Bamboozle says:

          With Scotland, just speaking from experience, there is a large base who emotionally identify as a nation distinct from England. It’s more a difficult questions of whether the structure of the UK is enough to express than within the existing framework. Arguably economic motivations were the main detractor from the independence argument here, and that’s part of why we voted No. If they’d had a better counterargument on the currency and were realistic about economic prospects i know a lot more people would have felt comfortable going with their heart instead of their head.

      • doug1943 says:

        Yes, I think that was Slovenia’s motive in getting quickly out of the Yugoslav republic — they didn’t want to keep paying for the Albanians’ welfare. Similarly, Northern Italy has a very haughty attitude towards the South of Italy. And when the Protestants of Northern Ireland looked like making trouble over the Good Friday agreement, I noted a very chilly attitude towards them at dinner parties in the South of England — not pro-IRA, but “Who needs these people anyway?”.

        I would urge the two new states to have a total free trade and free movement agreement, but of course they would be sovereign states, few of which take my advice.

      • Bamboozle says:

        Just using your example above with London, it would be fantastic if London seceded!

        Then the rest of the UK could charge them 500% tariffs on food imports and electricity and everything else that London seems to take in from the rest of the country, instead of hoping for some outward investment in return but never getting it. If London had it’s own currency then when people try to take their money out to move back to wherever they came from/send we could see a real exchange rate effect.

        • Radu Floricica says:

          I’m hope you’re not serious, but London could just buy everything (including electricity, if really needed) from somewhere else.

          Plus, I doubt they’re “taking” anything as much as “buying”. If London would become a glassy crater today, most of the areas around it would be bankrupt in a month for lack of a market to sell their products.

    • Trofim_Lysenko says:

      Always, given a sufficiently strong majority of the population of that region agrees, if we believe democratic principles have meaning.

      That said, I would argue that this is an entirely separate question from matters of ownership of property, settlement of liability, etc.

      And of course, if the reasons for the separation is particularly acrimonious, it seems entirely right to me for the nation-state to say “Yes, of course, Ambassarod, we recognize the Sovereign State of Regionia. Congratulations, Ambassador. By the way, as of noon today, a state of war exists between NationState-istan and Regionia.”

      • Anthony says:

        We already know what you are, we’re just haggling over the price. What constitutes a sufficiently strong majority?

    • DinoNerd says:

      This seems like one of those things that follows intellectual fashions, over generations. At one point, self-determination was not a thing – subjects belonged to whatever ruler had most recently conquered the place they lived, unless they picked up and left [successfully]. Rulers swapped territories with no more concern for the inhabitants than a couple of fashonable ladies trading hats. And nobody had a problem with this, conceptually.

      They might find some particular ruler to be a “bad king”, and another to be a “good king”, and prefer to have a better ruler. They might rebel against the “bad king” – or flee to another ruler’s territory. But the only thing wrong with England owning half of France was that the French king also wanted that terrain. And even later on Alsace-Lorraine got traded/conquered back and forth like a prize for winning a military victory. What the inhabitants wanted only mattered to the extent that they might actively make trouble.

      In the first part of the 20th century, regional self-determination was something that victors in wars used to break up empires – not something that applied to areas controlled by the victors before the war, or for that matter areas the victors decided to claim as spoils. Before that, part of the US fought a very bloody war to force the other part to remain “united” with it – in spite of traditions of democracy etc.

      It seems to me that the main justification for some areas being political units and others being split among many larger units, or incorporated into some larger unit, is always a mix of naked power, and tradition. Currently liberal democracies occassionally allow seperatist referenda – but for every UK/Scotland there’s a Spain/Basque country. And precious few national divorces have come about as a result of these – usually countries split after and because of bloodshed.

      Of course it’s also true that nothing is ever unanimous. Your thought experiment doesn’t happen in real life. But even if it did, I’d expect the containing country to insist on keeping the breakaway region, unless the breakaway region was also costing the country a lot more than it was producing – with production including such things as “national pride” in the containing country.

      Would that be “right”? Frankly, I’d love to see people who consistently made decisions on grounds of what was right, rather than what was to their benefit, but I’m not expecting to see that often, or at the aggregate level of nations. Mostly they invent morals and ethics that support what they wanted already 🙁

      • doug1943 says:

        Thanks for all the replies, of the high quality to which I have become accustomed here.

        Now … move away from the pure case and appproach ugly reality: not everyone in the break-away wants to leave. Assuming you support the right of separation in the pure case, what percentage of the population should be able to excercise a veto on separation?

        Assume all else remains the same: full rights for ‘remainers’, no negative security or economic issues.

        My own rough rule of thumb is: 1/3. That is, for separation you need a 2/3 majority of those voting.

        The reason I’m asking is I would like to get an idea of the thinking of the intelligentsia on this issue. I’m putting together a case for the future break-up of the United States, along political lines, and am interested in how people think about territorial integrity.

      • Protagoras says:

        There is an apparently near-unanimous case; Norway’s vote to leave its union with Sweden. Though in that case the Swedes seemed to be more trying to push them away than keep them, and anyway for lizardman constant reasons I find reports of the vote tally hard to believe (I don’t know if any scholars have questioned them, or if anyone was suspicious at the time). And in any event I suppose someone could quibble that the Sweden/Norway union wasn’t really a nation state.

        • doug1943 says:

          Yes … the Swedish/Norweigian split was always held up by Lenin and others as an example of where the Right of SD avoided national clashes, and allowed the workers to get down to class warfare. The real problem arises when you have two peoples who are geographically interpenetrated. Then, the question becomes, who gets what. And the ultima ratio regnum rules.

    • EchoChaos says:

      This seems obvious to me. Of course, I come from a country that venerates a separation substantially less popularly supported, where attacks on loyalists were somewhat of a byword, so of course I would.

      • doug1943 says:

        Shhhhhh!!!!! We’re not supposed to talk about what happened to Loyalists, or to the property they left behind when they fled to Canada (I think the latter issue was raised once by people addressing the lost property of Cuban exiles now in the US, their argument being tu quoque.)

    • JPNunez says:

      I am all for it as long as people have open borders to move between the new states.

      If you don’t like the new state, you should be able to move out (I am ignoring here those costs), and if you like the new country, you should be able to move in.

      • doug1943 says:

        Exasctly. I always thought that was part of the genius of federalism. Mississippi can make homosexuality illegal, California can make it compulsory, and if you don’t like it, move.

        • EchoChaos says:

          The problem in America since very early is that has never been acceptable to the strong horse.

          When the slaveholders are in power, you get Dred Scott, when the abolitionists are in power, you get the Civil War.

          So when liberals were weak on gay marriage, the federal government couldn’t stop Massachusetts, and now that they’re strong, the feds need to quash Alabama.

          The right has the exact same set of principles on different issues.

          • doug1943 says:

            Absolutely. It’s a case of whose Ox is Gored. I recall growing up in Texas in the 1950s, when it was liberals who defended free speech, the right of a Commie physics professor to teach physics, etc. and it was the Right who wanted loyality oaths, who did an Anti-Fa-raised-to-the-fifth-power when the CP tried to hold a concert at Peekskill. Although … Hubert Humphrey, the Bernie Sanders of his day, did author the Communist Control Act of 1953 which outlawed the CP.

          • Plumber says:

            @doug1943 >

            “…Peekskill…”

            I’m imoressed, Peekskill 1949, is pretty niche, the only reason I know about it is ’cause the former vice-president of my old union local was there.

          • doug1943 says:

            Plumber: I’m an Ancient-of-Days, so have had more time to snap up unconsidered trifles than many others have. And I’m an ex-Marxist (Trotzkyite variant) so I know something about the history of the American Left. Peekskill ought to be rubbed in the faces of made familiar to every free-speech-loving conservative, so that they (we) don’t get too self-righteous when condemning anti-Fa and campus snowflakes who attack Charles Murray etc. America recovered from that illness, but it didn’t give us immunity, and in fact the second time around looks like being fatal.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @doug1943

            Which is the exact reason I’m not a libertarian. Somebody’s morality is going to get legislated, so I’m going to make damn sure it’s mine.

    • NostalgiaForInfinity says:

      I find it hard to think of reasons against it. I’d be interested to see if anyone here does oppose it (so far all the responses seem to agree).

      One issue (that I think you should address per your comment below about motivations) would be migration rights across the border and how the seceding state handles the rights of people who were born in it but now live in the parent state (i.e. broader issues about citizenship). E.g. I’m British and have English and Scottish heritage – if Scotland were to secede (which is possible in the next 5 years), would I be able to obtain Scottish citizenship.

      There’s also an issue regarding who gets to vote in a possible referendum. When Scotland voted against independence in 2014, English, EU and Commonwealth citizens resident in Scotland could vote, but Scottish people living in England could not. That seems a bit weird and complicates the idealised conditions you set out.

      • doug1943 says:

        If I were advising the Council of Secession I would first advise them not to use that name, given its unfortunate connotations. And then I would advise them to bend over backwards to make every conceivable concession to ‘remainers’.

        The only really tricky part would be immigration rights. Would the new state still be required to admit as citizens, everyone that the ‘mother state’ recognizes as citizens. I would argue yes, for the first five or ten years, but after that, mother-state would-be immigrants are treated like everyone else.

    • Jon S says:

      As a limiting case, I certainly don’t think that individual households should have the right to secede and from sovereign states. I mean, I don’t have a moral problem with it or anything, but as a practical matter I don’t think you can form much of a government if you allow it.

      • doug1943 says:

        Yes, there has to be a practical limit. As the world economy changes, this limit might get smaller and smaller, as — hopefully — national boundaries become less and less significant. In the meantime, I would be pretty liberal in my calculations for who is ‘big enough’ to run their own state, i.e. to govern themselves.

        I wonder if the PolySci people have ever taken up this question? If not, it might make an interesting topic for a Master’s thesis, maybe even a PhD.

        In a sense, allowing self-determination is just running the film of nation-building in reverse, as many nation-states were consolidated out of previously-autonomous tribes, not without violence in many cases.

        I haven’t raised this out of idle speculation. I think something like this might be key to avoiding some very nasty developments in the America that is coming.

    • Eponymous says:

      It seems to me that under such (idealized) conditions, the right to leave and form a sovereign state is a fundamental democratic right. It’s a logical extension of the logic of democracy.

      Depends on what political units you take to be pertinent to the question.

      Let’s assume that a majority of the population of the country as a whole does not want the region to secede. Then its secession is not the “democratic” outcome from the perspective of the nation as a whole. So you’re talking about a (super)-majority of a particular subset of the country.

      But how is this subset selected? What is a legitimate delineation? What if I drew lines to enclose a particular highly gerrymandered district in which support for secession was high. Why should the nation accept this partition?

      I look at it from a mathematical perspective. We are considering a two-dimensional surface on which we associate two numbers with every point (density of support for secession and remain), and we are considering partitions of this space such that the integral of the first density exceeds the second. We can partition it however we like — clearly there will be rather a lot of possible outcomes.

      So we must restrict ourselves to only considering certain kinds of partitions as “legitimate”. What standards should we use? Obvious candidates are things like contiguity, compactness, historical boundaries, differences in culture or language, and so forth.

      But if you want to argue from democracy, it seems to me that the only case in which a solid conclusion exists is that of mutual affirmation — the nation as a whole must support secession, and the region itself, preferably by a supermajority. The supermajority requirement can be seen as a practical way of guaranteeing that any reasonable partition of the region would also support secession (with high probability), which seems a desirable thing. Otherwise you would get situations where region X wants to secede, the people of country Y (X in Y) agree. But the people in town Z in region X *don’t* want to secede.

      In the end democracy is not a cure all. You have to decide when the vote is held, who can vote, and so forth. Look at the bloody failure of popular sovereignty in settling the question of the western frontier in the run up to the American civil war (which itself featured secession, and was settled by force of arms — incidentally, the principle of self-determination in international affairs owes much to Wilson, himself a Southerner, probably not coincidentally).

      • doug1943 says:

        A very interesting reply. In real life, the criteria you raise are usually decided by appealing to national identifies: that is, the secessionists will attract legitimacy to their cause by being of a different national identity from the people from whom they wish to secede. Then we can argue about just what difference is difference enough: Lenin had Stalin write a whole pamphlet on this, and the question of ‘what is a nation’ occupied Marxists for decades: the CPUSA applied it to American Blacks, and you can Google ‘the Black Belt’ and find a proposed Black Nation, which cnsisted of the Southern counties where Blacks were a majority. I don’t think this insane idea lasted more than a few years.
        The argument that what is ‘democratic’ depends on how you draw the boundaries of the demos is, of course, the ‘tyranny of the majority’ question in disguise. The majority of French citizens considered Algeria an integral part of France. For a while, it might have been the case that the majority of inhabitants of North America — north of hte Rio Grande that is, considered that Canada should be added to the acquisitions of the USA.
        I think it’s like the question of at what age should we be allowed to vote, or have sex with someone fifty years older than we are. It’s necessarily somewhat arbitrary.
        At any rate, I do hope the future secessionists from the US draw boundaries as sensitively as possible, even allowing Kaliningrads for ‘remainers’. It’s the fate of the latter that really decide whether secession is peaceful or not — when leavers and remainers of different tribes (best word I can find to encompass ‘nations’, ‘religions’, ‘races’) and are geographically highly interpenetrated — then you have trouble.
        Wise secessionists will make every possible accommodation to remainers, including things like (subsidized) house swaps with ‘leavers’ in the original homeland. Maybe, when/if this question appears on the historic agenda in the US, we can avoid bloodshed.

    • Guy in TN says:

      It seems to me that under such (idealized) conditions, the right to leave and form a
      sovereign state is a fundamental democratic right. It’s a logical extension of the logic
      of democracy.

      It’s not clear to me that the right of succession has any direct relation to democracy. If we take democracy to the the “will of the majority”, then the question of succession would need to also survey how people who lived outside that particular region would have voted. Because it’s possible that more people in total opposed succession, despite all of the people within a subset of that population supporting it. If that were the case, then succession would be an anti-democratic outcome.

      So to answer your question: I am agnostic on the question of their succession until I get more information.

      • EchoChaos says:

        This is really interesting to me, because it seems non-intuitive.

        Do you think it would be democratic for China to hold a referendum on whether Mongolia should be part of their country? Basically any majority would swamp the entire population of that country.

        • Guy in TN says:

          It would indeed be the democratic outcome. If you want to make an argument against it, you should point to something other than the will of the majority.

          • EchoChaos says:

            This ends with the result that no democratic outcome has ever really occurred, which is sort of odd to me. I mean, China didn’t vote on whether the South should leave the Union either, and their votes would’ve swamped both parties (and been hilarious).

            Note: Not a serious argument, more of an interesting thought. I’m not fervently democratic at all.

          • Guy in TN says:

            While its true that no maximally democratic outcome has ever occurred (a world-wide vote), we can still compare whether a vote is more democratic than another, comparatively speaking.

            E.g., we can say that the US became more democratic when African-Americans were allowed to vote, but an even more democratic process was theoretically possible (giving women the ability to vote).

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Guy in TN

            This makes me kind of want to rank things by “democraticness” in silly ways. Brexit is more democratic than Scottish independence, but less democratic than if the EU had been allowed to vote on it.

            Also, should you rank it by percentage of total populace or raw numbers? Brexit is more democratic than Switzerland has EVER BEEN!

          • Guy in TN says:

            Rank by raw numbers, definitely.

            The issue at hand, is that people too often use “democratic” to mean things other than “will of the majority”. Like, I get what doug1943 was hinting at, that succession is comparable with certain liberal values such as “consent of the governed” or “individual sovereignty”.

            Have you ever read an article that’s like “X country isn’t a democracy, because they don’t have free speech”. It’s the same thing: the term “democracy” being used in place of “liberal values”, resulting in confusion.

          • EchoChaos says:

            @Guy in TN

            I agree, that seems right to me. And I am now going to mentally rank things on democraticness.

          • Eponymous says:

            It would indeed be the democratic outcome.

            In general there is not one “the democratic outcome”, because the result of any particular vote varies according to a number of variables, including when the vote is held, who holds it, what people are allowed to vote, and other conditions.

            As I noted above, the lead up to the American civil war well illustrates the limitations of democracy. This is apart from the secession crisis itself (incidentally, many states that did vote to secede had regions with strong (probably majority) unionist sentiment, and one state (Virginia) actually split over secession).

          • Le Maistre Chat says:

            @Guy in TN:

            While its true that no maximally democratic outcome has ever occurred (a world-wide vote), we can still compare whether a vote is more democratic than another, comparatively speaking.

            E.g., we can say that the US became more democratic when African-Americans were allowed to vote, but an even more democratic process was theoretically possible (giving women the ability to vote).

            As much as I’d like to make a meme of Maximally Democratic Man (he’s a Victorian African-American captioned “Where da women at?!”), I’m not sure this can logically hold.
            It would be more democratic to give women the vote, but then it would be even more democratic to invade Canada and make its population American voters, even if they’re an equally-democratic separate population.

          • Eponymous says:

            Rank by raw numbers, definitely.

            So a large nation in which only a privileged majority can vote is more “democratic” than a smaller nation with full democratic participation?

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Le Maistre Chat

            It would be more democratic to give women the vote, but then it would be even more democratic to invade Canada and make its population American voters

            The “invading Canada” part is unnecessary, if your goal is to allow Canadians to vote in US elections.

            @Eponymous

            So a large nation in which only a privileged majority can vote is more “democratic” than a smaller nation with full democratic participation?

            But the smaller nation doesn’t have “full democratic participation”, because it’s excluding a very sizable chunk of people: those who are not citizens.

            “Citizen” is equally as arbitrary an exclusion category as “white” or “female”.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            “Citizen” is equally as arbitrary an exclusion category as “white” or “female”.

            This is facile. Women and non-whites living in the US are subject to US law. Canadians living in Canada are not.

            There might be an actual argument somewhere for granting foreigners a vote, but equally arbitrary is puff and nonsense

          • Guy in TN says:

            Subject ” to US law is doing a lot a heavy lifting, since they are certainly affected by US law.

            Saying that people who are affected by a law, but not “subject” to it, cannot participate is indeed an arbitrary carve-out.

          • Gobbobobble says:

            No that’s still facile, unless you’re also asserting that I am, in fact, “affected” by what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms and should get a say in what’s allowed

          • Controls Freak says:

            Oh, but you are in fact, “affected” by what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Their choice precludes you from partaking in a sex act that you might desire, and the State uses coercion to prevent you from doing so. “It’s coercion all-the-way-down,” so we need to finally start talking about what the optimal sex-distribution system is!

          • Guy in TN says:

            @Gobbobobble

            unless you’re also asserting that I am, in fact, “affected” by what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms and should get a say in what’s allowed

            “This doesn’t affect you” is an incorrect argument for any occasion.

            If that’s the only thing keeping you from going full-on sexual authoritarian, I would first stop to consider if there are any other reasons why the state might not want to regulate that behavior.

            It could be that sex simultaneously affects other people, and is also best not to regulate.

            @ControlsFreak

            Their choice precludes you from partaking in a sex act that you might desire, and the State uses coercion to prevent you from doing so. “It’s coercion all-the-way-down,” so we need to finally start talking about what the optimal sex-distribution system is!

            I mean, you’re mocking me but I’m right.

            Cleanse your mind of liberalism and you will understand.

          • Controls Freak says:

            Cleanse your mind of liberalism and you will understand.

            Liberalism and anti-liberalism mean a lot of things to a lot of people. You’re going to have to help me out a little bit. Why does the fact that Person A having sex with Person B at Time T prevents me from also having sex with Person B at Time T (even though I might want to) mean that we should jettison laws against rape?

          • doug1943 says:

            Yikes … How did we get from Self-Determination to Consenting Adults? Via the confusion, as someone pointed out, of ‘democratic’ with ‘liberal’ or ‘liberal democratic’. This has been a meme (?) on the Old Right for a long time … back in the early 60s, you would see (in Texas anyway) bumper stickers with the slogan, ‘This is a Republic, not a Democracy’, which was a John Birch Society campaign at the time. Tyranny of the majority, limited government, super–majorities to amend the Constitution — we’ve been here before.

            My own take on when it would be ‘wrong’ for an external majority to deny the right to secession to a geographically-compact minority would be when that act would deeply negatively affect the welfare of the majority. Here we begin to speak of self-interest, and the eternal problem that A’s rights may clash with B’s self-interest, so B is motivated to define his self-interest in terms of rights also.

            Isn’t this the argument of those who believe that they have the right to shut down meetings on campus where the speaker might say something that would upset them? They have a right not to hear arguments from conservatives or libertarians.

            May I thank everyone who has contributed their opinions here. I don’t think I could find a smarter group of people to run these ideas by.

            Coming soon: a proposal to end the bitter political conflict within the US, by allowing part of it to secede.

          • Guy in TN says:

            mean that we should jettison laws against rape?

            Bad faith. I’m out.

          • Controls Freak says:

            Not bad faith. I genuinely don’t see how you get from [private property means A can’t use B’s stuff] to [we should jettison private property] and also not [private sexuality means A can’t use B’s junk] to [we should jettison private sexuality]. Please please please help me figure it out. I’m actually quite good at coming up with plausibility arguments in many aspects (including my professional life, which requires vague plausibility arguments when reviewing academic proposals), but I can’t see this one without some help. That’s part of why I asked you to define what liberal/anti-liberal means to you. You’re giving me literally zero help, literally zero indication of how any of this is supposed to work, and then yelling bad faith when I ask, “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME HOW THIS IS SUPPOSED TO WORK! I DESPERATELY WANT TO KNOW!” (Worse, you’ve told me that I’m basically right in interpeting you so far, with, “you’re mocking me but I’m right,” leaving an atrocious mess of ambiguity for how we get from Point A to Point B.)

          • Guy in TN says:

            Next time, try not to prescribe a position to a person that they don’t support, particularly one that they’ve already denounced in the very thread.

          • Controls Freak says:

            It could be that sex simultaneously affects other people, and is also best not to regulate.

            How?! What are the principles? How do we determine whether it’s best to abolish private property? In other words:

            how you get from [private property means A can’t use B’s stuff] to [we should jettison private property] and also not [private sexuality means A can’t use B’s junk] to [we should jettison private sexuality]

            You’ve gotta give me something. You’ve got to at least try.

  58. ECD says:

    This is a silly question and contains spoilers for Deep Space Nine, Season 7.

    So late in the season, there’s an episode where the new Ezri Dax discusses the Klingon Empire with Worf and points out that despite all their talk about being proud & honorable warriors, they’re actually a corrupt aristocracy which is barely functional and basically evil. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as886JnsjtQ

    Now this goes back to at least TNG, but also most of DS9. Does anyone know if this was long laid plan, or late realization that what was being said and what was being done didn’t match up?

    Also, just a comment on fiction, this scene actually made a LOT of earlier scenes/episodes better for me, because there wasn’t a show-tell contradiction, there was someone lying to themselves and others. I’m struggling to think of other examples of scenes which have that effect.

    • Randy M says:

      Also, just a comment on fiction, this scene actually made a LOT of earlier scenes/episodes better for me, because there wasn’t a show-tell contradiction, there was someone lying to themselves and others

      This is similar to the “hanging a lampshade on it” trope, where a character will point out an inconsistency or plot hole, even if not specifically addressed (Like, hypothetically, “Too bad we could fly into Mordor on Eagles, Mr Frodo.” “Ha, keep dreaming Sam”) You feel better knowing that the inconsistency is intentional and not just the author failing to communicate properly, though that’s a little different in a work with multiple writers and producers.

      In this case, I think Picard was aghast at the Klingon political system and the Federations need to accomodate it back with Whorf was exiled early in the TNG run.

      • ECD says:

        Hang on a Lampshade is almost it. That shows that the writer sees the problem, which makes things better in that I’m not trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. In this case, however, the fictional universe recognizes it as a problem and then goes on to attempt to fix it (I’m not sure how convinced I am that replacing the current corrupt leader with a single relatively non-corrupt leader will actually fix it, but the show ends before that question can be resolved).

        In this case, I think Picard was aghast at the Klingon political system and the Federations need to accomodate it back with Whorf was exiled early in the TNG run.

        I think so as well, but it’s hard to tell because no one was really willing to push the point with Worf at that juncture, for obvious reasons.

    • cassander says:

      It wasn’t a long laid plan, but Ron Moore wrote sins of the farther (The TNG episode where Worf gets his discommendation), became known as the klingon guy, went on to either write or substantially contribute to virtually all of the worf/klingon episodes on TNG and DS9. So that arc, even if not planned out in advance, does really represent one writer’s vision of the empire with a fair bit of consistency.

    • I don’t think they needed anything to retroactively explain the contradiction. Despite being aliens, Klingon politics is so very human. You got the true believer(notably an outsider), the truly contemptible, and then most of them are somewhere in the middle. They talk about their ideals, and they really believe them, but they’ll often betray them to get ahead. And everyone is impulsive and quick to do something stupid but sometimes they stop bickering to unite against a common enemy. That kind of mess is politics 101.

      • ECD says:

        Eh, I’m not sure. It’s been a while since I sat down and worked my way through them all (which I’ve been considering doing again, at least TNG and DS9 in prep for Picard), but my recollection was that there was quite a lot of acceptance of the Klingon definition of themselves.

        That may be more a fandom/expanded universe thing though.

        • John Schilling says:

          I remember a dissonance between A: the characters accepting the Klingon definition of themselves and B: all Klingons not named Worf or Kang so blatantly failing to meet that standard.

          • J Mann says:

            I bought it at the time.

            My read was that Klingon society nominally valorized qualities like honor and, um, valor, but that it was difficult to ascend to leadership and simultaneously maintain those qualities.

            Worf, who grew up outside the Empire, had a naive and uncomplicated view of those qualities, and the dissonance between his beliefs and Gowron’s corruption led to the Empire finally taking its place as a docile client-state to the Federation.

            (Quark’s “root beer” speech might be the best thing about the series, although I have a sentimental attachment to “especially the lies.”)

          • Plumber says:

            @J Mann,
            I haven’t been able to find the scene on YouTube, but IIRC Quark’s root beer and the Federation speech was lifted almost verbatim from the 1961 cold war Berlin comedy 1,2,3 with a Soviet agent speaking of Coca-Cola and Americans.

            Great film directed by Billy Wilder and starring James Carney.

          • J Mann says:

            @Plumber – awesome, I’ll try to check it out!

        • I can accept that a Christian is sincere in his beliefs without being surprised when they lie or steal.

          Remember that the Klingon situation was always delicate, so it’s not like Picard could go full lecture mode on them. And of course, Worf saw Klingon culture through a very different perspective.

          • John Schilling says:

            Right, but if every Christian you observe save one, regularly lies or steals, would you accept the self-definition of Christianity as a culture of honesty?

          • Nearly every Christian lies, as do all people. So the question would be whether I think Christians have a culture of honesty. But I’m not sure exactly what counts as “culture of honesty” and what doesn’t. It does seem to be some kind of motivating force, but yeah, it’s clear many people can’t be bothered to care. When I watch a Martin Scorsese movie, his characters display this tension between sincere religiosity and their lifestyle with a stunning lack of self-awareness. But those characters are a reflection of reality. If no characters points out this absurdity, I don’t consider it a flaw with the movie. And “honor” is much more nebulous than something like honesty.