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Latest news:
Iran targets airbases by US troops in Iraq with missile strikes.
Sounds like Trump’s broken the taboo on uniformed US forces and uniformed Iranian forces directly attacking each other.
737-800 flight from Tehran to Kjiv crashes in Iran. No survivors. Thought to be caused by engine failure. Tragic coincidence?
The barrage was so weak and ineffective it has to be intentional. This is Iran blinking and deescalating unless they do something else as a follow up. This doesn’t require any American response.
I really hope so, but during fog of war bad things can happen.
So a direct attack with lethal weapons doesn’t warrant a response, but an indirect one with no intention to kill warranted the assassination of a national hero ?
I mean, Iraq may want to respond to an attack on their bases, but I doubt they will.
These attacks were very clearly intended to be real enough that Iran could say they responded, but weak enough that they didn’t actually cause American blood to spill.
And to be clear, I think killing Soleimani was indeed disproportionate, which is Trump’s specialty.
In addition to the embassy attack/riot/whatever, an American was recently (late December) killed in a Hezbollah rocket attack in Iraq.
If Soleimani was indeed in Iraq to personally help organize additional attacks (Soleimani was banned from international travel by a UN resolution, btw), then the fig leaf between “some militias vaguely allied with Iran are attacking Iraqis and sometimes Americans might be in the crossfire” and “Iran is directly targeting Americans” was already very small.
My opinion, you cannot look at these as single incidents with single consequences. The assassination was not ordered because of an indirect attack on an Embassy. It was ordered because of at least 5, arguably more, aggressive actions by Iran, that the US responded weekly to at first, until the assassination, which was a disproportionate response to everything. Iran’s middle strike is an under proportioned response to the assassination, so in the US’s books, we are ahead. Assassinating the mastermind of dozens of terrorist attacks was well worth the sizable costs of blocking their missiles. If we were lucky it would stop here, but I’m betting this is only their uniformed military response, and they will respond with terrorist attacks later. My hope is without their general, their attacks will be less effective.
I would add that people seem to be forgetting that Soleimani was not the only major victim (or only major target) of the US strike. Also killed was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, the group responsible for the recent missile attack that killed an American and wounded several others.
That the two commanders were meeting together in Baghdad seems like pretty strong circumstantial evidence supporting the official US position that Soleimani, and by extension Iran, was directly involved in organizing attacks against Americans in Iraq.
Thank you for pointing it out, I had completely missed it (all reporting focusing on Soleimani). So in essence, this could possibly have been a (more reasonable) strike against al-Muhandis, who is more directly responsible for recent attacks.
If Soleimani is denied travel and all (claimed elsewhere in this thread), could it be possible that US intelligence didn’t know he was present?
¹ …and leader of the Popular Mobilization Forces, and listed on various terrorist lists, one might add.
To be clear, I do not believe it is plausible that Soleimani was not a primary, intentional target of the raid – he was not an accidental casualty.
I don’t think this is the right way to frame it. Neither side wants a war but in the game of tit for tat, both feel like they have to respond to rising escalation. The strike, assuming no American causalities, is Iran telling us that they are serious about Soleimani in a way that doesn’t necessitate a further response. It’s an out for both sides.
I agree with this. What I mean by blinking is that it is clearly substantially less tit than the tat that preceded it. They lost their great war hero so they responded by inconveniencing a bunch of Americans who had to sit in a bunker for a few hours.
This may fall under the three-day rule, if only for the sake of waiting until we know more.
True.
I retract my idle speculation about the plane crash.
OTOH, I want to see what people here predict will happen in time to see whether they’re right.
I predict Trump will take credit for the 4.9 earthquake in Iran.
No fair taking the gimmies.
In the “know a little bit more” category, Iran is apparently refusing to release the black box from the airliner, and the generally regarded as safe Ukrainian airline involved immediately terminated all service to and from Tehran, so that’s, uh, suspicious.
That is certainly a very bad sign, although not conclusive.
Here’s what I’ve got so far:
1. Iran’s usual retaliation for this sort of thing is delayed and covert – e.g. when (probably) Israel assassinated Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan in January 2012, the result was a series of bomb attacks against Israeli diplomats and tourists around the world a month later. And Quds Force are Iran’s covert-operations specialists; it is highly unlikely that they are going to sit this one out.
2. Yesterday’s attack was carried out with 15 Qaim-1 or Qaim-2 ballistic missiles; ten striking the Al-Asad airbase, one impact at Irbil, and four failed in flight. The Qaim is a descendant of the infamous “Scud” missile with a substantially improved guidance system and a 750 kg warhead. Ten such missiles hitting an base housing ~1500 US troops and killing none of them, suggests that either the missiles were targeted to avoid US casualties. Alternately, the improved guidance systems were inadequately tested and we got very lucky.
3. The US did not have missile defense assets in place to protect its largest base in Iraq, three days after picking a fight with a missile-armed power next door to Iraq; either those assets are stretched impossibly thin, or their deployment planning is abysmally poor.
4. The biggest possible win for Iran would be a complete US withdrawal from Iraq – whether that comes before or after we shoot a bunch of cruise missiles at Iran is irrelevant. Yesterday, Iraq was waffling about whether it was going to order US troops out of the country, and the US was waffling about whether it was going to play the “screw you guys, I’m going home” card. Today, the Iraqi government has a fresh reminder that hosting US troops means being caught in the crossfire of any US-Iran war, with more Iraqis than Americans dying if it comes to that. Expect Iranian diplomats to be working that angle.
5. In six months to a year, Iran’s covert-operations forces will be probably able to plan and execute attacks of up to 9/11 scale, if they are so inclined. In six months to a year, Iraq’s nuclear weapons people will probably be able to mount a nuclear warhead on e.g. a Qiam missile, if they are so inclined. What’s the US plan for dealing with state-sponsored terrorism by nuclear powers?
6. The high profile of the Soleimani assassination almost certainly demanded some level of immediate retaliation, not just “wait a few months and see the bombs start to explode”. Mission accomplished. I expect Trump and company to spend the next six months to a year bragging about their forcing Iran to blink and winning a great victory for America. But it’s way too soon for the victory celebration.
7. The Ukranian airliner may be an ill-timed coincidence, but jittery air-defense forces around Tehran are a distinct possibility.
I dont disagree with any of the points you’ve made. I wonder how much knowing that the US has the capacity to target high ranking officials will play in the calculation. As much as these guys talk up dying a martyr, I suspect most of them would rather die of natural causes.
Well, capacity to target high ranking officials as they overtly transit through Iraq. I don’t imagine your average Iranian official sitting in Tehran feels particularly threatened right now.
You can basically take the opposite view on all these points.
Either Iran is incompetent enough that it cant injure a single US soldier with a real commitment or its afraid to.
Iran just lost its head of clandestine warfare, making both the difficulty in coordinating and risk in doing such actions increase.
Iran goes for clandestine war because it has no desire, or real ability, to project its power conventionally as long as the US military is in the region (which is why they want them gone). That’s a good reason not to allow them to get nuclear capabilities and Trump just told them that clandestine attacks can, and will be met conventionally which exposes their weakness.
In the short run Iran had been granted a low risk way of uses deadly force to influence the region, which they had exploited and were likely to continue to exploit. I would rather we had no military presence in the ME, but tactically the assassination appears sound.
Would it be any harder to stick a nuke on a Ghadr-110 than a Qiam?
And what kind of yield are we talking?
The Ghadr or Shahab would probably be a better choice for a nuclear delivery system, but any of them would work. And Iran was at least indirectly (via North Korea) hooked in to the A.Q. Khan network, so they’ve probably got the same design for a ~10 kiloton uranium implosion bomb that everybody else does. Low probability that North Korea sells them blueprints for their ~200 kiloton thermonuclear warhead.
What do you think about the likelihood/severity of Iranian cyberattacks against US companies? My company does some DOD-adjacent stuff, and we got some very specific warnings.
I’m not an expert, but I’m in a similar boat as yours, so I’ll give my two cents. Likelihood high, Severity low. Iran doesn’t have the resources to launch a large scale cyber attack, but they can certainly go phishing to see if any government contractor is dumb enough to fall for the right email. That’s what I’ve been told to watch out for.
There is the general background noise of constant cyberattacks. You need to already be protecting against these with good hygiene. People are stupid and click on links so your IT department may be using this as a chance to get people to give a shit and listen to them.
Then there are specific deliberate targeted attacks. If you are really working on something American-equivalent-of-centrifuges, you should already be doing an exceptional level of best practices.
Iran isn’t one of the first-tier threats in the cyberwarfare realm; not a major industrialized power like Russia or China with legions of potentially malevolent hackers available for the asking, and hasn’t specifically cultivated the field like North Korea has. But as aristides notes, they can do lots of low-level stuff and we’ve got lots of soft targets, so maybe be extra careful to not be the softest target on the router this week.
Don’t forget the huge threat of US cyberwarfare.
In 6 months to a year, no one will be up in arms about the assassination anymore, meaning that Iran will have forfeited any moral advantage they would have with an immediate retaliation. This strikes me as not a particularly good strategy, unless Iran thinks that they can use such an attack to favorably (from their POV) affect the US election.
Going broke for nukes, on the other hand…
Re. 3, I suspect the answer is a combination of “stretched thin” (we’ve got a lot of our Patriot batteries deployed to protect allies, in many cases from potential or notional future threats), the relatively limited mobility of the Patriot (minimum transport of the base system is 5 C-5s or 7 C-17s), and inertia.
Followup: NPR is now reporting satellite imagery suggests Iran’s missiles were precisely targeted at storage facilities rather than e,g. barracks. Their cited sources are the people I would have gone to for this, so I consider it pretty solid. No way to know whether they targeted random storage buildings or something more specific.
Also, Iran’s supreme leader is now on record as saying, “For the time being, the Americans have been given a slap, revenge is a different issue”. No mention of whether it should be served cold.
Would it generally be a bad idea to call out a face saving bluff as just that, or is the intended audience–the Iranian people–unlikely to be concerned about Western perception?
There’s no way around the fact that the Western press is going to be reporting zero Americans dead whereas the Iranians are already claiming 80+ killed. So they have probably calculated that their own people aren’t going to pay attention to what we say, and won’t care what we say.
Also, a bit of a double-edged sword in that calling them out on this means acknowledging that we recognize their precision targeting capability, and that we understand they can kill American soldiers in large numbers at a push of the “not kidding” button.
If the attacks were accurate, but deliberately non-lethal, that seems like a very deliberate message. Probably saying something on the order of “That is a nice carrier group you have there, how would the voters like it if we gifted it to Davy Jones?”
It’s a lot harder to hit a carrier group than it is to hit a ground base, especially when that ground base apparently doesn’t have any missile defense assets online.
Carriers doctrine happened because ww2 air-planes did not have the range to dominate the sea entirely from land. It continined to dominate because nuclear weapons kept everyone from fighting people who could fight back. However, a carrier group has one, very glaring weakness. Its defenses rely on expendables, and those expendables can be trivially counted.
Iran has the soumar cruise missile, which is basically a tomahawk missile. Important facts about that type of missile:
1. It has greater range than the combat radius of the f-35. If the air-wing of a carrier can strike Iran, the carrier is some five hundred kilometers inside cruise missile range.
2: It costs a million dollars a piece to build, max (this is what the US mil industrial complex charges for the tomahawk. There is no way, no how, the Iranians get charged more by their own industry)
3: Iran has known they were on the US shit list for decades.
What I am saying is, there is a quite significant chance the entire indian ocean is a carefully engineered carrier killing ground, and that if Trump uses a carrier against Iran he will promptly loose that entire carrier group to a swarm of fivehundred + missiles, fired in volley.
It is next to useless against ships, which renders the rest of the argument moot. The United States Navy deployed an anti-ship variant of the Tomahawk in the 1980s, and withdrew it from service after about a decade because they had figured out that it was practically impossible to hit high-value targets with it. To attack high-value targets with long-range cruise missiles, you need a much more capable weapon with the ability to receive midcourse targeting updates, and ideally supersonic speed and the ability to conduct coordinated swarm attacks. And you need a solid long-range maritime surveillance capability with the C3I capability to target the attack.
The Soviet Union, at the height of the Cold War, sort of had this capabiliy, and 21st-century Russia may have reconstituted some of it. Iran, does not, and the Soumar is specifically a land-attack weapon for use against fixed targets. Also, the Iranian aerospace industry cannot produce them by the thousand.
I dont want to be too wedded to this specific attack vector, because the general point is that the US always attacks in pretty much the exact same way, and Iran has both a fairly competent military establishment, and 30 years of prep time, but..
The point is that Iran does not need global monitoring, they just need to know what is floating in a specific region of the indian ocean. Nor do they need to spot the subs, or even smaller ships, just the ginormous carriers and their escort groups. This is not that hard a problem to solve. Nor do the missiles need to be all that shiny – supersonic, swarm tactics, ect, are all characteristics meant to get a missile past aegis. My point is that you do not need to *beat* aegis, you just have to send more missiles than aegis has anti-missile-missiles, and this is a known, not that large number. (well, you also need to run the phalanx cannons dry. But, again, they are not very economical with ammo.) Would be such a depressing way to get sunk, too. One missile a minute until you are out of ammo for the actual defenses and trying to shoot the next one down with m-16s. Upside, lots of time to bail on the boat.
Regarding “they just have to find a carrier battle group in the Indian Ocean”, see Bean’s Naval Gazing post “Why Carriers are not doomed, Part 1”, and note that Iran has less strategic ISR assets than either Russia or China.
Second, you’re ignoring what what John said: it’s not that the cruise missiles in question aren’t super sophisticated, it is that they do not have the capability to reliably hit a moving target at sea, period . And ships do not sit still.
Missiles aren’t fungible. There are multi-role weapons systems but this is not such an example.
The longest ranged missiles Iran has that can hit ships under way (because that’s what they are designed for) have an effective range of 300-400 km. Naval aviation has a strike range of 1,000+ km, and Tomahawks of not much under that.
This means that if Iran wants to sink a carrier, in real life they need that carrier to be in the Persian Gulf or Strait of Hormuz, not the Indian ocean.
It’s theoretically possible that if we were to sail a carrier battle group into range like that AND Iran concentrated basically all their launch platforms for a strike without us noticing AND they were willing to expend a significant percentage of their entire ASM stockpile….they could sink ONE carrier and maybe other ships in the group. Which would be a disaster for the Navy and a huge deal.
But it would also be a one time trick, because at that point the other carriers show up in the Indian ocean and proceed to begin dismantling Iran’s ADA and ASM capabilities from beyond the range of anything but Iran’s naval assets.
..eh, too wedded to details. Let me rephrase:
With thirty years of lead time, and a military industrial complex competent enough to put satelites in orbit at least some of the time, just how sure are you Iran does not have a pretty deep bag of tricks labeled “See the USN to the bottom of the Indian ocean”. Because that is their victory condition.
Related. If Trump starts a war with Iran and Iranian frog men from the Secrit Undersea Bases Emplaced In All The Best Places To Bomb Iran proceed to cut holes in the bottom of the ships until the US stops sending them, what would be the political consequences of that?
Very confident. 90%, maybe a bit higher. They have a bag of tricks labeled “Send US Ships to the bottom of the Strait of Hormuz/Persian Gulf”, and we know what’s in the bag. Things like small boat swarm tactics. Which is why we in turn have worked on developing counter-tactics. To be clear, I think that if we were to make the mistake of giving them a clear shot, they could probably hurt US surface ships. But “Send the USN to the bottom of the Indian Ocean” is straight up outside their capability.
Iran’s bag of tricks is almost certainly labeled “Put a single USN carrier battle group to the bottom of the Persian Gulf, if the USN tries to operate a CVBG in the Persian Gulf in wartime”. As Trofim notes, that is something Iran can plausibly aspire to do, taking full advantage of their home-court advantage and the constrained waters of the Gulf. And, sinking a US Navy aircraft carrier and its escorts would be a significant victory for Iran, though not necessarily a war-winner.
The United States of America, with sixty years of lead time and a military industrial complex capable of putting three times as many satellites around other planets than Iran has managed to put into Low Earth Orbit, has a very deep bag of tricks labeled “Do not let anyone sink any of our aircraft carriers in any ocean”, targeted at threats at least an order of magnitude more capable than Iran. So long as the USN keeps its carriers out of coastal waters, Iran will probably not even get past the “Do not let anyone even know exactly where our aircraft carriers are going to be” subset of those tricks. Actually sinking one of them, Trofim is right that Iran is ~90% likely to fail at that.
This changes a bit if they receive semi-deniable assistance from Russia or China, but even then the odds would be against them. And thus against Russia or China playing that card.
… Okay, I am just going to say it. But.. that step? “Noone knows where I am?” Seems like psyops disinformation, more than anything, it is doing a two-step on my “that is some bullshit propaganda, right there” button. The carrier group is not a submarine, its not designed to be quiet, it is a goddess accursed airfield with multiple radars in the megawatt range. I mean sure, it is a military air-field, there is probably a big red button somewhere to turn them all off, but if you do that, you are not operating as a carrier.
Aircraft carriers can in fact operate perfectly well as aircraft carriers without using their radars, and this is something the US Navy practices routinely. Also, operating with just one radar whose active signature is the same as that of a container ship’s navigation radar.
I understand your skepticism, but that’s one of the reasons I suggested going over Part 1 of Bean’s “Why Carriers Are Not Doomed”. It gives a pretty good basic overview of exactly this question, and includes links to some real world examples.
To add to John Schilling’s explanation:
let’s say for the sake of argument that Iran knows for a fact that a carrier battle group is located within striking range of Bandar Abbas Naval base. I did a quick estimate using area and distance tools on Google Earth, trying to be pessimistic, and I came up with a search area of about 66,000 square miles in the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. A Nimitz-class is about 1,000 feet long, or if you want to think about the flight deck, about 4.5 acres. So, here’s a visual representation of 4.5 acres. You’re looking for a spot about that big…and it’s somewhere in Washington state, and moving. Or Austria and Czechia combined, if you prefer an international one. It’s not nearly as big a target as you think, and those photos of tight formations of carrier groups are done FOR the photos. In reality they operate much more widely scattered while still providing interlocking defenses.
So, radar, right? except as John points out, our carriers are not only capable of operating under EMCON, including flight ops, they practice it routinely. What makes this possible is a combination of things, like highly directional light signals for aircraft, the use of the Hawkeye AWACS platform for command and control and for target detection and early warning, and tight band satellite communications systems (as well as the use of satellites for additional battlespace awareness in some cases).
And that means your surface warships or fighters flying out to search the sea for that 4.5 acre target, or to get close enough to detect a carrier even under EMCON have to contend with a screen of fighters who can be vectored to intercept via a very powerful radar that can be operating from -hundreds- of miles away from the carrier because it’s on a separate plane.
Some tactics might involve something like going EMCON yourself, and trying to find those -fighters-, and tailing them back to the carrier group. But for that, better hope you have much longer legs than they do, and that you have the capability to stay undetected by the aforementioned AWACS platforms and the jets themselves.
So, subs? Subs are arguably one of the most potentially dangerous threats to a carrier. But a sub still has to localize that carrier. Most of the examples of the news articles you see about “Russian/Chinese Sub Sneaks Up On US Navy Battle Group! This Shows how scary they are!” miss that the carrier groups are not operating under wartime conditions or taking any measures to be harder to track or find, not randomizing their course at all, etc. So we’re back to “Ocean is a lot bigger than the carrier”, and in turn the question them becomes “How many subs do you have to do the searching and how far can they cruise?”. In the case of Iran (not counting the midget subs they have that don’t have the capability to operate outside the gulf. Those are more for operations like, oh, sneaking up on and planting explosives on civilian shipping…) the answer is 3 original Soviet-spec Kilos, and another 3-4 home-built models of various classes. None of these have capabilities in the same league as the subs that managed those peacetime tailing missions I mentioned above.
All of which works while your air defenses are *off*. Turn Ageis on, and all of the planet can see where you are. But sure, lets suppose the carrier is operating in quiet as a mouse mode.
The carrier still has the passive radar signature of a city block, because it is an enormous hunk of steel.
The Indian ocean is very heavily trafficked, which means almost no matter where you are, you are going to be getting pinged by radar from non-combatants. At which point, everyone can spot you with entirely passive sensors, unless you want to declare “Unrestricted Carrier Warfare”.
If you sit in one of the few spots where there *isnt* traffic, that is a much, much more constrained search space.
Also. Noise. You are making a lot of it. Acoustic engineering is a huge field, and I have seen videos of carrier groups moving. Its a field they are ignoring.
The base assumption here is that Iran has been spending billions in anticipation of this day. If that is so, then however well you might be able to hide in a random chunk of sea, that will not work in a chunk of ocean which is lousy with sensors phoning home.
All of which works while your air defenses are *off*.
No, they’re not. The -Carrier’s- Radars are off. The carrier CAP’s radars are often off but can be switched on intermittently. The Hawkeye’s radar is not. Did you even read my reply? Again, because US Carriers are capable of running flight ops during EMCON, that means that you can have a screen of early warning radar and jets airborne and covering a much larger area than the ship’s radars could (due to altitude and dispersion), while simultaneously making the job of the enemy trying to locate the carrier much, MUCH harder. Congratulations, you have a bearing to an AWACS plane…it’s moving -much- faster than the carrier, and even once you have range and bearing of the plane, that doesn’t help much because it could be 30 miles away from the carrier, or 200.
The range at which a third party can detect a radar return is, generally speaking, not much further than the original sender. The longer range of passive detection refers to it being possible to see an active radar transmitter further away than that radar’s operator can detect a return…and the range of surface scanning maritime navigational radar is very low, generally on the order of 10-15 miles.
In other words, for our notional ELINT mast on an Iranian sub, or EW pod on an Iranian MiG-25 or Su-24 to detect the scatter off a carrier from a container ship’s navigational radar, it needs to have already gotten VERY close to the Carrier on its own…through the layered defenses of its escorts and aircraft.
You seem to have no idea what you are talking about. The US Navy has been using both passive and active measures to reduce and/or mask acoustic signature of surface ships since literally the 1960s. The older, declassified systems are referred to as Prairie-Masker.
Come on, Thomas. You just tried to claim that the Navy ignores the possibility of passive ranging by use of sound. Also known as sonar.
What sort of sensors, and how are they phoning home? Because we know what a network of ocean sensors used to detect warships over a large area look like. We know because the UK and US collaboratively emplaced exactly that sort of sensor network during the cold war. Iran has not done so.
Near as I can tell, carrier groups are not ignoring it, they are trying to help their anti-submarine-warfare escort out by hauling ass on a drunkards walk. Because that means anyone trying to intercept them also has to haul ass, which makes them easier to spot. But no, that floating city setting nautical speed records is not, itself, quiet. That would take fucking magic.
No I dont “know what I am talking about”, but certain things are deducible from first principles. To wit, why do boomer subs exist?
Hyper-quiet submersible ships capable of acting as a launch platform while submerged are really, really damn expensive. If becoming untracable by the simple expedient of just sailing off into the blue yonder while maintaining radio silence was actually possible, let alone reliable when people try to counter it with prep time, everyones nuclear deterrent posture would be a hell of a lot simpler and cheaper.
… Also, piracy would be a lot more of a problem.
Not saying they’re silent, just that you saying that acoustic engineering was something the US Navy is ignoring was both false and silly.
Yes, they’re detectable on passive sonar. No, they are not detectable at extreme ranges on passive sonar. To get close enough to a carrier to go from “surface noise” to “positive surface contact, bearing X, range Y” to “4 screws making 20 knots, positive identification, US Nimitz-Class carrier”, a submarine (and that’s what you’re talking about, because as I pointed out above we know that Iran doesn’t have a sensor network in the Indian ocean) has to get fairly close. So we’re back to “big ocean, limited number of search platforms”. So we’re back to “How many and how capable are Iran’s Subs?”…which I already addressed in my last post. Again.
Apples and Oranges comparison. SSBNs are designed to maximize stealth above all else in part because they cannot survive direct engagements with surface combatants OR other subs. They operate alone, without support, to provide second-strike capability in the case of nuclear exchange. They can be destroyed by a single well-equipped ASW plane, or a single sub. They have extremely limited capacity to engage and destroy anyone who finds them due to limited torpedo and ADA capacity, and thus HAVE to rely on stealth above all else.
An Aircraft Carrier operates as part of a surface task force that, while still surprisingly hard to localize, is not impossible to localize given sufficient forces and reconnaissance assets. However, that surface task force is designed and equipped to be able to engage and destroy anything but a very large force close enough to do so.
TL;DR: SSBNs have a limited ability to kill the platforms hunting for them, so they have to be able to hide from even very, very close enemies.
CVBGs on the other hand, have the ability to engage and destroy most threats close enough to detect them, unless they are in significant strength.
The soviets, at their cold-war peak (a peak capability which, again, Iran does not come anywhere near to matching), had the plan to send 100+ strategic bombers with heavy ASM loads and escorted by an equally large force of fighters. The fighters would engage the carrier’s air assets while the combers would strike against the surface targets. They anticipated well over 50% casualties in the bomber force in exchange for sinking a carrier battle group.
Iran cannot muster anything LIKE that kind of force projection into the Indian ocean. Not by air (their air assets are old, in terrible shape, and very limited in number), and not by sea (see my earlier post regarding submarine strength).
Looked like Trump had really stepped in it last night, but now it’s looking like the whole thing was a bit of kayfabe. No US casualties, and the attack was well-telegraphed. Trump says the US won’t retaliate militarily but announces new sanctions. Iran says they’re done retaliating (which I assume only means directly).
Given this, I suspect the lack of US missile defenses was deliberate, either to let the missiles hit and give the Iranians their face-saving gesture, or more likely to deny Iran (and anyone else watching) intelligence on the defenses
As for the flight, some Iranians on air defense probably panicked and shot it down themselves. Wouldn’t be the first time such a thing happened; the US shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988. They’ll blame the US and Israel probably, but that’s just standard procedure.
I find this hard to believe. We’ve been in quasi-war with Iran for almost 2 decades now and whatever negative feelings politicians have towards Iran I guarantee your average military leader has those feelings 2x. Mattis was not alone in his antipathy towards Tehran.
No one trusts Iran enough to let their missiles continue unimpeded towards a base containing a few thousand US servicemen just on the strength of Iran’s word that they’re going to be intentional misses just so they can save face. Any diplomat/intel weenie that tried to even propose that idea would be laughed out of the briefing room.
I think “failure of the system” is way more likely than “we decided to trust Iran that the weapons flying towards us were actually safe.”
Good for Iran. They shouldn’t bow to US aggression and flagrant violations of international law.
Scott’s post about AI reminded me of a post I was planning to make after the holidays:
Over the holidays, I had the chance to spend some time with my extended family, and noticed a few interesting things about my 3-year-old nephew’s behavior:
1. He’d sometimes greet me with “Hi, Uncle Beleester and Aunt Wifename!”, even if my wife isn’t present. Or occasionally greeting my wife as “Uncle Beleester” and me as “Aunt Wifename.” He’s learned that he should say hi to family members when he sees them, but since my wife and I usually show up together, he hasn’t quite realized that one part of the phrase refers to me and the other refers to my wife.
2. Routine and sequencing is really important, and breaking that routine results in crying. And it can be minor things, like how you put the food on his plate or when you give him his water. Even if we’re doing the same steps in a different order, he doesn’t know that, he just knows that there’s a certain way that dinnertime is supposed to go, and if things aren’t happening in that order then something is terribly wrong. Hence, crying and screaming.
Anyway, it reminded me of the discussion about AIs and whether they “really understand” the problem they’re solving or are just pattern-matching based off past experiences, and the way that they tend to break down when presented with situations that don’t fit a pattern they’ve learned. Well… I’m not saying that AIs seem to learn the same way that little kids do, I’m just saying they feel surprisingly similar!
Chinese Room.
I recently went to the mall to buy new clothes for the first time in many years, and I got a sense of how the major department stores rank in terms of clothing quality/price. For those of you familiar with clothes retailers, how accurate is my ranking scheme?
Walmart < Sears < J.C. Penney < Macy's < Lord & Taylor < Nordstrom's
@proyas,
I’m not familiar at all with Lord & Taylor, but otherwise your rankings look pretty accurate, though I’ll note that J.C Penny and Sears seem only marginally different to me, as are Macy’s and Nordstrom.
From my own shopping I’d add to the list Target as in-between Wal-Mart and Sears (closer to Wal-Mart).
Nordstrom is definitely a step up from Macy’s both in quality (“fashion”) and in price. I guess maybe that could be a regional thing. I would probably expect to spend close to 1.5-2x at Nordstrom compared to a similar shopping trip at Macy’s.
Seconded about Lord & Taylor, which I am just now hearing about for the first time.
May I humbly ask to add Gap and Banana Republic to the question? (My own estimate is that the former is just below Macy’s and the latter is somewhere above)
I’m not sure Gap is any better than JC Penny or Sears, it might be a little lower. I guess it depends on what you’re looking for (for casual wear like jeans/t-shirts/cargo pants Gap is probably better, for anything with buttons it probably lags behind those two). Banana Republic isn’t really the same kind of thing as any of the others, IMO, but is probably as nice or nicer than Nordstrom but catering to a more specific type of style.
I was thinking of Old Navy not Gap, which I realized when reading @JustToSay below. Gap probably does tend to be slightly below Macy’s and above JC Penny/Sears in terms of the typical/most prominent brands at those stores compared to the Gap brand.
Yeah, I feel like if you bring Gap or Banana Republic into things, you’re mixing categories. Gap, Banana Republic, H&M, Loft, New York & Co, etc, are all stores that sell their own brand (almost) exclusively. Sears, Macy’s, Penny’s, Nordstrom’s, etc are all department stores selling a variety of brands (even if they do have some house brands).
Reading this comment made me realize that I was thinking about Old Navy when commenting on the Gap. Agree that Gap doesn’t really fit in either (at that point you would need to get into specific brands and compare Gap to, say, Nautica or whatever). I actually do think Old Navy kind of fits though, even though nobody brought it up. It is kind of like a department store but just only one brand.
Why did I get confused on this? File it under “places my mom made me try on clothes when I was a little kid”.
In my experience, Lands End (which you can get at Sears) is better and more expensive than JC Penney for men’s dress clothing.
Sears still exists? Who knew?
Weird request, but does anyone have a recommendation on a non alcoholic, non-sugary, carbonated drink where the primary taste profile is bitter? I’m doing a dry january and I’m trying to find a good substitute for my normal West Coast Style IPA with dinner. For whatever reason, I really enjoy this taste profile in a drink and can’t seem to find non-alcoholic analogs.
I’ve tried a couple of the well-reviewed NA IPAs (athletic, brewdog, etc) and they’re fine, I guess, but not quite what I’m looking for – NA beers seem to trade the “warm” flavor of alcohol for a kind of malty-sweetness on the backend which I don’t find appealing. I’ve also tried those Italian bitter sodas but again found them far too sweet.
Have you tried flavored sparkling water? Like Perrier’s carbonated water with grapefruit flavor?
https://www.bestproducts.com/eats/drinks/g1888/best-sparkling-water-seltzer/
I have, and I love this stuff, but that for me is more on the fruity-citrusy side of the palate as opposed to the bitter stuff I’m looking for.
Kombucha?
This came to mind, but isn’t kombucha sugary? It’s also slightly alcoholic.
Kombucha does contain sugar, but I would not call unflavored Kombucha sweet. However, store bought Kombucha probably has added flavoring that might make it taste sweeter than it normally does. Also the alcoholic content is so small as to not matter practically.
However, the taste profile is different from an IPA and it isn’t exactly bitter.
Tonic water?
And other tonicy stuff like bitter lemon.
(there’s a bit of sugar there, though)
And if you want to put a hat on a hat, add bitters to your tonic.
A bit of better bitters makes your bitter beverage, uh, good.
Seltzer–grapefruit, lime.
My general substitute is not carbonated – put a squeezed half a lemon (peel grated off with a microplane first is even better) in a glass of water and let it sit on the counter for a few hours–slightly tart and distinctly bitter. Maybe use 2 lemon halves and mix half and half with seltzer. Note these are squeezed–the goal is bitterness from the peel, not tartness from the juice.
What about black tea without sugar? It doesn’t taste much like beer, but neither do the other options suggested. You can make it cold if you want, or add some spices, although I’ve never seen both done at the same time.
For more beer-like (almost) non-alcoholic drink I would suggest kvass, but unfortunately the only source of non-sugary kvass known to me in the whole wide world is my grandmother. Although you can try making your own if you’re into it.
Ginger beer? (The proper stuff, non-alcoholic and with very little sugar.) It’s not exactly bitter, more, well, gingery. But it satisfies a lot of the same masochistic tendencies that IPAs do, in my experience (I love both, though I haven’t had ginger beer for a while).
I’ll check it out! I admit, I’ve had ginger beer in the same category as commercially available root beer for a while, basically soda with a slightly different syrupy taste, but I’ll definitely check out some of the better ginger beers. Do you have any recommendations?
Bundaberg or D&G – but both are fairly high in sugar.
Fevertree made a billion dollars on nonalcoholic mixers/high quality soft drinks, if you like recommendations from the invisible hand. Their ginger beer is probably the best stuff you’ll be able to find.
Honestly despite having recommended it I don’t have specific recommendations – I haven’t had it frequently enough to remember brands.
If “non-sugary” can include some sugar, what I like to do is pour about 2-4oz of limeade in the bottom of a glass and fill the rest up with grapefruit LaCroix (or generic equivalent).
Granted, that isn’t exactly bitter either. You can also substitute straight lemon or lime juice for the limeade.
Club soda.
Another thing you might consider is mixing bitters with soda water. See if you can walk into a specialty shop that sells them (there’s a cocktail store down the road from me that sells a substantial array of bitterses). If there’s such a store near you, the sales clerks there would probably be able to recommend something.
Logged in to post the same thing – bitters and soda.
Thanks, I’d never considered this.
I’ll admit, I’m pretty un-knowledgeable when it comes to bitters; is there a particular flavor or brand I should ask for?
Start with Angostura if you can stand a little alcohol–you can get them everywhere. (Most people don’t find the alcohol from a few dashes of bitters a problem.) If you really need to avoid alcohol completely, making your own seems to be the way to go, but I’ve never done it.
Angostura is the classic bitters, and what you’ll get in a bar unless you specify something else. They’re perfectly tasty and can be found basically anywhere which sells alcohol. Fee Brothers do an extensive line of flavored ones, most of which are quite good, but you’ll want to experiment before you buy a whole bottle as they’re more expensive + harder to find – I recommend going to a cocktail bar and asking the bartender if you could try a few.
Lagunitas makes a “Hoppy Refresher” that is basically carbonated water and hop extract. It might fit the bill if its distributed near you.
Barring that, I’ve tried to solve the same problem and have not come up with a solution that is better than flavored seltzer.
On the strength of this recommendation I went out and bought some of this stuff yesterday.
Definitely not what I was expecting, but not bad. Thanks for letting me know about it!
Try tonic.
I love alcohol-free beer. I got so used to it that if I drink alcoholic beer, I find myself wondering who might have poured a bit of vodka into the glass.
How many varieties of alcohol-free beer are available in your area? You might have a hard time getting my favourite, but if you don’t like malty bitterness, it’s probably just as well. Try some pilsener variants.
So far I’ve been able to locate most of the NA beers I’ve looked for. My favorites so far have been atheltic IPA and Nanny State IPA; if I had to rate them they’d be just above some of the worse mass-produced IPAs (Rebel and Goose Island) but far below a good craft IPA.
What’s the caffeine content from this?
What with my coffee addiction, I’m already pretty much maxed out on the amount of caffeine I want to consume; especially later on in the day.
The US currently has some 64,000 soldiers stationed in Europe, over half of them in Germany. What’s the thinking on this in Europe? Is this something that should be continued long-term, or phased out?
Best I can figure, having those troops there made a lot of sense during the Cold War. But I don’t really see that it makes a lot of sense now. France, the UK, Germany, and Italy should have easily enough military power to keep Russia and assorted bad guys in the Middle East from causing problems. It also seems a bit odd that the Europeans are so willing to accept large-scale foreign military deployments in their countries.
I’m not certain, but I think there’s a certain level of temper checking with such a force there. No country would ever want to invade any other when the US isn’t just within 24 hours, but within 1 hour. The US isn’t likely to bomb anywhere that they have troops. To a certain extent, the US troops there might be what made the EU possible (even if that’s no longer the case). Yes, assorted European powers might have the military to keep problems from happening, but they aren’t coordinated like the American forces are, where if anything happens, there are many times more where those guys came from.
As a rule, whenever the US tries to move those troops to more relevant places, the locals object for the same reasons that the US towns object to military bases getting closed down.
As far as I could tell from graffiti, the left in Germany wants to phase it out, and considers the prescence of US troops to be unconstitutional. Especially Ramstein airbase.
It’s easy to spot US personnel because no German drives a dodge pickup.
The power of the British, French and Italian forces (let’s not talk about the Bundeswehr) combined might be enough to stop Russia. But it won’t be combined and an inferior force will be able to defeat an EU coalition in detail before political, doctrinal, language etc. barriers are overcome.
It’s not an EU coalition that Russia is facing, it’s a NATO coalition. NATO has spent almost three-quarters of a century working on eliminating the doctrinal and language barriers. Political might be a bigger problem.
Just to put some figures on this, Russia and France spend about the same amounts on their militaries, $60 billion each per year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
The UK and Germany are each about $10 billion below that.
Pretty much.
The Russian military is pretty good, and they might even punch a bit above their weight compared to cost, but they aren’t the Soviet military in terms of massive conventional superiority anymore.
Except that the Russians are paying rubles, not dollars, and the French are paying in also-not-dollar euros, and most of their respective defense budgets are not spent in the international market where dollar exchange rates are appropriate.
Adjusted by purchasing power parity, Russia’s defense spending is roughly $160 billion to France’s $70 billion. That France pays its soldiers twice as much as Russia, doesn’t make them twice as effective.
An analysis I heard that stuck with me is that, in the event of a European-Russian war, Russia would have strong initial successes due to a lot more recent real war experience, but then its logistics and material shortcommings would get in the way of a prolongued conflict and even the French army alone would then be able to turn the tide and repeal Russian forces.
So, Germany is home to America’s European Command (EUCOM) and our Africa Command (AFRICOM). COCOMs don’t really need to be located in the area they’re responsible for, hence CENTCOM being in Florida, but it doesn’t hurt. Stuff like making it more accessible to locals and being on a shared time zone is probably useful.
The kind of work done by the COCOMs is work that would otherwise be done somewhere else; so you’re not saving effort by moving these people, just changing where the same job gets done. I’m sure there are some make-work billets over there (just like everywhere else) that only exist because they want a certain amount of warm bodies, but the vast majority are doing work that would still have to be done if they were somewhere else.
It depends on what you mean. Preventing them from causing problems? Yes. Actually resisting significant military activity, no. You’d need all of NATO for that, and for NATO to matter you need american skin in the game. That necessitates in some kind of troop presence there.
Under America 2020, yes. Under most previous iterations of america, not really. It lets them spend as little as they want on their defense funding and know that their security won’t be adversely affected. It also is great for the local economy and, stereotypes aside, Europeans in general and Germans in particular kinda don’t mind having Yankees around.
In terms of forces based in Europe, there’s essentially a division of combat troops, mostly built around the 2nd Cavalry Regiment (Stryker BCT) and 173rd Airborne Brigade. Technically, they’re under 7th Army Training Command instead of a division HQ, but I suspect that’s a political pretense. (It worked well enough to fool me the last time I looked into this.) That, along with USAFEUR and the like, probably accounts for half or more of the 64,000 involved. The rest are doing things like running EUCOM that fall into a rather different category.
Spain likes the bases for the economically uplifting activities it brings, but when the bases are used for actual military purposes (bombing Syria from Rota without informing the Spaniards), they complain.
There is also quite a bit of discomfort whenever the US Navy goes to Gibraltar or does stuff there, as the waters are disputed.
The extension of the bases was a bit controversial, but considering what goes for controversial now, it’s not really.
I see why the Rota Naval base makes sense, the Gibraltar strait being so important for shipping and all that. But I’m not sure what’s the point of the Moron air base, really, although that one’s much smaller.
People are also unhappy over the US using the Bardenas air force shooting range, although it’s not specifically for anti-US reasons; they would rather not have an air force shooting range, period (although the USAF actually uses it more than Spain).
Why not? If nothing else, it makes it obvious that we live in a NATO world and that’s a very good thing.
Not sure if that’s been mentioned here, but having bases in Europe isn’t just a deterrent or an administrative hub – it allows US to project power easier. Without them you waste fuel and time. And where else would they place them? Africa? Middle East? Europe just makes sense.
So removing them would hurt US, and keeping them is good for everybody. Sure, you can make an argument that sovereignty etc, but that’s exactly the kind of world I don’t want to live in anymore.
NATO is a tool of western imperialism and a ultimately destabilising force.
Were there more wars between Great Powers before or after NATO?
NATO wasn’t necessary for that. Let’s not forget that NATO started a war on Eastern Europe and Libya.
@An Fírinne
For what? I just asserted that there were fewer wars between Great Powers after NATO. That’s a fact.
I have not said that NATO isn’t aggressive. I actually think they are. Since I’m a nationalist, this doesn’t bother me at all, other than their aggression being stupid instead of in favor of American interests.
*shrug* I’m (barely) in the western world so… good?
But seriously, how is NATO a destabilizing force? The way I see it (far from being an expert) is that it’s half a pact committing all members to protect any member from attack, and half the logistics and necessary to make this easier – and conflict between members extremely unlikely. Nothing I dislike here.
I guess it could trigger a domino effect at some point, but it’s a threat on the order of magnitude of mutually assured destruction in the cold war, and that ended up working out ok, with a lot more on the line and much more nervous fingers on the trigger.
See Yugoslavia and Libya. NATO is aggressive and not some self defence association.
@An Fírinne
I like Serbs. I was born a stone throw away, across the Danube, watched Serbian television, chewed Serbian bubblegum. But as far as I know, they simply tried to hold on to their small empire when the other artificial constructs around were starting to break up, and it got bloody. Very bloody. I don’t know if NATO could have handled things better – my info on the subject is really limited. But from what I know, I have a moderate feeling of pride and security that they intervened. There is no country , even in Europe, that is 100% immune to dirty wars and ethnic cleansing. It’s good to know they exist and will meddle.
So, unlike the stabilizing force of Russian imperialism?
What exactly do you expect Russia to do ? Russia is engaging in nationalistic irredentism. Its only annexing Russian speaking regions, as it is justified in doing.
I find it ironic that Americans act like Russians are the expansionist ones when America has colonies like Guam, Guantanomo Bay, Hawaii, Puerto Rico etc and install puppet governments all around the world.
So then do you think the US was justified in the absorption of Texas and the two wars that it entailed?
Or Canada, which is of course, majority English speaking.
Canadians have a different culture. Ethnic Russians in Ukraine, and the Baltics are no different to the ones on the RF.
What kind of political theory states that when you are invaded by an empire, and subjected to population replacement as russian filth are moved in to your cities and your own people mysteriously disappear in huge numbers, then that empire collapses under the weight of its own evil, that that area inhabited by those russians then becomes rightful russian land? You people think you’re so smart but you just come off as insane. No wonder existential threats get no play with the public if you’re the people cheerleading for them.
No, we dont. French-canadians do, a little bit, but the cultural distance between New York and Toronto is far shorter than the cultural distance than between New York and Nashville.
@jermo sapiens
Good followup. Was the United States justified in its imperialist conquest of the culturally different Confederate States of America?
If you hold that government authority comes from the consent of the governed, and the governed do not consent to being ruled by any country except Russia, then it follows that no government except the Russian has the authority to rule them. That remains the case regardless of whether the territory in question used to belong to Russia.
(Though I’m not sure An Firinne would endorse this view, since he’s on record as saying that Northern Ireland ought to be ruled from Dublin, regardless of the local inhabitants’ wishes.)
Then again, ‘consent of the people’ leaves open the ‘settlement’ loophole, where the government helps import a new people. See: NI, the West Bank, probably some of the USSR, not sure about the US and its
coloniesterritories. (probably not mexicans entering the US, before anyone asks.)That’s a very complicated question which I dont feel qualified to answer. I think it was justified in some aspects (preserving the union is a legitimate goal, as is abolishing slavery next door). But I also read some convincing arguments that the south was going to abolish slavery on its own if it were left to its own devices (dont know how true that is), and that the way slavery was abolished was harmful to many (including prior slaves). And I am sympathetic to the view that the people of the south should not be ruled by the north.
The cost of the war was enormous (600,000 dead). So it would take a massive benefit to justify it. The freedom of every black american today would certain be enough to justify it, but that leaves the unanswered question of whether they could have had this freedom otherwise.
@jermo sapiens
More directed at @An Fírinne than you.
I don’t think it was justified, and I’ve argued before that slavery was ending everywhere in the world peacefully and was likely to do so in the South as well, although obviously not as quickly as after the war.
Just trying to get an idea of where he thinks the allowable boundaries of reconquest versus imperialism are since he originally said language, but then retreated to culture.
@EchoChaos,
In my stunningly humble opinion the North was justified in the American Civil War because without it it’s less likely that there would be Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen’s in California and justice demands that I get my chicken sandwich (so tasty)!
Having said that war or slavery in general is a tough call (I’m reminded of another “hot button” issue that at its core is murder or slavery).
How much war?
How much slavery?
Americans are (I think justly) proud of our Republics efforts against first Right totalitarian tyranny and then Left totalitarian tyranny, but enough crusades/wars-of-liberation/Wilsonism is a recipe for endless war.
@ Lambert:
Yes, I think that’s one of the flaws of consent-of-the-people theory.
(Though I also think that after some period it’s more reasonable to think of the new people as natives rather than incomers. Like, yes, it was unjust for the earlier US settlers to dispossess the Indians the way they did, but I’d be dead against any modern calls to kick their descendants out and replace them with the descendants of the Indians. Ditto with Northern Ireland and Israel [though not necessarily the West Bank].)
@Plumber
Finally a justification I can accept!
@Mr X
I don’t know whether you did it intentionally, but I spoke of land and you spoke of people. I don’t claim that Estonia obliges the russians in the same way it obliges Estonians; nor should it want to. They just have to go back.
Hell, let’s go full Godwin and bring up the Sudetenland.
That was justified also.
Well, at least you’re fully committed to this bit.
Why wouldn’t they be justified? It’s German land and the people living their were German. There’s a reason the inhabitants were called Sudeten Germans and not Sudeten Czechoslovaks.
@An Firinne
I’ve heard some claim that the Sudeten mountains only became german after they were depopulated from the Hussite Wars, which although being a religious conflict, involved predominantly germans fighting agressing against predominantly Czech
I’m on the fence about Irridentism; A precedent for not returning seized territory means that the spoils of war are treated as guarantee. The counter-argument is that even seemingly long-standing territorial claims probably involved some form of ethnic cleansing in the past. You also don’t want to promote the idea that the only way to legitimately hold onto a territory is to thoroughly eradicate past inhabitants.
The other issue about irridentism is it makes immigration necessarily an act of war and foreigners necessarily enemy agents (even if they don’t want to be. Since there mere presence in an area gives foreign powers cassus belli)
What fraction of the population was German? Does every sub-unit of every country have the right to be “rescued” from “oppression” based on someone’s definition of culture? What percentage must be of the “oppressed” culture? 50%? 75%? 90%?
For example, Putin, in addition to literally invading Ukraine, is trying to push Belorus into union, which its leadership doesn’t want (it would cut off their graft). Is that okay? Belorus is Russian-speaking and culturally Russian. What about the Baltic states? Putin seems just as interested in grabbing them, but the number of Russian-speakers is smaller and the culture(s) of the Baltics are different. What about English-speakers in Cameroon? Should the more English-aligned nation of Nigeria “rescue” them?
Germans were forcibly expelled from many parts of Eastern Europe after WW2. Would their descendants be justified in reconquering or re-populating those areas today? Is your rule that once you’ve been expelled you are out of luck? Does that rule also apply to Palestinians? Or does your rule only hold when the “oppressed” still live where they have traditionally lived? What’s the minimum time they have to have lived there for their “culture” to permit a larger entity to legitimately “rescue” them?
The old rule was the best: no boundary changes without the consent of all parties.
What you basically are proposing as an alternative is a recipe for international adventurism on a grand scale, massive displacement of people based on their ethnicity, and war after war almost everywhere.
@RalMirrorAd
I don’t know about the Sudetenland, but Pomerania (Western Poland) was very German until the expulsion of the Germans after WW2. One of the most interesting historical documents I’ve seen was the township-by-township census maps from the post-WW1 division between Poland and Germany (in which Pomerania stayed part of Germany–“part of Germany” was defined as “majority German-speaking” if I recall correctly).
Do you think Britain should have had interfered with that?
Yes.
Why? Texas was not populated by people of American culture at the time, except for a small minority.
@FormerRanger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Texas
This is not correct. Anglos were the majority of the area when Texas declared independence.
Mexicans in fact several times tried to restrict American immigration because this was the expected outcome of it.
This is my understanding as well. Mexicans weren’t particularly drawn to Texas, but Anglo-Americans were. The Mexican government (understanding that demographics is destiny) was, (correctly in hindsight) quite concerned that this would lead to revolution and/or annexation and tried to take various steps to limit American immigration, or attempt to select for and/or instill loyalty to Mexico among American immigrants (one had to at least claim to be Catholic, for instance). It didn’t work.
Perhaps some of this might be relevant to us, today!
@Matt M
Those who don’t learn from history will have absolutely nothing bad happen to them because our current liberal order is perfect.
FWIW, expansionism is waaaay more popular among the general public in Russia than in America. In fact, I’m yet to see a single American publicly drooling over annexing Canada, reconquering Berlin and raising the star spangled banner over the Kremlin, whether online or in person. In Russia such (that is, symmetrical) fantasies are not ubiquitous, but depressingly easy to find.
@AlexOfUrals >
I’ve seen a few ask for their area to be annexed by Canada, and I imagine other Americans in other areas responding “That sounds great, don’t let the door hit ya!”, which (unlike a 150 years ago) is now often a response to talk of secession, whether “Calexit” or “Texit“.
Right, when I said symmetrical I should’ve said “both” actually. There’s even this petition on change.org – it’s in Russian, but the map doesn’t require translation. And a few months ago citizens of some small town in Siberia collectively asked Trudeau to accept them as refugees.
Except as I said Americans support annexing and expanding into Hawaii, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam etc.
It is pretty much by definition not an expansion if they are already parts of the US. Not to mention that one of these positions rests largely on the status quo bias, while another is advocating for a global war (as opposed to whatever legal status change some people might be advocating for the regions you’ve listed).
The ethnic Americans in Hawaii wanted it though.
You’re playing semantics and it’s not a good look.
What on earth? Nobody is advocating for a global war. Who specifically is doing that?
Hey, Scott. I’ve just stepped into the admin role at the SSC Discord server – deluks stepped down. I notice that the Discord server link you’ve got currently is an expired invite from before the Z thing. Here’s a new one – would you put this on the site on the sidebar and in future open threads? Thank you. https://discord.gg/kAVSf9U
Reported just to bring to Scott’s attention, not because anything’s wrong with it.
This seems ominous and interesting. Can anyone provide any context about the Zed Event?
We don’t talk about the Zed Event, it makes Them angry.
It’s that time again for the first time: Super short hilarious Bible study of limited theological value with GearRatio!
The book of Ruth is an old testament book of intense popularity, partly because it has themes of noble behavior, self sacrifice, and difficult times working out in the end but mostly because it’s very short; you can read the whole thing cover-to-cover in about five minutes. Most of the other short old testament books involve prophets yelling at the Jewish people for being disobedient, while Ruth is a fun little narrative about filial piety that, in the 90’s, was probably the only thing more popular and universal with homeschooled christian girls than foot-long plastic models of beautiful galloping mares.
The story of Ruth begins with a Jewish couple immigrating in a time of Israeli famine to Moab, a decidedly non-Jewish country. The husband dies, leaving his Wife Naomi with only her two sons to take care of her. They both get married then promptly die themselves. Naomi urges both of her daughters-in-law to seek new lives and husbands and to leave her alone to fend for herself.
In the usual ancient world scenario, Naomi is now set up to starve to death. But while one of her daughters-in-law promptly abandons her, the other loves her enough to abandon her country and religion to follow her and take care of her and relays this with one of the more bad-ass female-spoken statements in the Bible:
So they travel back to Israel together, and the Barley harvest is on. At the time it was customary to not pick the field particularly clean so that there would be some left for poor people to come in and scrape up. Ruth goes to a field to do this so she can provide some level of food for herself and Naomi. While she’s there, the owner of the field walks up and tells her, paraphrased: “Listen, don’t go to any other fields. I’ve told my workers not to mess with you, and you can do your thing here safely. If you get thirsty, drink from the water they draw. It’s safer and better for you here”. Ruth asks him why he’s being nice, and he says this:
Note that this is Boaz appropriately noting that what Ruth did was really nice; she’s sacrificed a lot to take care of an old lady; she still might starve to death. She has no protection and she’s in a foreign land with a foreign culture; the only reason she’s not in danger of getting raped for trying to eat is that she’s being protected. She’s done a tremendous thing, and Boaz notices.
Later on Boaz makes sure there’s some extra grain left out for Ruth; he gives her extra food at mealtimes, too. Ruth relays this to Naomi, who reveals that Boaz is sorta related to her in a way where he is supposed to take care of them in times of great trouble. After some time passes, Naomi smells opportunity for Ruth and tells her this:
There are some more liberal interpreters who say that this “laying at the feet” business is a euphemism for a blowjob; this is questionable but possible. Virtually everybody agrees, though, that to a major extent Ruth’s purpose is to signal that she’s sexually available in a way Boaz can’t ignore or misinterpret. Here comes the great part!
Boaz has, as you remember, previously acknowledged that Ruth did a hell of a fucking thing for her mother-in-law. She went above and beyond; she put herself in danger, she changed religions and dedicated her entire life to the safety of a woman she had no blood relation to who told her it would be perfectly fine to abandon her. Boaz knows she did this, and Boaz also belongs to a society in which filial honor and service are, at the very least, a top-three contender on the list of virtues. But now Ruth has made herself sexually available to him, so Boaz says this:
Or, paraphrased:
This is such a genuine certain-kind-of-dude confronted with sex reaction, and it cracks me up, and will never stop cracking me up.
This has been super short hilarious Bible study of limited theological value with GearRatio.
I must ask–did you ever read David Plotz,Blogging the Bible? Because this totally reminds me of “Samson, the original dumb jock“.
Edited to add links.
I am not familiar with him. I do have a Samson bit I do at church sometimes though.
Speaking of Samson, my tongue-in-cheek theory for why he was so strong was that his mother was told not to drink during her pregnancy, so he was the only one around without fetal alcohol syndrome.
Why, then, was he such an idiot? Guess he just lost the genetic lottery there.
@Noah: Cool, now we have people from the Bible doing Biblical criticism!
The book of Ruth ends with the genealogy of King David. Interestingly, Ruth is but one of 3 cases (the other two are Tamar and Rahab) of exogamy in the span of the family tree presented—normally I’d expect concerns over dynastic prestige/legitimacy to provide an incentive to cover up marriages to non-noble foreigners. The honourable way in which Boaz responds to Ruth’s sexual availability makes a fine contrast to how Tamar was treated.
In my house the only thing more popular than models of galloping mares are more models of galloping mares.
Ruth is really one of the most feel good stories in the Bible.
You know how they make those movies based on Shakespeare which take place in the modern world?(such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_%2B_Juliet) They should do the same for the stories of the Bible, except taking place in a modern trailer park.
I’ve said the same about greek myths.
There have been a couple takes on the Trojan War as a college frat feud.
A bizarre mashup of Jason and the Argonauts with The Wizard of Oz in a vaguely modern setting (a la The Wiz or Tin Man) would be hilarious.
Slightly CW, but modern interpretations of the Nativity have become popular recently, as a gotcha against certain sentiments.
Netflix just put out an original drama about a man claiming to be the Second Coming of Christ, and the ambiguity around if he really is. (I wanna see this premise done with King Arthur!)
There is, of course, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar, featuring some very dated slang (“what’s the buzz”) to connote being hip and and modern.
There’s the TV show Kings, which made Goliath into a tank.
I want to see the opposite direction, though. The book of Revelations done as a period piece! 6 seasons and a movie, where every season is just the same events played out, but in a different period/location, regardless of if it’s hilariously set before Jesus’s time or not. Imagine the hilarity of, like, Shang-era wuxia Revelations.
Yeah, no. The literal meaning of the words is already flirtatious dominance/submission stuff.
Ruth 3:4-8, ESV:
“But when he lies down, observe the place where he lies. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down, and he will tell you what to do.’ And she replied, ‘All that you say I will do.’ So she went down to the threshing floor and did just as her mother-in-law had commanded her. And when Boaz had eaten and drunk, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the end of the heap of grain. Then she came softly and uncovered his feet and lay down. At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet!”
Now you can say that “feet” was a euphemism for “genitals” in Hebrew, but that wouldn’t make it the only meaning of the word. Surely when God tells Moses “remove thy sandals from thy feet”, we’re not to understand that ancient Jews walked around with a pair of sandals on their penis.
Further, the author could easily have said (at 3:8) “behold, a woman was on his feet” or “behold, a woman’s head…” if that’s what they were trying to convey. It doesn’t make physical sense for her to be doing anything but lay sleeping next to him in a flirtatious way.
I think you make some jumps here – I.E. since “feet” doesn’t always mean penis, it can’t here, or that if someone was using a euphemism it has to be at some arbitrarily selected clarity level that makes sense to the linguistic sense of a 2020 English speaker. I don’t think either of those follow.
I don’t really buy the blowjob meaning either, for the record; I more-or-less assume she was in a range between “nearly innocently make known that she considers him a prospect” and “sleeps with him”. I don’t really know enough about Hebrew and ancient Hebrew sensitivities to really accurately parse it – I just wanted to mention the range of interpretation. I think it’s funnier the more chaste way anyway.
The whole “sexual versus not sexual” thing has never seemed like that much of a mystery to me. I think that the meaning of “uncovers his feet” has to be taken in conjunction with Boaz’s injunction to her when she leaves: “Don’t let it be known a woman came to the threshing floor.” That suggests that, no matter what happened, cultural expectation of a woman at a drunken male-only celebration (remember Boaz is sleeping it off here) is that she will be seen as a harlot. It’s like if you have a frat party and one female shows up at the house at midnight and leaves at 2 a.m. – any normal person is going to be guessing “stripper” at best, or “whore.”
This solves the problem pretty neatly, in my opinion. Naomi has recommended a high-risk approach to Ruth – one which puts her reputation at serious risk if Boaz is not inclined to be a good guy. She tempers that risk by telling Ruth to take a chaste approach within an otherwise questionable framework; that is, you go to Boaz in a context where you’re definitely aggressively signaling your interest in marriage (because it’s so high-risk to Ruth’s sexual reputation), but you are also showing that you are not actually sexually immoral, because the “uncover the feet / put your cloak over me” ritual is part of kinsman-redeemer imagery. Bear in mind that Boaz already knows that Ruth is there and that she is single; he has had multiple conversations with her on that exact point by this time in the story. Boaz recognizes the risk she has taken, and acts to protect her reputation. It’s specifically the contrast between the reputationally-dubious night rendezvous and the chaste behavior between the virtuous protagonists that makes that part of the story work at all. If it were really just a blowjob, Boaz (a virtuous man of standing in the community) would not respect that at all; it’s not like the richest man in town would struggle to find a prostitute. He would likely recoil from a tawdry seduction as social-climbing and evidence of poor character. It has to be chaste, or the reactions don’t make literary sense.
Yeah, this. At minimum, she’s literally sleeping with him for a few hours and doing what we modern Westerners would categorize as D/s.
Reputationally, it being known that she was there from dusk to midnight with a drink man would round off to “poor woman turned a trick for money.”
She’s risking a big blow to her reputation, and what exactly she did has to fit Boaz’s reaction of “You seem so virtuous that I’ll marry you if the customs of Israel permit” rather than “here’s the going rate for a blowjob” or #HeToo =O”
@hls2003
I think there’s a lot of assumptions here that may or may not make sense:
We don’t know of Boaz would respect it or not; he certainly didn’t kick her out of bed, although he clearly knows she’s not supposed to be there. Actual men fall in love with strippers; actual men exist who don’t frequent prostitutes for whom a blowjob would be a tremendous event with the potential of making them smitten. One of Boaz’s descendants with slightly more status than Boaz kills a heroic, decent man so he can be freer to bang the man’s wife; the Old testament doesn’t really shy away from this kind of flaw in the “well he’d never!” type of way.
I would argue that, rather than knowing he would do this, we actually know to a pretty substantial degree that he wouldn’t – she came in and put him in an impossibly awkward situation, one where sex would be assumed by any person watching her enter and exit. Her existence in that room was tawdry even without physical contact of any kind, much less with him.
Well, kind of – he has a full conversation with her and has her stay several extra maybe-get-caught hours. To the extent any of that is riskier than a whispered “get out of here before you get caught and we will talk in the morning!”, he’s risking her entire reputation; that second kinsman redeemer can’t quite redeem her nearly as easily if she’s known damaged goods, which she’d be if they caught her there.
The version of this that appeals to me most is “Ruth, who is in a society where the only thing that keeps her from getting raped while she walks around is a rich guy she knows, goes to the rich guy in the middle of the night in a way that would probably have rendered him immune to rape accusations; there she initiates physical contact (probably not sex). She does this to indicate, either through her intent or Naomi’s intent for her, that she’s sexually available to him (at least in the sense of considering him a marriage prospect).
You might say, oh, her intentions were pure and had nothing to do with sex; it doesn’t make sense any other way. But it doesn’t make sense that way – why wouldn’t she approach him during the day and not unnecessarily risk her entire reputation? Why would he immediately mention that he was glad she wasn’t running around after “younger men, whether rich or poor?”.
You might not believe they had sex, but you can’t dodge that she put herself absolutely at his sexual mercy and that sex was a likely outcome for her here – they themselves thought it was the most likely outcome in the eyes of any casual observer.
More importantly she was literally asking him (almost forcing him) for sex, among other things – evoking the guardian-redeemer relationship here means, as we see later in Ruth, necessarily marrying Ruth unless there’s another guardian redeemer around, or the job goes undone. This was, frankly, definitely social-climbing, at least to the extent that invoking a legal relationship that forces or nearly forces a guy to marry you so you don’t starve to death can be considered social-climbing. And it certainly was tawdry – even without the sex, it was something that could immediately scotch both their reputations.
Also, there’s super strong evidence that the spreading the garment thing was understood, at least by Ezekiel, to be a sexual/marital reference here. See 16:7:
In the following section, God then goes on to treat the nation of Israel like a wife until the nation of Israel goes a’whorin.
All that to say I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say “I don’t think they banged”. I think it’s a stretch to go “Ruth got as pretty as she could, put on perfume, snuck up to a drunken sleeping man man, initiated physical contact with him, and informed him she wanted him at the least to execute a legal relationship that necessitated they would have sex later. He then said how happy he was that she didn’t chase after younger dudes. They then spent the rest of the night together, and he immediately took steps to marry her. But there was no sexuality in play, it was perfectly chaste”.
@Le Maistre Chat
But this isn’t what happened – he said “This is great! I’m really stoked. I’m glad you didn’t do whatever this is with other dudes.” And THEN mentions her virtue in a clause connected to being able to do what she wants, because her local reputation permits it:
I think the bit that comes next is the part that makes the blowjob/sex potential the lowest – he says he’s going to give her to the other dude if the other dude who is first in line for guardian-redeeming wants. If they had sex, this at least seems bizarre to my 2020-man eyes if the story is gonna stay a “nice” one, although I have no idea how it would have read to an ancient Jewish guy.
This is a weird discussion because I feel like I’m defending the blowjob version I don’t really believe in, and also because there are people who are SUPER committed to the blowjob version even though they sex, like, literally on the next page.
I’ll start by acknowledging you’re trying to steelman a position you don’t strongly hold, so nothing I’m saying is directed strictly to you, GearRatio, the person. But I think almost all the points raised actually cut the opposite direction you think.
It seems quite clear to me that the hypothesis requiring the most unsupported assumptions is the sexual activity hypothesis, given the text.
The repeated textual evidence we have is that Boaz praises Ruth’s moral character. He never once praises her beauty, her fecundity, or her sexual skill. I submit that it requires a lot of hand-waving to transmute “everyone knows you are of noble character” into “you are great in bed.”
Exactly. This cuts very clearly the opposite way you’re indicating. If Ruth had unlawful carnal relations with Boaz that night, the text certainly doesn’t say it. People have to work hard to try to re-interpret the text (postulating unknown euphemisms, etc.) to make it say that. In comparison, the story of David and Bathsheba straightforwardly describes David watching Bathsheba bathing naked, ordering her to the palace, and laying with her (then killing her husband). Or the story of Tamar – there’s no ambiguity there. She puts on a veil, acts as a prostitute, and Judah hires her and sires a child. There’s no coy guesswork involved. Why would we think that the post-David era story of David’s ancestor would wink-wink-nudge-nudge such a thing while the post-David era story of David himself would flat-out record his adultery and murder? Purely on the textual evidence, this suggests no sex at this point of the Ruth story. It requires unwarranted assumptions to put it in.
I actually sort of agree with this, but again I think it points in the opposite direction from a literary perspective. I’m not saying there’s no “sexual element” to the threshing floor incident – I’m saying that the situation itself is the “sexual element” which contrasts with the clear textual cues that there is no actual sexual activity. That contrast makes the story interesting. Purely on literary grounds, “she goes and sleeps her way to the top” is a less interesting and complex story.
Why would you assume it is riskier? Given that the text specifically mentions the time of her coming and the time of her going, that is textual evidence that the timing was important, most likely because the harvest celebration would still be ongoing earlier, but it would be morning light later on.
That actually isn’t consistent with my understanding of the position of the kinsman-redeemer as presented in the story and elsewhere in the law. Later in Ruth, when the primary kinsman-redeemer is preparing to redeem the property, Boaz reminds him that he acquires Ruth along with the property, since the purpose of the position is to continue Elimelech’s line and provide for the family.
This is more-or-less what I think, and I what I tried to indicate, except that I think it’s textually clear there was no sexual contact at that time. There is a sexual situation, though, or one that would normally be seen as such. Ruth is putting an enormous amount of trust in Boaz (and/or Naomi and the God of Israel who would oversee such things).
This doesn’t make sense to me. She cannot approach him in a “signal marriageability” sense in the daytime because there are constantly other people around. It’s the same reason that you try to get someone alone to propose to them. Ruth is, more or less, proposing to Boaz. That inversion (it should normally have been the other way around) is specifically why the episode is noteworthy, which is why I say that the story makes less sense if you don’t view it that way.
Again, I think this bolsters the point. There are two reasons. First, it puts the focus again on Ruth’s character and not her beauty or sexual prowess. To me, it is quasi-bizarre to claim that the constant focus on Ruth’s good character is consistent with a sexual seduction of Boaz. Second, it once again highlights Ruth’s faithfulness to Naomi, which is one of the keys throughout the story. For Ruth, herself, it would probably be better to find a younger man who can support her for most of her life and ensure that Ruth bears sons who will then care for her if she is widowed. We just saw how devastating it was for Naomi to be alone without husband or sons. In contrast, Boaz is presumably much older and having even one son is not assured (though God ensures it happens). It’s not like modern inheritance rules; seducing and marrying an old codger gets Ruth no money, just a second early widowhood. There’s no pathway to being Anna Nicole Smith. Instead, Boaz as kinsman-redeemer will preserve Naomi’s family line. Naomi gets cared for in the kinsman-redeemer situation, not just Ruth, because Ruth’s son will be counted as a descendant of Elimelech and Naomi. One of the last lines of the book prior to the genealogy is the women of the town telling Naomi that Ruth is better for her than seven sons, and then when Ruth and Boaz do conceive, the child is said to be “Naomi’s.” The last verses:
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When he made love to her [note that the story knows how to say this explicitly], the Lord enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a son. The women said to Naomi: “Praise be to the Lord, who this day has not left you without a guardian-redeemer. May he become famous throughout Israel! He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age. For your daughter-in-law, who loves you and who is better to you than seven sons, has given him birth.”
Then Naomi took the child in her arms and cared for him. The women living there said, “Naomi has a son!” And they named him Obed.
I’m not trying to dodge it – quite the contrary, I’m saying that contrast is specifically the point. It highlights the noble character of both Boaz and Ruth. She relies on God’s law and on Boaz’s part in the law. Boaz upholds the law and commends her for her faithfulness and goodness. It is a sign of God’s law working right for once, which is mighty refreshing after the horrific stories of moral rot in Judges.
Yes, exactly. Again, I rely on this. This is Ruth throwing herself at the mercy of God’s law, as a penniless foreigner, in order to provide for Naomi and herself, and being rewarded.
As noted above, this really isn’t social climbing for Ruth; it is primarily social redemption for Naomi, who is metaphorically reborn into the community of Israel after being cut off. Ruth is commended for this, and she receives her reward from God in the form of a son who will inherit Boaz’s wealth and care for both her and Naomi. If she didn’t have a son, she would likely get nothing, just like Naomi. The text is clear that the Lord enabled them to conceive; that suggests that Boaz was well past his sell-by date, which is why Ruth (selfishly) would have been better-served to propose to a younger man, who could be expected to care for her longer and give her sons to care for her after his death.
Of course. Again, I rely on this. “Spread the corner of your garment” is basically a marriage proposal, asking for protection (which was a huge component of marriage for otherwise helpless women in that time, per Naomi’s situation). It is not a sexual euphemism.
I don’t see why it’s a stretch at all. Again, there is a sexual situation, and a clear marriage proposal by Ruth to Boaz (which is an inversion). What makes the story work is that the sexual situation, isn’t actually a sexual act, because of the noble character of those involved. The text taken as a whole is clear on that, because their faithful character is the primary point of the text. You couldn’t highlight the characters without the contrast.
The whole “must have been sex” position reminds me a bit of the ending of Pride and Prejudice, when Darcy and Elizabeth finally get engaged while on a walk, alone. “They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects.” Being in love and alone, unchaperoned, was certainly rather suspect in that society; should we assume from those two sentences that Darcy and Elizabeth had sex in a hayfield? The absence is even remarked upon by the family: “My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?” was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. “ Obviously we know they are not having sex; there are no textual clues for it, there is subsequent conversation showing what they were talking about, and most of all we know that it is completely against the as-demonstrated character of both. It is an untenable reading in a literary sense. That is my position on the story of Ruth as well. Quite apart from the religious aspect, the story as written does not support the blowjob (or other explicit sexual activity) reading.
Again, none of this is to criticize you, GearRatio, personally, since this is not your primary position. If I were going to Bulverize the hardcore partisans of “must have been a blowjob,” I would suspect that they want to try to import sexual licentiousness into a Biblical story portrayed positively, as some sort of support or apologetic in favor of sexual licentiousness and “sex positivity” in the modern era. But that is only my own prejudice in the matter.
For what it’s worth, the Hebrew has no preposition : it says literally “lay his feet”. However, it’s also missing the usual direct object signifier for a definite object. I don’t know enough biblical Hebrew to make sense of this and obviously preposition vs direct object use and which direct object you use varies between languages
All of this speculation on if Ruth and Boaz did the do under euphemism is such a cold take compared to “Ruth and Naomi were doing the do.”
I’ll buy all the shares of this I can get my hands on.
I’m pretty sure there’s a whole category for this on PornHub.
Would that be lesbian, incest, or famine-ravaged ancient near-Easterners?
I just realized that the plot of the last 2 Jurassic World movies (I don’t know about the original ones) basically follow the plot line of classic AI risk scenarios. Here’s how they go:
Some irresponsible tech company creates a highly intelligent and dangerous entity.
“It’s totally safe!” they assure everyone. “We have it under control, and it’s confined in this giant box!”
Soon enough, the entity tricks someone into letting it out of the box, then runs around killing pretty much everyone in its path with zero resistance.
http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
The original Jurassic Park has the creatures getting out of the box because a rival corporation wanted to steal them and bribed the employee who ran the security systems. Which… yeah, that would work for the AI scenario too.
Original books by Michael Crichton were heavy on how biological system are non-linear and thus impossible to keep in boxes. Including math and fractals. They are right, too, I don’t think there’s ever been an escape-proof zoo (or jail, for that matter).
I guess it can be applied equally well to an AI that got to be complex enough.
People of SSC,
Congratulations! You are now the personal physician of an benevolent billionaire dictator, who is in the midst of consolidating his power. He does not care about your credentials; what he cares about is that he controls utterly everything you know and love, and will resort to any means to force you to do as he pleases for the sake of his health. He has approximately forty others who are of equal or higher intelligence as you in exactly your position and you can’t communicate with them, and he compares all of your care plans so if you try to pull one over on him by poisoning him or just giving bad advice he will almost definitely know.
Your first task: the dictator has a big speech coming up in 96 hours to help him cement support from his base (who thinks he is God incarnate). However, he has a bit of upper respiratory congestion that leads to occasional sniffling and coughing. Not wanting to appear mortal in front of the crowd, what advice do you give to him to guarantee at least two full hours of zero apparent sickness? Assume he is willing to otherwise become slightly more ill or prolong his illness — all that matters is those two hours.
96 hours is a long time; if it doesn’t go away on its own, prednisone.
96 hours is also enough time for it to get significantly worse. You’re going to take the chance he coughs enough to become hoarse in the meantime?
Anything you would do to reduce symptoms 96 hours in advance would be more likely to make it worse than doing nothing. Just fluids and rest. Start worrying about hammering symptoms with steriods at 72 hours. Spike his glass of water (or horn of ale or whatever his type of god drinks) with menthol, honey, and lemon during the speech. I’d worry that any paralytic agents used to elimate the cough reflex would harm his ability to speak. But really if he needs to sound perfect and god-like, he really should be lip syncing a digitally enhanced speech anyway, so maybe paralyzing the vocal cords and glottis are a good idea.
The morning of the speech, have him take a standard 12-hour time-release dose of expectorant and cough suppressant and a 12-24 hour dose of non-drowsy antihistimine (claritin, allegra, or similar).
About an hour before the speech, have him take 5-10mg of adderall. Adderall is a decongestant (same mechanism of action as sudafed), and its more common therapeutic benefit as a stimulant should also counteract any minor-to-moderate fatigue he’s suffering from the cold.
900 mg NAC as a mucus thinner and a reasonably strong dose of the stimulant of his preference both ~ 2 hours in advance. A warm honey/lemon drink, silence, and warm humid air for a few minutes before speaking to temporarily alleviate his cough.
My respiratory pharm text says that, in spite of its prevalence, NAC has not been shown to treat any lung disease. Is it useful for strictly upper respiratory crap? RTs on my FB group seem to agree that it mostly causes bronchospasm.
NAC is more targeting symptoms than treating a disease in this case. We are not trying to make him well, just functional. And having thinner mucus makes it much easier to function with congestion.
uh…
Benevolent to everyone except disobedient medical advice slaves. Consider him a utility monster in this regard.
Of course, that only makes sense if you are a utilitarian. But I suppose the setup is really just an excuse to ask the medical problem.
As he is vicious and many meds for those symptoms are unreliable, the best course is to pass the buck. Consult with an army of nurses and respiratory therapists to dilute blame. With forty other doctors throwing advice at him, the outcome is effectively out of your hands.
Uh, Supreme Leader, have you tried turning yourself off and on again? I have no medical education whatsoever. Why is this even my job?
Wrong condition. You do that for supra-ventricular tachycardia. Usually the heart restarts. Usually.
afrin is quite effective but causes significant rebound and dependence ( non medical advice based on personal experience)
Record the speech in advance, just in case. Do multiple tries and edit them together into a speech with no sniffling or coughing. Put a great big screen behind the podium showing a picture of your face, Big Brother style. You’ll probably be fine four days from now, but if not, just walk up and stand there and play the prerecorded video.
In the meantime, try asking an actual physician, surely with your billions of dollars you can afford a visit to urgent care.
Sometimes I take Mucinex for congestion, you might try that.
Compare with the simlar question asked in a recent open thread: “https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/08/open-thread-142-5/#comment-827664”
The folly of base 10 and metric was made so painfully clear to me this week. I bought an immersion blender to make hummus/tahini, and the mixing cup that came with it had fluid ounces marked on the side…in increments of five. “What the fuck is this shit,” indeed.
This is folly.
And for all of you making noises about “mL in increments of 100,” be silent. You are all actually still estimating the distance between the marks in halves and fourths, no matter, that you call them substitutions as 50s and 25s, and that your thirds are irrational is the clear proof of base 10’s inferiority.
Make me the supreme leader of the world, and I will dump money into genetic engineering so that all humans henceforth will have 6 fingers and toes, all systems will be base 12, and we will no longer bother with nonsense primes above 3.
Cooking is one of the areas where I find the metric system horribly lacking and all defenders seem, to me, to be deluding themselves. While the imperial system with its dozen different units may be confusing, the precision and logic to it once grasped easily makes recipes work in orders of magnitude that I can easily relate to, no matter how large or small the meal is.
Wait, what? Which precision? Which logic? Where? How?
I’m genuinely confused here – where exactly is the imperial system more precise in cooking than metric is?
1 Teaspoon is far easier to work with than, for example, 1.47 grams. Sure, 1.47 grams is a more precise measurement, but it’s far less attainable in the kitchen.
Maybe precision is the wrong word, the metric quickly becomes numbers that are not easy to use, while Imperial does not succumb to that flaw.
Metric teaspoons exist, too. I have a bunch of stackable spoons for cookery exactly because I like measuring things precisely.
… oh, for. one of those things is an extremely inexact measure of volume, the other is a lab-quality-scale measure of mass. Of course the first is easier. What is a teasponfull? The volume contained when you scrape off the excess with a knife to leave the spoon full with no overflow? The quantity you get when you scoop and let excess run off leaving a neat pile exactly not overflowing the spoon? One of these contains 3 times what the other does. And which it is depends on who wrote the damn recipie! What make of spoon?
A proper metric equivalent would be a measure of centi-liters. Which admittedly I can only recall seeing in recipies from experimental / commercial kitchens, where people actually care about replicating a recipie exactly, most people not keeping a graduated cylinder on their kitchen counter, filthy casual cooks that they are. Though I do, in fact, have a stupidly exact scale in my kitchen. It helps with getting actually consistent results when baking.
But I don’t see why it would be any easier to work with than 5 milliliters (pronounced “em-el” or “see-see”, so the syllable count is even the same”).
Apples to apples, please – if the imperial recipe calls for a volume measure rounded to the nearest whole measure, then the metric recipe will do the same. Grab the appropriate little measuring spoon and be done with it. Or try to explain why it is harder in the one case than the other.
The former, as any baker working in customary measurements will tell you. Unless it says “heaping teaspoon”, in which case it’s the latter, but you won’t find that in a recipe that needs precision for obvious reasons.
This can still cause problems, because loose material like flour or baking soda can be compressed quite a bit, but that problem isn’t solved by switching to metric. You can solve it by weighing everything out — which is why professional-level baking recipes tend to list ingredients that way — but that takes time and means you need a kitchen scale.
Doesn’t matter, but it does need to be a measuring spoon, not just any spoon you grabbed out of your silverware drawer.
Teaspoon/Tablespoon is the worst example because they are the easiest to mix up. The benefit of the cup/pound/ounce system is fewer basic mistakes. You are much less likely to mishear/misread tablespoon for cup than you are milliliter/microliter or gram/kilogram and smaller numbers are easier to remember than larger.
AMERICANS: Buy some bloody scales!
This isn’t the Frontier.
You didn’t build your house with your bare hands.
You don’t need to measure dry ingredients by volume.
Go to a shop and buy a set of digital scales. They cost very little and take up almost no space. They have a little button that switches between metric and avoirdupois masses. Precise to a few g.
Measuring dry ingredients by volume just isn’t accurate enough for stuff like home baking.
Also 1tsp=5cm^3,
1tbsp=15cm^3
Strong disagree. As long as you’re measuring correctly, volumetric measures are more than enough for most things you’ll bake at home, and a lot faster than weighing stuff out. There’s no need to get all finicky about the ratios for cornbread, or pancakes, or pie crust, or most types of bread — though you need a decent eye for dough consistency for the last two. (Cake is admittedly an exception, but professional bakers often use prepackaged cake mix and so should you.)
I’m saying this as someone that does own a kitchen scale and rarely uses it. Don’t pretend your recipe needs to be precise to the gram when it includes lines like “2 large eggs”.
@Nornagest –
Disagree with your strong disagree.
If you’re not experienced in the kitchen, you’re not likely aware of which things require precise measurement and which don’t or whether/how to adjust if you’ve come up short or long on your imprecise measurement.
Quick Example:
A cup of flour can easily range between 120 and 150 grams. Quickly doing the math… if I’m baking bread from a recipe that intends 75% hydration using a 135 gram cup, and I go light or heavy, I may end up with hydration as low as 67% or as high as 84%. That’s a vast difference and way more than enough for the inexperienced cook to get results that are pretty far off from the intent.
I’ve considered this many times, just always hung up on the fact that I’ve never once needed to measure that carefully in the kitchen.
I mostly cook rather than bake, though.
@Nornagest
Faster? How? You put the bowl on the scale and pour in ingredients until you see the number you want. With measuring cups there’s just an extra step of scooping in there. If you’re doing flour you have to do that scooping and scraping thing. With brown sugar you have to do that compression thing.
Scales are faster, easier, and more precise. There’s no loss.
Edit: Also large eggs are standardized.
Put a small bowl on the scale. Start it up, and wait for calibration. Pour. Adjust three or four times until you have the number you want. If you went over, scoop some out and adjust again. Transfer to the main bowl.
vs.
Scoop out of the bag. Level with fingers, the edge of the bag, or the back of a knife. Transfer to the main bowl.
It’s not a big difference, but I can do the latter in a couple seconds, and the former might take me fifteen or twenty. More if the flour’s lumpy.
@Nornagest
Interesting, so you don’t value high precision in baking, but you feel obligated to hit the number exactly when using a scale. I can understand the psychology behind that. For me scales are even better for imprecise baking, because I’m more comfortable pouring from the various and sundry bags/boxes/sachets which ingredients come in than scooping because I know when I’m in the general area – and again, less to cleanup.
Edit: Also there’s no small bowl, you pour everything into the main bowl on the scale one after the other, taring the scale as you go.
Unless you’re particularly good at eyeballing quantities of things, even getting to the approximate right measure is going to take two or three iterations. And your eyeballing will differ from material to material, since density varies.
You’ll also have to do some mental math about what level of precision is acceptable. Using 2.4 grams instead of 2.5 might be ok, but doing .2 grams instead of .1 gram is probably not.
With a spoon, you’re just judging how it looks, and that judgment is consistent across different sizes of spoon.
large (but light!) steel bowl on weight, hit button for zero. Pour ingridients from bag, jar or carton until close, pour slower until close enough, which is defined as a percentage distance from target, either side, exact percentage error tolerated depending on personality. No back-scooping required, rezero between ingredients, bake on baking paper. tools dirtied: One steel bowl, extremely easy to clean, one set of whisks, ditto.
What is a teasponfull? The volume contained when you scrape off the excess with a knife to leave the spoon full with no overflow? The quantity you get when you scoop and let excess run off leaving a neat pile exactly not overflowing the spoon?
The first is a level teaspoonful, and whoever writes the recipe should indicate that. If it’s one of those foodie blog recipes, then nobody should ever try cooking them as they’re more about lifestyle imagery than actual production of edible meals 🙂
Recipes done by mass are by no means actually more precise. I did a steamed buns recipe with a digital scale…and had to add about twice as much water as the recipe called for. If I have to end up improvising and judging by feel, then there’s no point, we’re right back to the ol’ folk “handfuls/pinch/what feels right” wisdom, then metric is still yet proven inferior.
(The worst, of course, is when a recipe gives you a mix. Some ingredients by mass, some by volume, and some by discrete quantities.)
Two major flaws here:
1. Any ingredient that has to be incorporated at a rate and manner other than just putting it on top of other ingredients.
2. You are limited to ingredients that are poor-able, in quantities that are poor-able. I’m either paying more for my flour or transferring from a 25 or 50 lb bag into a container that is seal-able and I can poor from which reduces the time saved on clean up dramatically.
Additionally: dead batteries will basically ruin your baking plans.
[ACC] Are Kitchen Scales a Net Harm?
I love my kitchen scale – mostly because scaling up or down is so much easier. Also, I don’t have to keep count–and since I get distracted fairly frequently, that’s important. (To note–I tend to cook in fairly large quantities from time to time – I have recipes that take 8 pounds of flour.)
I’m generally a big partisan for US Conventional units, but metric does have a slight advantage in cooking if you’re primarily measuring by weight. That advantage is mostly an artifact of how digital scales are designed, but it’s still there: most mid-range digital kitchen scales give a precision of 1 g in metric mode, or 0.1 oz (about 2.8 g) in conventional mode.
This is a design artifact since it could be avoided or reversed by designing the scales to a slightly higher precision that came out even in conventional units, or even by adding another decimal place to the conventional display.
It also only matters if you’re measuring small precise quantities of key ingredients by weight. For ingredients that you’re using in quantities of cups or pounds or kilos or large fractions thereof (e.g. flour and sugar in baking recipes), 0.1 oz is plenty precise. And flour is by far the most important thing to measure by weight rather than volume: other ingredients are much better behaved in terms of how predictably they pack down.
US customary units also have the flaw that a pint is 16 floz, as opposed to 20 in the Imperial system.
I’d say the bigger flaw there is that a fluid ounce is defined slightly wrong in US Customary units, being about 4% too big for a fluid ounce of water at standard temperature and pressure to weigh exactly a [weight] ounce. The Imperial fluid ounce is defined correctly. If the US fluid ounce had been defined the same as the Imperial fluid ounce, then a US pint of water would conveniently weigh 1 pounds (as compared to a 20 oz imperial pint, which weights 1 lb, 4 oz). As things stand, “a pint is a pound, the world round” is a well-known and useful approximation, but it’s deeply misleading in that it’s off by 4% for a US pint and by 25% for an Imperial pint.
20 is an inferior number to 16. Begone, foul 5.
As a child I learned “a pint of pure water is a pound and a quarter”, which is accurate for Imperial measures.
Just a minute now. You have an application where wholes of whatever you are measuring are too big, and halves are too big, but fifths and tenths are too small, so only thirds are just right? That sounds like a very special Goldilocks situation.
Speaking as a general metric evangelist, I find construction much easier to handle using imperial measurements. The ability to easily take halves of halves of halves is the critical thing. Of course it’s also what I’ve worked with my whole life, and clearly Europeans build stuff.
I will admit the ounce and the inch are very convenient measures on a human scale. A one-inch bar is just right for holding and ounces are just right for measuring drinkable amounts of liquid from the strongest to the weakest.
I’m not particularly attached to pounds, yards, miles, or stones.
I’m thinking specifically of inches and feet, for measuring bits of wood and drywall. Vastly easier, for me at least, than anything metric.
Like most Canadians, I use imperial for most measurements of personal qualities (weight, height, etc), but this is purely habit.
I have to wonder how much of that convenience in construction comes from having imperial-sized lumber.
It’s not (in my opinion) that lumber is available in Imperial sizes, but that 2 meters is too low for a ceiling, and 3 meters on the high side.
That depends what you’re doing. If you expect to heat and cool the internal space with an air handling system that requires heating/cooling the entire volume of air you want to aim for “lowish but not claustrophobic” ceiling heights. If you intend to, say, passively-ish cool and use a radiant heat source or basically not heat at all, having tall ceilings to keep the hot air away from the inhabitants while you drive passive-ish convection cycles (perhaps with floor-to-ceiling windows that can be opened at both the top and bottom) (or open the door to the root cellar on the windward side, and the top of the windows on the leeward side of the house and use a geothermal heat sink) (or one of the systems used by people living in moderately warm rather than just temperate climates) starts to look more appealing. There is a reason that a lot of pre-airconditioning construction, even pretty down market construction, had taller than modern standard ceilings.
Well, if we had to have a metric unit for measuring dwellings, there is always the decimetre (0.1 m, 10 cm). A decent-sized room might be 40 by 50 dm, and 22 dm tall.
But no one uses decimetres. mm, cm, m, km are the metric units of length in common use.
It’s more that the majority of people can eyeball halves and thirds. They cannot eyeball fifths. So if I need any quantity in between two markings on a container, much better for those markings to be of intervals I can eyeball.
My blender cup has marked fluid ounces in 5, 10, 15, 20. If I want to put a cup in there, 16 fluid ounces, now I have to either pour it secondhand from another measuring device with the proper 1 cup marking, or eyeball one fifth above 15. Gross.
Speaking of the inferior system. Why don’t its users use yards more often, and in fact barely use them at all? When speaking about altitudes or distances, feet are clearly too small, and it also would’ve made it easier for the sane majority (since 1 yard ~ 1 meter).
(PS I can see the argument behind using the 12 based system, and if we were using it than the imperial system would’ve made more sense. But having the entire world change the base for their numbers is clearly not an option, and having different bases for your numbers and measurement units is insanity)
At least here in the US, yards are widely used in landscaping, sports (especially golf, sprinting, and American football), and sewing.
Feet have the benefit of being about the right size for at least the major digits of personal-scale heights and lengths, for applications like adult human height measurement, interior decorating, carpentry, etc. Feet also have a handy, familiar base-12 sub-increment (inches) for when more precision is required. Yards do get used for rough measurements in many of these domains (especially for room measurements), but for precise measurements they’re lacking because either using three units for the same domain or using up to 36 inches for the subunit is more trouble than the yards are worth.
Yards are avoided for carpentry and construction in particular because the standard residential ceiling height in the US (8 feet, or just over 240 cm for those of you who prefer letting Robespierre tell you how to measure things) doesn’t come out even in yards, and because many construction materials in the US are commonly manufactured to multiples of 4 feet (e.g. framing lumber comes in 8 ft or 12 ft lengths, and sheet goods (plywood and drywall) come in 8 ft by 4 ft pieces) instead of three. Wall studs are also commonly spaced at intervals that come out even over a four-foot width (16 or 24 inches, or 1/3 and 1/2 of 4 feet, respectively) but not over a 3-foot width; this last though is a secondary lock-in factor, since if the materials were manufactured to 3 foot increments instead of 4, then the standard spacing would probably be 18 inches.
For applications like aviation, which is what I’m guessing you’re thinking of when you say “altitudes”, the standard practice when using conventional units is to pick one unit and stick with it across a wide range of subdomains in the application so you avoid conversions entirely. The base unit is usually either nautical miles (which have direct geographical usefulness for navigation, being defined as one minute of arc along a great circle of the Earth’s surface) or thousands of feet (which is only about 1% off from being 10 seconds of arc or 1/6 of a nautical mile).
Standard derived metric units with SI prefixes are not really separate units in the same way conventional units are. SI prefixes are just a shorthand alternative to using scientific notation to keep track of order of magnitude when dealing with sizes that are much too large or small relative to your base unit without such a shorthand.
Conventional/Imperial units are sized for different domains, and the usual done thing is to pick one or two units for any given task and stick with them. You can do the SI prefix thing (or explicit scientific notation, or decimals) with any base unit, not just the metric units.
And sometimes you really, really want a different base unit, which is why even people who use metric will sometimes use AU, light-years, and parsecs instead of megameters and petameters. Likewise ergs and calories instead of various adjustments on joules.
Oh well that explains why I never see thwm, I live in the US but have nothing to do withe either of those.
For rooms, I kind of see the case why feet are more convenient – they allow you to almost never go down to inches and keep with a single unit throughout, while yards/meters would be to coarse for that. Although it means for square area you always operate in at least hundreds, and often in thousands if talking about an entire house.
But I was mostly asking for the cases where you never care about a foot or two of difference. Flight altitudes is one case, yes, and also elevation above the sea level on ground. Another case is distances – Google maps keeps telling me to make a turn after 350 or 800 feet – it’s no like it’s getting any precision from using feet over yards (of course I could switch it to metric, but I prefer to have the map and speedometer to be consistent with the road signs). And depths when diving/speaking about marine life.
That means that 1000 yards is half of a second/nautical mile, which sounds even more convenient to me.
SI not-really-units being 1-3 orders of magnitude apart, you usually also use one or two for any specific domain, so I don’t really see any practical difference here, except for ease of calculations for metric. You can technically do the prefix thing on the imperial units, but none will understand you, yourself included in the sense that you won’t have an intuitive feeling of how much say 0.001 ft is.
Light year is unique in that it’s directly related to the travel time at the speed of light and also piggybacks on the existing system of time measurements with which people have intuitive familiarity. If not for that, I don’t think people would have had particular troubles getting used to peta- and terameteres, just like they’re used to terabytes and nanometers. AU is very close to 150 million meters, otherwise I would’ve bitten the bullet and say that its bad (parsec certainly is). That actually points to another deficiency of the imperial system. What do you do with it at very large or very small scales? You’re 12-based up to a point and than all of a sudden you’re 10-based?
(Removed the last question as it’s already discussed below)
I agree that both of these would probably be better as yards. Depth used to measured in fathoms (the length of rope a typical sailor could haul up in a single hand-over-hand pull when taking soundings, which was later standardized to 1 fathom = 2 yards), but fathoms are one of the specialized conventional units that has fallen into disuse. I’m not sure why fathoms got replaced by feet instead of yards; maybe @bean knows?
Sure I do, about 12x the thickness of a kitchen trash bag or 2x the thickness of heavy-duty moisture-barrier plastic sheeting. Plastic bags and sheets in the US are usually specified in milli-inches (referred to as “mils”). A basic disposable plastic shopping bag is about 0.5 mils, a kitchen trash bag is usually about 1 mil, and yard waste trash bags and plastic sheeting are available in thicknesses up to around 6 mils.
Similarly, there are SI-like prefixed conventional units in use in several domains. Submarines use kiloyards for torpedo targeting distances. Telephone transmission lines are measured in kilofeet. And structural/civil engineers use kilopounds in load calculations.
Customary measurements are nowhere near being systematically base twelve. Metric was defined top-down based on powers of ten, while Customary measures were a bottom-up system of a plethora of local and domain-specific measures gradually getting standardized relative to one another. Many, but not all, of the conversion factors are multiples of 2 or 3, which is probably where you’re getting the base 12 idea from.
For very large measurements, we use a lot of the same non-meter-based units that we just discussed SI folks using: light years, parsecs, AU, solar masses, etc. For very small, there are older domain-specific specialized units that still get trotted out from time to time (e.g. grains, minims, scruples, and drams), or we use decimal fractions of existing units (e.g. the aforementioned “mils” for very small distances/thicknesses).
Ok, my apologies then, I’ve never heard of any of those (well actually now that you said that I kind of think I can remember seeing thickness of something given in inches, but it didn’t register then). Overall, it sounds to me as if people are reinventing the [key idea behind] metric system, only using rather arbitrary bases instead, different between domains.
The number comes from the original post. But now I’ve checked and you’re right it’s way worse than that, especially in the volume department. And the volume doesn’t even really match length measurements, unless you call 231 sq inches in gallon a match. Which makes the imperial system all the more nonsensical.
For what it’s worth, I was using almost exclusively meters/kilograms with decimal powers throughout my school and university physics courses, and still am now when I become curious about some random stuff. Exceptions being light years, atomic unit mass, and electronvolt (for similar reasons – they are tied to something important in the domain area, rather than just large/small enough).
@AlexOfUrals
Well, they are using rather arbitrary bases, but that’s because each system was invented to solve a particular problem at a particular time, and only rationalized to work together later.
You note 231 in³ per gallon–but the gallon is also 128 fluid ounces (fl oz), or 4 quarts of 32 fl oz each, with each quart consisting of 2 pints of 16 fl oz, and each pint is 2 cups of 8 fl oz. Note that all of these are powers of two.
Twelve might be one base, but even more important are dyadic fractions, that is, with a denominator that is a power of two. Dividing something into 10 equal pieces is a pain in the ass; dividing it into half repeatedly is simple. This doesn’t mean that everything has to be a power of two, but a lot of stuff in the US Customary System can be divided into two a fair number of times before you need to cut a unit into fractional pieces.
You can see this in the mile: a mile as used in the US is 80 chains. The chain is an obsolete unit that (IIRC) basically is a measuring instrument 22 yards long that somebody was manufacturing in bulk, and they basically rounded the mile to an even 80 of these. Why 80? because it was really close to the pre-existing mile used by the Romans, and 80 can be divided into halves 4 times (or 16ths) before you start running into fractional chains. 80 chains × 22 yards/chain × 3 ft/yard = 5280 feet. There were also furlongs, which were an 8th of a mile, or 220 yards (10 chains); these are no longer commonly used, but the fact that they originally felt it necessary to give a specific name to an 8th should let you know what they were shooting for here.
Similarly, an acre is a measure of land that is 1 rod by 10 rods, a rod being a quarter chain (again, dyadic), or 66 ft by 660 ft, or 43,560 ft². Why this odd definition? Because an acre was originally used to lay out farms when they were using draft animals, and having a land area that’s long and thin makes more sense for that, so you have long runs for the plow and minimize turning the animal and the plow. This wasn’t too precise, and they made it a round number of rods.
That definition, though, means that there are 640 acres per square mile. Again, 640 isn’t a power of two, but you can divide it in half a bunch of times. So the entire US after about 1790 was divided up into survey townships 6 miles on a side, each township was divided into 36 sections a mile on each side, and the land sold in dyadic fractions thereof.
This means that you can divide a survey section (square mile) into quarters (160 acres), halves of quarters (80 acres), quarters of quarters (40 acres), and halves of quarters of quarters (20 acres), or quarters of quarters of quarters (10 acres). You don’t usually use the “of” in there; I only put it in for clarity. You’d call a 40-acre parcel a “quarter-quarter section”. These would be deeded basically by calling out the section using a very compressed string. For the 40 acre example, you could use: NW ¼ SW ¼ S 17 T 15 S R 8 E WM. The PLSS article linked above describes how reading this works, but this uniquely identifies a particular quarter-quarter section in the entire US, by working off of a defined zero point–there were many across the US, and this one is the Willamette Meridian (WM).
I don’t know the gallon that well, but it probably has a very similar story. So to cycle back, why 231 in³ per gallon? Because these two measures were independently invented, then correlated once measurement became precise enough to require this. At the time they were defined to each other, most measurements (in terms of the number of measurements occurring in a country, say, weights of wheat) weren’t precise and changing the gallon by a couple percent wouldn’t matter, so rounding to the nearest cubic inch was fine, but trying to change it by 13% to make it an even 200 was too far, much less trying to make these related by even powers of 10.
The dyadic fraction rules extend into construction measurements, by the way. You give dimensions in the building trades in feet, inches, and dyadic fractions of an inch. For example, on a drawing you’d put 10′-8⅝” (read 10 feet 8 and five-eighths inches). It would be pretty weird to put 10′ 8.625″, since tape measures are marked in 16ths, eighths, quarters, and halves, and outright incorrect to put, say, 10′ 8.552″ (non-dyadic fraction that you can’t even measure on a standard ruler).
Machinery *does* use decimal inches, but that’s a stylistic variant between fields, and they need to use precision down to the thousandth or ten-thousandth of an inch for machinery to function. Buildings, meanwhile, typically don’t have measurements much tighter than an eighth of an inch, and we typically don’t specify dimensions more precisely than that in structural or architectural practice.
Sorry, but I have no idea. Yards are still pretty common at sea, so it’s not even that.
Machinists in the US use several units of measurements:
“Thousandths” are 0.001 inches.
“Tenths” are 0.0001 inches. (Obviously short for ‘tenth-thousandths’, but abbreviated because there’s no ambiguity; they never deal in units of 0.1 inches.)
Anything larger than that is usually given fractionally, and all the machinists I’ve worked with can do decimal conversions on the fly down to 1/64ths (which is 0.015625 inches, and usually approximated as 15 thousandths unless precision is really important.)
In the cases where you’re dealing with a relatively large size that you actually need precision for, but isn’t a clean fraction, they usually measure it in inches and thousandths. So a 1.267 diameter bore would be read off as ‘one and two hundred sixty-seven’ or ‘inch and two hundred sixty-seven.’
I don’t know exactly why these are the norms, but I’m guessing it’s because it keeps them from almost EVER having to deal with a decimal point. Large numbers are a diad of number of inches and number of thousandths (and precision on a dimension that’s over an inch rarely requires dropping below thousandths.) Small numbers are either integers of large-fractions of thousandths/tenths. (Even if you have a really tight tolerance of +/- 0.00005, that would be described as ‘half a tenth’.) I suspect that people simply work better with integers, and this is a field-specific bottom-up unit set that lets them do it.
Electrical Engineers also use mils (which are thousandsth of an inch) for PCB layout, and it is my understanding this carries over even to metric countries. Something about the size of a mil is extremely convenient for PCB layout, so everyone uses it. This possibly is because America was the origin of much of semiconductor production and standards, but I’m not certain. It’s one of the times where, even as an engineer, metric results in using more awkward numbers than Imperial. And generally nobody cares, because when was the last time you cared about the actual distance between things on your circuit board?
‘Thou’ on the other side of the pond.
I’m only aware of one place that uses them here still. But they used to be quite common.
If you roll your own, the paper is about 0.005″ thick. Or so I hear.
British road signs use yards for distances significantly smaller than a mile but larger than a few tens of feet. Feet and inches are only used for height and width restrictions AFAIK- both of which, unlike other distances, are also listed in metres for the benefit of drivers visiting from other countries.
(Ford depth indicators are sometimes only in feet, but of course you only see these on very small roads.)
Meanwhile, British railways use chains for distances smaller than a mile…
Even three is too big a prime for my taste. We should use base eight. As a major added benefit, the corresponding genetic engineering will make cartoons more realistic.
what do big primes have to do with the base?
You can ask how big are the prime factors of the base.
Is this an interesting thing to ask in number theory?
@meh: Actually, yes. But this thread isn’t about number theory, so I’m not sure how that’s relevant, unless you are just curious.
@Dacyn
1. I admit I am a bit confused. So why is prime factors of the base an interesting question?
2. I don’t see any reference to the base of the number system in the article on ‘Smooth Numbers’. 8-smooth, 10-smooth, and 12-smooth are the same regardless of the base. (as opposed to say https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number where the base is important)
@meh:
1. In the context of this thread, it is just so you will get smaller ratios when you want to compare things. For example you could take 1in, 2in, 4in, 12in=1ft, and the ratios between these lengths are all 2 or 3. Whereas 5280 has 11 as a prime factor, so there’s no progression from feet to miles that doesn’t have a gap where the ratio is at least 11.
2. My mistake, I just meant that asking how big the prime factors of a number are is something that is studied in number theory.
Finally, someone besides me who understands. But we don’t need gengineering to make it work. We just need to train people to count their phalanges with their thumb as pointer. Using your non-dominant hand as a twelves place lets you get all the way up to 156 before you run out of room, and that’s more than enough numbers for anything you would be counting by hand.
I know one musician who apparently counted measures of rest on his knuckles (not including the thumb), so it was twelve per hand. Wasn’t quite tactile enough for me, I’d lose track sometimes, but it is a system that apparently works for others.
The metric system’s “one unit to rule them all” design results in lots of awkward sized units at a practical level, and the supposed advantage of “but I can convert between mm and Mm by just counting zeros!” is almost entirely illusory when you realize that the number of people in the history of the universe that have actually needed to know the number of inches in a mile is exactly equal to the number of people that have needed to know the number of dL in a cubic parsec.
And don’t even get me started on the supposed advantages of Celsius.
At some point, maybe my sophomore or junior year of college*, the unconventional wisdom according to which Fahrenheit is so illogical and Celsius is just a band-aid and everyone should be using Kelvin gave way to the argument that Fahrenheit is better scaled for human-friendly temperatures.
I’ve been patiently waiting for the unconventional wisdom to flip on the rest of the units.
*my barometer for this was a slightly obnoxious roommate
Whether you use the freezing and boiling point of water, or the freezing points of water and brine as your calibration points is to a large extent arbitrary. Being able to use a well established human hyper-acuity to mark your thermometer after finding the calibration points had very clear advantages, historically. The fact that the boiling point of water ends up being a weird number isn’t a disadvantage worth switching over. You either just add heat until it boils because you don’t give a shit what the temperature is, or you do care about what the temperature is but need to get out the phase diagram anyway because it will never be pure water at standard pressure.
Once you get out the phase diagram, you might as well calibrate your scale between absolute zero and at the triple point of Uranium hexafluoride for all it matters. It might be really damn inconvenient for the weather, though.
All the graphs in the next IPCC assessment should be drawn by a collaboration between pedants who insist that everyone should be using Kelvin and pedants who insist that Y-axes must start at zero.
This made me smile. Thank you.
Galaxy brain: Set Bolzmann’s constant to one.
In an ideal gas, you measure temperature in joules.
(Obnoxious barometers? Don’t get me started on torr and Psi.)
I’m fond of the oversimplified explanation that Celsius describes temperatures in terms of how hot or cold water feels, Fahrenheit in terms of how hot or cold humans feel, and Kelvins and Rankines in terms of how hot or cold atoms feel.
As someone who was raised using celcius, I don’t get the argument than Fahrenheit is somehow more adapted to human scale. I have integrated that -5°C is cold and 30°C is hot, it’s no more arbitrary than saying 0°F is cold and 100°F is hot.
I think the finer granularity of Fahrenheit is more adapted to the human scale. Either works fine when you have the reference points (lived experience) for what a given number means.
How about the number of people who needed to know the number of feet in a mile?
Since you asked
1) How do I know in Fahrenheits whether the dirt outside is going to be liquid or frozen this morning?
2) What interesting happens at -17.(7) Celcius?
3) What are those advantages? Nick mentioned “being better scaled for human friendly temperatures”, but I can’t see how 20-30 is worse than 65-85 or +/-40 is worse than -40/+100.
Approximately equal to the number of people that need to know a “femto” is ten to the negative what. If you drew the short straw and you need to know that regularly, you’ll remember. For everyone else taking a middle school math test, use Google.
Since answering that question relies on such details as the temperature history, the soil composition, (ETA: and the type of salt your municipality has plentiful access to) and the expected solar radiance… if you have a good answer I would love to hear it.
It is the freezing point of a specific brine solution (IIRC, a saturated solution of two different types of salt) whose only real significance is that it is a repeatable calibration point. (ETA: And also that this calibration point was below the freezing point of ocean water so that the range of the scale included all the important meteorological phenomenon. Ocean water itself can’t be used as a calibration point because it varies drastically in composition.) Where are we going with this?
I assume Nick was referring to the fact that for a lot of people that difference between “too hot/cold” and “perfect” is very close to 1F. To get the same kind of resolution with C you need to use half degrees (being close enough to 5/9’th degrees for practical purposes ;).
Hm I assumed that pretty much anyone estimating how much say 0.2 miles is would convert it to feet and go from there. At least that’s what I do with meters and kilometers. Apparently that’s not a universal experience, but I’m sure I’m not unique in this either. Another case is converting steps (e.g. from a smartwatch) into a distance passed or vise versa. Yet another case is when a value is large but precise. Say Mount Everest is 29029 feet high. Are you saying that someone native to imperial units upon hearing this will genuinely have no idea how much is it in miles? It would explain that national geographic “it’s oh-so-many Empire State Buildings put one on top of another” thing.
(1) Precisely, yes. Roughly I just compare the temperature with zero, it usually worked (in the town where I grown up anyway. Probably had something to do with the municipality being too short on money->salt for it to matter though).
(2) Yes, we’re going to the point where the Fahrenheit system doesn’t carve reality at its natural boundaries. It makes it seem like things behave differently below zero, but in fact they don’t. It also applies to Celcius on a global scale – that’s one of the reasons why physicists don’t use – but in everyday life the difference is obvious. You get snow vs rain, ice vs puddles, etc. Try swapping contents of your freezer and fridge and you’ll see what I mean. Of course it’s a minor problem which makes reasoning about things only a tiny bit more difficult and confused, but as far as I can tell that small price is paid for exactly zero advantages.
(3) Whaaat? I would never tell a 1F difference even if my life depended on it. In fact I almost listed too high resolution as one of the disadvantages. Apparently it’s different for you, but that’s exactly the reason why it’s a bad idea to base a measurements system on human experiences – they’re different.
At one time “5280 feet to a mile” was one of the facts drilled into schoolchildren’s heads. May still be. The other conversion, which all jocks probably know, is 440 yards to a quarter mile.
No, not really. I have a pretty good feel for what a mile is, both on foot and in the car, so knowing how many feet 0.2 miles is wouldn’t improve anything. Estimating one fifth of something (even though fifths are pretty awkward to eyeball accurately) is a lot easier than estimating a thousand (and 56) or something. Even if I have a much better feel for how big a foot is than how big a mile is, the progressive error swamps the difference in accuracy of the base unit. (And conveniently I have a really good feel for how a quarter mile track feels, so 0.2 miles is “exactly the point you regret your new years resolution.”)
In order to convert steps into distance you need to know your actual pace length. A standard drill step is, IIRC, 30 inches so you might be able to just use that, but the usual method is to traverse a course of known distance while counting your paces (probably 110 yards/100 meters, which you can conveniently use for both miles and kilometers) and use that. If more accuracy is needed you may take both a flat and rough terrain pace count.
I personally consider the height of Mount Everest or the Statue of Liberty or whatever little more than middle school math problems. But assuming I actually cared (to win internet points, for example) I would just eyeball it: it is pretty close to 30000 feet, and a mile is 5000-something feet, so it is less than 6 miles, so eyeballing the size of the fudge factors 5.5 miles is probably close enough (which turns out to be pretty damn close). It is also worth noting that 30000 feet is kind of the default answer to “how high does an airliner fly” so depending on your level of interest you might just stop there.
My point is, while it may have been drilled into my head in school, I have never used it. Much like the femto prefix was drilled into my head in school and I have only seen it once since, and I didn’t care enough to try remembering the exact magnitude of “ten to the negative a lot power.”
But it does cleave reality at a joint. You just disagree about how important that joint is. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never actually needed to know the freezing point of water. Or more poignantly, I’m not sure I even correctly remember the boiling point. (Insert shocked Pikachu face.)
When setting the temperature in my freezer, its not ice that I care about, it is ice cream. When looking at the weather forecast, I don’t care about ice, I care about road condition and whether today is going to be a day that I tell myself (again) that I should buy a real winter coat. And the road condition is overwhelmingly about active precipitation, with a dash of whatever the municipality is using for salt. The latter of these, conveniently, is close enough to 0F that it is a useful indicator that tonight is a bad night to go out on a booty call. When cooking I don’t care what the freezing point, I care about the smoke point of a half a dozen cooking oils (as measured by my IR thermometer, which due to emissivity, isn’t necessarily the number in the book). When boiling water, I don’t care what the boiling point is, I just keep adding heat until it does. When doing chemistry I don’t care about water, I care about CO2’s phase diagram. When fooling around with my forge I don’t care about the freezing point, I care about… well, hell, I don’t actually care what the temperatures are I just know what they look like.
For everything I care about, I need to remember temperatures, and none of them are “0” in any system. Switching is a hell of a damn inconvenience for no benefit. “Cleaving reality at a natural joint” sounds really great philosophically, but I have a girlfriend and things to get done. The only joint you can make even make a halfway argument that switching is worth the hassle for would be absolute zero, but that make all the numbers I care about inconveniently large. So no.
I’m going to assume you don’t live in an area which has a lot of freeze/thaw cycles, because freezing water is critical for all sorts of life-relevant factors, including road quality, the kind of footwear you need, etc etc etc. Literally the only other common aspect of the weather that seems as important is whether or not it’s raining. And if it’s raining but below 0, or about to go below 0, this is a fundamentally different, and vastly more dangerous, situation than if it’s raining and will stay above 0. Etc etc.
@Enkidum
What footwear changes do you make if the temperature is 33 vs. 31 degrees?
You don’t need to know the freezing point for road conditions, you can ballpark it. In the 20s, roads will probably freeze. Roads will rarely freeze at 30-32 degrees. Whether it is 31 or 33 degrees doesn’t matter a whole lot for precipitation (you can get frozen precipitation in the 30’s and even low 40s, you can get regular rain in the high 20s).
No, I definitely do. I don’t know, I guess if you live somewhere where a dusting of snow causes a state of emergency, I guess you have a point. Otherwise, road condition is a factor of the type and intensity of any active precipitation, and the freezing point of a salt solution.
I stand by my claim.
This is all essentially meaningless to me, I have no idea what Fahrenheit measurements translate to in real degrees (though I can infer from the numbers you give).
All I was disputing was the notion that the freezing point of water is not important. Yes, you can ballpark it (I’m assuming the ranges you give correspond to roughly -2 to +2), but the only reason you’d do so is because it (with a certain degree of precision) matters to your daily life.
I throw iceballs at you if you stand anywhere near that claim, and dismiss your complaints by noting that if those iceballs were salted they would be harmless slush.
There are many people who have legitimate cause to be concerned about frost, snow and ice, not to be trivially dismissed as “dusting”, whose concerns are not automagically alleviated by the local government salting the roads.
Yeah, speaking as someone who semi-regularly has to deal with freezing rain and ice storms, I care about whether things are frozen, and if there’s any kind of heavy precipitation, the amount of salt on the road is irrelevant, as it will very quickly dissolve and run off. Also, you know, things other than roads are important.
Anyways, I really don’t wish this to be contentious, you are all welcome to continue in your charming antiquarian ways, and when I visit your little country I will continue to make mental translations into the true measurements of the universe.
Fine, but that’s no argument for or against. 20C is entirely meaningless to me, but that just means I don’t have any familiarity, it isn’t an argument against Celsius. My point is that the freezing point of water being a nice round number easy to remember is essentially useless in everyday life because you almost never actually need to know it, which makes it a bad argument in favor of Celsius.
Unless you live in an area with frequent freeze/thaw cycles, in which case freezing does matter (with some fuzz about the necessary degree of precision) as we’ve just been discussing.
Freezing absolutely matters. Knowing the exact temperature at which water freezes usually does not, in most day to day practical life.
I also doubt many people in the US have any trouble at all remembering the exact freezing temp, regardless.
For the anecdote, some of the teas I drink require the leaves to infuse at 95°C. Conveniently, this is basically the temperature of water that was boiling and removed from the stove just a few seconds ago, so I don’t actually need to check.
Look at you nerds quibbling about a single degree; my life-hack is that when I listen to the local weather, they just tell me how likely it is that there will be frost. The exact number is their problem, not mine. God bless meteorology.
I bought an immersion blender to make hummus/tahini, and the mixing cup that came with it had fluid ounces marked on the side…in increments of five.
Instead of genetically engineering polydactyly, can’t you just buy a measuring jug that has both systems of units: one in the decimal increments for the millilitres, and one with the quarters for the Imperial measure? Seems to me that would be cheaper and quicker!
I have a normal measuring cup with both systems, but it may not be efficient for immersion blender use.
Can I interest you in my “base-30 compromise”?
Honestly, a base-12 system that was actually base 12, and had the base units set somewhere relatively sane, would probably be better for everyday use than metric *or* customary. Metric’s big advantage is consistency; customary’s big advantage is easy and intuitive factoring.
Not gonna happen, though, barring a time machine that’d let us go back and talk some French Revolutionary dudes into abandoning their baby.
Alternatively, we convince the inventor of the english alphabet to keep things at 20 letters, and our base-30 system now elegantly includes the traditional arabic numerals plus the alphabet.
(But doesn’t that just prove the superiority of 12, that our current version is therefore base 36?)
We don’t need thirty different numerals anyway; it’s an artifact of the Indian numeral systems that we have a distinct symbol for each of the digits. But Balylonian and Mayan numerals have shown that you can have large base positional system that only uses 2-3 symbols.
the babylonians achieved this, and most accounts show they did is with just the five fingers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_cuneiform_numerals
also, what is a nonsense prime?
“nonsense primes” is just my quipping that all prime numbers above 3 are inconvenient for mental math. Obviously, this is a feature for things like encryption.
I’m confused as to why changing the base of the number system means we don’t have to deal with primes over 3?
I think the suggestion is that you want your base to be a multiple of 2 and 3. If your base is divisible by 5 and not 3 then (as discussed above) division by three is trickier in your head.
What’s the point of civil partnerships as opposed to civil* marriages?
I get that marriage may be seen as an oppressive institution or whatever, and some people don’t get married, and choose more à la carte legal arrangements through wills, medical proxies and whatever.
But what’s the point of creating a legal institution, calling it “civil partnership”, and then slowly copypasting all the laws for marriage into the “civil partnership”? Marriage is not a religious institution anymore, not for those who don’t want it.
And some of the differences of civil partnerships hardly seem like improvements. In the UK, for example:
*Meaning those officiated by judges, mayors, notaries, etc, instead of priests.
Not much. They’re mostly a hack to mollify the religious conservatives who believed marriage was about religion who were fighting tooth and nail against gay marriage, now they’re encoded into law.
The thing that’s happened recently in the UK is that unmarried straight couples turned around and said
‘If letting straight people but not gay people get married is discrimination, and same-sex civil partnerships are a thing, then it’s discrimination not to let us get straight civil partnerships.’ And the judges agreed.
They seem to mostly be couple who dislike the idea of marriage for whatever reason but still want their relationship to be legally recognised.
It’s a neat hack on top of a system that could really do with proper legal reform. The religious, social/cultural and legal aspects are too tangled up in a single institution.
IMHO we need more options than ‘no legal reconition’ and ‘this is supposed to be the happiest day of your life, as well as the most expensive, and it is supposed to last forever’.
It is a weird kludge, particularly in England and Wales. A religious marriage conducted in the Church of England is always legally valid regardless of the religion of the participants, and I think Church of England ministers are required to conduct such a marriage even if one or both participants are not practising- or even baptised!- members of the church as long as one of them lives in the parish.
Jewish and Quaker marriage ceremonies also result in a legal marriage, but only if they are between two people who both profess the relevant religion.
Other religious marriages (Catholic, Hindu, Muslim…) have no legal force and require the couple to go through a civil ceremony as well. Often the place of worship will obtain a licence to perform civil marriages so the two can be done in one go. There is something of a problem with Muslims only having a religious marriage then discovering later that they aren’t legally married (and therefore have no rights in case of divorce).
Of course, there are civil ceremonies as well, and it is very much possible to have the bare minimum registry office wedding with only two witnesses. I know people who did this because they had to get legally married in a hurry but it would take them a while to organise the party, which they had later.
Ah the wonders of living in a state with no seperation of church and state.
The americans who want to religious-ise the state, burn the heretics and force-convert the heathens never seem to consider that if you blend church and state that the connection isn’t one-way.
The religion gets bound as well.
In the UK the head of the church is also the head of state and the state controlled church ends up with legal obligations to all citizens much like a government office.
In my experience, they do, they just think that secularist states end up binding religions as well. So if there’s going to be a binding anyway, might as well make sure it involves a state which is in favour of your religion, not hostile.
Who are these americans who want to burn the heretics and force-convert the heathens? I don’t think I’ve met them.
@Nick
One was my state rep for a while.
I don’t think Lambert is American; or if he is, I don’t think he’s ever been discharged from hospital after a successful surgery.
Nope. ‘Is £10 for 24 hour parking at hospitals too expensive?’ Is in the Overton Window over here.
I think people who are long-term cohabiting, and have kids on top of that, should just as well get married, but seemingly some people don’t want to, for whatever reason. But they also want legal rights and protections should they split up. So civil partnerships are a compromise.
@ana53294
A major reason to choose a civil partnership over marriage seems to be that people are unhappy with the implicit expectations or implications of marriage, like holding a big party for family & friends, promising to be together forever, being each others soulmate, etc.
With unmarried cohabitation and child-having being normalized, a wedding is also largely an anachronism, no longer being the thing that both other people and the couple would use to change their judgment of the couple from separate individuals to a family unit. With divorce fairly common and much more accepted, it also provides fairly little protection (through social pressure) from being abandoned by the partner. So weddings are far less necessary/useful as social signals than in the past.
Nowadays, a wedding is more an excuse to have a very expensive party, than a way to move to a new phase in life, with societal approval. This also means that people who don’t think that the party is worth the cost, have little reason to get married. You can have your long term relationship recognized by others, cohabitate, have sex and have children without it.
So perhaps the better question in very secularized and progressive societies is: what’s the point of marriage as opposed to civil partnership?
You don’t need a wedding to get married.
You can go to the town hall with two witnesses, sign papers, get done, go out. Maybe have a beer.
Weddings are things people choose themselves.
You are ignoring social norms. No one forces me to treat people at work on my birthday, yet I do so. I used to work with a guy who refused to celebrate his birthday or those of others, which was seen as a bit anti-social.
Birthdays are not optional like marriage and the benefit of defecting is much lower than for marriage, which in the US supposedly costs an average of over $30k.
Anyway, my point is that civil partnerships don’t come with the expectation of a huge party, so you don’t get people making assumptions, asking difficult questions, getting upset over not being invited, revenge-not inviting you for their marriage, assassinating your top general, etc.
Shaving cream. Good, or bad?
I have always done a “dry” shave using a 3-blade disposable razor. Not the cheapest disposables, mind you, but generally a bic one that lasts three or four months (ok, maybe sometimes 6-12).
And I don’t find that the blade dulls quickly or rusts. My skin isn’t super chafed. And yet everyone seems to swear by wet shaves and such.
Maybe it’s the Asian facial hair density, but has anyone tried a dry shave, or no water shave? This came up because my wife got me a thingy of shaving cream and insists I use it….and I don’t like it.
I shave every morning in the shower with water but no shaving cream. My experience back when I used shaving cream was that it made my skin feel a lot softer, which I didn’t like because it felt like I got nicked a lot more and like I chafed more.
Wet shave but no cream is how I like it.
Used to dry shave while still adolescent and had very little to shave. And with a straight razor for some reason. Got some shaving cream and shaving “lotion” with a 5-blade razor or something once and found it really dried out my skin (I have the driest skin in the world already). Didn’t want to be flaky-faced and so haven’t gone back. Now I just shave with one of the 11-blade such and such razors after showering when the hair is soft and the skin is still warm and moist. Will reapply warm water if I take too long drying off but it’s a pain that way so I guess I’m anti-dry shave, anti-shaving cream, pro wet shave.
I think it depends very much on beard thickness. I am basically a wookie, and there is no way that mere water and soap is going to make my beard slick enough to shave comfortably. Then again I haven’t shaved using a razor in decades, so perhaps I just sucked at it before.
Agreed. Other than some wet shaving (water, no cream/gel/”shave butter”) in my early teens when it was all basically peach fuzz, I can’t shave without some kind of lubricant. If I did it would be
a) Unpleasant (razer burn, cuts)
b) Ineffective (not a terribly close shave)
I can see how it would be tolerable for people with less dense facial hair, or thinner/less coarse facial hair (since it was tolerable for me way back when), although I don’t really understand how it could be preferable other than just plain convenience (less mess) and cost (save a few bucks on shave products).
I’ve done a dry shave and it results in a lot of blood. And disposables seem to go from too sharp (thus nicks) to too dull (thus chafing) in less than a week with ordinary wet shaving. This may have to do with my decidedly Mediterranean hair density. I now use an electric. Not a great shave but no blood, usually.
So I should tell my wife if I haven’t bled so far, I don’t have the density required to employ cream?
If she insists you use the shaving cream, she probably has a reason. Maybe you are getting a better shave with it. Or maybe she just likes the fragrance. Either way I don’t think telling her that will help any.
If she’s insisting on the shaving cream, it may be that Dragonmilk’s skin feels dry or scratchy or otherwise unpleasant when she touches it. Maybe a compromise would be using one of those aftershave balms or men’s moisturisers after shaving instead of the shaving cream?
Yeah.
I have thick beard hair, and there is no way I would try shaving without cream. Also, it making my skin softer is a plus in my book.
I would suggest getting an electric shaver and using that as needed; then look at the brand of shaving cream your wife gets you and look instead for a post-shave moisturizer from the same brand. You’ll smell the same without the shaving cream.
I mostly shave without anything straight out of the shower nowadays.
But there’s a lot to be said for old-fashioned shaving soap and a decent brush.
@Lambert,
I mostly use an electric shavers during the work week, and I mostly use a brush, hot water, shaving soap, and a straight razor on weekends.
I had shaved for years using shaving gel and the expensive style of shave soap or cream (the kind that doesn’t foam straight out of the can). I randomly had to use some of the traditional barbasol shaving cream (that we had on hand for kid projects) and was blown away by how much better it was than anything else.
I am now a complete convert back to canned shaving cream. I can shave nearly my whole face without rinsing my razor, feeling any roughness, or having any clogs.
I have two categories of visible facial hair on my face: the scraggly whiskers on my cheeks and beard, and the carbon nanotubes that comprise my mustache. For the scraggly whiskers, running the razor briefly under water before shaving is all I need to get a nice, clean, no-complaints shave. For the carbon nanotubes, shaving is completely impossible—the last time I tried to shave my mustache, I used up two new five-bladed safety razors, gave myself over a dozen horrible cuts, and only got about 10% of the way through before giving up.
Not sure what my conclusion is, other than maybe don’t use carbon nanotubes as hair?
Assuming you have a mustache and not just some stubble there, you should trim first before shaving.
I did. I was still doomed. (And then I looked very silly while the mustache grew back out, which is the main reason I haven’t tried again.)
I have fierce facial hair, where if I don’t shave for an entire weekend, I’m struggling to shave off a beard rather than just getting rid of facial hair.
Shaving dry is like chopping bamboo with a dull letter opener. I’m now shaving electric which works fine.
I tried a dry shave before. I wouldn’t say it was uncomfortable, but it took much longer, as I had to go over every part of my face at least three or four times to get the same level of shavage as if I’d used shaving cream.
The Atlantic has a rundown of the current frontrunners for the 2020 presidential election. To summarize: it will likely be Trump against (Warren or Biden or Sanders.)
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/01/2020-candidates-president-guide/582598/
No sign of a credible challenger from a more conventional Republican background? Odd.
As in a credible challenger running as a Republican? I don’t think that’s at all surprising. When have incumbents been credibly challenged by members of their party in the past?
Reagan came very close to taking the GOP nomination from Ford in 1976, but that was a case where the Republicans were in even more trouble than they are now, and with rather different fault lines within the party. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be the potential of such a thing happening this year.
Yes, and also the notable difference that Ford was the incumbent but hadn’t been elected as such. A challenge is only possible when the incumbent is unpopular with their party, which isn’t the case here.
From a 1977(?) episode of All in the Family:
In order from lowest to highest credibility:
Buchannan v. Bush in 1992. Challenger recieved 23% of the primary vote amd stronger results in several early primaries.
Ted Kennedy v. Carter in 1980. Challenger received 37% of the vote.
Reagan v. Ford in 1976. Reagan recieved 45% of the primary vote and won 11 states.
McCarthy v. Johnson in 1968. McCarthy won a plurality of the few states polled. Jonson dropped out early in the process and Humphrey was selected as the candidate at the convention. This led to riots at the convention.
All of these challenges resulted in the incumbent party losing the general election.
Reverse causal arrows. A strong incumbent doesn’t get challenged. Johnson was incredibly weak because of Vietnam. Ford was weak because of Watergate. Carter was weak because of stuff like Iran. Bush I lost because of Ross Perot, not Buchanan.
Then isn’t the conclusion that Trump is a strong incumbent?
If (person is strong incumbent) then not (person gets challenged).
Only the contrapositive must necessarily follow logically.
If (person gets challenged) then not (person is strong incumbent)
That’s a pretty short list of primary challengers: I think it would be a tough sell that every other incumbency was strong.
@moonfirestorm
Are there any incumbents who lost who didn’t have a primary challenger? Last one I can think of is Hoover, and when you have to go back 90 years, it’s a pretty strong trend.
Given that Trump came out of mostly-nowhere and trounced the existing party establishment thoroughly, it may be more about damage control or self-preservation. Sure, in a fair fight there may be a number of candidates in the Republican Party who would be preferred. But they view themselves as so likely to be permanently damaged that they are afraid to try. And Trump doesn’t fight fair.
In this context, absolutely. The democrats loathe him, but that doesn’t matter in the primary, and he hasn’t made as much of a hash of it as Carter, Ford or Johnson. (I don’t understand the 1992 election very well.)
The other rule I see is that it only seems possible to challenge from the outside wing of the party. All of the ones on the Democrat side came from the left, all of the ones on the GOP side came from the right. The GOP establishment isn’t to the right of Trump.
Roosevelt running for a third term almost upset Taft who was at the time the incumbent. IIRC, Roosevelt didn’t get the party nomination because the presiding officer of the convention thought it was morally reprehensible to not renominate the incumbent so just straight up ignored Roosevelt’s delegates and prevented him from even being considered. If he hadn’t done so, Roosevelt would have almost certainly been the party nominee. After being rebuffed by the convention, he did a third party run, outvoted Taft in the general election, but split the party so that There-Was-a-Third-Candidate? candidate Woodrow Wilson became President.
It was 108 years ago, but you didn’t give a time limit on “in the past.”
Supposedly there was an aid to the presiding officer of the convention who was aghast at hearing that said officer was going to refuse to seat the roosevelt delegates. He exclaimed “You can’t do that, you’ll burn down the party!” and received the reply “Yes, but I will preside over the ashes.”
Some history is so good I simply choose to believe it.
The history I choose the believe is that we are living in the timeline created when a time traveler saved Roosevelt from an assassin’s bullet during that election to save us from Taft’s handling of WWI. But in the true fashion of time travelers we ended up with unintended consequences: we got Wilson instead of Roosevelt, who made an even worse pigs breakfast of WWI than Taft did. WWII and all the rest are the result of a time traveler mucking with the timeline.
The timelines where they try to fix their mistake my making the assassination attempts of Hitler succeed are, of course, all worse than this one.
What happens in those universes? The plot of Pulp Fiction?
I’m thinking maybe our 20th century is the best version the time travelers could come up with after multiple attempts. Maybe most versions just end up in gigantic nuclear wars.
Every time they go back in time it causes an additional world war. WWI was caused when they got Franz Ferdinand assassinated, II when the prevented Roosevelt’s, III when they assassinated Hitler. And continuing in this manner of alternating between performing and preventing assassinations until they’ve run through the whole population of Europe. Well, the nuclear world wars did help reduce the field of potential assassinees…
Oooh, short story about an alternate timeline where Ferdinand, upon taking power, is Literally Worse Than Hitler. So time travelers think of that near-miss assassination in Sarajevo and start to form a plot…
I proposed a short story idea in an OT a while back, in which a few young men plot to go back in time and murder the man they see as touching off the hell they live in – the worst possible they could imagine – and swear to keep their status as time travellers a secret, to avoid alarming the world. Turns out they’re Princip’s gang, they barely managed to pull it off, and our timeline is the result.
It’s based on how fouled up the actual assassination was. They almost didn’t make it, and then he effectively fell in Princip’s lap.
Sadly, I cannot find my comment, or even the one someone else (Nybbler?) posted with an index of SSC comments.
I did find this, though.
By just about any possible objective measurement, Trump’s presidency has been quite successful (note, this could change quickly depending on what happens with the Iran situation). The only thing he hasn’t been good at is receiving approval from Democrats (a set which includes most of the media), and in the eyes of many Republicans, that’s a feature rather than a bug.
There’s probably room for an attack against Trump from the right on issues like “He’s spending too much” or “His foreign policy is too interventionist” but there’s pretty much nobody on the establishment (i.e. “credible”) right who actually believes those things.
What do you see as his big successes? Judged against his campaign promises, his record looks mixed, at best.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/
The economy is good (both in the stock market sense, the unemployment figures sense, and the wage growth sense). Inflation is low to moderate. No major terrorist attacks. No major new wars.
Isn’t that all most people really want from their government?
Unless you think there’s some conventional/credible Republican who the media will respect and who can also, more credibly than Trump, promise to build the wall and ban Muslims and improve the trade deficit?
I’ve already conceded there is room to attack Trump from the right. But there isn’t anyone to the right of Trump who counts as credible/conventional/establishment/whatever you want to call it. Anyone to the right of Trump is radical fringe, almost by default. Like, if Ann Coulter tried to primary him, would that count in your eyes?
@Matt M says: “The economy is good (both in the stock market sense, the unemployment figures sense, and the wage growth sense)”
It looks like some (not all) of the wage growth is dye to municipalities and States raising their minimum wages.
That Trump and the rest of the Federal government isn’t fouling this up is to their credit, but all the credit isn’t theirs (seldom is for previous administrations either).
If people were laid off because of a minimum-wage increase that would increase the average wage, since some low wage workers would now be unemployed and so not included in the average.
A nice example of the risk of evaluating outcomes by averages.
@DavidFriedman,
Sure, that’s plausible.
I remember for some months during the last recession it was reported that “average wages have gone up because lower-wage jobs are being eliminated more”.
Last I checked total jobs were still going up, in the press I read I’ve seen a lot of arguments that given the amount of extra debt due to the last tax cuts if the cuts were better targeted and/or spending instead, or if tariffs and trade ‘wars’ had been avoided job growth could be higher, but I don’t think tales of “could’ve been better” will move many voters to change their views, I think voters mostly go by are the material conditions they see better or worse, and how close are they to their expectations.
For me personally where I live and work so far 2020 doesn’t look much different trend wise than 2016, not worse enough that I imagine many Trump supporters will change their votes, not better enough that many Democrats will switch, and certainly not enough different that non-voters will start voting.
Unless there’s been a big enough demographic change in four years (enough older voters that were more likely than average to support Trump die off, and are replaced by enough younger voters) I don’t see much reason for the election results to be very different from 2016.
Trump has had his successes. There are more beyond the usual “the economy is good,” “inflation is low.”
As a partial success consider the tax cut. It was a partial success because although almost everyone got a tax cut, Democrats have managed to make most people believe their taxes were increased and “any benefit went to the rich.” (People thought this because low-information taxpayers saw their tax refunds shrink and thought that meant the government was keeping more of their income.*)
Other huge successes from a Republican point of view would be the Supreme Court (Gorsuch and Kavanagh) and masses of Federal judges appointed. He is close to turning the left-wing 9th Circuit red, for example.
Similarly, further crippling of the ACA points to the possibility of it being declared unconstitutional (due to the mandate no longer qualifying as a “tax”, as the penalty has been zeroed out).
And of course, the SC may now have a majority which will be willing to restrict abortion.
Up until the latest Iran excitement, he has managed to reduce US involvement in the various wars going on in the Middle East. His supporters were pretty happy about that, but now some of them feel like he’s betrayed them if hostilities with Iran escalate.
Obviously anyone on the left would think that all these “successes” were bad things, and don’t count.
* (Matt Yglesias considered this to be one of the most important things the Democrats have done during Trump’s tenure. [This was before impeachment happened.])
This is a questionable statement. Even before the most recent Iran thing he agreed to send 5k (i think) troops to Saudi Arabia following that drone attack. He also surged troops in Afghanistan and vetoed a measure that would have prevented US involvement in Yemen.
#FormerRanger says: “Trump has had his successes. There are more beyond the usual “the economy is good,” “inflation is low.”
As a partial success consider the tax cut. It was a partial success because although almost everyone got a tax cut, Democrats have managed to make most people believe their taxes were increased and “any benefit went to the rich.” (People thought this because low-information taxpayers saw their tax refunds shrink and thought that meant the government was keeping more of their income.*)…”
This Californian didn’t see much of a change in his Federal income taxes, and I doubt that I’m alone, ’cause what I saved from the nominal cut I lost due to the elimination of the deduction for State taxes, and it came to be within $2000’s the same as the previous years.
I imagine many lower income Californians didn’t pay much income taxes, and I imagine many higher income Californians wound up paying more with the loss of the deduction.
As it is I pay far more in local and State taxes, which goes to libraries, roads, police, and fire services, which I like getting.
The Army and Naval bases are closed (near me) in the ’90’s, but there’s still National Forests and Parks (Elk are cool!), and we have the Coast Guard rescuing boaters and (presumably) deterring pirates, so I’m probably getting my money’s worth from Feds, maybe if California was independent there’d be some savings, or maybe it be more ’cause of bulk discounts and stuff being cheaper
abroadin other Statea, I really don’t know.Archeological evidence (the mothball fleet, the Oakland-San Francisco bay bridge, the shipyard ruins, interstate highways, footage of the moon landings, my WPA built local
library and the highschool I went to) suggests the Feds used to do more, so maybe with more money the Feds could again, though for much of that I imagine California could do on it’s own.@Plumber
In other words, the rich ended up paying more. Isn’t that something that’s supposed to make those worried about inequality happy?
I also live in a high-tax state, and also ended up using the standard deduction because my state taxes and local property taxes blew through the limit. So I owed more.
Is deficit a possible objective measurement?
Yes. Or at least it would be, if it was something people actually cared about.
Once again, the notion that conventional Republicans (or even the American population as a whole) are anti-deficit is… unsupported by evidence, to say the least.
Who might be a “conventional Republican” that would challenge Trump on this issue? Paul Ryan’s 40-year plan to eliminate the deficit basically cost him his career because it was considered so extreme and beyond the pale.
There are no “conventional” Republicans OR Democrats who can credibly promise to reduce the deficit. Maybe Rand Paul could do it, but he’s hardly conventional…
which are the objective measures that
(1) people care about
and
(2) a candidate can credibly propose to fix
?
@meh
Define “credibly”. You don’t need to be able to do it, you just need people to believe you when you say you can do it.
I think it would be more accurate to say that Ryan’s career ended because he was unpopular with both Democrats in his home state (duh!) and with populist and anti-immigration Republicans in his home state. On the right, he is seen as the person who prevented Trump’s wall from being built.
I doubt many voters give credence to deficit-reduction promises anymore, and even for those who do, other concerns come first.
Ryan released his 40-year plan in 2011ish (it’s hard to get exact dates, because he’s released variants on it in several different years, each time they’re budgeting). He became Speaker of the House in 2015.
That plan did not end his career. He flubbed the leadership of the house, delivering neither a responsible budget, nor a repeal of Obamacare. (Yes, he passed something to repeal, but it looked rushed and poorly done. He should have been ready to go on that front.)
Ryan also, by most accounts, really hated being speaker. Admittedly, being speaker under a president of your party is a lot less fun than the opposite, especially when the president is someone that ryan has to pretty loathe, but he definitely hated the job.
That’s the use of “credibly” I meant, for the record.
GDP growth. Unemployment rate. Inflation rate. Trade deficit. Number of legal immigrants admitted. Border apprehensions. Things like that. On almost all of these things, Trump has done pretty well. In the areas where he hasn’t done well (the immigration ones), there is nobody meeting the qualifier of “conventional” or “traditional” or “establishment” that can (or would even be willing to) credibly promise to do any better.
Matt M:
Winning Bigly
It looks like, from the point of view of the people who voted for him, his policies are doing pretty well on immigration.
Trump is wildly popular in the Republican Party. Probably the most popular incumbent with his own party since at least Reagan.
For comparison, Obama had an 83% approval among Democrats in 2012 and there wasn’t even a hint of a serious primary challenge to him.
If the economy was terrible, we might see some conventional Republican opposition to Trump. Without that, any conventional Republican is going to figure, rationally, that challenging Trump from that side only increases the chances for a Democrat to get into power. They’re not going to win a primary battle against an incumbent popular within the Republican electorate, and if they lose and a Democrat wins the general, their name is mud in Republican circles for the forseeable future.
Less than a month to Iowa. It looks like Biden and Sanders are both entering high-tide at exactly the right time, so they’ll have momentum rolling into Iowa. Per 538, Warren has taken a huge dip since Nov and is a distant 4th: if she can’t take Iowa or NH, I don’t see how she remains competitive. Mayor Pete, if anything, seems to have a better shot at building up something if Biden starts looking weak and people start flocking to him.
But I’d put Bernie and Biden at the top based on polling. Plus I think Bernie picks up more votes if Biden drops out. Not enough to wrap up a nomination, though. Really looking forward to a brokered convention!
@A Definite Beta Guy,
Judging by the last 50 years as precedent the nominee will be one of the top three winners in Iowa and one of the top two in New Hampshire.
I expect the eventual nominee will be clear before I get to vote in March, but maybe we’ll get a repeat of 1980 and 2016 with a “left” candidate and a “mainstream” candidate in contention till near the convention, but more than two?
Past March I’d be very surprised.
My guess is that it’ll be Biden and Sanders, till Biden gets the nomination.
If Biden and Sanders aren’t the top two of the New Hampshire primary, oh jeez I have no clue.
If Buttigieg or Bloomberg is the nominee Trump is re-elected (apologies to my wife who likes Bloomberg), as no Democrat will win without enough black support, and those two won’t get it.
If Warren is the nominee she has a better chance, but would probably lose as well.
Biden has better odds of winning most “battleground” states, especially Pennsylvania and it’s 20 electoral college votes, and I think he’s the most plausible to beat Trump.
Sanders has better odds of winning Michigan’s 16 electoral college votes, and his becoming President isn’t impossible.
If it was Sanders vs.Trump, oh jeez the mainstream media would lose their minds, I imagine a strong third-party push.
Agreed.
I think she actually gets fewer black votes than Bloomberg, but more than Buttigieg. Meaning I think she loses just as badly.
Yep. Biden is by far the Democrats’ best chance. The only question is if he can endure a long campaign that allows Trump to hammer him relentlessly. He’s the best candidate, but I doubt he can win.
Sanders has the same black problem as discussed above. He would also lose Virginia, which the Democrats HAVE to hold to have a chance against Trump.
Losing Virginia for Michigan is technically gaining votes for the Democrats, but not in a way that really matters.
@EchoChaos > “…Biden is by far the Democrats’ best chance. The only question is if he can endure a long campaign that allows Trump to hammer him relentlessly. He’s the best candidate, but I doubt he can win…”
Yeah, probably not unless enough of more Americans are in body bags/lose wages in the next nine months unless…
…if Biden does one more push up than Trump!
@Plumber
Don’t get me wrong, a Biden/Trump contest would be HILARIOUS.
You agree with the conventional wisdom, and I in turn agree with you.
However, let’s just pause to consider how bizarre US elections are that we’re talking about a doddering old man having the best chance to prevent a real estate developer/TV star who’d never held elected office before from being a two-term President.
It’s a little odd, but that’s a function of the incumbent President being said Real Estate developer and the Democrats not having a young talent bunch to call on. This is exactly what you would expect from the Dem side:
1. The prior VP
2. The guy who ran last time who almost won
3. A high profile Senator
4. Okay, that random guy from South Bend is a little weird
These people all happen to be old, but that’s the fault of the Democrats. Their prior VP is an old guy because they wanted to get moderate votes. The guy who ran last time was an old kook because almost no other high-profile Dems would dare challenge the anointed successor. Several Dems had an opportunity to take the spot Warren did now, but Warren ran a better campaign, and Harris/Beto/Booker ran crap campaigns.
On the GOP side, Jeb! squandered an early advantage by being SO unenergetic, Cruz looked crazy to moderate GOPers, Rubio fumbled ahead of NH, and Kasich really never stood a chance. Trump did the best at owning a crowded field and gave the GOP what they wanted after 8 years of Obama.
Blame the other candidates for not being better, and blame the parties for not developing their talent benches. Biden should’ve been dropped after the first term, people should have been encouraged to run against Hillary, and Warren shouldn’t even be allowed on the stage.
Maybe true… but.
They went as far the other direction as possible, right?
Those meddling Russians exposed our cheating!
Only on the most superficial level, individually they are odd. You would expect the former VP to run at his first chance, not 4 years later. You would be forgiven for thinking a 78 year old just off a heart attack wouldn’t be mounting another challenge in the primaries. Sure Mitt Romney was the runner up in 2008 and then the nominee in 2012, but he as ~18 years younger than Sanders, who is not just old but campaigning to be the oldest first term president by 8 years, which brings us to this
These guys aren’t just old, they are record shatteringly old if they win the presidency. Quick google and math they would both be older on inauguration day than the oldest president leaving office. Freaking Al Gore is 6-8 years younger than these two guys, and he started his attempts for the presidency in 1998 and retired from politics in 2000. The Dems have been skewing old, with Hillary a year older than Gore and Dean and still running for president 12 and 16 years after they gave up that ghost, only to have even older people than her take up the front positions in the next election.
No, the new guy no one knows anything about, and a lot of people get excited about precisely because they don’t know anything about him, is also exactly what you’d expect.
All this discussion about the old Dem candidates makes me wonder who will be the candidates for 2024. There has to be a limit on age, so Biden, Sanders, Warren all too old? Mayor Pete all the way?
It’ll be Chelsea vs Ivanka, obviously. Because we’re a meritocracy.
@Mark V Anderson
If I had to bet today, I’d wager that Gavin Newsom will be the next democratic president.
AOC, obviously. Maybe Gillibrand will have found some way of branding herself besides following in Hillary’s footsteps. NJs idiot governor (the latest one) probably. Cory Booker again. I imagine a bunch from other parts of the country but I’m not so familiar with them.
I think it may have been Glenn Reynolds who said (in 2016) “The Democrats have a deep bench of septuagenarians.” Still true, having gotten rid of almost all of the “annoying kids.”
One has to imagine the possibility of a “man on a white horse” coming to their rescue, although it this case it would be a woman: Hillary Clinton is just biding her time. As a septuagenarian, she qualifies as a Dem candidate.
Trump has done everything establishment republicans wanted – appointed judges, lowered taxes, especially corporate taxes, restricted the SALT deduction. Why would there be a challenger?
Request for advice (regular commenter, but don’t want this linked to my identity):
My marriage is troubled, and has been getting steadily worse for almost a decade. I’ve talked to counselors–my spouse has not been willing to do so. But mostly, what I get is “here’s some tips for working on communication.”
What I want is someone to ask me questions, and tell me what’s going on–pointed “here’s where you are screwing up” or “no, that’s not you being unreasonable, that’s your spouse being unreasonable.” I want a well-informed, external perspective, not another round of “trying communicating better and figure it out for yourself”.
What sort of description would a counselor who does sort of diagnostic work that have? How would I go about finding someone with that approach?
Your description treats your spouse, and your relationship, in a general and interchangeable manner, as if there is a standard template for a spouse and a relationship, and your issues arise from deviating from the template.
If that is for anonymity purposes, that’s fine. If that is how you think about your relationship, however, that is at least one of the issues.
The other obvious issue is that your partner apparently isn’t willing to participate in the repair of the relationship. One possible cause is that they don’t really think there are issues, in which case, yes, communication is the problem. If they do think there are issues, and aren’t willing to work on it, then a counselor isn’t going to help. No amount of “This specifically is the issue” can help if your partner isn’t willing to work on said issue. You can’t save your relationship on your own; it takes both people to create a relationship, and it takes both people to maintain and repair one.
Thanks for the reply. It’s partly for anonymity–but it’s also that I think there are at least some broad parameters that most successful relationships share.
For an analogy–it’s really helpful with children to have some ideas of what is typical at particular ages. Yes, 13-year-olds generally argue about everything, 5-year-olds usually can’t read–but if your 8-year-old can’t read you might want to do at least a basic learning differences work-up.
And yes–the “how do I get my spouse to work on this too” is another question.
First, I’m sorry. Domestic problems and the slow degredation of long-term relationships that you’ve built much of your sense of self on are the worst.
Second, I don’t think you need a counselor, I think you need friends. Personal friends, whom you are comfortable sharing your life situation.
“no, that’s not you being unreasonable, that’s your spouse being unreasonable” is generally only useful in the unlikely situation that both you and your spouse are the kind of people who will go “ok, since my opinion on this has been deemed objectively unreasonable I will change it” (not to mention the difficulty in determining what is objectively (un)reasonable). Maybe you’re that kind of person and you can solve some issues like that, but it’s overwhelmingly likely that your spouse will have some things that are both “objectively unreasonable” and won’t just go away if someone tells them that (even if your spouse believes it!). You will need to deal with those, which is where c o m m u n i c a t i o n comes in.
I think knowing which is which is still helpful for determining a course of action/resolution.
Yes. Having a confirmed fact that you are not the crazy one is a major help in coping.
Also, there is the chance you will be told you are the one doing something unreasonable, which you can fix.
Does your spouse agree there is a problem? Have you told your spouse specifically that you think there is a problem and things are getting worse?
What is the thing you like the most in your spouse?
What is the thing your spouse likes the most in you?
What is your spouse’s most annoying behaviour as perceived by you?
What is your most annoying behaviour as perceived by your spouse?
The issue is that you can tell your side of the story, but for a third party to be more useful, your interaction with your spouse may be more telling.
If I’ve learned anything about girls, it’s often not what you say or do, but how you say or do it.
Yeah, it seems very likely that they would be able to tell a sympathetic story and get affirmation that the partner was being unreasonable. This may not be an accurate representation of reality because of regrettable but near universal human psychology, and the resulting affirmation may do more harm than good.
Ideal would be some friends that know both and care about you personally enough to tell you what you don’t want to hear.
There can be “unreasonable” in the cultural sense, when the person violates the cultural norms. But another possible meaning is that what the person says doesn’t make sense, perhaps because the person is lying or crazy or has a really bad model of the world. For example, asking someone to do an impossible thing, and then throwing a fit when they don’t, would be “unreasonable”.
Also, I can imagine counselors sometimes providing less then optimal advice, if providing better advice would expose them to a possible lawsuit. Or if the counselors come from the same educational system, which teaches them some dogma, and the better advice would go against the dogma.
@ThrowawayGoat — there is a chance this will lead to divorce. (That is what happens to a nontrivial fraction of marriages; and being “troubled”, “steadily worse for a decade” and “spouse unwilling to cooperate in your attempts to solve the problem” is an evidence in that direction.) You might want to get ready for that alternative, and talk to a lawyer to minimize the damage. (You know what sucks more than being heartbroken? Being heartbroken and homeless.) Sometimes the reason the other person does not want to cooperate is because they are already executing the Plan B; they just don’t want you to know yet. — I am not saying this is what happens, just that it is a realistic possibility.
For a better answer, you would need to provide more data.
Villiam–thank you, that second definition of “unreasonable” is what I am looking for. Not “this isn’t the way most relationships work” but “these two goals are incompatible” or “no, that’s ‘humans gonna human’ not something you should consider a personal insult.”
Please note: I’m looking for advice on finding a counselor, not really looking for relationship advice (although I don’t mind it).
If you are familiar with it, Too Good to Leave, To Bad to Stay by Mira Kirshenbaum is the kind of approach I’m looking for.
Unfortunately, I have no good advice for finding a counselor.
I have friends who have found this resource extremely helpful, and I’ve found it somewhat helpful in my marriage as well (and in parent-child relationships too, actually). It focuses on those arguments or responses you seem to have over and over, giving you a way to see why you are reacting in an unreasonable or unhelpful way, why your spouse is, and what you can do about breaking that cycle and responding to things in a different way. It’s certainly better if your spouse is interested in participating, but the authors emphasize that you can do your part by yourself and still expect improvement (and possible insight into their behavior and emotions). It’s written by Christians, and that perspective runs all throughout, but all the tools are usable outside of any religious context. There’s a preview on the website.
https://5daystoanewmarriage.com/product/store_item:4
Unrelated to that, all I’ve got is to avoid disdain with everything you have. Don’t let disdain get the tiniest foothold in your relationship.
I’m sorry to hear you are having challenges. Speaking from experience (to a point that my marriage dissolved), I know how painful it is to want to fix things but not feel like you have the tools to do so.
Without getting into specifics that you don’t want to share, I kind of agree with your counselor, communication is really important. That really is the best advice. I think the lesson I learned that I really could have learned earlier is that saying something isn’t enough, it needs to be absorbed by the other person (which sometimes means saying something multiple times in different ways).
Conversely, it is really important to be receptive. Many people avoid conflict, or hard conversations, because they don’t want to upset their partner. The only way to address this is to be thoroughly and consistently open to hearing things that might hurt.
You need to make it safe for someone to bring up things, and part of that, IMO, is stepping back from the reasonable/unreasonable dichotomy. If something is bothering your spouse, it’s probably not something they can express well. It’s complicated and tied into a lot of aspects of your relationship, maybe. It’s emotionally fraught, maybe. Nothing about that will be easy for them to a) explain coherently and b) defend their position. If you approach a problem they bring up by challenging their position as unreasonable, you might win the argument and end the discussion…but you haven’t solved the problem, which is that they are unhappy.
I am, of course, using “you” in a general sense…I’m not in your relationship and am not trying to describe it.
As other people have already noted, you can’t fix a relationship if the other person doesn’t want to, but I’d encourage you to try. Even if it ends, you will be in a better place emotionally if you know you did everything you could.
Best of luck, I’m rooting for you.
Married 10 years, and my wife and I are working our way through a rough spot now.
I don’t think this helps or can help. People’s perspectives can be different and legitimately view exactly the same incidents in opposite ways simply by having different weights on values. The most basic question is ‘are you treating your spouse generously or un-generously’, everyone is going to make mistakes, have habits that can irritate their partner or have preferences that lead to one partner having to give up something they want. Communication doesn’t solve this, the root of ‘I hate that you leave the dishes out’ isn’t ‘dishes have to objectively be done by time X, or Y% of dishes being done is equitable’ it is that ‘things you do make me annoyed, and I allow them to annoy me enough that I start disliking and even hating you’.
Since neither of you can ever be perfect fixing your own flaws to make the other person like you will typically be doomed to fail if they are interpreting your behaviors negatively, while tiny improvements can make a world of difference if you take them in the best possible light.
There’s a psychology blog I like to read, and while I don’t agree with everything she has to say, I think it’s a good resource and a good outlook on relationships and child-rearing.
I think she also does tele-consultations if you’re not located in her area, but her rates are high and she doesn’t take insurance, unfortunately.
I saw a Twitter hypothesis that Trump’s negotiating strategy is basically bog-standard “double defect bot”. If you do something to harm Trump and/or America (he sees them as the same, btw), then he will punch you. Hard. Twice. Then he will wait to see if your next move is to cooperate. If it is, he immediately switches to pure cooperate and will sing your praises from the rooftops.
This actually explained to me really well exactly what is happening in foreign relations both with the recent Iran strike (which I agree was an escalation, because double-defect bot intentionally escalates) and with our putative allies getting criticized while dictators get praised.
For example, Vladimir Putin has nothing but praise for Donald Trump, so Donald Trump has nothing but praise for Putin. Trump’s policies have actually been modestly harsh on Russia. Never truly punching them hard, but not exactly cooperating, because Russia isn’t cooperating either.
Xi gets praised, but the actual trade deals being struck are still modestly pro-American.
Allied leaders who miss this end up getting nasty criticism directed at them (e.g. Trudeau) not understanding why.
And note that Trump can in fact differentiate talk from actual policy. He hasn’t left NATO or screwed Canada because Merkel or Trudeau has criticized him in speech. He’s just criticized them more harshly in speech.
In summary: Trump’s behavior as President both in his speech and his acts are surprisingly predictable and reasonable, not irrational.
Correction: a preemptive “double defect bot”
If he suspects you might punch him then he punches twice first. Then if it looks like you might punch him because he’s just sucker-punched you for no reason then he punches you again. Then if it looks like anyone around might object to him repeatedly punching someone he punches them for good measure.
You really don’t want a “double defect bot” with access to nuclear weapons.
Has he ever done a pre-emptive defect? I can’t think of one off the top of my head.
Every single one I can think of is preceded by a defection from the other side.
Why not?
The recent assasination of Irans Soleimani was claimed by the whitehouse to be because he was suspected to be planning some kind of attack on americans.
Because I like to not be on fire and for there to be no multi-nation nuclear exchanges just because the orange ball of rage decided he needed to launch first as soon as he suspects someone else might.
It was directly in response to an attack on our embassy. It is an escalation from that attack, but that’s what you get when you defect against double-defect bot.
My argument is that Trump isn’t in fact an “orange ball of rage”, but is calculatedly responding to defections, which means that if someone actually tries something that can only be escalated by nukes they will get nuked, but otherwise everyone is entirely safe from that.
The official position is that it was a preemptive strike.
Trump suspects you will defect, he defects harder before you get the chance to.
That is the last thing you want from someone with nuclear weapons because that’s how the last war starts.
@Murphy
The official position is absolutely irrelevant to Trump’s mental calculus. I guarantee he views it as punching back for the embassy attack.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213684819537932293
Oh look.
Given that we disagree on the evidence for Soleimani, do you have a second example? If he does it all the time they should be easy to come up with.
The official position is that Soleimani has orchestrated attacks in the past and is planning on more in the near future, which is substantially different than ‘he was planning an attack’ on its own.
I think this is the key insight. He sees himself as Mr. America (for all I know, he falsely sees himself as ripped when looking in the mirror). “You hurt America? You hurt me!” and conversely, attacking him means you’re trying to subvert American society. This is why he looks so racist to his enemies: Latino judge goes after him? The judge must be serving Mexican interests rather than American. If you’re not a criminal or personally attacking him, he wants to be friends regardless of your race, and he lashes out at white people who attack America/him: legacy and social media just can’t racialize the negative things he says about them.
I think this is true – but I do feel the need to suggest that I hardly think this is unique to Trump. A whole lot of American Presidents have behaved in a manner that suggests they had similar thoughts. Teddy Roosevelt most immediately comes to mind.
Indeed, which is why we had the old norm that “politics stops at the water’s edge”, because foreigners used to use criticism of the President to sneak in criticism of all of America.
I think not wanting to criticise your country/government in front of foreigners is a pretty common human feeling.
“I make it a rule never to criticise the government when I’m abroad. I make up for lost time when I get back.” — Winston Churchill
This hinges on the 4d chess explanation of Trump, that he’s playing a deeper game that is publicly view-able and that there are deeper motives behind his actions. It’s also equating the whole body of actions
Most of the international friction that Russia has taken part in since Trump became president have not been answered by the white house (example: the Kerch Strait incident) It’s either been congress or non-Trump government officials condemning Russia, not the office of the President.
I guess this comes down to what you think Trump would do if he wasn’t constrained. Do you think that if Trump had his druthers, we’d still be in NATO?
Not at all. I am saying that he is in fact reacting in the most one-dimensional way possible, in simple “defect or cooperate” terms.
Trump isn’t directly criticizing because Putin isn’t, but “non-Trump officials” is eliding a lot of Trump directed action.
Yes, I do. I think Trump likes us being the big dog in any partnership. I think he wishes we directly controlled NATO more, as he perceives we did in the Cold War, but I think he likes an alliance where Germany, France, etc. rely on us because it shows we’re important.
In order for this theory to even remotely match Trump’s observed behavior, you have to add the bit where the adversaries he is most keen to retaliate against are…
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Both of whom are, as American citizens in private life, basically immune to any retaliation Trump can even plausibly threaten. He can’t actually Lock Her Up. And by the same token, they can’t back down, because there is nothing left for them to back down from. And so, when he’s not satisfied throwing empty tweets and leading ineffectual chanting crowds against them, he retaliates against their works and their allies.
And that never ends, because they can’t back down either, not in any substantial way. A former ally of Hillary Clinton can’t retroactively stop having been her ally in the past. Nor in the present, because with Hillary in private life “Hillary’s ally” is basically an empty concept. Likewise, Hillary’s diplomatic accomplishments at State and legislative accomplishments in the Senate(*) can be torn down, but they can’t signal their surrender and they can’t shift to “cooperate” in the future.
So the proposed “double defect” bot is stuck in an endless defect loop, evaluating “shall I defect this round?” not against people who may or may not be cooperating with Trump today, but with the frozen memory of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2016.
Indeed it does. The recent kerfluffle in Iran is the result of a series of escalations (until now mostly low-key) that date back to Trump’s decision to effectively abrogate the JCPOA. Which was not a response to anything Iran had done, but a retaliation against Barack Obama for his perceived crimes against America all the way back in 2015.
People and institutions that POTUS should be incentivizing to cooperate, are faced with defect-no-matter-what because they can’t not be the proxies Trump “has” to punish for their “defection” to the Obama/Hillary axis in the past.
See also, “Obamacare”. Trump doesn’t have anything better to replace it, and he doesn’t even really care, but it’s got “Obama” in the name, so it’s got to go.
* Yes, yes, the “null set” jokes write themselves
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/us/politics/trump-speech-iran-deal.html
This is technically incorrect (the best kind of incorrect). The reason was Benjamin Netanyahu’s “Iran Lied” presentation as well as the fact that Iran was continuing to sow instability in the reason.
“Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents — long concealed by Iran — conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons.”
Now, Trump was definitely primed to believe the Israelis, but we did actually withdraw for cause.
Trump announced that he was decertifying Iran under the JCPOA on October 13, 2017. That was the decision that started the countdown to formal termination of the deal. Netanyahu’s speech wasn’t until May 8, 2018. So, no.
Which he also did for cause, saying that Iran was blocking access to military sites.
Trump specifically said that the Israeli information Netanyahu gave was why he terminated instead of continuing to renegotiate.
I don’t know why, but I read that as Netanyahu’s ‘Iranlied’ first, and was wondering what he was doing singing an ode to Iran in German.
I don’t care why; that’s too weird and awesome to question.
I can’t edit, for whatever reason.
This one is a bit unfair. Trump had a health plan he ran on that was a fairly center-line Republican plan.
The Senate Republicans then modified it (a lot) in order to make it something they could pass under reconciliation, which McCain spiked.
I don’t usually comment on politics, and I certainly never debate them (as unless through some spectacular error I am made a public official my opinions don’t matter a lick), but regarding the JCPOA, wasn’t today’s situation something that lots of people predicted would come up?
As I recall, it had no chance of being approved by the Senate as a treaty, so President Obama opted to call it a non-binding “executive agreement” instead. It was pointed out at the time that this would mean that the next President could easily abrogate it then, which, hey, look at that. Hell, I think the Senate even sent Tehran an open letter laying this out (for which they were denounced as traitors).
It seems to me that this is a data point in favor of all diplomatic treaties having to go through the Senate for approval, simply for reasons of dependability and reliability in foreign policy. If the President can’t gain the requisite Senate approval, then the agreement ought not be made, even if it’s a good agreement overall.
see the bricker amendment.
Ultimately, though, any such rule is meaningless because it’s completely unenforceable. A president can always write down some sort of agreement with a foreign government and then abide by it, and this will establish a pattern of behavior that there are then consequences for departing from. if congress doesn’t pass the thing, he can always say “fine, it’s not official, I’m going to abide by it anyway”, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Well, you could try to give congress total control over foreign policy, but that’s something that it doesn’t want and couldn’t effectively exercise anyway.
If the leader of the opposite party working to reverse things that the other guy did and their party was consistently opposing is “defecting,” then I’m not sure what exactly you think American politics is supposed to be, especially with the 2 examples you give. Republicans of all stripes were staunchly opposed to Obamacare from the start, and rode that opposition into power in both houses and the presidency. (Yes, they were lying, particularly McCain.) Trump opposing Obamacare as a Republican President is entirely expected, and no special theory of animus is required.
Similarly, the JCPOA was opposed by Republicans, which is why (then-minority) Democrats in the Senate blocked the Senate from voting on it. Treaties are supposed to be approved by the Senate with a 2/3 majority, but they knew this would be voted down, and so instead tried to side-step it and move forward even though Republicans had said quite clearly that they opposed the action.
Reversing those two actions are exactly what one would expect of any current Republican president. Painting this as an unusual double-defection is so absurd that I’m not sure I trust your read of the Iran situation now either. This is very far outside your normally insightful analysis.
It’s not even correct in the Iran case. Trump had the opportunity to end the deal twice by simply refusing to certify Iran. He even considered doing so, but decided that the US would not defect first and certified them.
Then when presented with evidence that Iran had defected first, he cancelled the deal. He may have misread the evidence, but this is clearly not Trump defecting first or arbitrarily being anti-Obama.
Where’s the evidence that Iran defected specifically with regards to the nuclear agreement? They are obviously obnoxious little brats in the Middle East generally, but there was never a possibility that we could make a Grand Bargain. The Iran Deal was necessarily ONLY going to be a nuclear deal.
AFAICT, Trump didn’t immediately decertify and didn’t immediately sanction because he wanted a renegotiated deal rather than blowing up the entire framework. Every other party of the JCPOA said no. So then Trump gave them the bird and pulled out.
@A Definite Beta Guy
The “Iran Lied” presentation by Benjamin Netanyahu.
My understanding is that some of it turned out to be total bullshit, but Trump specifically referenced it in his speech about pulling out of the deal.
This is another disadvantage of him not trusting the American intelligence apparatus, by the way. He has people he trusts, and Netanyahu is on that list for a variety of reasons. Since Netanyahu said Iran defected, regardless of if they did, he believed that. And American intelligence couldn’t convince him otherwise because he trusted Netanyahu more.
This also explains some of the anger on both sides because both of them thought the other defected first.
But only one side was actually correct in thinking that, and it wasn’t the one that listened to advice from Benjamin “recently indicted for fraud (among other things)” Netanyahu.
I’m not the one trying to describe Trump’s political behavior as a “double defect bot”. That’s a silly model to apply to Trump, and as you note it’s a silly model to apply to American politics. But if you are going to try to make it fit, the only way it works is if you retroactively count the “defections” of previous administrations.
Which is a silly way to model policy decisions, because it leads you to try and do other silly things like destroying useful things for which you have no replacement in mind, because destroying the works of the previous administration looks more important than doing good works of your own.
I specifically said in international relations.
Domestic politics Trump actually does have principles that he follows.
This assumes that the Iran deal and Obamacare were useful, which Trump disagrees with.
If we had to choose one or the other, would we rather have the moon 15% closer or 15% farther away?
I dare say farther away since closer would increase tides and tides are probably not something we want increased.
The moon was 15% closer in the past, and will be 15% further away in the future. Tides and a shorter day are the consequences of the first, longer days and a possibly a less stable axis of rotation. Also we would no longer have total solar eclipses.
No more total eclipses?
… my heart. 🙁
I’ve been unemployed for 9 months. I don’t feel desperate but I do feel dreadful. Please advise.
Details: in my 20s. Male. Ashkenazi Jew. American. BA Linguistics from a well-regarded college (not an Ivy.) Recently moved back in with parents in Southern California. Few friends here (slowly making more.) No regular social activity/meetup; little or no exercise. No more debt, ~6k cash in bank, expenses ~600/month. Last job was computer science/clinical linguistics research assistant, mostly writing Python scripts to help professors do the actual research. With money in the bank, and frustrated with stagnant responsibilities, I quit my job to pursue translation, web dev, and other avenues which might let me change careers. I was uncertain of what I wanted to do next; I naively misunderstood how hard it would be for me to run a job hunt.
Diagnosed with ADHD. When I don’t take my Adderall (low dose: 10mg, “extended release,” 1-2/day), I have a horrible sense of time, and can waste a whole hour just showering, dressing, and brushing my teeth. I can’t seem to stick to a schedule day-to-day … but I can sometimes hit longer-term goals: when I get a big idea I can ride it for days, weeks, months, even years, cheerfully working two or four hours a day on whatever project has caught my fancy. When the fancy runs out, so does the work ethic, and I go back to careening around inside my own head.
Spent last five years smoking lots of weed which was terrible for me; after numerous attempts, finally quit last month reading “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.” Fervently hoping for improved focus + less listlessness. I believe I have depression and/or anxiety (I was almost certainly depressed for a year in college.) Have not been able to “open up” to past therapists.
My situation may seem ideal: “no job? No debt? Stop complaining, you jerk!” But between my unknown future, my lack of focus, my mental illness / neuroses, and my continued failure to find work, I am suffering. See below for (1) a list of strengths and weaknesses (2) a Question and Answer where I respond to things people commonly say. If you have anything to say, please do. Thank you so incredibly much for reading.
STRENGTHS and WEAKNESSES (+/-)
Please don’t guess at my IRL identity. Friends and acquaintances reading SSC: please don’t doxx me!
STRENGTHS
+ Comedy/sense of humor. My strongest skill. I am the funniest person I have ever met who is not a professional comedian; have been called “funniest person I’ve ever met” by at least a dozen people; was really good at improv comedy/theater until the Do Something Else Demon took me away from it. I open my mouth and the correct words come out to make others laugh, all the time, no prior thought needed; the skill carries over to written work.
+ Speak/read/write Mandarin Chinese, approximately a 3 on the ILR scale. Used to be much better; skills have declined since when I studied abroad.
+ Beginner/intermediate level of computer programming ability; languages include Python, Emacs Lisp, and Inform. Among other things, I spent several months creating a 2-hour text adventure starring my best friend, and publish/host my own static website with Markdown files, Python scripts and AWS S3. Lack of focus is my killer here: one day I want to upgrade my website, one day I want to get back into Nand 2 Tetris, one day I want to learn more about databases or server-side programming…
+ I’ve never taken a real IQ test, but online ones suggest roughly 130, for what that’s worth.
+ General creativity. Was a D&D DM for a long time; programmed an economic system to give my D&D world different prices at different locations for 300+ game items; started an art challenge and got ~30 participants to enter drawings; have journalled/blogged/posted hundreds of thousands of words; have written short stories and 100+ poems, often comedic or parody…
+/- Though by nature hesitant to try/do new things, I have been chipping away at that tendency for years. Once I’m stuck in a new situation, I’ll feel overwhelmed, but once I get past being overwhelmed my brain rallies and I can start trying to enjoy/improve/survive.
WEAKNESSES
– Anxiety (?). I had some anxiety attacks as a college freshman, and have long been an over-worrier.
– Depression (?).
– Low confidence; negative self-talk. I am so damn hard on myself and call myself stupid or an idiot. I got a little better with my last therapist I visited, but ‘stupid idiot’ has seemed all too real after I gave up a good job, in my field, where I was respected as part of the team despite being junior…
– Hesitant/slow to act. This fucks me up so bad. I delay and dawdle and things pass me by. I don’t know how to reconcile this with the off-the-cuff spontaneity that powers my humor. This is the 5th or 6th time writing this document from scratch and the first time I’ve been ready to post it.
– General neuroticism. Thanks, Jewish genes! I want things to be Just So; I get agitated when my possessions aren’t in their prescribed spots; my thoughts go in loops, thinking about the same stuff over and over as I get increasingly worked up…
– Bad posture; poor athleticism; mediocre diet. All were better in the past; all are sources of frustration.
QUESTION and ANSWER
Q: Is this the plant, Canyon Fern, or his human assistant, Ludovico?
A: Ludovico. CF is out sunning himself.
Q: What’s the big deal? Sometimes people are unemployed, and even if you aren’t using your time rationally, you aren’t totally wasting it.
A: I am under the impression that 9 months out of work looks hella bad for a young guy and people will be biased against me/trash my resume, out of hand. I don’t have much of a network to pump for favors/unlisted job openings (which sucks because that’s how most people actually get jobs.) What I’ve accomplished in 9 months isn’t nothing, but I haven’t been able to make myself focus on skills the market wants e.g. NLP (even though that fits my background!) I feel afraid to go on dates because I have no job and live with my parents. (I’ve gone on a couple dates despite being scared; I don’t have much luck online but the Hinge app is decent b/c being able to send a message pre-match lets me put my best foot forward.)
Q: You know the world’s hottest language and can program computers. Are you (Eliezer voice) really trying to find a job / boost your skills?
A: I’m not sure I was ever really trying, and now I feel hopeless after all these go-nowhere job applications, interview rejections, and the fear that 9 months without work makes me look like a dingus. I had an AWESOME interview two weeks ago where I did everything right, pointed out a glaring flaw on the firm’s landing page (they were grateful), and had an unexpected personal connection to the hiring manager, so if I get that job things will suddenly be much happier.
Q: Get exercise?
A: I used to love weight lifting, but I got discouraged (even though I was getting somewhere and I wish I’d kept it up — working with a trainer was showing clear results and by now I’d be hella built. First thing on my list when I get a job is to do personal training again.) I’ve never been much of an exerciser otherwise, and as a kid I was on my PC, reading books, or doing D&D instead of being outside. Maybe a group would help… all my bros are in other parts of the country.
Q: See a shrink, dammit!
A: I know I know I know! I’ve used locator.apa.org to find therapists in the past, but that gives psychologists; I want a psych who can prescribe drugs, not a psychologist who can’t. If you know how to find a therapist that can give drugs, please describe how.
Q: Do your thought processes ever remind you of the main character in Portnoy’s Complaint?
A: Every fucking day of my life — but, for all the dead-on accuracy in Roth’s portrayal of Jewish neuroticism, at least his fictional character got laid all the time, and was a successful lawyer! I barely get laid and my Myers-Briggs type is DOSL: “Diametric Opposite of Successful Lawyer.” To top it off, instead of my dad being constipated, I am. Oy vey!
Q: Get a retail/food-service job to acquire a daily routine, extra money, potential-friend coworkers, source of meaning, and an answer to “what do you do?” so you can go on dates and not be embarrassed?
A: I kept telling myself I didn’t want to do that, wouldn’t be good at it, and that such jobs would lead me nowhere, but as of the new year I’ve swallowed my pride and started applying to local bookstores & libraries. I am not optimistic.
Q: Aren’t you just a pitiful coward who refuses to work hard like a real man?
A: I’ve worked hard on all kinds of stuff, but experience tells me that if it’s not near my wheelhouse I’ll never get it done. I feel like picking my battles is a legitimate strategy. (Does “straight As in my preferred courses, Bs and Cs in other ones” sound familiar?)
Q: Why do you keep making excuses and feeling sorry for yourself, you privileged, entitled fool?
A: Writing this document makes me feel really vulnerable; please keep the insults to a minimum! I’m confused, lonely, agitated, not rational enough™, anxious, stubborn, and meh at starting new things. (Keeping At It is easier.)
Q: Aha! Choose 1 thing to focus on, then Keep At It?
A: I’m trying, yo! Working on Nand To Tetris (maximally low-level programming course) turned into website making turned into translation; my high-level interests don’t change but the projects expressing them veer wildly. Some projects virtuous-cycle back into each other (e.g. starting a website gave me somewhere to share my other stuff), but I feel cursed to be “jack of all trades, master of jack.” Is there some way to hire and report to a goal coach? Maybe I should sign up for Complice and use its “work room”? I used Beeminder successfully for a few things until I started losing too much money and freaked out and mostly quit.
Q: Why not move to the Bay Area, thereby unlocking sick computer jobs like Python Pesterer and Syntax Tree Trimmer?
A: File this under “obvious but I keep making excuses” e.g. “Everyone else out there seems more accomplished than me…” Getting the first developer job is the hardest one and I don’t think I’m up to snuff.
Q: Join the military?
A: I’ve considered training to meet the Army Reserves fitness standards, with the goal of being MOS 35P Cryptologic Linguist, but am concerned about my possible mental illnesses and my prior weed habit. I may send a list of questions to the linguist-specific recruiters. IDK if I’m “man enough” to serve but I want to understand all my options, even this less-likely one.
Q: Do you come off this freaked-out in real life?
A: Only when letting my guard down e.g. with close friends. Humor, improv training, and natural preference for being a listener take me far in social situations.
Q: Have you learned A Valuable Lesson?
A: YES, for god’s sake. “Don’t quit your job without one lined up” and “don’t jump ship from a good thing even if you are temporarily frustrated you dumbass,” for starters.
Q: Do you want to join @RandyM’s weekly game night?
A: Yes, if the invitation from the Irvine meetup still stands! I can bring food/booze/cash.
Q: Can you wrap up this whole charade with a poem in tetradecameter?
A: Just did, but I’ll spare you the maudlin results.
@Canyon Fern >
Check out being an indentured apprentice:
http://www.calapprenticeship.org/about.php
When I signed up with the San Jose plumber’s union there was no interview, just multiple choice tests (practice being able to do arithmetic quickly), starting pay was about $30,000 per year (in 1999) after five years of twice a week night classes (summers off) and 9,000 hours of labor I “turned out” as a journeyman and earn $90,000 to $110,000 per year (depending on how much overtime).
I’m taking a look at the page right now – thanks, @Plumber! I know some really happy carpenters and electricians. Built their own homes and that kind of thing.
($30k in 1999 dollars is about $46k now, for anyone wondering.)
How many jobs are you applying for? I was in a similar position as you, barely doing any applications at all. Eventually something broke and I used the shot-gun approach and it got my foot in the door. Being 100% inept at networking, I found the numbers game approach to be key. I think getting yourself into some organization, corporate or academic, is better than trying to improve yourself auto-didactically. And even if you get rejected, you can take it as a learning experience, and to desensitize you to the anxiety. Be friendly with recruiters from head-hunting companies, they may be willing to offer advice for how to market yourself. But ultimately, you just gotta get out there and start failing.
I assume you have some minimal programming competence. I don’t mean real impressive stuff you’d brag about at a meetup, but like that you could write an SQL query or create some bone simple web-application, and use git. The bar is much lower than you likely imagine.
Also, in retrospect 9 months isn’t that big a deal. I don’t think most recruiters scrutinize it that closely, and if they do ask you can have some plausible lie at hand (say, trying to write a novel or couchsurfing in europe).
Thanks for chiming in, @sidereal — especially for letting me know that 9 months isn’t necessarily a killer. For that alone, I poached you a Weasel of Gratitude from Canyon Fern’s menagerie. Don’t spend it all in one place, now!
Minimal programming experience, yes! Even beyond minimal, depending on the task at hand. I did a TripleByte interview a few months ago and did reasonably well on the coding portions, but sucked hard at topic-specific questions which gauged my depth of knowledge. I originally intended to use the interview rejection feedback as a guideline for what I needed to practice, but uh um err yeahhh I think I went and did Chinese translation instead.
Given that I have enough skills to hit the ground running, and certainly won’t be starting from zero, maybe I’d be a good candidate for a programming bootcamp! I hear Lambda School is pretty good, and you don’t have to pay up front either…
[Edit: I definitely let my rate of applications dip too low. It’s high time I rejuvenate a Beeminder goal for minimum # of apps/week.]
Considered doing a stint teaching English in China? The money’s good, you could get your Chinese up to a higher level, and they love Ling degrees.
Thank you for the suggestion! I managed to slip a Qilin of Gratitude into the mail for you just before the postman came.
I realized that I have an SSC-reading friend* who’s finagled a handful of English-teaching positions in Chinese higher education, rather than at high school or middle school like most of the teachers I met. IIRC, the key is to have some pre-existing Chinese ability so that one can integrate into school administrative structures, rather than having to be led around by the nose from classroom to classroom. I’ll toot his telephone and see if he can give me some further advice! Much appreciated, @kaakitwitaasota!
* Patrick, if you’re out there: I heard you’re the latest stop on the M Train! Stiff upper lip, amigo!
+ 1 for the English-teaching suggestion. I did it a bit in the past, and might return to it again in the not-to-distant future (I was doing a PhD, decided it wasn’t for me, and quit, and now I’m looking for a real job once again). It might be worth getting an official TEFL (= Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate first, because it only takes four or five weeks but massively increases the amount of schools that will consider employing you.
And of course, there are TEFL jobs all over the world, so if you decide you’d rather not go to China, there are plenty of alternatives.
I was unemployed for a few months last year due to a fairly ill-considered attempt to switch jobs. Two significant changes I made that helped me maintain focus on my job search were to meditate and exercise daily, first thing in the morning; my exercise routine was just a basic 15-minute HIIT routine, but I saw a notable difference in my mood and energy level as a result. The most critical element of that schedule change was to do those things before doing anything else in the morning; looking at my phone before I was done with exercise and meditation made a notable (negative) difference in my mental and physical equilibrium for the rest of the day.
Thanks for the tip about the schedule aspect, @broblawsky. Currently thinking I’ll print off a short checklist of stretching/movement exercises for my wall, then try to install “turn off alarm -> unroll yoga mat” as a habit.
Don’t have much in the way of concrete job advice, because I don’t know the market there. I have a strong suspicion that, like somebody said above, the bar is much lower than you think, but that’s about it. Also with your personality it looks like you’d do well with a full time job, more than freelancing, but I think you know it already.
I do have a couple of things to say from personal experience. The way you feel is contextual. It’s not so much a personal flaw, as it is a reasonably normal response to a life problem. You’re 9 months unemployed and you freak out. That’s… good? I’d be a hell of more worried if you weren’t, even if it would be a lot more comfortable for you. I’ve also fucked things up for myself at one point, and surprise, I was depressed for a few years.
There is one and only one point I’m going to say you’re doing wrong. Pretty much every study in existence is saying that exercise is a basic necessity in your current state, not a luxury you can postpone until you can afford PT. I’m not even trying to list the reasons why, it would take too much space. So on this point only you need to grit your teeth and do it. One suggestion (optimized for low willpower) is to get the cheapest gym subscription and contract with yourself the clear rule that you will spend 30 minutes inside that gym every day. Read SSC there if you want, as long as it’s inside the gym.
I’d have said the same thing on quitting weed btw, but you did it already. Good.
I don’t know if it’s your cup or tea or not, but Jordan Peterson is pretty much talking to you. It’s almost eerie. Find some videos or buy the book – worst thing is you won’t click.
And finally, I wouldn’t put too much pressure on myself to date. You’re not at that point in your life. If it happens, great – but now the focus is on… *chuckle* yeah, speaking of JP… on cleaning your room.
No more ganja, no more pot
Spent five years on “getting got”
Out with you, you loathsome weed
You are not a thing I need
I’ll put on a JP video while I reply to others’ responses and form an action plan. Thanks for being a virtuous commenter as always, @Radu! Hope the Elk of Gratitude from last time is alive and well — or was tasty.
As for dating: “not putting much pressure on myself” isn’t something I’m good at it, but I swear I’ll try. Perhaps it is time to cultivate a 2D waifu for life-u.
I don’t want to take this more seriously than it is meant, but there’s a nice, wide margin between “being too hard on yourself” and “giving up entirely.”
What Randy said. One of the more useful concepts from the manosphere is Monk Mode – a period where you focus on yourself, not on getting a relationship. It can be anywhere from a month to a year. So more like 2d mistress 😀
And the Elk is doing well, thank you. NOT tasty.
I’d focus on getting a job before dating. Call me cynical, but I think you’ll have an difficult time getting your girlfriend to respect you if you’re long-term unemployed. (Source: I became unemployed part-way through a previous relationship, and there definitely seemed a pattern of my girlfriend getting more angry and short-tempered with me the longer I’d gone without a job.)
I’m biased, but I know a bunch of people who have been whipped into shape by the military and it’s my go-to recommendation for the listless youth. Especially with your background, I can guarantee that if you enlisted/signed up for the reserves and stuck it through you might not enjoy it, but you would almost certainly come out a much better candidate for future jobs and with way more opportunities. It would also 100% explain away any work-history gap prior to your service.
Don’t be. If you’re not diagnosed they won’t care. Even diagnosed, they’re so desperate for mandarin speakers that they won’t turn their noses up at someone with possible depression. ADHD is, from my experience, basically a requirement for signing up. Don’t worry about this.
This is what’s going to bite you in the ass. Not trying to be harsh, but as a Crypologic Linguist you’ll need a clearance. You’ll be unable to get a clearance within at least 12 months of smoking week, possibly longer if it was a serious addiction. If this is an avenue you want to pursue, keep up the abstinence.*
This is BS. There is no requisite amount of manliness to serve. The most gender non-conforming people I know I met in the military, same with the nerdiest and most introverted. Your personality doesn’t matter, the military is a machine designed to extract usefulness from anyone.
*Do not listen to a recruiter about whether or not you’ll get a clearance. They either don’t know or will actively lie to you. There’s a potial fail state where you’ll sign up with a contract that guarantees you your chosen MOS, unless you fail to qualify for that MOS whereupon you’ll get shunted to whatever gruntwork they need. Look up online what they’ll ask you during the clearance process and ensure you’ve got a good answer to all the questions before you sign anything.
I deeply thank you for dispelling my inaccurate understanding of the military, and for telling me about the clearance issue. I’ll put the army option on the back burner and stay sober.
Man, you’re giving away weasels and quilins and Lions, and all I got was some deepest thanks?
(JK, you’re welcome. Good luck with everything!)
@Aftagley,
Canyon Fern here. Not only did my assistant sneak behind my back, he also failed to uphold my standards of propriety! I apologize for his misconduct.
My preferred courier service owes me a favor: I’ll call it in now. Your Frog of Gratitude will arrive before you know it.
Regarding “Get Exercise”: I agree with other posters that this is important. As you lack discipline and would like to work with a personal trainer, have you considered an online coach?
I worked with Aadam from Physiqonomics, and did a 16-week 1:1 coaching program.
I started out at 232 lbs. and got down to 222 lbs. by week 10 – which was when christmas happened and nuked my discipline. Without that interruption, I think I might have done better.
It’s not as effective as a personal trainer you train with locally, but came in somewhat cheaper (would amount to ~10%-20% of your savings, depending on wether he changed prices since I did the coaching, and on what the Dollar/Pound-Exchange rate currently is).
If you decide to take this route, I’d be greatful if I could give you my real name and you’d tell him I referred you 🙂
My initial question: What do you want? How can the community help you?
Thank you for asking the million-dollar question! Have yourself a Lion of Gratitude for making me think harder. Quick clarification: writing this has made me realize it’s incorrect to say I lack focus. It’s more correct to say that I lack discipline. I can clearly focus on stuff I care about. I struggle more with “building and solidifying routines” and “sticking to stuff I must do, but don’t want to do.”
Here are some ideas:
(A) personal improvement / getting out of my funk
– methods for improving my discipline, especially in a “bootstrappy” way that will make it easier to continue improving discipline (e.g. “get started with Beeminder or Complice or another discipline tool, with Target #1 being ‘review the discipline tool after Adderall every morning’ and Targets #2 through #N being the actual things I want to achieve using the tool”)
– suggestions for how to reduce my time from having an idea to executing on it
– how do I be less hard on myself?!?
– things which can benefit anyone, but which require time as an input so most people don’t do it (unstructured time seems to be my most precious resource relative to 9-5 workers)
– “hello” from anyone in or near SoCal’s Beach Cities (or Los Angeles) who might want to hang out IRL [I made a new friend through the November SSC meetup in Irvine and we’re totally bros now!]
– “hello” from anyone who wants to join me in a job-hunting, skill-building, or craft-making pact (perhaps of the type “each of us produces 1 Thing per day and sends a 1 sentence email to the other person(s) describing it”)
– “hello” from anyone in or near the Beach Cities who can personally recommend a meetup or hobby group for tech, art, or writing
(B) job and career
– leads on companies/projects where my background might be directly applicable, as @FrankistGeorgist so kindly offered below
– project ideas that might snowball into triggering my obsessive focus while still building marketable skills (nobody will pay me to write poetry but I can’t stop doing it; programming a web service to supply computer-generated poetry would bolster my backend engineering skills while engaging my art muscle both in trying different generation strategies, and in blogging about the whole thing as I go)
– side-channel ways of making Job Creators notice me (e.g. finding hiring managers on LinkedIn in relevant fields and emailing them directly)
– suggestions for how to channel my powerful urge to delight and please others (see: Slate Star Showdex) into something that might also be a saleable product (not a whole business, just one item or category of item)
– career paths or specific companies where a mix of humor, creativity, and language skill would be valuable (marketing/branding?)
I am not sure how to help you since I haven’t totally crawled out of my slump either, but I can tell you that you are not alone in feeling that way.
I live in SLO and could use some IRL engagement from this community too, so I might be down to hang out. Its too far to be a day trip, but it could be an overnight. So if you will let me sleep on your couch I might come down for an LA area meetup. I am also down for hiking or kayaking if either of those interest you.
@mustacheion,
Thank you lots for being brave enough to offer to meet in person!
SLO is a hell of a ways from LBC, and I can’t offer you my parents’ couch without knowing you beforehand, but maybe I could come up your way instead? I’ve never kayaked but would be interested to learn, and I like hiking. Are there parts of the coast/rivers that are especially good for kayaking?
I also live with my parents, so perhaps I should say the same thing to you. Looks like hotels in either location are fairly similarly priced, and wouldn’t cost that much more than gas would. So I am fine with either direction. Also it is possible I will be down in LA for business within the next month. Don’t have plans yet, but if I do I will let you know.
I grew up in LA and haven’t been is SLO for very long, so I don’t know a ton about the hiking around here, but I can make some recommendations.
Unless you are really adventurous it wouldn’t be a good idea to kayak a river or the ocean for your first time, but there are a few lakes around here I could teach you on. How resistant to cold are you? Unlike canoeing you will get wet when kayaking, and you absolutely have to be dressed warm enough to not get hypothermia if you fall out and are immersed in the water. The weather isn’t cold around here, but it is winter so it isn’t hot either, so you might be more comfortable learning in the summer. I have several choices of wet-suits you could use so you wouldn’t be at risk of hypothermia, but you might still be a bit uncomfortable.
Around SLO, Morro Bay is good for kayaking, and Montana de Oro is great for hiking (and mountain biking). Also, Ruddell’s Smokehouse in Cayucus has the greatest smoked fish sandwiches in the world.
Anyway, you can reach me at ecpoppenheimer at gmail dot com if you want to put a trip together.
Not sure how much useful advice I can give, but I do sympathize with a lot of what you’re going through. ADHD + maybe anxio-depression is a bitch, figuring out what to do with your life is hard, and I know how feeling lonely can drain you of any remaining motivation on a bad day.
May or may not be able to say something more actionable tomorrow after a good night’s sleep, but at the very least I really hope you can figure things out and get your stuff back on a track you want to travel.
A track I want to travel, eh?
Any track that passes through villages with people as kindly as you in it is one I want to travel, @thevoiceofthevoid!
Why thank you! And though the editing window has long since passed, I’m retconning that metaphor to be the fully alliterative and less confusing, “get your train on a track you want to travel.” (I’ve been playing Ticket to Ride lately, can you tell?)
A bit of concrete advice: If you have trouble remembering to take your meds, what you need is a set routine–ideally one with a built in reminder/trigger. If you ought to be taking the Adderall in the morning, put the bottle on your nightstand next to your alarm clock and take one as soon as you wake up. Or in the kitchen next to the toaster and take it while your breakfast cooks (assuming you eat toast for breakfast). When I’ve needed to take meds “some time in the morning”, I’ve accidentally skipped then about half the time. When I took them “with breakfast”, I consistently took them every day…until I stopped eating breakfast. Make sure you pin it to something reliable!
So I can send you a list of companies to apply to who I know for a fact want people with Linguistics and Coding backgrounds. They’ll all be New York City based, though, because that’s like – who I work with (though less coding and linguistics these days and more schmoozing because I’m more charming than talented).
But a cross country move is its own economic, mental, and social nightmare so I”m not exactly advising it.
A wizard named by mashing two Western historical figures together appears and offers me a dangerous, uncertain bargain? Anime is real!
Please, do send me that list, at the email on my screen name (contact.canyon.fern@gmail.com). Thanks a lot for the lead. I really appreciate it, and I’ll sneak a Centaur of Gratitude out of Canyon Fern’s menagerie, just for you!
Sent
I’m curious what two figures you think the name is based on. To me, “Georgist” is a reference to the economist Henry George, but it could be George Washington, or King George III, or … .
And “Frankist” doesn’t signal anything in particular to me.
Eve Frank. A Messiah of No Importance.
And you’re right on dear old Henry. I enjoy the pair and the plainness of their names.
First! All that is Spirit must become Flesh! All law must fail! Transgress every boundary! Second! Tax Reform!
I managed to keep my first post-college job for 6 months, then job-hunted for 9 months. I was out of work for 18 months when I had about 5 years experience. It’s a miserable experience.
My advice: temp work. Find a temp agency that places office staff; go in and talk to them in person, professionally dressed and with a resume. You’ll likely get an offer to go somewhere and do random office work the next day. (Excel is a hugely valuable skill–if you can use Python, I’m assuming you can use basic office tools like Word and Excel.)
You’ll earn a little money, and end up with a few funny stories–but the key is that you’re getting paid to build your network. You aren’t looking for temp-to-perm, or long-term placements. You want to work a different place every week, ideally. And be the nicest memorable guy in the office–funny, polite–and tell people you’re looking for work. At some point, you’ll work with someone who’s best friend from high school’s brother-in-law needs someone with your skills.
Thanks, @SamChevre. You reminded me I know a woman who did basically exactly what you describe (temp a lot of places while playing 6 degrees toward a permanent position) after a long unemployment due to illness. I’ll add temping to the list of strategies as I form objectives for the week/month/quarter.
I’m probably not one to give career or psych advice, but if you want to hang out and talk in person some time, we met at the Irvine meet-up.
edit: I see you mentioned further down. Shoot me an e-mail at nikisknight at socal dot rr dot com.
I check my plea for help;
I see replies galore.
What’s this? Ol’ Randy M is one who chose to take the floor!
I’m glad to see you write,
And glad to write you back.
The two of us should synchronize – perhaps over a snack.
I suck at job hunts for similar reasons. I got my current job through a referral from a family member-in-law, than any cold-application. Therefore, my recommendation is to ask family and friends for potential job opportunities. Note, this doesn’t mean working with anyone you know. In my case, it was said family member referring me to their friend, whose company had a job opening.
Make 6 degrees of separation do the work for you.
A similar mechanic would be to see if your alma mater has an alumni job hunt site.
I feel I’ve been pumping my family and friends network pretty hard, but I can take a look at my school’s alumni network for possible local contacts, as well as see if their career center is open to helping an alum from a few years back. Thanks, @AG, for reminding me of these options.
Lots of people are giving you other good suggestions so I want to focus on a small area. Fitness. The halo effect is real. If you look young, healthy, strong, and fit you will get a +x% modifier on your interview performance.
I regularly interview people and chat with our head of HR about interviews and we regularly discriminate on apparent fitness (fortunately this is an anonymous forum…) for positions which have nothing to do with physical capacity. I believe this was true at my previous job too though I do not know for sure.
Fitness is hard but one of the things which makes it easier is having time. Go to free yoga/tai chi in a park. Go for a bike ride. Lift heavy things and put them back down (ideally using YouTube videos to correct form), Hardest of all eat well.
Ideally you can tie this into the networking thing and find groups of free fitness activity people to do fitness things with.
It is hard but fitness has downstream positive effects on everything. Use your current surplus of time to invest in this. It will eventually pay off.
Thank you for the encouragement, @Elementaldex. Who doesn’t love a +X% modifier? I am sorting out everyone’s replies, and figuring out a plan for the next week, month, and quarter. Exercise will be high priority after what you and @Radu had to say.
I wish the Rationality community had some sort of The Ultimate Guide to Building Discipline that everyone could just refer to. After all, if rationality is about winning, and the thing that prevents a lot of people from winning is the lack of discipline, then surely this issue should be extremely important, right? And yet it seems that after a wave of interest in 2009-2011 not much has happened (except PJ Eby’s plan to blog again). I’d love to be proven wrong with a treasure of material from 2011-2020.
Anyways, here’s my recommendation:
1. Read the PJ Eby’s classification of techniques. This is very important and the base for everything else.
2. Check out the Akrasia tactics review that prompted PJ to write his classification and its sequel.
3. Read Mental Mountains. It’s a great conflict resolution technique and it also makes some of PJ’s more esoteric writings clearer.
4. And optionally, PJ’s more esoteric writings: Multiple Self, How to Change Your Life, The Refactored Self, Self Version 2.0.
5. Look outside of Rationality sphere too. I find dopamine fasting to be a fascinating concept.
I’m not an expert etc, etc, please somebody improve on this. But I’ve applied Mental Mountains as self-help with great effect. Will make a post out of it once I collect more data and understand it better.
Even if there are no jobs around, are there any volunteering opportunities you could take up? That would at least give you something positive to do, and would be better than nothing on your CV.
I think an employment gap of a year and under is probably fine; that’s the gap that I’ve seen some middle-aged people who got laid off have, and then found new jobs; and I’d figure that they have a harder time of it.
Also, if you did random free-lance jobs, “free-lance web developer” or “self-employed translator” or whatever you did for any appreciable amount of time is a valid resume entry, in my opinion.
I got two of my most recent jobs through just online job boards/ applying online.
Shortly before I left Portland, the city Parks and Recreation Department was installing new fences in a local park tagged with “WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.”
What a fascinating issue in epistemology! How does the State of California know what chemicals cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm? If another state, like Oregon, lacks this way of knowing, isn’t it true (“knowing” or “knowledge” being “justified true beliefs”) that they’re exposing people to cancer and BDoORH by not deferring to California’s greater knowledge?
What do you think, rationalists?
At this stage I think California is stone mad. If you invented the likes of it and put it into a book as a supposedly functional state/province/nation, you’d be accused of wild over-the-top satire of the nature of Gargantua and Pantagruel.
I’m sitting aghast and agog, with jaw dropped, reading what the geniuses did with law reform on shoplifting. I’m not sure if this was an initiative by the politicians themselves or the Plain People of California voted it in (in which case, it’s a sterling argument against allowing the public to ever have hand, act or part in directly making or affecting laws). But holy Mother of God, who the hell thinks that this is anything except an encouragement to criminality and gangsterism?
Now, I can see a case for “robbing something to the value of $20 shouldn’t have you treated as a burglar and sent to jail for six years”. That’s not unreasonable. But “up to the value of $950”? That’s not random impulse theft by stupid teenagers or even desperate impoverished single parents, that’s organised thievery by professionals. I think if you’re professionally boosting stuff up to $900 and this is planned theft and it is happening on a regular basis, you damn well should be going to jail for six years.
I admit, cutting your crime rates by re-writing laws so that crimes are no longer crimes, and not bothering your arse to arrest or prosecute those crimes that still remain crimes, does work – but I think there has to be a better way to do it than “it’s not stealing, we revised the law so that there’s no longer any crime of ‘stealing'”, yes?
Mandatory disclaimer: My opinion on this may be influenced from when I worked in retail many moons ago and, during my shift, professional shoplifters managed to distract me and steal a cashbox with lottery money. So yeah, my employer was not happy about that and let me know accordingly and yeah, I am not on the side of “but shoplifting is a victimless crime!”
As someone who grew up in California, loves it, and no longer lives there I can assure you that we are, indeed, quite mad.
I like the list of exceptional prior offenses that get it treated as a felony. Especially the way it says murder, including attempted, then bothers to specify “Assault with a machine gun on a peace officer or firefighter.” This seems to imply that this does not constitute murder–presumably this is “assault” in the strict sense of “threaten”? But you’re off the hook if you menaced the firefighter with a shotgun.
And then there’s the WMD exception: “This guy tried to steal a Playstation. Probation?” “Sure–no, wait! Says here he got caught with nerve gas two years ago. It’s hard time for you, you little bastard.” Presumably possessing WMD is distinct from murder because you could have kept that anthrax as a curio, or for home defense?
WMD has a much wider definition in US criminal law than it does in international diplomacy or common usage- including basically any illegal explosive.
That makes a bit more sense, though I still don’t see the connection with shoplifting; thanks. How about the machine guns? You know why it has to be a machine gun?
Wild guess: is a bank robbery in the same category as shoplifting?
@Deiseach >
It’s work great!
My employer now has a whole floor emptied of inmates and now the building houses less than half of what it once did!
Zuckerberg General Hospital is now swamped with psychotics that are discharged when the meth they ingested wears off, used needles, feces, and passed out people liter our sidewalks, but omelettes, eggs, et cetera.
From the article:
Does anyone else hate when articles report the relative rather than absolute change?
OK, so assuming that this is the same as the 40% thing…
That means they’re talking about 93 additional/extra cases of shoplifting per year, each for less than $950
They blame it on the law but crime has slightly increased in most western countries a little from an all time low about 4 years ago.
So we’re talking about a grand total of (max) $88350 if each crime is worth less than $950
The cost of keeping someone in jail for a year is $31,000 so, while there’s some value to disproportionate responses to tap things on the head early… if they jailed 3 additional people for a year each to try to avert this whole thing then society has a net loss cash-wise.
More people and longer sentences would bring us further into disproportionate response and we quickly reach a point of unreasonableness.
Murphy:
It seems to me that you’ve got an assumption not accounted for: That every arrest is someone who is brand-new to thievery, and no arrest is of someone who shoplifts professionally, and just got caught this one time.
I’m not saying your overall point is necessarily wrong, but I don’t think most folks arrested for shoplifting fit this profile, and certainly not when its organized groups of shoplifters.
You can’t just add up the money from the times these people were caught and say that’s the maximum amount of damage they did.
Murphy, my argument is (1) $950 is a high level. Sure, if this is the first time every you robbed an iPhone and you’ve never done anything like it before and you were drunk etc. etc. etc. But let’s face it, (2) this is not “low level random theft”, this is professional gangs boosting stuff and being careful to keep it below the $950 limit that would get it treated as a felony.
If you’re a small to medium business that has $900 worth of stock walking out the door every week, not to mention every couple of days, this is going to affect you. You may close down altogether, or you may move elsewhere (this also has the same effect for large chain businesses which will look at the figures and decide they’ll open a store in Murphyville instead of Robberstown). Then people complain as to why deprived areas like Robberstown don’t have the same range of goods and services and why their quality of life is worse and of course this must be down to Structural Racism.
I’m arguing that while the intention of the law may have been “value of goods to count as a felony should be in line with inflation and we want to reduce incarceration as a first option”, the result was “professional gangs of shoplifters know that as long as they keep the value below the limit, with the risks now associated for businesses of counter lawsuits for ‘assault’ if a security guard or shop assistant tries to stop them leaving the store with a bundle of goods, and the reluctance of the police to engage in vehicle chases especially for ‘it’s only a misdemeanour not a felony’ charges, then they have no risk about being blatant when robbing stores”.
I think you’re undervaluing the cost of electronics and the kind of stuff stupid teenagers want to steal. The current model iphone looks like it costs over this limit, and most phones/laptops/other electronics run somewhere in the 400-800 dollar range.
Also, it looks like prop 47 explicitly states that if you’ve got a criminal record the level is lower. I don’t know how it’s enforced in practice, but it looks like your dumbass teens might get one warning but professionals will be unaffected.
I still think that if dumb teenagers are stealing such goods, it should be treated seriously. $950 is a good sum of money. And my main point is that while it may have been aimed at the “dumbass teens robbing smartphones”, in practice it lets professional thieves off the hook. It’s too much of a risk nowadays for stores to challenge thieves physically so they can only stand there and take note of who stole the goods as they flee the store, and if it’s a misdemeanour the police, as linked articles note, aren’t eager to get involved in car chases and confrontations. Unless you get the police arresting someone who can be proven to be a professional shoplifter, the return on stealing high-value electronics is looking better than the risk of pursuit and arrest for such gangs.
Also, professional shoplifters are brazen about such things as using children when out on robbing sprees, for the very reason that store guards and police are wary of interfering with kids and will be pilloried by the public if the story can be spun that “police threatened nine year old girl!” It has been reported that professional shoplifters here in Ireland will stash stolen items in prams and strollers, or give it to kids to hold, for that very reason.
@Le Maistre Chat,
After a blessedly short (but fright-filled) acclimation period thanks to that labeling law this Californian now understands that damn near everything is “known to cause cancer”, and is thus relieved of worry about specific substances that I previously knew of, so a net win.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em!
*cough*
From what I’ve heard, the list of chemicals that are “known” to cause harm basically includes anything that any study found any possibility of harm at any dose. And the standard for an acceptable dose is….1/1000th of the dose at which there is literally no observed effect. (maybe that’s actually reasonable?)
The issue here is that the law does not provide any penalty for putting the cancer warning on a product that does not contain carcinogens. Therefore, everyone just puts the label on everything to be safe. Hey, you can’t prove that it doesn’t cause cancer, right?
Do you know the commenter HeelBearCub, Le Maistre Chat? If so, I am known to you. This does not preclude me being known to anyone else, here or elsewhere. It doesn’t imply that your knowing of me is of the same quality as my in real life friends’ knowledge.
If you claim not to know me, because you haven’t met me in real life, this still doesn’t prevent others here from validly claiming to know me (even though they also haven’t met me in real life). It merely implies that they are using a subtly different definition of the word “know”. I realize that words having multiple meanings, and that the fact this can even be contextual, can be annoying, but that’s language for you.
All the word “known” does in the label is state that the substance meets a certain definition provided by the State of California for “cancer causing”. This doesn’t have to be the same definition as any other state or entity.
Sure, “speakers use their own language”. It raises the question of who exactly the speaker of these messages is. Arguably in this case it is the Portland Parks&Rec Department. So if they say that California “knows” that the product causes cancer, they are asserting that California’s criteria constitute knowledge not only under California’s standards but also their own.
Proposition 65 is one of the better arguments against California’s referendum system. Those labels are everywhere, and everyone just ignores them. It did give me one of my better jokes as a tour guide. I’d tell visitors that they couldn’t go into turrets were filled with chemicals that were known to give them cancer not only in California, but in most other states as well.
It’s sad and amusing to see this silliness spreading to other states as well.
I’m not sure if this is merely a cya law or if they expect anyone to actually avoid all gas stations, supermarkets, industry, and, apparently, parks in order to avoid these chemicals, all of which apparently deserve equal caution.
They’re helpful when deciding what to let your infant children put in their mouths, at the very least.
Now that Prop 65 warnings cover, among other things, baked goods, I rather doubt it.
(Not sketchy adulterated baked goods. Just regular old baked goods. The warning is for acrylamide, which is produced in small quantities anytime you cook something starchy enough to brown it.)
I would argue that, assuming your employer has one on the door, it turns *any* cancer case into a workman’s comp case. After all, they knew they were exposing you to carcinogens …
California is NOT saying that it knows that the fences cause cancer. It is saying that some chemical in the fences is known to cause cancer.
It’s left for the buyer to decide whether their level or type of exposure to the fence itself will actually have adverse effects.
It doesn’t. Both California and Oregon will concur about which chemicals are contained in the products and about which chemicals cause cancer.
Le Maistre Chat, what I should of course have asked you is this: are those fences made out of nitrate- and/or nitrite-containing meat? 🙂
If we had kept our part of the bargain in the nuclear deal with Iran, we probably wouldn’t have had such bad relations with Iran that killing Soleimani looked like a good idea to begin with. Soleimani was a positive asset in the war against Da’esh, and now Trump has given them a serious chance at resurrection.
In exactly the way and to the extent that Bin-Laden was an asset in the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Actually, no, that’s being overly kind to your comparison, since it ignores that Iran’s intervention against ISIS was and is with the intent to preserve the Assad regime.
Or did you intend your implication that the possibility of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime losing some military support is a bad thing?
Was there a plausible path to someone substantially better than Assad running Syria that we could have reached at acceptable cost?
First, why the past tense? The Syrian civil war is still ongoing.
Second, “at acceptable cost” is a meaningless question without defining both the metric of cost (money? lives? If lives, any lives? American lives? Syrian lives? Syrian lives not counting ISIS? Syrian lives not counting ISIS and Baathists?) and what level is considered acceptable.
For my money, either the Syrian Opposition or the coalition in Rojava would be more acceptable than backing Assad.
EDIT: As far as a plausible path, there are two good ways to intervene in this sort of thing: 1) With full commitment, and 2) Not at all. By full commitment I mean establishing an explicit goal and then dedicating however many resources (to include blood and treasure) are needed to accomplish that. And by plausibly precommitting to accomplish that goal even if it risks conflict with someone else deciding to weigh in on the other side, and signalling so. Go in half-assed as we’ve tended to do for the past 30-40 years and not only do you end up not accomplishing your goals, more people die in the long run on all sides than if you went in fully.
My personal opinion is that while there are places -I- think we should intervene, I think that intervening without the will (not just of an administration but as the American People) to back it to the hilt is a mistake. And I think that we, collectively, lack the will, because we’re divided about means and ends and acceptable costs.
Third and most relevant, your question is sort of orthogonal to the original claim and my response. Boblawsky was lamenting the loss of Soleimani as a potential ally in the fight against ISIS, missing that:
A) as the critics of the killing of Soleimani are quick to point out, removing him doesn’t fundamentally change Iran’s capability to engage in military action in the region. Likewise, it doesn’t change the calculus on their decision to engage ISIS.
B) Iran and Russia’s interventions in Syria are contrary to the established interests and policy of the United States, because they are doing so on the behalf of Assad’s government, a government we are not only not on good terms with, but whose enemies we are supporting with money, arms, and American troops on the ground in Syria.
Therefore, saying “Oh no, this could deal a blow to Iran’s capacity to use military force in Syria against ISIS!” is fundamentally identical to saying “Oh no, this could deal a blow to Iran’s capacity to use military force against American personnel and American allies in Syria!”.
Since I presume given past comments that Boblawsky, while not a fan of US Foreign policy in the Middle East, is not an active supporter of Russia, Iran, and Assad, I was pointing out that his sentiment made no sense.
The Assad situation has been incredibly schizophrenic by the past few years. Obama was an Iran-phillic admin, but was anti-Assad, which cannot be reconciled.
A council of magical unicorns would also be more acceptable, and has a similar probability of happening.
And
is an interesting comparison. If I were to analogise one of the factions in Syria to Bin Laden, I’d choose for instance the US-funded Salafi jihadists who put quotes from another Al Qaeda founder on their banners rather than one of their enemies.
Yep, the US supplied funds and support to a large swath of the Syrian Opposition…and specifically cut that group off after about a year when the evidence of their conduct became clear. I won’t disagree that whoever decided to back that -particular- group screwed up.
At the same time, your reply betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of what is going on in Syria, since you seem to be trying to frame it in terms of “Jihadis/Islamist Extremists” vs. “Non-Jihadis/Islamist Extremists”.
It’s “Authoritarian Dictator and a network Shia Islamist and Jihadi allies” vs. “Rough and amorphous coalition of opponents ranging from defectors from said dictator’s regime and reformers to Sunni Islamists and Jihadis, with a high degree of internal division” vs. “Coalition of Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and a few Druze forces formed around and led by a nucleus of Kurdish forces” vs. “Eschatological Salafist Jihadis”.
This is an inaccurate statement. Between 2010 and 2015 Iran was the prime target for sanctions under the Obama white house and saw substantial economic opportunities curtailed by his administration’s actions.
Obama and his surrogates also frequently spoke out against Iran’s meddling in Iraq and the region.
You’re looking at one data point, the JCPOA, taking a biased read on it and then extrapolating it far beyond what’s sensible.
@Aftagley
I think iran-phillic goes too far, but I also don’t think it’s wrong to say that the administration wanted a deal very badly and it showed. JCPOA wasn’t awful, but they could have kept a tighter rein on the money.
I’m really not. I think your characterisation of the relevant groups:
is relatively accurate (although people don’t call Shia militants jihadis, even if Hezbollah do you that term for themselves).
But it ignores various important things. Firstly, the “rough and amorphous coalition” is majority Islamist. The US accidentally supporting Al Qaeda affiliates and similar isn’t an easily avoidable mistake, it’s an inevitable consequence of supporting the opposition. And now that ISIS is more or less gone, it spends a large portion of its time fighting the SDF. Secondly, calling Hezbollah and other Shia groups Islamists is misleading. They’re far more pluralist than Sunni Islamists — Hezbollah’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist TV channel broadcasts mass! — and unlike Sunni Islamists they’re not responsible for large numbers of terrorist attacks against Westerners. Of course, all Islamism is still bad
(cont.) but since the US is happy to be friendly with the Saudis it’s clear that opposing Islamism in general isn’t a US interest. And thirdly, at this point in time exactly one of those groups has any chance of controlling something like Syria that was from Damascus, and it’s Assad.
Which people would that be? Because A) I can point to subject matter experts doing so and B) those SMEs are correct to do so. “Jihadi” is admittedly a slang term, but Jihad in the sense of armed struggle for a religious cause is common to the militant and extremist portions of both Sunni and Shia Islam.
Incorrect. There were certainly Islamist (and specifically Salafist) groups involved in the Syrian opposition and the Syrian Interim Government/Syrian National Council, especially around the timeframe where the US funding you’re criticising took place (2014-15) but they were never a majority, and they have subsequently broken away from and have since actively fought against the Syrian opposition, and are most recently backing the an entirely separate would-be successor government.
How many examples of sectarian violence perpetrated by Shia Islamist groups against Sunnis, Christians, and Jews would you consider sufficient to make you reconsider this statement? Because the short version is that while the Sunnis have been more high profile, it’s mostly because the Shia have spent more time attacking other Muslims and attacking Israel (though they’ve had time for the west too)…
-Bombing of UN peacekeepers in Beirut.
-Multiple Bombings of the US embassy and annex in Beirut.
-Khobar Tower Bombing in Saudi Arabia (I’m aware this gets attributed to Al-Qaeda these days, but I don’t think this is entirely correct, especially if you look at our original investigation)
-Hijacking of TWA 847
-Bombings of the Israeli Emasssy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires
-Bus Bombing in Bulgaria
The primary difference in character, beyond that Salafist Sunni groups have been more aggressive than their Shia counterparts most recently, is that Shia Islamist groups tend to be much more focused and in most cases either are known or are strongly suspected to be state-sponsored.
Common use. Unqualified, “jihadi” almost always implies Sunni. I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong to use it more generally because “Islamist extremist” is a natural group, but that’s unusual.
Sauce? The figures I can find say 50-70%.
You didn’t mention this group originally so I assumed you were still counting them as part of the general non-SDF opposition coalition. But also, this is only partly true. For instance, the TFSA has plenty of groups with names like “Army of Islam”.
First of all, I’m not denying that Hezbollah are rabidly antisemitic and a major enemy of Israel. But supporting Israel should not be the sole determiner of US policy.
Certainly Shia groups will attack Sunni and (to a much lesser extent) Christian ones in the context of war. But I doubt you’ll find examples of them e.g. forcibly converting and desecrating shrines of Druze like Sunni groups do. And the idea of say Al Nusra setting up a multifaith “Al Nusra Resistance Brigade” like Hezbollah did is ludicrous.
Most of those are approximately as close to WWII as the present day. And even ignoring that, the scale is simply incomparable. By my count, there have been as many Salafi attacks in France in the past year — in other words, in the past week — as Hezbollahn ones in the whole of Europe in the last 50. And recently the leader of Hezbollah specifically forbade attacks on American civilians! The idea that they’re basically the same as Sunni Islamists but with inverted polarity is ridiculous.
I think what you’re seeing is people using the term “Syrian Opposition” imprecisely to refer to all Anti-Assad groups. To be clear, by “syrian opposition” I am referring to the Free Syrian Army and the groups who explicitly recognize the Syrian National Coalition. Over the course of 2012-2015, the FSA varies between about 20,000 and 50,000 personnel, ebbing to about 35,000 by 2015. Over that same timeframe, the main Islamist factions supporting the FSA and the Syrian National Coalition was the coalition known as Ahrar Al-Sham, which over the same timeframe was around 10-15,000 members. It grew much larger later, but not until AFTER it had officially stopped working with the FSA.
I think the people you’re seeing are grouping Al Nusra Front, Islamic Front -post- breakaway from SNC support, etc and lumping -all- that together as “Syrian Opposition”.
Sure, I’m not disputing that the Syrian National Coalition has an Islamist faction. I am disputing your characterization that it is majority Sunni Jihadists.
Moving goalposts. Your original claim was that Shia Islamist groups are “far more pluralistic” than Sunni ones. I make the point that attacks against Sunnis, Jews, and Christians are generally not pluralistic acts and ask how many examples would be sufficient to make you reconsider that claim.
Moving goalpoasts. Again, the claim was “Shia groups have not conducted many attacks on the west”. I am offering that partial list as an example of “many attacks on the west”.
OK, but in that case your categorisation was either ignoring groups like the Islamic Front, which is silly because they’re larger than your restricted opposition coalition, or lumping them in with ISIS (which is what I took “Eschatological Salafist Jihadis” to be referring to), which is silly because the Islamic Front and friends spent most of their time allied with the FSA and friends fighting ISIS and Assad.
I said “far more pluralistic”, not “happy unproblematic liberals”, and I’ve clarified the axis along which this applies. Certainly I wouldn’t vote for Hezbollah to run my country, but given the choice between them and Al Nusra, the choice for me, a Christian, a Druze, and in many cases a Sunni is very clear. I think this is pretty relevant to questions that impact who will control bits of territory in Syria. The fact that Hezbollah are
If you want, pretend I said “recent” (I did try to insert that but the edit window expired, hence the two part comment). I am happy to concede that if you were to set policy by “harm done to the US in the last 50 years”, Hezbollah would be pretty high on the list. But given that we probably don’t want policies that focus on dealing with the USSR, FALN and Timmy McVeigh, that doesn’t seem very important.
I didn’t address the Islamic Front specifically because they are not a cohesive or coherent force. Some constituent members of that coalition were in alliance with the Syrian National Coalition and its Free Syrian Army in the 2013-2015 timeframe, but most never were, including the largest ones.
Since the formation (and subsequent breakup) of the Islamic front, the major players have spent more time and energy fighting amongst each other than fighting ISIS or Assad. The exceptions being what’s now branded as HTS, which is basically a new alliance led by the Al-Nusra front. Right now, Sunni Jihadis in Syria are all over the place: You have one cluster in Idlib either absorbed with or allied with HTS and the Syrian Salvation Government. You have some portions who got absorbed back into the Turkish-controlled and backed units (thus adding some to the %-age of the Syrian National Coalition support that -is- Islamist that I already mentioned). You have several who continue to operate independently without being allied with ANY of the major territory-controlling factions. And of course you have ISIS, which ironically controls less territory and fighters than HTS and the Syrian Salvation Government in Idlib at this point.
So, I’ll grant you that I probably should have listed the Syrian Salvation Government as a fifth faction in my initial breakdown, making it a -five-way- fight, but my impression is that right now Idlib has, again, spent more time with feuding and infighting between the various Sunni Islamist factions and groups than it has anything else.
If you add in Al-Nusra/HTS AND their allies AND the sunni islamist groups allied to the FSA, and modified the claim in terms of timeframe to something like: “A majority of the forces opposing Assad and ISIS between mid 2014 and late 2017 were Sunni Islamists” (that is, after the Russians knocked the FSA back hard, and before the Turkish intervention), I would agree with you, but again that’s by lumping together groups I think specifically should be considered separately.
I understand your clarification, I just think even that clarification is going too far. First, you keep saying Hezbollah as if it’s synonymous with “Shia Islamist”, which is not the case, and in doing so you’re missing the sectarian violence in Yemen, Iraq, and elsewhere. Second, from the way you keep on focusing on Hezbollah, you seem to think Lebanon is a good central example of an environment shaped by Shia Islamism. It’s not (for that, look to Iran). And on that related note, the resistance brigades are a tool of Hezbollah as a Lebanese political party to expand its domestic power base in Lebanon’s unusually pluralistic political milieu, and to leverage popular sentiment in Lebanon against Israel to allow them to devote their explicitly ideological (i.e. Shia Islamist) military assets elsewhere.
I’ll certainly agree that Shia Islamists have conducted much fewer attacks and caused far fewer harm to western targets than Sunni ones in the past 30 or so years. However, I think you are drawing the wrong conclusion from this, for a couple reasons. You compare the threat of Shia Islamism to the threat of the USSR, FALN, and Timothy McVeigh. Except that unlike those threats, the major sources of Shia Islamist hostility against the US and its interests are still around, still active, and still conducting operations against us. They’ve simply been spending the time since the 90s targeted more against military personnel than civilians, and thus they’ve been filed as “insurgency” or “freedom fighter” (depending on who you ask) or “proxy war” rather than “terrorism”. The groups and their sponsors are, unlike the USSR, FALN, and McVeigh, still very much around, active, and maintaining the same foundational hostility of both philosophy and goals that led to the attacks in the 80s and 90s and their involvement in Iraq in the 00s.
Again, I won’t disagree that as far as the grass-roots terrorist movements go, the Sunni/Salafi Islamists have done much more in recent history. But that does not make the Shia Islamists less hostile or more palatable. It just means that dealing with them is arguably lower priority.
That is reasonable if you were intending to give a list of the largest coherent groups, but I assumed you were giving a general description, in which case if there are x0,000 secular members of the opposition and y0,000 Islamists with y > x it doesn’t make sense to omit the latter even if they don’t form a coherent group.
I picked them because they’re the most well-known and most harmful to the US. If you want to concede that they’re not actually that bad (relative to Sunni Islamists) and name a group that would be a fairer comparison that’s fine with me.
I don’t, but I’m not sure what your point is here. If Iran being Bad (which I agree they are in absolute terms) is a reason for opposing them, then to be consistent you should also oppose the various other countries with comparable human rights records. I would certainly approve of US foreign policy switching to “sanctions on Iran and Saudi Arabia until they stop executing children etc.”.
I don’t really see the distinction you’re making here. I’m sure there are some Nepalese Maoist groups that are just as ideologically opposed to the US as any kind of Islamists, and have bombed a couple of embassies in the past. But saying “Nepalese Maoists are just as hostile and unpalatable as Al Qaeda. The only difference is that they are possibly lower priority” seems to be missing the point to me. The whole issue is how we should prioritise.
Again, my point is that by focusing on one group you ignore other examples of Shia Islamist violence, including examples not aimed at the United States. This is especially relevant to the claim that “calling Hezbollah and other Shia groups is misleading” because they are “far more pluralist” (not true), and “not responsible for large numbers of terrorist attacks on westerners” (questionable even if you arbitrarily choose to ignore relatively recent history).
I think that you are the one being misleading in your characterization of Shia Islamism, and in denying that Hezbollah, Iran, and the proxy groups they control are violent Islamists.
Bottom line, Shia and Sunni Islamist philosophies are the same in that:
-Both are committed to the maintenance and expansion of theocratic rule under a strict interpretation of Sharia.
-Both are committed to violence, including violence against civilians, as one of the primary ways to accomplish that maintenance and expansion.
-Both are committed in their hostility to both western principles in the abstract and to western governments in the particular, especially the United States. This hostility is amplified by, but not contingent upon US Foreign Policy and actions, past and present.
-Both are the ideologies of groups which have a long-established pattern of violent attacks against western powers, not limited to the United States.
-Both are the ideologies of groups which regularly engage in sectarian violence against Sunnis and religious violence against Jews and Christians.
Shia and Sunni Islamist ideologies are different in that:
-Sunni Islamist violence is, at present, mostly the province of “popular”/grass roots groups and movements, with some limited number of state sponsored groups or state support for non-state actors. Shia Islamist violence is, at present, mostly the province of state-sponsored groups and non-state actors with at least some state guidance. This tends to make the Shia Islamist violence more “controlled” and more “targeted”.
-In the immediate past (10-20 years), Shia Islamist violence against the west and especially the US has focused on attacks on commercial targets and military targets, with a lot of energy channeled into Iraq and the US occupation there from 2003-2011. Sunni Islamist violence has focused much more on spectacular, though not necessarily more effective, mass attacks against soft targets (9/11, Mumbai Attacks, etc).
-Shia Islamist groups, due to Shia’s status as a minority sect within Islam, tend to spend more of their energy fighting to change that and operating in the Muslim-majority parts of the world, relative to Sunni Islamist groups.
While these differences tend to make Shia Islamism seem less salient/threatening to the average western observer, that is more an artifact of circumstance, positioning on the world stage than any lack of hostile intent or capability on the part of its adherents.
You keep trying to compare Shia Islamist groups to threats that don’t exist anymore (USSR, Timothy McVeigh), which is false because the threat is very much present, or to threats that are very minor (FALN, Nepalese Maoists), which is false because history both recent (80s-90s) and immediate (00s) demonstrate significant capability.
It’s certainly a reason to see Iran as bad, but on a practical level that is secondary to their ideological hostility to the United States and our interests. I would oppose Iran’s regime even if they had a perfect record of domestic human rights based on their goals of maintaining and exporting their revolution and becoming a regional hegemon.
I actually agree with you that it would be good to apply more pressure to Saudi Arabia to reform (and even better to force them to crack down on their nationals who back Sunni Islamists, or to do it ourselves), but in the context of this discussion that strikes me as tangentially related to the question of Islamism, since the Saudis are authoritarian Monarchs who have at best a mixed relationship to Sunni Islamists (many Sunni Islamists are quite hostile to them and vice versa) and a very hostile relationship to Shia ones.
Overthrowing Assad isn’t worth it if it means Da’esh takes over, no.
False dichotomy. Both because as I noted above the death of Soleimani doesn’t actually change the calculus for Iran’s involvement in Syria, and because Iran’s involvement is relatively limited (no real air support, 2-3K advisors and soldiers on the ground supporting the Baathists). ISIL was beaten back primarily by US and to a lesser extent Russian air power.
What is your basis for the claim that ISIS currently has a “serious chance at resurrection”?
I’ve seen a lot of analysis suggesting that Iran’s indirect support was critical in defeating Da’esh, and if the stories about how pivotal Soleimani was in the fight against Da’esh are true, removing him definitely makes Iran less effective.
Analysis by whom? Links, please.
You can’t have it both ways here. If Soleimani wasn’t an extraordinary capable general, then his death doesn’t make a difference, and wasn’t worth the trouble. If he was, his death also hurts the fight against ISIS.
I haven’t stated my position on the killing of Soleimani or made any claims about his generalship, good or bad. Your response is a non-sequiteur, and “if he was, his death also hurts the fight against ISIS” is false for the reasons I outlined above regarding Iran’s actual level of involvement in Syria and ISIS’ current position and strength.
EDIT: See also my explanation below in somewhat more detail.
Why would the intent make a difference?
For the same reason US attacks against ISIS do not help Assad’s forces.
ISIS is one force in what is basically a 4-way fight (Assad’s regime, Syrian Opposition, Rojava, ISIL), and has been the weakest of the four, controlling the least territory and with the smallest reserve of fighters for the past 18-24 months now due to the combined effects of US and Russian air campaigns combined with follow-on ground campaigns in which the SDF and SAA have played approximately equal roles, with Iran’s forces playing a smaller, supplementary role. Iran’s forces in Syria have consisted of less than a brigade of IRGC troops, mostly involved to organize and direct disposable and poorly trained Shia militia recruits from countries outside Iran, thrown away in job lots. This is a force of between 10,000 and 30,000 depending on whether you count Hezbollah’s forces given that they tended to defer to Iranian direction under Soleimani. Compare this to the 100,000+ strength of the SAA, the SDF and allies, and the FSA and allies.
So, to the extent the Iranian intervention assisted in the fight against ISIL on the SAA’s frontage, the effect was to add combat power to Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, giving the SAA freedom to deploy more heavily against the Syrian Opposition and Rojava fronts.
As I said at the beginning of this reply, this is the same reason that US intervention against ISIL does not actually help Assad, even though Assad was fighting ISIL, because by intervening on behalf of Assad’s enemies on their front with ISIL, it makes it easier for those enemies to hold against or to attack Assad’s SAA forces.
Do you follow?
What would Hillary Clinton have done? This is a much harder question than I thought it would be. I tend to think that, despite her hawkish instincts, she’d go to the mat to keep JCPOA alive – not because she supported it, but because it was such a key part of Obama’s legacy. And not that she cared about Obama’s legacy, but the Democratic Party does, and she’d never do anything that would hurt her standing within the party.
But for all I know, she’d be listening to all the neocon ex-Republicans who endorsed her, and they’d be beating the war drums day in and day out, so who the hell knows.
I can say that what we’re seeing now is pure partisanship. All the “Clinton neocons” are effectively Democrats now, like it or not. I for one don’t.
Clinton, even if corrupt, is competent. She would not bumble her way into a war with Iran. And she would not deliberately want a war that had a significant chance of harming her interests, which it would.
Hard disagree. The fiasco in Libya shows that to be suspect at best.
This. My impression of the Syrian fiasco is that Hillary at least partially viewed it as a major legacy/candidacy point that she could run on if successful.
Syria has no nuclear weapons. Worst case in backing the wrong side is a bunch of brown people get killed Over There. The antiwar left will rightly complain, but to what end?
Modern US foreign policy is a bizarre programming loop wherein no matter what option is selected, the outcome is “a bunch of brown people get killed Over There”
Hillary Clinton has a long and public history of being very hawkish. It’s not just Libya. She’s likes rattling sabers almost as much as McCain did.
Highly competent in the field of domestic US politics. This does not mean omnicompetent, or even competent in all politics-adjacent fields, and her performance in the realm of international relations was perhaps not up to the standard she set on the domestic front.
Going to continue to (modestly, cautiously) argue for decriminalization of all drugs in the US. I’m not 100% sold on the idea, but I’m 70-80% into it- arguments here:
1. Possession of a usable, small amount would not be an arrestable or fineable offense, but an officer who sees you possessing something would be required to take it away. Reasoning: would prevent junkies, homeless from openly shooting up heroin or smoking crack in public, which would freak out non-drug users and undermine public support.
2. All drugs would be included, no matter how ‘bad’ they are.
3. As has been endlessly documented, arresting users for small-scale possession is tremendously expensive for state & local governments, to arguably extremely little benefit. While I agree the state has a compelling, legitimate public health motivation in preventing hard drug usage- actual addicts can’t be deterred by arrest, and casual experimenters are much motivated by ease of supply/convenience (i.e. can I easily & without hassle get my hands on x hard drug, especially without risk of arrest but also mugging, odds of getting ripped off, waiting period, hassle, dealing with sketchy/obnoxious street people, etc. Source, personal experience).
4. There’s no connection between decriminalizing possession & enforcing the illegality of hard drug sales, which I still support. We can do one without the other- and in fact, with less resources devoted to street-level busts there can be more resources devoted to chasing larger traffickers. Non-addicts/aka casual drug experimenters are mostly motivated by ease of supply- we can still crack down on trafficking.
5. I’ve seen a lot of ‘the opioid crisis proves that drug legalization doesn’t work’ arguments out there, but I see opioids as a massive supply issue- there were a lot of them, they were extremely widespread, and they were very easy to get through legal/non-sketchy channels.
5. It’s a policy that can be easily tested, rolled out at the very local level (a city, a county), and easily rolled back if it doesn’t work out/my hypotheses are wrong. This is the essential idea behind ‘the states are the laboratory of democracy’ concept. (Yes technically the feds could swoop in & still arrest people, but in practice the DEA/FBI is not arresting significant numbers of individual street users)
Agreed. The idea that people should be locked up for years just because they ingested certain dangerous psychoactive substances strikes me as incredibly unjust.
Are there really that many people in the US locked up for years for possession (and only for possession, not any other offense)
How many of those in jail solely for simple possession are there because they took a plea deal rather than face more serious charges?
Note: I also don’t think people should be in jail for using drugs, but it’s my belief that the numbers of people in jail aren’t that high.
Yes, it’s a minority of the total prison population (1 in 5, or maybe about half that if you exclude nonviolent trafficking charges? Only some of the segments differentiate so it’s a bit difficult to add up the totals.) But we’re still in the 10s or 100s of thousands of people, which I think is a significant enough population to care about, whether or not it’s a large portion of the total number incarcerated.
And yes, some of those might be plea bargains down from more serious charges, but even if that accounts for half of them…we’re still in the 10s to 100s of thousands of people in jail just for doing drugs.
I believe 1/5 is all drug related crimes, not just possession. And as TheContinentalOp says, a lot of people who were guilty of larger crimes pled down to possession. Of course, were possession not a crime, the effects that would have on the rest of the system are not exactly predictable.
@cassander
Yeah, you’re right. The data for federal prison from my source isn’t broken down into possession vs. other drug-related charges, but the drug incarceration figures for local prison (56% possession) and state prison (23% possession) are. I’d guess the proportion in federal prison for possession is even smaller. If we assume it’s 10%, then there’s a total of about 140,000 people in prison for possession charges. (130,000 if you assume ~0 in federal prison for possession.) That’s only 6% of the total prison population, admittedly less than the 1 in 5 figure I cited. However, that’s still a pretty large absolute number of people, about 1 in 2000 of the US population!
There’s also about 1 to 1.5 million drug possession arrests each year. Even arrests that don’t lead to convictions can still screw up someone’s life, especially if they can’t afford bail.
No, but there are a lot more people locked up for days for possession than there are people locked up for years (for anything).
Consider that there are a fair number (I don’t have any numbers in front of me, but it is at least a non-negligible amount) who spend more time in jail awaiting trial than they would have if they were found guilty because they can’t post bond (and some of them end up being straight acquitted, meaning no jail time was appropriate).
I agree with pretty much everything else you’ve said, but very strongly disagree with this point. If it is still illegal to sell drugs, all the problems of prohibiting drugs still exist, you haven’t fixed anything.
1) You can’t trust anything you buy on the black market, because the sellers are not subject to laws or regulations. Most of the issues you hear about having to do with vaping are due to adulterated products bought on the Black Market. Truly legalizing pot would fix that issue, but keeping the sales illegal would not. I am less sure about opiods, but I suspect that this too is a matter of making such drugs illegal to sell.
2) The criminal gangs that control drug selling would still need to be underground, so just as dangerous. It might be even more dangerous for buyers in the Black Market, because the sellers would know they had zero risk from the law, so the sellers would be even more paranoid about being turned in.
3) Most drug offenders in jail now are there for selling, so it wouldn’t decrease much the number of prisoners. Your comment on the enormous government effort of arresting users for small amounts is not true. They have always focused on dealers, not users.
4) The US would still spend enormous amounts of money trying to stop drugs from entering the country, which also increases crime and hurts our international image.
About the only downside of prohibition that your change would fix is it would be easier for users to obtain help for addictions. I don’t know if legalizing the use of drugs and not the sale would even be an improvement.
Arrestees for possession are a majority of drug arrestees. They don’t make up a majority of the prison population, only because their sentences are shorter (or not carceral) compared to other offenses.
Consequently, what you say here is true about the number of prisoners but not the number of people imprisoned.
+1 to this point. Almost noone gets arrested for pure possession. They might get picked up on possession charges if they are doing something else shady, but cops by and large don’t care about someone walking around with weed.
I think you can argue if whether or not our enforcement action creates more or less crime, but it’s very hard to argue that our international image is being hurt by our enforcement operations. What’s your reasoning on this?
I’m going to push back a bit on this. It depends heavily on where you live (state and municipality).
Also, “something else shady” is open to…broad interpretation.
To the extent the US puts pressure on 3rd world countries to control their own growing or merchandising these drugs, we are treated as imperialists interfering in other countries’ affairs (as I think such actions should be treated).
Also, the US is known as having nasty customs for people coming into the country. I think a lot of this harshness is due to the hysteria about drug trafficking.
Isn’t this the experiment they’re trying in San Francisco?
Websearch for “san francisco homeless drugs” returns this link: https://www.city-journal.org/san-francisco-homelessness
I used to argue modestly and cautiously for drug legalization, but decided to switch to loudly and belligerently for it. I don’t care if meth and heroin are packaged for kids and sold from grocery store checkout impulse racks (and I have young kids of my own!) if it means the cartels lose their chief source of revenue. And soon, before they fully diversify into other areas.
Coming after an obama adminstration that escalated the war in Afghanistan to little purpose and poured gasoline on the arab spring every chance it got, this critique rings a bit hollow. Even with this latest iran antics, the trump administration has done less conflict escalating than both Bush and Obama did in their first terms. Trump’s rhetoric remains his rhetoric, but one must not confuse rhetoric with reality.
They escalated the situation in Egypt. They escalated the situation a lot in Libya. They escalated the situation in Yemen (arguably not spring related, but worth mentioning). And, of course, they escalated in Syria.
I do think that obama’s instincts were generally non-interventionist, but he was (A) always prone to soaring rhetoric and grand statements, and (B) rarely willing to stand firm that non internventionism and allowed himself to be pushed towards interventions by the more hawkish members of his administration and congress. this tended to result in the worst sort of interventions, ones that got the US on the hook for things but didn’t actually do much to resolve the situation. This came out worst in Syria, where we should have gone in very hard early or (my preference) stayed out entirely. By doing so we contributed to a massively expanded conflict that has gotten a half million people killed, bred ISIS, and nearly destroyed what was achieved in Iraq.
I’d agree with the first part, but on the second, I think that everyone gets credit for not starting a war right up until a war starts. And bears repeating that “avoiding war” is not the purpose of US foreign policy. Wars are risky things, but they have and can advance US interests, and even lead to less US involvement in places post-bellum.
As for JCPOA and Soleimani, they’re both high risk actions, it remains to be seen if they’ll turn out to be bad actions, particularly Soleimani. And w/ Syria, Trump has actually stepped back there, taken criticism for it, but then seems to have mostly stuck with it.
I thought the surge in Afghanistan was pretty successful. The problem was it was a temporary “surge” followed by a rapid decrease to below pre-surge troop levels, rather than a consistent long term policy shift. We sort of pulled the rug out from under them just as they were getting their stride.
And the US has been reducing its presence in Afghanistan recently. The Trump build up was much smaller than the Obama build up and is being ended sooner.
I could really use some advice about online dating. I will consider anybody’s advice, but since I am an
autogynephilic genderqueer/non-binary male looking for a relationship with a woman, advice from masculine men may not be very relevant to me. So I would most value advice from women who are attracted to non-masculine men (though you don’t have to be at all interested in me in particular).
While every aspect of my online dating game is poor, I think the thing most holding me back at the moment is my messaging. Over the month of December I matched with and messaged five women on OKC. Every one of these had like’d me before I like’d them back. Two unmatched me without a response. One responded to my two-sentence question opening message with a “Heeey!” after an hour or two which left me totally baffled as to how to respond. I hesitated to respond until she unmatched me in a few hours further. One maintained the barest dribble of conversation for two or three messages, generally avoiding giving me anything meaningful about herself, and then gave me her number and asked me to text her. I thought about it for about a day before deciding to decline because it just didn’t seem like that was going anywhere. The fifth woman I was super in to, and things went spectacularly well for about a week of back-and-forth… until she suddenly ghosted and unmatched me. This one really hurt. She was giving me really interesting and in-depth conversation. Fairly early on I asked if she wanted to meet in person and she said yes, but wanted to wait until the end of the Holidays since she had lots of stuff to do. Maybe she simply changed her mind, maybe I said something that turned her off; in either of those circumstances I would be sad, but that would be ok. But if this happened because I am doing something really wrong, or not doing something that I should be doing, I would really like to know what that thing is.
Clearly my expectations, my messaging strategy, or both are wrong. So what the hell am I supposed to be doing here? I am trying to use messaging as a way to learn more about the other person, to help decide if I actually want to meet them in person. I have read a decent number of articles about this online, and their advice seems incorrect to me. Or perhaps I am just not implementing it correctly? I am a shy and awkward person, but I can do a passable job holding a conversation as long as I am not trying to be flirty or romantic. But I fail horribly whenever I try to flirt.
So any advice from my fellow SSC’ers would be great. But I am also willing to try professional advice. Does anybody have any experience with matchmaking services or paid dating advice/consultants? I have heard that you can pay people to run your dating profile for you, messaging people and setting up dates for you. Do you think that is ethical? Workable? Worth the price? I think I would be willing to pay up to a thousand dollars for help, but only if it came with a strong recommendation. I am not at all wealthy and don’t have much money to throw around, but a relationship would really improve my quality of life so I am willing to invest in that opportunity if I think it has a high enough likelihood of return. If I think about it, I would probably be willing to spend up to ten grand on a matchmaking service, but I would only do that if I could sign a contract that 1: allowed me to pay over several years, and 2: only required me to pay if the service resulted in a marriage.
My general dating advice still applies.
Generally, I’d say you seem socially awkward and like you’re giving up too early. I’d work on that. You should expect to go on dozens or hundreds of dates, especially with online dating. And social skills are skills and they get better with practice. Looking better helps too. Attraction tends to be one of those things people back-justify. If you’re good looking and good on a date then people will tend to bend to your preferences (to some extent) in order to be with you. They’ll convince themselves they really wanted a feminine man even if they wouldn’t have said so at first.
Also, I don’t know your definition of ‘feminine’, but my observation is that stereotypically femme men have at best a slight disadvantage in dating if they’re otherwise attractive. I’ve seen lispy cross dressing theater kids who are handsome running what are basically harems and I’ve seen muscle bound jocks struggle to have a relationship last longer than a night.
So to some extent I think you’re using that as an excuse. Get in shape, get socially skilled, dress better, and see if that solves the problem. (And besides: it’s cheaper than paying a dating coach. $20 a month gym membership, a few hundred on clothes, and hanging out at the mall is free.)
Except for the one time, I haven’t even had the opportunity to give up too early. And I haven’t made it far enough for my social skills to matter either. I need to know what kind of message I am supposed to send as an opener.
Easiest way to appear more attractive would be to simply take better profile pictures. Not something that I exactly know how to do, but something I will work on. I have tried dressing differently in the past, and it felt really uncomfortable, so that would be a last resort for me. I can hike 20 miles in a day and whitewater kayak. I’m not weak and I don’t look weak, but I also have a bit of a belly and don’t look ‘fit’. I wouldn’t mind working down the belly but I do not want to look ‘fit’. I don’t like that kind of body type, either on myself or others.
I am not really feminine, but I don’t go out of my way to be masculine either. I exhibit traits from both sides of the spectrum.
I appreciate the advice, so I am not trying to be rude, just pointing out how differently your and my minds are when I say that trying to hone my social skills by hanging out at the mall feels impossibly difficult. I can’t even conceive of what that would look like. I feel like it would be easier to get a PhD in ancient Chinese literature and get appointed to be the ambassador to China than to do that.
Your social skills always matter to social activity. Saying you haven’t made it far enough for it to matter is like… Imagine you were telling me you couldn’t possibly kayak, you tried paddling five times and didn’t actually manage to move the boat at all. And I said that exercising would build stamina you could use in kayaking. And you said that you hadn’t made it far enough that stamina mattered. Maybe there’s other concerns like skill but you do need to start building stamina.
I’m an amateur photographer that’s been paid for my work. Happy to answer questions.
Why did it feel uncomfortable?
Work out somewhat more then and focus on diet. You can’t outrun or out-hike your fork. Aesthetics matter.
Well, do that then. Seriously, do it. I guarantee you’d meet some people on the way and improve your social skills. First step is applying to an Ancient Chinese literature program.
If you want to take the easier way, I can’t exactly tell what your level of social skill is. You say you go hiking and whitewater kayaking. Completely alone? If yes, go find a group. When you get there, talk about whitewater kayaking with the other people you’ve preselected for whitewater kayaking. Then move onto any other subject. The weather. Sports. Your favorite band. Ancient Chinese literature. Your dog. It doesn’t matter. Rinse and repeat until you feel comfortable talking and approaching people.
There really is no other way to do it. With apologies to our neurological differences, we are similar in at least this: we both get better at social skill by using it. Likewise, I might be weak and you might be strong but we both get stronger by lifting weights.
If you are in California, maybe I will hit you up for some pictures next time I am in one of the big cities.
Its difficult to describe why I don’t like trying new clothing. The stuff I got was expensive, low-quality, and uncomfortable, but I know that can be fixed with effort. More important is that I am really bad at making simple choices like what to wear. It is unreasonably stressful for me. So I wear pretty much the same thing every day – schlubby accountant clothes. And it doesn’t help that I am completely apathetic towards men’s fashion but also completely uninterested in presenting feminine in public.
I learned to kayak in an excellent Outdoors club in Wisconsin. That was undoubtedly really good for me. I set a rule for myself: try to socialize with women but don’t try to date any of them. Enforcing that constraint took a lot of pressure away from me and really helped with my anxiety. I think I did ok. But unfortunately I had to move into the population black hole between LA and SF. There are only one or two hundred-thousand people within a hundred miles of me, but something like ten-million within two-hundred-and-fifty. I am just far away enough from Fresno Bakersfield, Santa Barbara and Salinas that it is pretty difficult to interact with people there.
I joined the rationalist hiking group, but unfortunately there wasn’t really enough interest from other people to actually get anything going. I tried, but I think I have already been annoying enough!
I suppose I should make the effort to try going to an LA or SF meetup.
Here’s your problem. You don’t have to be masculine but are you at least pretending to be such? You don’t have to fool them, just give them plausible deniability to look the other way.
Not in any ethical system I know of. But who says you need bind yourself to an ethical system? Reminds me of this:
https://youtu.be/XfsU_p5yqUc?t=52
The real mystery is why this isn’t happening all the time. It’s an area that seems especially ripe for specialization and trade. Whenever men are discussing our frustrations on the internet there is always some concern troll who says “lol 80 percent of men don’t have these problems dating is easy just be yourself.” But we all know that’s a crock of crap, confirmed by data which shows that most male profiles are rated as unattractive:
https://www.yourtango.com/2016285828/women-find-80-percent-men-unattractive-says-crazy-study
I am not interested in hiding my gender identity. I only feel comfortable presenting as male in public, but I need my partner to think I look good in a dress in private. I understand that this considerably reduces my pool of potential partners, but that is the way it is.
One issue I have is that I have no idea how to convey this information to potential matches.
Maybe include that exact sentence in your profile?
Look, this is going to be tough for you. Dating sites are a numbers game, even in the mass-market hetero dating scene. You are participating in a niche market which greatly reduces your available matches immediately.
Sites “matching” you with people is irrelevant. Most people don’t care about their matches, or have so many it’s not really a relevant/proper filter. In my experience, less than five percent of people you message will message you back. From there, less than 10% will keep replying long enough to actually build something representing a relationship, and at that point, maybe 1/3 will actually go on one date with you (at which point your meatspace social skills probably decide whether you get a second date/relationship or not, for me it was about 25%). Do the math on that and figure out how many people you need to message to get a single second date and it’s not pretty.
So uh, my best advice is that you need to lower your standards/expand your funnel. Have you considered engaging in a worldwide search (with the intention of moving or convincing your partner to move if the relationship works)? Expanding the relevant age range?
I have been trying to keep it local but yeah, expanding the geographic extent is probably the correct choice. Though I wonder how many other people are willing to even bother with a non-local?
I would really like to move away from where I live now. Though it seems… dangerous to move for a romantic relationship unless that relationship is quite well established.
How many people, in general? Few.
How many people who are looking for something that your specific niche provides? Perhaps relatively more.
It is. As I said, this won’t be easy for you. That said, I’ve seen it happen/work.
That’s a tall order and they’d just be pretending anyway. Have you considered the traditional strategy of keeping it a secret from your partner and acting it out with a prostitute?
Yes, but that’s what’s great about the modern dating world.
Absolutely not. The world is full of people with kinks, and this is a fairly common one.
Bisexual women do exist!
What that data actually showed was that women are harsh at rating attractiveness but forgiving of their own assessments.
You’re ignoring the fact that a minority of women are sending the first message and assuming that this minority is representative of all women in the sample.
It is possible that they don’t represent it, but I believe that a higher % of men land dates on these sites than those rated as attractive which would bolster the claim. My estimation is that a large % of women bin men into three categories.
1. Attractive enough to date with no other qualifications
2. Attractive enough to date with other qualifications
3. Not attractive enough to date.
“I thought about it for about a day before deciding to decline because it just didn’t seem like that was going anywhere” was probably a mistake. It seems quite possible (in fact very likely) that she was in to you but busy/averse to messaging on OKC. Wanting to switch channels away from the dating app is a good sign (for instance it shows they trust you not to stalk/spam them if they later reject you).
I think using messaging “to help decide if I actually want to meet them in person” is the wrong way to go about things. Unless going on dates is a particularly costly thing for you, or you think you’re vastly more charming when messaging, I think your mindset should be aiming to get a date with everyone you match with.
I should have been more clear that I was feeling like she was acting sketchy. Her profile was near zero effort, her one picture was unclear and didn’t show her face. Not totally sure she was even a real person or a catfish. But I suppose you are right, there wasn’t much risk in it for me. I would prefer not to waste the time on a date with a completely random person that I know nothing about.
And for your second point, ok. So am I opening with a date proposal as a first message then? Or what?
No, but IMO your aims in messaging should be displaying attractive qualities (funny, interesting, not a serial killer etc.) and moving things in the direction of a date. That doesn’t mean asking people out immediately, but you don’t want to wait too long. This is in response to my impression of your approach though, not the stories — it sounds like it didn’t come up there.
Going back to your original post, I think it’s also quite possible that your expectations are wrong, i.e. that 5 matches/month is either a reasonable number based on a (too low) level of use of OKC on your part, or it’s too low and there’s something wrong with your profile; and that the proportions of non-responses etc. are reasonable. But I’ve never used OKC so that may well be wrong.
5 mathes/month seems reasonable to me, and evidence that my profile isn’t completely terrible. Which is why I was more focused on asking what to do in the messaging phase.
I’m not going to comment on most of the post, since I am far too autistic to have ever tried dating sites. The one piece of advice I can give, as a member of the female persuasion, is “definitely don’t pay someone else to message women for you.” Unethical is a bit strong, imo, but I’d be pretty creeped out if I found out someone was doing that with me. Plus it seems like it would cause problems down the road if, for instance, your personality is different from the person pretending to be you.
There’s a lot you could do with 1000 dollars, and paying someone else to run your dating site seems like a really poor use of it.
Yeah, I get that. Too bad it would be so convenient.
Unless he has a long nose and is really good with a rapier?
Then you end up breaking her heart twice.
Though she might decide to enter a convent.
Is Ozy still doing that advice column?
More generally, find GNC people/ the broader ‘queer’ community and ask for advice there and/or directly meet cute people in that community.
So your psychological profile sounds similar to mine, and I am now happily married, so I’ll let you know what I did that had success. Possible differences that your response doesn’t tell me enough to know if they are differences. I am considered conventionally attractive, 7/10, when I was dating I was a law student at the most prestigious law school in the major city that I lived in. I also have one more secret relationship killer that I won’t mention here. I was as you said, extremely socially awkward, autogynephilic, I hate the term non-binary, but it’s probably accurate, man.
I used Tindr and had a short honest profile, that scared away most girls, stating my interest. I swiped right on approximately 10,000 girls, 100 swiped right on me, I had dated with 5 of them, and married one. My most successful opener was tell me two truths and a lie. My wife is bisexual, but primarily attracted to women, and I told her all my secrets by month 3. She is also two social classes below me, but only slightly less intelligent, and conventionally unattractive, for reasons I will never understand, since I consider her the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
I don’t know how much of my story generalizes. I consider myself very lucky to have met her, and not many places have 10,000 eligible women on dating sites. Also, I do think it is possible to improve social skills. I carefully studied psychology, and my social skills have improved immensely since high school. The skills themselves did not improve until after I had more practice, spending time with my wife and at work, but it is possible to improve.
Glad to hear you had success. On my profile I list my gender identity as both man and genderqueer, which feels pretty accurate to me. And I don’t mention anything else about autogynephillia. But it sounds like you think I should be more clear about that?
Actually no, I think you’ve mentioned enough. I didn’t mention that until 3 months in. In general, if you have a large enough dating pool, I think it’s in your benefit to be more upfront about yourself. If you have a smaller dating pool, it might be best to wait until you know the person better, but still don’t wait more than 3 months to mention anything that is a potential deal breaker on either side.
Yep, welcome to online dating. I’m fairly conventionally attractive and have an interesting-ish profile and my match-to-date conversation rate is only somewhere in the 5-10% range. All a match on OKC means is that while swiping through a sea of faces they made the split-second decision that your face met whatever criteria they had at that time. It doesn’t mean anything more than that. It doesn’t mean they’ve read your profile, it doesn’t mean they want to meet you, it doesn’t mean they’re even looking for a date right now. It just means they momentarily thought your face looked kinda good.
If you have expectations, you’re wrong. Don’t start caring about anyone pretty much up until you’ve got a date lined up, and even then be aware there’s still like a 25% chance you’ll get stood up.
Meanwhile, your messaging strategy is also kinda messed up. The only purpose of messaging should be to get someone’s phone number. You don’t want to back and forth, you don’t want to chat or get to know the person – that’s what dating is for. The purpose of messaging is to present normal enough to get a phone number. The point of getting a phone number is to text enough to set up a first date. Nothing else matters.
Swipe right on more people, care about the individual prospects less.
Two points:
1. Why? Someone’s texting ability doesn’t correlate to how much fun you’ll have in person together. Just focus on meeting up and deciding then.
2. The problem is, other people aren’t using this messaging to get to know you, they’re using it to meet up. If you try to drag out the messaging phase you’re going to lose their interest. Not trying to be mean, but this is probably why girl number 5 ghosted you – you didn’t move quickly enough so she lost interest.
It’s maybe, maybe worth money to invest in someone to build a profile for you. There are people who will take professional-grade photos of you from maximally-flattering angles and help you craft some kind of witty profile. You can, however, get the same benefit from one buddy who knows even a little about photography and asking like two female friends for advice. It depends on what you think is better. If you have literally 0 flattering pictures of yourself, maybe it’s worth it to get a profile built.
Real talk time, forgive me if this sounds harsh. So, you earlier said “you message people to learn more about the person and decide if you want to meet them” and now you’re willing to offload all of that to people who will almost certainly be following the theory of messaging->digits->date? That doesn’t make sense, and makes me thing you’re not being honest with yourself about your own priorities. Don’t pay for messaging, just take a step back, get some distance emotionally from the people you match with and start playing a numbers game.
I think this is really what I needed to hear, so thanks.
Its funny how my internal belief was that I had really low standards and was willing to take almost anybody who would have me, but all of your responses show this to be untrue. Clearly I want to fall in love right away. But that isn’t how things are going to happen. I know this, but clearly I haven’t truly internalized it.
I think this has been really helpful so far.
Right now on my profile I list my gender as both male and genderqueer, which feels like a pretty accurate description. And I don’t mention anything else about it, or anything about autogynephillia. But maybe I should be much more clear about that? Since it is a critical part of who I am, should I be more willing to filter out anybody not interested in that kind of partner? I am thinking adding something like this to my profile:
“Male privilege is really convenient and trans-phobia sucks so I only present as male in public, but I really like how it feels to wear a dress, so tell me whether you think I would look cuter in an elegant satin ball gown or a fluffy chiffon princess dress.”
Is this too weird or uncomfortable? This would definitely filter out most women, but do you think it would let enough through? Suggestions / alterations?
@mustacheion,
You answered my plea for help; one good turn deserves another. I’m a cis-het male, so can’t speak to non-binary or autogynephilia, but I can give you some tips on how to approach dating, mentally and strategically, that I think will apply. [I skimmed the responses to your post; forgive me if I’m repeating anything.]
(1) CRUCIAL: I advise you not to mention wearing dresses in your profile. “Male” and “genderqueer” are enough to start. I disagree with the other responders: you DON’T want to filter people based on autogynephilia or cross-dressing[footnote 1], not at first. Why? Because a partner who has already gotten to like you in your public identity will often be willing to accept a ‘secret’ identity as you grow closer, even if they would have instinctively rejected you, up front, based on that information. Human beings form friendly and romantic relationships partially by sharing vulnerable moments, and you have a built-in super-vulnerable moment ready to go once you arrive at a certain level of intimacy with someone.
(2) Your main obstacle, it seems, is your unfortunate geographic placement. I imagine the nearby Bay Area would give you an easier time, given the sexual subcultures I know of in that area. As others have said, dating apps are a numbers game. IIRC you’re an accountant; is it not the case that your skills are in demand all over the nation, much like nurses are? A move to a city with liberal attitudes and decent female:male ratio is a large and guaranteed boost in the right direction. I can personally vouch for Portland, Oregon as a (small) city where non-traditionally-masculine men date all kinds of ladies, and where “alternative” lifestyles are celebrated. [And I have contacts at Intel who might be able to help you get in the door there.]
(3) You may have to grind in-person social skills. I went from “stuttering and nervous” to “nervousness is there but fails to intercept my rise to Valhalla on a geyser of word vomit” by forcing myself to do scary stuff. A class on improv performance (usually called “improv comedy” — a misnomer, since improv doesn’t have to be funny) is almost certainly the #1 tactic here. Two reasons why: (a) conversation is fundamentally an improvised scenario, even if you learn to recognize patterns. (b) In particular, improv trains you to listen and respond to exactly what other people say. You may already know that to be a powerful conversation tactic, but not know how to actually use it on the fly. Improv will train you in the rudiments of that skill for roughly a couple hundred bucks and one night per week for two months.
[Confounder RE my improv suggestion: I am naturally witty and funny and did improv to improve my hesitancy/nervousness; it might have worked for me just because I had baseline humor skills. Counter-argument: people with no goddamn social skills whatsoever in my improv classes were still able to gain improv abilities, and as long as you don’t forget that training the moment you walk off stage (MOST PEOPLE DO THAT), you will be able to upgrade your conversation skills with the core improv technique of “listen and respond.” Guaranteed.]
(4) I want to compliment you on something you said: “I will socialize with women but not date them” was a perfect strategy for improving your general confidence because it (a) lowered the stakes (b) gave you all-important practice. If you can summon the energy to continue that tactic, do so. If not, I found luck with starting a Beeminder goal literally called “acquire social points” where I had to start a conversation / point something out / compliment someone once per day. Anyone counted, not just women (and I recommend the same parameter to you.) It was excruciating at first; then the 1st one each day was hard but subsequent ones in a given day were easier; then it just became something I do.
I can’t spare more time today, but in the near future I may do one of these for you: (1) review your profile/s (2) write up an approach to messaging, and message->date converting, which is essentially algorithmic and should hopefully allow you to achieve a couple dates. [Roughly: look for certain specific items in the dating profile; comment on those items in a specific way; with all matches, exchange messages in a certain cadence and at a certain length; if number of messages exceeds N or if message length shows a certain pattern, make your next response a direct ask-out. I think I could take my experience as someone often called “a good conversationalist”, with OK success on these apps, and distill my second-nature strategies into specific executable methods that may appeal to your accountant-ness.]
[footnote 1] Please forgive and correct me if this is not a preferred term.
As for #2, I’m not an accountant, I was trying to use that as a (hopefully not offensive to accountants) way of describing how I dress. I am a physicist who specialized in semiconductor fabrication, so as of a few years ago I would have killed to work for Intel. But I have recently founded a startup, so I’m not looking for a job at the moment. I really need to stay where I am currently for another year or so, but hopefully after that I will be able to move. That is definitely something I am looking forward to.
As for the last part, that would be really helpful. But you don’t need to do it for me, do it for the community instead. A major part of my ultimate problem with dating is that I was raised by shitty media to believe totally wrong things about romance. And that is a problem that many people these days suffer from. So I am all for helping to design systems that can make this process easier, and for generating educational content that can help people understand how to work with the existing systems.
As an example: I was raised by pop culture to think that I was a nerd, and that pretty girls don’t ever date nerds. So in middle school when an intelligent, attractive, popular cheerleader started flirting with me I completely refused to believe that she was actually interested in me. The only answer I could come up with for why such a girl was showing so much interest in me was because she was trying tricking me into falling in love with her so I would buy her a bunch of expensive jewelry. And then she would break up with me and she and her friends would all laugh at me for being so dumb as to believe that she actually liked me. I really believed this. And that caused me to be a total asshole to her in response. Poor girl tried really hard for over a year to make me her boyfriend.
As an adult I am appalled at how misogynistic I was back then. And that was just one example out of many. But I also admit that those false beliefs were the rational product of the poor quality information I was fed as a child. This kind of thing is a terrible tragedy that affects millions of people and it is terrible and there has to be a better way.
So I am all for anything that can help establish better systems, push better norms, or better educate people on how to go about with this whole romance thing. And I would be happy to lend my own labor in service of such a goal if there is something I could contribute.
I don’t think your experience there is at all unique. Probably more common than not to be honest.
For one thing, all guys have stories about really stupid missed opportunities when they were young. Often these stories are very painful experiences, because adolescence can be a desperate time. And secondly, most young men are afraid of women. Some are terrified.
For someone with low self esteem, yours is a normal experience.
On my second day of high school, the first pretty girl who came up to me asked me to confirm my name and then promptly poured a bottle of vinegar on my head.
Just to add to what @LesHapablap said, I don’t think what you described is really misogynistic.
@Garrett
Is there any…backstory to that event? I assume there has to be something since she checked your name first.
Good point. I will try to be more clear. I don’t want to overstate my femininity.
I would say my identity is not at all in flux. I am not trans, have no gender dysphoria, and think it is very unlikely that I would ever transition. Maintaining a somewhat masculine public face is an important self-defense for me. But I don’t have any more aspiration toward femininity than I do toward masculinity.
I like dresses because I like soft fabric and loose flowy clothing. And it is a sexual thing for me, which comes from a personal disgust toward male sexuality, which itself comes from bad experiences during adolescence.
Join the SCA and choose a suitable persona and you can have soft fabric and loose flowy clothing while remaining entirely male.
You can even fight other males with sword and shield.
Plumber’s post below reminded me I wanted to register an update: I’ve finally finished The Bell Curve, and I’m officially a convert. Previously I was open to criticism towards it, but now I strongly suspect that for example Taleb didn’t even read the book. The authors were very careful, to the point of paranoia, with what they’re saying. I doubt much can be argued head on – which explains why most of the criticism is generic stuff like “IQ doesn’t exist” or “they are obviously racists”.
The other funny thing is that the race chapter is… well, interesting, but optional. The book is plenty scary without it. There are two other points that I think (well, the authors think as well) are much more important: 1. Freedom of association and its cousin, assortative mating mean that we’re more and more living in bubbles made of our intellectual peers. We don’t even know how smarter/slower people are, because we rarely interact with them. And this is going to accelerate. I wonder if iqstocracy is already coined?
And 2, most social problems are very IQ related – much more than any other factor including the almighty socioeconomic context. While IQ isn’t (always) a cause, it’s always an aggravating factor. A very clear example: lowest quartile IQ women do tend to have children out of wedlock more often – this would be the cause. But once they do, if they’re poor they tend to remain poor at much higher rates – that’s the aggravating factor, and it’s possibly a lot worse. Imagine a poor single mother trying to juggle an caring for an infant, getting off welfare, getting extra education for a better job and managing a household. Not all can make it, and one of the best predictors of who does is IQ.
I find this incredibly simplistic & not really supported by much academic literature. I’ve noticed that IQ proponents tend to have ‘101ism’-type fans who stretch the results of research into IQ far beyond what could really be inferred by actual research.
Also I found Tyler Cowen’s recent view of Murray’s latest book pretty interesting, as I generally find Cowen to quite even-handed, and he’s not explicitly opposed to researching IQ/social problems/even race-related connections:
1. Can’t grapple with culture-related arguments at all (literally mentions culture only once or twice in his book)
2. ‘Shared environment’ research doesn’t typically go beyond simplistic twin studies- lots of environmental variation out there outside of standard twin research
3. Points out that multiple labor market studies have found what Cowen calls ‘fairly modest’ correlation between IQ & income
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/12/charles-murrays-human-diversity.html
I’m not going to dig sources to support the book – honestly, it’s doing a great job of supporting itself. That’s what made me a convert – they didn’t build a castle there, they built a goddamn bunker, even to the point of cutting down a lot of the claims (they cut a bit loose in one of the addendums, I think, and give a taste of what they could have reasonably claimed).
Like albatross11 said below, related and caused is not the same. And the book is pretty clear – the IQ correlation (whatever the causation is) is stronger than anything else. If you want to help a demographic, it’s a very good idea to be aware of it.
And btw, I’m not talking about race here. One of the most beautiful things is that for over 3/4 of the book, including the most important parts, they simply removed all minority data. You don’t hear it often, but all the good stuff and by far of the majority of the book is done with … only the “white excluding latino” subset.
I read the book years ago, and still have it in my bookshelf. I felt as if it were two books in one, and it would have been better if the authors had seperated them, and published at least one of them under pseudonymn(s)- i.e. each one under different name(s).
Book #1 – Does a meritocracy create problems, when those who take advantage of upward mobility move away from their birth homes, and essentially break contact with those not so meritorious, leaving them without especially talented contacts? Would it be better if we all lived in the same small town, with those experiencing upward mobility simply moved to larger houses with better amenities? Does having the effective definition of “merit” be “intelligence” have different effects than other potential definitions of “merit”? (Not raised by the author, but plenty of other factors contribute to success, and in some situations are relatively more or less important.)
Book #2 – Race and IQ really are strongly correlated. This is important enough to write a book about.
Book #2 was guaranteed to to attract what was not yet referred to as “cancel culture”, and made Book #1 mostly go unnoticed and undiscussed. Book #1 was chancy – some people would have been upset enough by its thesis to push back hard, not just at its truth but at the very idea of asking such questions. But I believe that would have been a much smaller proportion of those responding, and that book might have been able to get an actual hearing, if divorced from all mention of race.
My memory is that the race part involved the whole second half of the book, and given that the topic was already a third rail, absolutely could not be ignored. But I do remember being surprised that in spite of the giant public fuss about racism, I was about halfway through the book before it became a topic. But it’s quite possible that race being such a third rail caused ambiguous statements after that point to be read by me as being about race.
It would be fascinating to discuss social sorting by “success” and its effects, and for that matter the extent to which this corresponds to social sorting by IQ. (As a person on the autistic spectrum, of exceedingly high intelligence but held back by my difficulty encouraging non-autistic people to support me, aka “poor social skills”, I suspect that ability-to-schmooze/lie/bully/take-credit-for-others’-work/etc. skillfully is more important than IQ per se, and only somewhat correlated with IQ.)
I’m just not sure such a discussion would be possible, without being drowned out by people far more interested in discussing the relationship of IQ and race. It would be particularly prone to this problem, of course, if Murray or Herrnstein’s name were mentioned.
@DinoNerd
I am somewhat confused by this comment.
I agree that they might have been more successful in getting acceptance for this book if they had written two separate books, but I totally disagree on which two books. IMO, the great value of the Bell Curve was the first half of the book with all the statistics showing how well IQ correlates with life outcomes. But the Bell Curve is mostly attacked for their discussion in the second half of the book discussing the ramifications of this correlation and their many guesses on this subject. The authors were very clear when they were guessing and when they were using science, but many of their critics were very determined to mix them up. If they had one book on the science and one on the ramifications, maybe it would have been easier to get the science accepted.
I just looked at my copy. It appears that Chapter 14 is mostly about race but the rest after that only mention race occasionally. So I don’t think this is correct.
Maybe there’s more than two potential books here, all of them basically poisoned as soon as “race” gets mentioned.
“Iqocracy” gets more Google hits (and makes more etymological sense). Though I would prefer a name like “sophistocracy” or something…
The problem is that the ‘race and IQ’ chapter is fundamentally dishonest – it does a bad job of representing arguments against the author’s favored position, and engages in some pretty awful pieces of sophistry to avoid having to admit that genetic race-linked influences on IQ might be much smaller or non-existent compared to socioeconomic influences. At the time, this might have been barely acceptable, but given what we know today about genetics and intelligence, Murray has an ethical obligation to retract his past claims about race and intelligence. Until he does so, we can’t really trust him to be intellectually honest.
What is this?
Summarizing the current state of research on genetics and intelligence would be beyond both the scope of what I can accomplish in this comment and my personal abilities. If you’re interested, I’d recommend reading some of Gail Davies’ research.
Edit: Also, this paper by Jon Beckwith is a great explanation of why the attempts by people like Murray to confuse race, heritability and genetics, especially on the topic of intelligence, are unscientific.
It’s a series of non-sequiturs. The failure to find specific genes does not mean the trait in question is not genetically caused, if it were, we’d have to throw out all evolutionary thought before 1950. The “more genetic variation within races” argument cannot be used to assert that behavioral traits cannot vary between races anymore than it can be used to assert that physical traits do not vary between races. At least one claim, that “Henry H. Goddard reported that intelligence tests (intelligence quotient – IQ tests) he gave to immigrants entering the country indicated that 83% of Jews, 80% of Hungarians, 79% of Italians and 86% of Russians were ‘feeble-minded’” is simply false, Goddard measured a selected group and made clear that his results would not generalize to the immigrant populations as a whole:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1984-09428-001
Here’s a better argument against the race-IQ hypothesis:
https://www.unz.com/article/reply-to-lance-welton-why-do-blacks-outperform-whites-in-uk-schools/
It does place a special burden of proof on genetic explanations for variations in intelligence between groups, though, given that the highly polygenic explanation for intelligence is better supported by the evidence than any other explanation.
I’m confused, why does “polygenic” conflict with “correlates with ancestry”?
Why would it do that?
You’re saying intelligence is more “highly polygenic” than “physical traits”? OK, maybe so, but what’s the relevance?
Height is highly polygeneic but varies a great deal between populations without nutritional deficiencies.
“polygeneic” doesn’t mean that something is evenly distributed amongst all humans but I see the term thrown around by arts graduates as a sort of pre-prepared “checkmate geneticists!”.
Intelligence is highly genetically heritable, we know this from twin studies comparing monozygotic and dizygotic twins.
And when it comes to the top rankings the weird little subpopulations with a genetic advantage will tend to congregate at the top. Like how a crazy fraction of the top runners are from a tiny subpopulation in kenya.
I would however apply an extra dose of cynicism when someone makes claims about genetics that just happen to justify the social hierarchy in the country where they happen to live and be at the top of the social hierarchy.
There are so many human subpopulations with weird genetic quirks and that all gets pushed under the table because it’s taboo to imply that our brains lack a magical barrier against genetics.
On a side note, if you want to find subpopulations with extreme variation we should be looking more in Africa. The focus on the human population outside of africa is like trying to do a genetic study on the population of a town and taking 95% of your samples from one extended family from one household who’ve been keeping it in the family for a long time.
Depending on how you count it 1% to 10% of the human genome mostly never made it out of africa.
That’s fucking fascinating!
10% of the contigs found in the african pan-genome project weren’t even in the standard human reference sequence!
tl;dr: I’ll give a lot more weight to people claiming large genetic IQ differences between african tribes that the speaker in question has no connection to than to americans claiming that their local social structure happens to be because genetics.
As in the Igbo vs everyone else?
From time to time I see some reference to the success of Nigerian immigrants, and I wonder which part of Nigeria they mostly come from.
@Murphy
Most of the people we tend to discuss here or who discuss here, believe that Asians and Ashkenazi are on top, but are not themselves part of those groups. Instead, they are usually gentile whites, who are more in the middle.
So according to you, that should make their claims more robust, right?
@Aapje
Pretty much, ya.
All else being equal…
If an Ashkenazi jewish geneticist claims that, picking David’s example above, the Igbo are unusually mentally capable it hold more weight than if an Igbo makes the same claim about their own group.
if someone who is an Ashkenazi jew is saying that Ashkenazi jews are smarter it holds slightly less weight than if a similar Igbo makes a similar claim.
Of course normal standards of evidence also still apply but it’s important to consider that people do tend to be slightly more motivated to justify their own positions in society.
I myself find the Ashkenazi thing plausible but I try to take into account that my opinion is partly influenced by this blog to be slightly more receptive to the idea.
History is full of people who decided that their ingroup were inherently genetically superior, so it’s more interesting when people profess that a group they have little connection to has some notable genetic advantage.
As far as I can tell, a whole lot of modern discourse regarding racial differences in IQ consists of WASPs claiming that Asians and Jews have higher IQs, not only than blacks and hispanics, but than WASPs themselves…
Why isn’t this valid?
I can’t really entertain the notion that somehow IQ tests are “culturally biased” or just a tool to further enshrine the so-called ruling class when Asians perform better on them than the dominant culture and ruling class does.
@Matt M,
I’ve written much of this befoe, sure, for whatever reason Asian-Americans (on average) do better on IQ tests than European-Americans, and European-Americans (on average) do better than African-Americans on IQ tests, and how well you test for IQ correlates wirh how well you score for SAT tests, and how well you score on those tests often means the difference between going to a four year university or not, and there’s been enough studies to be convincing that show that when it comes to students who almost didn’t get in versus students who almost did get in that whether you start at a four-year university or get “some college” at a two-year community college first often makes a big difference in terms of life-time income, and income correlates with a lot good stuff, so IQ correlates with good stuff.
I accept alll that, but I don’t accept that IQ correlates that much with job performance because personally I’ve seen too many who tested for “aptitude” poorly work well, and too many who tested well work badly (and for whatever reason black guys disproportionately work better than they test).
What seems a way that picks good workers better is for a guy who knows the job well to talk to applicants and decide whom to hire based on their talk.
Too many times have I seen that those hired via affirmative-action, and “temporary staffing emergencies” where hiring is based on interviews instead of the tests are as good or better workers than those of us who test in.
It’s also the case that hiring previously was just based on testing, but that was found to get worse workers than test plus interview, which further makes me suspect that “aptitude” tests are just astrology.
I know why the test system was implemented, in the past folks just hired relatives and those who bribed them, so “objective” tests were implemented instead, but in my experience anyone smart enough to figure out how to apply and get to the right room at the right time to take the test in the first place is as likely or not to be a good worker, the test scores themselves don’t predict much in terms of actual on the job performance.
One union local (UA 343 -Vallejo, California) actually found that on average those with the best test scores overwhelimgly quit or were fired before finishing their apprenticeships so they switched to pass/fail for the tests plus interviews, I’ve even read of a police department that implemented maximum scores because high scorers performance was disproportionately bad (this was widely derided as “You can’t be too smart to be a cop”).
I was lucky to get my jobs by doing well on written tests, but I don’t delude myself into believing that I “deserved” the jobs more.
Deserve has nothing to do with it!
@Plumber
1. I’m aware of the existence of studies that claim short IQ tests are *almost* as good as structured interviews at identifying talent. The utility of the test may depend on the nature of the work.
2. Ignoring #1, we really use the general factor at thinking about what sort of work a person is cognitively capable of doing, which is sort of a minimum standard. If certain jobs have cognitive demands (where, say, only 20% of the population could be trained to do that work) then that job will carry a wage premium over jobs that >20% could be trained, ceteris paribus. This is true of other behavioral traits as well. (High risk tolerance for example)
For any given job IQ might not predict performance well… amongst those who are already capable of doing the work, but that makes sense if you’ve already restricted the range.
Because different jobs have different cognitive loads, IQ tests end up necessarily correlating with income across the whole economy without having to be good at predicting job performance.
The other explanation would be range restriction. Height obviously helps at basketball but is a poor performance predictor for NBA players for a rather obvious reason.
Melanin expression changes very, very rapidly when a human population moves. This means we, as a species, look far, far more varied than we actually are, the actual spread of genes in general between populations is fuck-all.
.. Addenum, on my own account. The fact that peoples that leave very tropical regions get paler very quickly in evolutionary terms, and very consistently, despite the initial mutants almost certainly having social problems likely means that vitamin C deficiency is really, really bloody bad for you.
But that contradicts the new claims that hunter-gatherers as far north as the islands of Denmark had dark skin. Geneticists are now making the truth claim that Europeans were dark-skinned from >40,000-5,700 years ago,* except for the farmers who replaced them over the tail end of that long period.
*Peninsular Scandinavia excepted… maybe.
@Le Maistre Chat:
Note how dark-skinned old pictures of the Inuit are, compared to modern pictures.
There are people that don’t tan with sun exposure, but most people still do.
Skin color is only one part of the physical racial variation, and is not necessary for theories about biological differences to sprout up, see stereotypes within European populations.
There are rather more phenotypical differences between Africans, Asians, and Europeans than melanin expression.
Well, see, that would be one huge prior against the idea that “science now proves that the
Irish, thePolish, theItalians, the Africans are less successful because they are inferior in some critical, scientific measure”What does “rapidly” mean here? I don’t think skin color has changed enormously for groups of migrants with relative low levels of genetic mixing – e.g., descendants of African slaves in the Americas or white settlers in Africa and Australia over the last ~500 years, they still seem to be easily distinguishable from the native populations.
(Nitpick: it’s vitamin D, not C)
African americans are already one heck of a lot paler than their african ancestors on average. Seriously, take a look at a group shot of an west african city, now take a look at a group shot of an african american church.
Ghost face – that is, being what we would call “being white” appears to have arisen as a consequence of trying to live on a grain diet in europe, in not much more than a millenium. Vitamin D shortage must be hella fatal at the margin. Or perhaps it is bad for fertility. That would do it too.
African Americans have 16.7%–24% European DNA, so of course they are paler than their Africans ancestors, who have less.
Hunter-gatherers can usually get their vitamin D through diet, so they don’t need to be fair-skinned.
Nordics live in one of the rare far-northern areas that support good farming, so their ancestors didn’t get adequate vitamin D and they needed fair skin.
Wait – you can’t seriously be proposing this as some kind of drift within a population due to moving???
Yeah, I’d attribute that to all the slave-rape (and some more genial intermarriage, but mostly the centuries of slave-rape).
I would dearly love to see an attribution for this ridiculous claim. Lightskin (if this term is not yet outdated like high-yellow) african americans with good hair of course get it from having european americans in their family tree. How much of it is from way back when vs post freedom intermarriage (and also how much of it is male / female from each race) is entirely a unknown to me and I’d love to know that too.
@Matt M:
Carleton Coon illustrated the range of human cranial capacity with a Chinese man and an Australian Aborigine woman.
Broblawsky:
I don’t think you’re right about this. My amateur impression is that the cause of the difference in average IQ between blacks and whites is an active research question, not something anyone can justifiably make strong claims about. Murray’s recent appearance on Sam Harris’ podcast had him expressing a belief that the IQ difference is substantially genetic and making an argument for why he thinks so. He may be right or wrong, but it’s not dishonest to advocate for what you actually believe. Further, as far as I can tell, Herrenstein and Murray described the best arguments/evidence against a genetic explanation in the book, and then explained why they didn’t find that evidence convincing. Again, they may be wrong, even wrongheaded, but they did exactly what you’d want someone in their position to do—cite the evidence on the other side and address it.
Can you point to another popular science/social science book that did a better job of advancing a controversial viewpoint and citing the best arguments/evidence against their viewpoint? I’ve read a lot of this kind of books, and I can’t. Compare The Mismeasure of Man. Or, to be fair (because The Mismeasure of Man was utter crap), compare How the Mind Works, Thinking Fast and Slow, Superpredictors, or The Secret of Our Success. Which of those excellent and widely-respected popular science books expressed the opposing arguments and evidence as well as The Bell Curve did w.r.t. whether there was a substantial genetic component to racial IQ differences?
It’s not dishonesty when someone comes to a different conclusion than you do, or even a different conclusion than most researchers in the field do.
I’m not arguing that IQ isn’t substantially genetic; I’m arguing that there’s no evidence that those genetic factors are significantly race-linked. Genetics, heredity, and race are all different concepts. Murray didn’t just argue that IQ is mostly genetic, he argued that the black-white IQ gap is mostly explained by genetic causes. That view is completely unsupported by the literature, and Murray’s persistence in pushing it is evidence of severe dishonesty.
I also read the Bell Curve, and I found their arguments to be disingenous – Herrenstein and Murray were exclusively interested in shooting down counterarguments to their genetic explanation of the black-white IQ gap, without attempting to falsify their own hypothesis. That’s deeply unscientific.
The Bell Curve did a pretty bad job of expressing the counterarguments, in my opinion. As for the rest of those books: none of them (except for The Mismeasure of Man) are substantially focused on the black-white IQ gap, so I don’t think they can be directly compared to it. However, I’d argue there are several other pop-science/pop-sociology books that do a better job of discussing other important sociological topics in a more even-handed way, such as Guns, Germs and Steel and Nickel and Dimed.
It’s dishonest to present a hypothesis that’s unsupported by research as fact, or to misrepresent your opponent’s arguments.
Thank you Radu. I’ve said before that this is one of my favorite books. They are very careful with their statistics and get most of them from the government. IQ definitely does highly correlate with a lot of important life outcomes. One of the many complaints about the book is that correlation isn’t causation. But I have two responses to that:
1) It is very important to find what correlates to life success even if it isn’t causation. If for example you are looking for a successful employee, you don’t care what causes it, you just want to know which candidate to pick
2) It seems to me to be highly likely that a high IQ means one is more more intelligent than average, which will lead to a higher income and other beneficial life outcomes. If it isn’t intelligence causing this result, I would like to hear a more plausible cause.
There is a modest correlation between IQ and (measured) income. There’s little academic support for much ‘IQ correlates strongly with everything positive’ boosterism
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/003465302760556440?casa_token=BKjjWqV32vwAAAAA%3AVx04idEltvmVrW1qqA-UBCQoYiAWUgvDUUfmgW2AdRAcCJIWvF_GjP5Z44bwqsOXuTjzFiJsMQSKGQ&
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.3.1.101
https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-zagorsky.pdf
My understanding (I’m not an expert) is that low IQ is a risk factor for a bunch of social pathology—unwed parenthood, committing crime, being a crime victim, being on public assistance, being disabled, being unemployed, dying young, etc.
To some extent, this is probably mediated by education and type of job—people doing office work are a lot less likely to become disabled due to a workplace injury than people working on the loading docks. In the last 30+ years, the lowest-skill, lowest-ability jobs have been a really tough place to make a living, between increasing automation, shrinking manufacturing jobs, and large amounts of immigration of people also looking for those same bottom-tier jobs. With lousy economic prospects, perhaps you don’t look like great husband / wife material and your baby mama/baby daddy doesn’t want to get married.
But there’s probably a lot more going on there. We’ve done a lot to make the world increasingly hard and hostile for people with low IQs. Consider all the low-level jobs that used to be things anyone could just apply for, but that now require 60 hours of classwork and a written test. That doesn’t sound like a huge barrier for the kind of people making those rules, but it’s a mountain-like barrier for an honest person with an IQ of 80 trying to figure out how to make a living. (Need to go on public assistance? Great, we’re here for you—just
take an exam from a graduate-level course on particle physicsfill out this ten page dense form written at the 12th grade reading level, and we’ll get you started on the process.)Is it really that tough? I have some extended family members who… uh… aren’t all that bright, but have managed to get on disability under some pretty questionable pretenses…
28% of disability claims are accepted before appeal, so it’s a substantially higher acceptance rate than Harvard.
(source.)
“Little” is subjective in a sense here. Because social science is pretty bad at being definitive and reproducible. That doesn’t prevent people who are skeptical of things like IQ-Success or Stereotypes being generally accurate, will otherwise cite things like implicit bias, or talk about things that are much harder to reproduce, like institutional bias.
Its an isolated demand for rigor, in that given the demands made against IQ research most social scientists would have a lot of trouble showing that American Indians were made worse off by smallpox, or that Jews have been having a hard time in Egypt in the postwar era.
Yep, that’s what I was trying to say as well. We don’t care _that_ much if IQ is the cause of various social problems – but we care a lot about doing something to help. At the very least, we can separate the two. If, for whatever reason, IQ is heavily correlated with unemployment or poverty or welfare, it means that programming bootcamps targeting those categories are very unlikely to be successful. But more-than-reasonable training in simpler jobs might be exactly what’s necessary. Etc – whatever the cause, we’re better equipped to react.
OK, here’s an example. I’m a very successful employee, and I own a fully paid off house in a very expensive area. The most successful (measured by recent promotions) of my coworkers just bought a condo in this area. Clearly you want to hire people who own property 🙁
Anecdata aside, I think it’s quite likely that:
– being successful correlates with having more money
– having more money correlates with being able to buy property.
If the data is available, I could probably establish a statistically significant correlation between these two variables.
BUT common sense suggests that the causation is reversed – I’m successful, so I got paid quite well indeed, with lots of yummy bonuses, and even equity awards. This has enabled me to buy and pay off a comfortable house, in an area where this is (falsely) reputed to be impossible on a single income. And my condo-purchasing co-worker just got a very nice bonus indeed – which I suspect became his down payment.
Bottom line – you can’t understand this kind of research unless you understand both statistics and how to create falsifiable hypotheses. Although I never worked as a researcher, I have enough research-oriented training to understand it, but that makes me rather unusual.
The example I gave here is fairly obvious – the success came *before* the real estate, so it would be rather hard for the real estate to cause the success. Most useless correlations aren’t that obvious 🙁
We’re getting away from the topic here (not that it’s a bad thing) but I do have to point out that having outward signs of success is one of the oldest ways of getting hired. From the classic hundred year old “need money to get a suit to get a job to make money”.
So sure, using property/net worth to hire programmers may seem a bit eccentric, but … it’s not a horrible measure. More I think of it the better it looks 🙂
Going even farther off topic …
The real problem with that algorithm would be that it’s harder to exploit employees who have significant personal resources. Someone with less accumulated wealth may or may not be a better programmer than I am – but they will definitely need their job more than I do.
If you want people who will work crazy long hours, etc., you want people who are addicted to overspending, and you definitely prefer young-and-single to people who are raising children – even if they have a house-spouse, their family will push them towards working fewer hours, and generate emergencies that take them out of the office.
So home ownership is a terrible sign – this person is on the way to setting themselves up to work mere 40 hour weeks and actually take their vacation time, and they will probably hunt down a better job if they don’t like what their employer is doing.
[Yes, tongue mostly in cheek above. OTOH, if you are Uber or Amazon, both somewhat notorious as bad employers in my industry, it’s probably spot on.]
My experience in management consulting suggests they may be optimizing for that sort of thing too. A whole lot of managers and partners were unmarried or DINKs, compared to what I’ve observed among senior management in every other industry I’ve worked in.
@DinoNerd
Fathers actually work more hours than other men. Note that your claim that mothers push men to work fewer hours, completely ignores the traditional gender roles. Women typically cut their working hours, which means that to maintain/increase incomes (children are expensive), the men has to work more, advance or otherwise increase his income.
In addtion to @Aapje’s point (taking his claim about fathers working more hours as true), consider how
Applies to fathers as well. Maybe more than just someone with less accumulated wealth than you.
@acymetric
As a manager, fathers are far more reliable employees, work longer hours and are less likely to change jobs away from me than any other category by a decent margin.
Single men are often willing to take a period of reduced income to have fewer hours and/or change careers, and women, both single and married, will regularly reduce hours.
And yet, even fathers will look for work elsewhere if you push beyond a certain point. I definitely agree that fathers are more likely to work longer, harder, take fewer days off, etc. Having to support others is a huge obligation that fathers, for many reasons, uniquely are obligated to.
OK, sure.
But ceteris paribus, if you had two candidates who were equal in every respect except that one was a homeowner and the other wasn’t, you’d prefer the homeowner, wouldn’t you? Because while property ownership doesn’t cause success, it is, in most cases, a signal of success.
Note that something like this could in fact happen in real life by, say, making it illegal for employers to test for or ask about everything else. College degrees are probably being treated in this exact manner as we speak (a Harvard degree doesn’t cause someone to be successful, but it is a signal that they most likely have been or will be)
It’s also a sign of being able to defer gratification as down payments rise.
I am finishing building a custom home that will clock in at about $1 million because my wife and I have been putting aside every penny since we bought our current house into the “down payment for a new house” fund.
Lots of the people I work with make more than me due to being more established in careers and can’t afford a house as nice because they spend it all immediately.
I’m another fan–The Bell Curve is definitely in my “everyone should read it” category.
HOWEVER–everyone who reads The Bell Curve should also read Kevin Drum’s Lead-Crime Hypothesis. It helps with one thing that struck me as odd when I first read The Bell Curve 20 years ago – that a lot of the problems of low IQ seemed to be more about impulsiveness than about smartness. The impact of environmental lead makes sense of this.
For those of you interested in maps, there is a nifty online map of Victorian London available from the National Library of Scotland. It is stitched together from high-res scans of many smaller maps and has a remarkable amount of detail.
Check it out; it’s a bunch of fun.
I have a certain belief and am unsure to what extent it is shared by others. I am here requesting you to let me know if you agree or disagree with my belief. I am not looking to defend the position but merely to access the extent to which it is held by others.
This is the belief: It appears obvious to me that most of the time when people choose an action it is the action they perceive to be in their best interest. Put another way, it seems to me that if I were to adopt the stance that all actions are in the interest of the actor that I would be correct most of the time.
Agree or disagree? Thanks.
This statement sounds so obviously wrong to me that I put it through auto-translator to make sure that I have understood it correctly.
I believe that while it is true most of the time, the exceptions are common and significant and that this rule, unfortunately, does not make a viable general proxy. Some of the most apparent counterexamples would include procrastination or any kind of addiction. But there is also plenty of less significant cases.
Basically, people are conflicted and complicated most of the time, and the part of them that acts is not always in agreement with the part that thinks. And the ability to keep these two parts in harmony is commonly called ‘willpower’.
Disagree. As you aren’t looking to defend the supposition, I’ll limit my additional response to this:
You’ve gone from ‘most of the time when people choose an action’ to ‘all actions’ which are not the same thing, at all.
To clarify I think I am saying the same thing in both statements, just different ways.
1) Most, but not necessarily, all
2) If I say all, I am MOSTLY right. That means I am right most of the time (since most actions are X), but not necessarily all of the time.
If most eggs are oval, then if I said all eggs are oval I would be right most of the time. (Most of the time as in “what is the shape of the next egg you see?”)
I edited my question to address the issue. Thanks.
The devil is in the “all” – I think you need to be a bit more precise here. If you’re talking about individual actions than yes, without a doubt over 50% of them are in the perceived interest of the actor. That’s… well, I’m not going to say “self evident” because it’s not, but it’s at least common sense.
But if you say “all actions are in the [perceived] interest of the author”, then I doubt you’ll be right even for something like 3 hours straight. With “perceived” left in, because people do take actions they perceive to be in the interest of others – parents for children, for example. If you take “perceived” out, then well… let’s just say none of us is that bright 🙂 We fumble a lot.
So: over 50% of individual actions – YES. All actions in a moderately long time interval – NO.
I tried to edit the second question and failed. It should be like “if I adopted the stance that each individual action is in the perceived (by the actor) interest of the actor, I would be correct with regard to most instances of action.”
Strongly agree with this. I think it is true that most (>50%) actions are in the action-taker’s self interest, because most actions are trivial things like “eat when hungry.” But counterexamples are not at all rare, and a prediction model of “always assume self-interest” will perform poorly, even compared to other simplistic/imperfect models like “always assume the reasons are what they action-taker says they are.”
Hmmm… I think the “perceive” is key there and you shouldn’t leave it out when you put things another way. Different people in similar situations will sometimes have very different perceptions of what their own best interest is. And a lot of times they won’t have thought about it much at all. Behavior will be largely habit. A lot of my short-term behavior is pretty automatic.
So… I sort of agree if you narrowly consider actions where it’s easy for someone to decide what’s in their interest and easy for someone else to figure out what the other person is thinking. But a lot of actions that other people perceive to be in their best interest, I wouldn’t in that situation. And a lot of actions people take are habit. Or may as well be random for all anyone else can tell.
According to some philosophers there is no distinction between “my good” and “the good” — my good is your good is his good, because on a deep level somehow what all of us need is the same. I kind of identify with that (up until the point where they say “and the thing all of us need is God”) and so in a sense there is no difference between your interests and my interests. But of course I can only act on the basis of my perception of my own interests, which may be different from your perception of the good, and neither of which may be very accurate.
In this sort of framework, I would not hesitate to agree with your statement. However, it doesn’t seem to be what most people mean when they talk about “interests”. And your statement suggests to me that what you mean by “interests” is actually different from what most people mean by it, as well as from what I described above. So I think your statement may very well be correct according to what you mean by “interests” (and separately, according to the framework described above), but not according to what most people mean.
That seems clearly wrong to me. If I steal your wallet, I’ve advanced my good at the expense of your good and the common good.
Does stealing a wallet really advance your good? It plausibly, after all, makes you a worse person, as well as opens you up to risk—risk of getting caught now or in a later attempt to which you’re now predisposed.
Well, since theft exists, some people at least think it advances their own best interests.
How about cutting someone off on the highway to get where you’re going faster at the expense of slowing them down? Or taking the last cookie from a plate at a party when you’ve already had one and someone else hasn’t?
ETA: Of course, I think morally speaking these all clearly make you a worse person, but the latter two probably won’t have any resulting backlash from an individual action.
Of course some people think it’s good. Everything a person does he does because he thinks it’s good.
The question you’re asking is still whether it’s actually good, though, and you seem to concede in your ETA that it makes you a worse person. I’d say what sort of person the action makes you is important to the question whether advances your interests.
A big part of the reason it’s important is that I’m not convinced you can isolate the action (and again, unless your ETA means a worse person in the sense of a cosmic tally sheet, I think you concede this?). How well do people compartmentalize being an inconsiderate jerk on the road versus off? I know that lots of folks at least are skeptical of that—consider the old adage that you can identify character by how a person treats a waiter. Part of the risk comes from making the sort of thing you did habitual.
This is so not true.
Most of human behavior is shared by animals that don’t even have the capability for this kind of thought.
Most human behavior isn’t because of thought at all.
@Andrew Cady
I was talking about deliberative actions.
I don’t see how this makes sense. Eating is a behavior. Mating is a behavior. Just because animals can’t think about it doesn’t mean I am not thinking about it.
It depends on how you’re defining your terms. If, hypothetically, Allie the Altruist genuinely wants other people to be happier and healthier, would it count as “in her best interest” if she gave $20 to a homeless person, or to the Against Malaria Foundation? Or would that count as “not in her interest” since she personally has given up money in a way unlikely to make her own life more pleasurable?
I’m only asking about “most” actions. Treat Allie as an a “no” for this purpose, but still let me know if you agree that I am right in the majority of cases. If you think I am wrong you would be saying that most of the time we act against our best interest.
Ok then, I think your first statement is correct: most of our actions are those we perceive to be in our own best interests. However, I think the vast majority of our actions are self-interested in a trivial, boring way. For example, I make myself a sandwich and eat it for lunch to reduce my hunger, then play a video game for an hour to entertain myself; those actions have approximately zero direct effect on anyone else in the world. Then there are actions that are self-interested but also good for other people. I play a board game with my friends; I go to work the next day; these are positives for both myself and my friends or employer respectively. These categories of self:+ / world:0 and s+/w+ probably account for about…80% of the actions we take.
The remaining 20% are the interesting cases: the s+/w- (selfish) actions, and s-/w+ or s0/w+ (altruistic) actions. I think most people do a fair amount of both: taking the last donut in the box; holding a door for someone; cutting someone off on the highway; helping someone out with a project, etc. etc. Maybe about half and half.
So, I think you’re kind of right, probably around 90% of our actions are the ones that we think will be best for us personally. But I think more of those are mutually beneficial to others than harmful to others. (At least for the people that I know and associate with.) And I think the 10% of altruistic actions is an incredibly important subset of our behavior. So yes, you might be right in most individual cases by modeling humans as purely self-interested, but I think you’d end up being wrong enough on the larger scale that I wouldn’t advocate it as your general-purpose model of humanity.
I was thinking about how to answer Howard’s question. I think this response comes closest to what I think, so now I don’t need to. Howard, you can count my vote as equal to that of “thevoice.”
thevoiceofthevoid
While I agree there are a lot of actions that benefit yourself and the world (s+/w+ as you say), the question relates to your motivation. Going to work benefits the business’s owner but that is not a significant consideration when deciding whether to go to work. If you were not getting paid a fair wage, concern for the owner would not get you out of bed on Monday morning much less cause you to go to work. Just because an action has a side effect of benefitting others does not mean this is our reason for acting.
@HowardHolmes
I agree, most people are motivated to go to work ~90% because they get paid and maybe ~10% because they care about what they’re doing. That figure varies widely based on the career and the person.
But even when the primary motivation for a s+/w+ action is selfish, the benefits for others can be an important secondary motivation. I invite my friends to hang out not only because I enjoy spending time with them, but also because they enjoy spending time with me. Of course you can try to attribute that to selfish motivations as well–people who don’t like you aren’t fun to spend time with. Ultimately, though, I think people act as if they genuinely care about their friends, and I’m inclined to believe they do based on s0/friends+ and s-/f+ actions. This carries over to the s+/f+ actions as well.
So, while I think only about 10% of our actions are exclusively or primarily to benefit others, I’d estimate about 30% are at least partially motivated by a concern for other people.
@HowardHolmes:
This actually doesn’t quite follow from your original phrasing, which only talks about selecting “the action they perceive to be in their best interest”. If I am eating cereal, my only motivation may be to eat cereal, but if I notice that for some bizarre reason it has the side effect of killing someone, then I won’t do it. Does that count as me being “motivated” not to kill someone? As long as there is no way the killing can “come back to bite me”, it seems that the action in my best interest (narrowly interpreted) is to eat the cereal anyway. So it is a counterexample to your claim, but “motivation” seems like a weird way to describe it. Particularly since the subconscious step “make sure your cereal isn’t killing anyone” seems like an important part of my algorithm even in the case where it’s not.
Dacyn
I think we are making too much of terminology. If eating cereal kills someone, I am not motivated to eat it. Pancakes will do just fine. If the only way I can live is to eat cereal its just bad luck for the other guy. I’m eating.
@HowardHolmes: My point is that when I decide to eat cereal, I am not doing it by following the algorithm “what is in my best interest?” even if it happens to be in my best interest to eat the cereal. The example where cereal kills someone shows that I am not using this algorithm, because if I were then I would eat the cereal regardless of whether it kills someone. So the everyday example “eating cereal” is not an example of someone following the algorithm “do what is in my best interest”. In fact, such examples seem few and far between.
Probably this is the statement you should have asked for agreement or disagreement on. After replacing the other guy with two or more people, so that it’s obvious what the standard utilitarian answer would be.
Dacyn
Do you care to elaborate on why you ate the cereal (if not for your benefit or interest)?
@HowardHolmes: Sure. The algorithm I follow is something like: look for things I can do that are in my interest, look for things I can do that will help others, form a plan, see if that plan is likely to have any bad consequences to either me or others, then reevaluate if necessary.
Some of these steps will not trigger most of the time, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the algorithm.
Dacyn
Using that algorythm what if it is in your interest, but harms others or what if it harms you but helps others?
@HowardHolmes: It depends on various factors like the relative magnitudes of the harms, the rights of the people involved, and their relationships to each other. I hope that I could treat myself in such a calculation in the same way I would treat anyone else, but I don’t claim to do that all the time. I do claim that a significant amount of the time, the calculation doesn’t go in favor of me.
Bet you can’t come up with a single valid example.
@HowardHolmes: We both know everything is going to come down to definitions anyway, so I’ll just pick a silly example like holding a door open for someone. It makes you a little later for whatever you were going to do, but it conveniences someone else. I’m sure you can tell me why it is really “in my interest” to hold the door open but my algorithm still just works as I described it above in this case, no step about “figure out how it is really in my interest to do this”. In other words, even if it is in my interest, that’s not my motivation.
@HowardHolmes
Ooh, the other day I made a grilled cheese sandwich for my sister! 😛
Dacyn
You would not do it if it was not in your interest. It doesn’t take much because it is so easy, but you would not extend much more effort. If you see a penny on the ground you might not pick it up, but you might a quarter. In neither case do you actually think about “my interest” but clearly you are picking the quarter up for someone else. If you do did not care what the person thought about you, you would not hold the door. There is just enough ego in you to cause you to be concerned about what they think.
Or consider this. The person has no need of you holding the door. You are actually bothering them and trying to suck the life out of them. You want something from them (approval) so you make them stop what they are doing and thank you You are a leech.
thevoiceofthevoid
Why?
@HowardHolmes
Mainly cause she was hungry and I already had the pan and spatula out from making myself one. To break it down a bit more explicitly, I could create moderate value for her at a small cost to myself.
Although I think Dacyn’s “holding a door for a stranger I’ll probably never see again” example is better. I’m sure you’ll claim that I don’t truly want my sister to be happier, I just expect reciprocity or increased respect from her in the long term. Does it count as self-interested in your book if I do nice things for people because seeing them happy makes me happier?
@HowardHolmes:
How do you explain the decision to tip a waiter in a restaurant you will never visit again, or a cab driver?
thevoiceofthevoid
What you like is that she is happy WITH YOU. You do things for others because of how you imagine it makes them feel about you.
DavidFriedman
Firstly, you want everyone to like you whether you are going to see them again or not. You care what the waiter thinks about you and you judge the amount of the tip in relation to what you think their reaction to it will be. You do not care that they have money from you, otherwise you would tip everyone you pass in the street. Also, there are societal expectations. People tip more when other people are aware of the amount of the tip. There is also your self image which is important to you.
Yes, one can imagine a concern for the waiter, but such an explanation is not necessary to explain the behavior and such an explanation runs counter to what we know drives evolution. Caring for others is disfunctional evolutionarily. What is functional is to appear to care for other. We do lots of that, but it is not necessary to care for them in order to appear to care for them. It does help if we deceive ourselves into believing we care.
@HowardHolmes
Even if the motivation for tipping was really “wanting everyone to like you, whether you are going to see them or not”, I think we’re already far past the bounds of taking the most self-interested action–regardless of whether your motivation is genuine concern for the waiter or a want to be liked, you’re making a decision based on the internal state of someone’s mind who with reasonable certainty will never act on that state towards you. Doing it because of societal expectations is, again, making a decision based on societal expectations rather than self-interest.
Re: “deceiving ourselves into believing we care”: If I feel like I care about someone, and I act as if I care about them, then what exactly is making it such that I don’t “really” care about them? What in this situation indicates that this is deception, rather than accurate introspection?
@HowardHolmes: You are making assumptions about my thought process that do not match with my experience. I believe the definition of conscious thought is that it is, well, available to the conscious mind. So if I do not notice these things, it would seem to follow that they must exist only on a subconscious level if they exist at all.
There are circumstances in which I prefer others to open doors for me. I believe that this set of circumstances is reasonably close to the set of circumstances in which I open doors for others. So it seems reasonable to infer others probably prefer it as well.
Usually people do not stop to say thank you, they either say it as they pass or do not say it at all. I see no difference between these, but if they actually stop then I view myself as not having achieved my goal since my goal was to save them time.
thevoiceofthevoid
If you are self deceived, of course you will feel that what you feel is real. If you really cared for someone, you would put their needs before yours. Let’s say you desire X, A desires Y and B desires Z. Let’s pretend you care about A but not B. What do you do? You do X. You are not doing anything for A or B. You are deceived that you care for A. You care for yourself. Anytime actions conflict you care is for the one your action favors. You could see all this about yourself if you bothered to look.
Dacyn
Regarding conscious/subconscious see my reply to voice. The reason we developed big brains is because deceiving ourselves is hard to do. The brain is big so that we can deceive ourselves to better deceive others.
@HowardHolmes: I am confused because you direct me to your reply to u/thevoiceofthevoid as regards the conscious/subconscious distinction, but that comment doesn’t even contain the words conscious or subconscious. I wrote:
Do you agree or disagree with this statement, and why or why not?
@HowardHolmes
I’m a bit offended by your repeated implication that I never do anything for others at cost to myself, when I specifically told you (in our parallel thread in the newer OT) about a situation in which for two years, I put my former friend’s well-being and mental health above my own. I’m wary of putting any more details in a public forum, but suffice it to say that when I “bother to look” it’s damn clear that my actions were favoring them. So yes, sometimes I do X*, but sometimes I do Y. I would greatly appreciate it if you could stop insinuating without evidence that I always choose X over Y.
*in your formulation where X is an action that benefits me and Y is a mutually-exclusive action that instead benefits someone I claim to care about
Dacyn
You say “my goal was to save them time.¨
My claim is that you are not concerned one bit about their time. Are you concerned about everyone’s time? Where do you get all that energy and time? My claim is also that you are a very smart guy, too smart to think you are really concerned about their time. Yes, you subconscious is fully aware of the truth and prevents you from making a complete fool of yourself by running around hunting for doors to open. My claim is that you know wish to be perceived as kind, helpful, caring, generous. That is more than sufficient motive for opening a door.
You seem to want to hide behind the claim that if you are playing this big game of make-believe that you are innocent because it is not conscious. I am not an expert on that line between conscious and subconscious. In reviewing my past life i recognize voices that we telling me the truth, but I avoided. Is that subconscious?
For instance, I think no one believes in God. I have a degree in religion and once preached. I once thought I believed in God (had no doubts), yet I sinned, I did not want to die. These things alone are proof that I did not think of God as real. From my current vantage point it seems to be more a matter of ignoring the truth as opposed to not having the truth consciously available.
Let’s return to opening doors. When you opened that door you believed that the action most beneficial to yourself at the time. If you were aware of an action more beneficial to yourself you would have done it. I think you are consciously aware of what value various actions have to yourself.
thevoiceofthevoid
I am not impressed that you are borderline offended when I offer my opinions. I have enjoyed my discussions with you. If you do not feel the same, skip my posts, but don’t ask me to worry about whether you are offended. You should know me at least enough to know that I do not care about whether you are offended. Epictetus: It is not he who hits us or insults us that harms us but rather our opinion of the thing.
@HowardHolmes:
And according to the terminological conventions we have established, these two claims are not in conflict.
You are reading into what I have written. I have not said anything about innocence. I assume that you think that there is no such thing as innocence, whereas I would categorize it as a word whose emotional valence is greater than its concrete meaning.
What is true is that I act differently towards people who make plans, depending on the perceived degree of consciousness involved in the plan. (I do not claim that conscious/subconscious is a binary.)
Could be, I think I would need a more detailed description to say.
Yeah, this sounds to me like the notion of an “alief”.
I think those are not necessarily different: the reason the truth is unavailable to the conscious mind is that the subconscious chooses to ignore it.
I’m a little confused by this statement. Do you mean that I consciously compared the cost of being late to the “benefit” of the other person thinking more highly of me?
I mean, I suppose I can’t prove otherwise. And if I ask you to take my word for it, that could be explained as a selfish action very easily.
Dacyn
No one is claiming one’s goes through formal, conscious computations. When I see a penny on the ground, I pick it up if I’m walking but let it lie if I am biking. For a quarter I would generally get off the bike. I open doors for others when convenient but I know why I do so. I know enough about myself to realize that saying I have any concern for others is laughable at best. I have always known this even though for most of my 71 years I did not admit it to myself. I think other people know as well. My life was indistinquishable from the life of others. For the most part, people’s actions are the same. I assume the same is true of their mental experiences.
@HowardHolmes
Well, if you don’t care whether you’re offending me, you should at least care about whether you’re offending the comments policy. You are claiming that I act selfishly, don’t really care about me friends, and am deceiving myself to believe otherwise. That doesn’t strike me as terribly kind, so you should probably make sure what you’re saying is then true and necessary. I’ll grant you “necessary”. But I offered you a fairly robust counterexample, and you responded by mocking my discomfort with a condescending quote from a long-dead greek guy. If you’d like to defend your claim as “true”, please address my counterexample.
ETA: Additionally, you have yet to acknowledge or adress my claim that many of my actions are motivated by multiple factors, specifically both by self-interest and by concern for my friends or other people.
thevoiceofthevoid
As I understand it you have claimed that for two years you put your friends good above that of your own. My claim is that you had a reason for this other than your friend’s welfare. I have no proof, but I do not see you have any proof either. I grant that your explanation is not self contradictory and probably is rational.
But my explanation is that you saw some potential benefit for yourself. This benefit might not have worked out, when you no longer saw this benefit, the welfare of your friend was not sufficient to keep you doing X.
Your friend supposedly still needs you, even today. So what has changed? You could still benefit him if you care to. What has changed is some opinion in your mind. My guess is that opinion is that you no longer believe it is in your best interest to put time into this. It seems that you have said as much in various ways on several occasions. If deciding that the relationship was not a net benefit for you caused you to give it up, it stands to reason that previously you DID see it as a net benefit. So the key deciding factor is “does this relationship benefit me?” That is what it turns on. That is what determines the existence of the relationship.
@HowardHolmes
Well, in terms of “proof”, I could be making this entire story up for all you know. But, you have my word that I’m not, and that I’m trying to keep my introspection about my own motives and feelings as honest as possible. For whatever that’s worth to you.
You’re not entirely wrong there. I did hope that they would see the error in their ways, and that they would apologize and improve, and that we could continue being close friends without our cyclical conflict. Certainly, that was a self-interested, if deluded, incentive to continue the friendship.
It’s more complex than that though. There were times when I really thought there was no chance things would change, when we’d not been talking to each other for weeks, and I’d get a text from them more or less explicitly asking me to pretend I wasn’t furious with them and spend an hour or two talking them through some personal problem. I felt a lot of things at those times. Rage. Frustration. Despair that this cycle would continue to repeat. But what ultimately determined my reaction was sympathy for them—knowing that, if I told them to f– off and maybe consider apologizing before crawling to me for sympathy, they would likely spend the night crippled by anxiety with no one to talk to about it. So I caved, again and again.
Actually, a number of things. Their offenses got worse; the catalyst was actually an affront against our mutual friend. But also, in the months leading up to our split, they met some new people and made a new group of close friends. After that, I knew that even if I abandoned them, they would still have people to turn to, and I wouldn’t be leaving them completely alone in their times of greatest anxiety and depression. That was definitely a factor in my finally being able to say to them, “We need to go our separate ways.”
Almost. The key deciding factor is, “does this relationship benefit both of us?”
thevoiceofthevoid
If you had never broken the relationship off then your statement above would carry more weight. The above claim puts a lie to your actions in breaking the relationship. When you broke the relationship the other person still saw it as benefiting them so you cannot claim you broke it because it benefited neither of you. When breaking it off you were considering only yourself, not the good of the other. If you did that when breaking it, it is reasonable to assume this is always been the case.
Look at it this way, you can only choose one time to be friends. You cannot choose twice. If I say “pick up the ball” and you pick it up, then the ball is picked up. If you see it as being beneficial to have a relationship, then you take steps to have a relationship. You do not take these steps a second time because it would also benefit the other. Your benefit is sufficient reason to act. Other stated reason are meaningless babel. It is also clear that concern over the other is INsufficient to cause you to be friends. Otherwise, you would be friends today.
@HowardHolmes
Read my statement carefully, Howard; I said “both”, not “either”.
And I categorically reject your claim that I wasn’t considering her good in my decision to break off the relationship. As I said above, one of the major factors in my decision was knowing that she now had close friends besides me that she could turn to for support. (See my [second]-latest post in our parallel thread for an explanation of how decisions can be meaningfully motivated by multiple factors.) Call it “rationalization” if you want, but that was damn important to me and I think I would have acted differently had it not been the case.
Furthermore, I had come to the honest conclusion that continuing the friendship and our cycle of fighting would be harmful not only to me but also to my friend. And after I told her how I felt in detail, she didn’t make any effort to change my mind, for what that’s worth.
It’s all a question of magnitudes, not a question of fixed priorities. Sometimes my concern for my friends outweighs my self interest (as in the year leading up to the split); sometimes my self-interest outweighs my concern for my friends (as when I finally broke off the friendship). It depends on what the exact benefits and costs to each person are, and in this case, it was clear that the costs to me had become much greater than the benefits to her.
thevoiceofthevoid
Thanks for putting so much effort into this conversation. You have made some good points. I am about out of ammunition so willing to go for an truce if you are.
@HowardHolmes
Yeah, I’ve about debated myself out as well. I’ll admit, you’ve said some things that have made me think more carefully about how I’ve made decisions and what my motivations have been, though I still disagree quite a bit with your central thesis. I doubt either of us is going to convince the other anytime soon, so I agree it would be healthy to end this discussion.
I presume this also goes for the parallel thread in .75 in which we ended up debating the exact same thing? I may continue to make a few more points in the various subthreads (just made one about words defining their antonyms) but I’ll refrain from continuing to try to hammer home my core thesis–I’ve probably repeated myself enough already.
@HowardHolmes: I’m not going to deny that it’s possible that you have greater insight into the way your mind works than most people do, nor that others’ minds may work in the same way. In fact, the notion of “false faces” found here seems to me like a pretty plausible description of what I would call subconscious psychology. At the same time, I don’t know you well enough to know whether you do have insight.
You keep looking to start the same argument over and over.
Even if it’s important to you that you are “right”, if you were “right” you shouldn’t expect people to agree with you, nor should need or desire it.
At least he’s not trying to start an argument this time, just taking a survey. I think it’s not as annoying as bringing it up on essentially unrelated threads.
You will note that he is keeping and publishing tallies, now.
Isn’t that the function of a survey?
@HowardHolmes: Usually a survey works by asking people to record their answer to a question, and then using the recorded answers as a basis for statistics. What you did below was to create data based on your interpretation of what people said, in a way which was highly tendentious. That’s not a survey, it’s… I don’t know what it is.
@Dacyn:
If you don’t have a really good guess on what Howard was doing in that tally, I metaphorically want to play poker against you some time.
@HeelBearCub: I mean, I do think that HowardHolmes has a bias towards putting people in the “Agree” list, because he wants to be able to say and/or think that people agree with him. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re getting at, though.
yes I agree this survey is fine. I often do find Howard’s arguments annoying, because they don’t relate to the original issue. But this one is fine in my opinion.
@HeelBearCub
I’m sure you meant this in a very loving way. For the record, I have a number of outlierish beliefs so I am not seeking affirmation. I was merely trying to figure out where the point of my difference exists. My guess was that it is not in believing that people act in their own interests most of the time. However, I was not sure if others agreed, so I asked. I many others took the position that acting in our own interest is rare, this would surprise, but also educate me.
You made a second claim, a claim that implies that an affirmative answer to the first claim implies that you are correct (from a Bayesian perspective of priors). I’d suggest that this is at odds with your supposed lack of interest in affirmation, as well as wanting to understand where differences are.
I think you are either fooling yourself, or something else.
I already think I am right. I was unsure as to whether others would agree with me or disagree. That is the sole purpose of the post and the survey. I was not looking to change my mind nor to argue. It seems to me that if anyone is trying to start an argument….
@HeelBearCub: I interpreted HowardHolmes’s original post as being like “I have this belief, I will attempt to state it in two different ways, hopefully you can triangulate and figure out what I am trying to say”. Not as him making two separate claims.
@Dacyn:
Do you really think the second thing is the same as the first? It’s not a restatement of the original premise. It’s a statement of justification for a personal outlook. One they have frequently pushed here.
HealBearCub
It was intended to be the same, but poorly worded. The best way to understand my question is to omit the second statement.
@HeelBearCub: I didn’t see it at first, but you are right: the second statement can be read to have an implied conclusion “and therefore I should adopt the stance that all actions are in the interest of the actor”. This of course doesn’t follow, since being right most of the time is not necessarily good enough, if there are strategies that make you right more of the time, or even better, to not make assumptions in cases where there isn’t good information.
It does seem to me like the second claim is essentially the same as the first denotationally, but not connotationally. And regardless of this, it seems clear that HowardHolmes intended them to be the same.
@Dacyn:
I think this is very, very far from clear. In fact, I think it more probable that the intent (or unconscious motivation) was the opposite.
“I believe no one ever does anything that isn’t completely selfish” has been their working thesis since they started posting here. The coincidence between that statement and the connotation you have now seen isn’t accidental.
And this is a classic debate technique, get people to agree to your thesis without realizing they are doing so.
@HeelBearCub: I agree that the coincidence isn’t accidental. I think HowardHolmes thinks both of the statements are statements that support his point of view, including the idea that one should view all actions as self-interested. But if you ask me to label one of the statements as a motte and the other as a bailey, I don’t think I would have been able to say which was which if you hadn’t already expressed an opinion on that. In fact, I think that the second statement is more plausible than the first statement.
You seem to want me to “assume bad faith” here. I don’t think that’s a healthy way of interacting with people unless there is a lot of evidence for such an accusation. If someone is acting inappropriately you can tell them so and then take further measures if they continue, but that is different from a bad faith accusation.
No one is going to say that acting in your own interest is rare, but there are a lot of possibilities between “rare” and “almost all the time”.
I have never acted on anything other than my own interest (assuming caring for my kids is in my interest), nor do I have any interest in doing otherwise.
@HowardHolmes: The reason you started this thread was to see if other people agreed with you, though. I would guess that most people would say something between “rare” and “almost all”. Which seems to indicate they disagree with you.
Dacyn
The survey was not asking if people agree with the most recent statement I made and the statement to which you are referring.
@HowardHolmes:
Since the goal of a survey should be to educate yourself, I took this as implying that you at least partially intended the survey to allow you to address the question of whether “acting in our own interest is rare” is a common position. I was trying to say that this didn’t seem like a useful goal, and you would be better off treating the survey as trying to answer the question of whether “acting in our own interest is not rare, but its complement is also not rare” is a common position.
Disagree. There is actually an interpretation of the statement that I do kind of agree with (with caveats), but it’s so convoluted and full of caveats that it’s practically vacuous, and having read several of your posts in the past, I think I disagree with what you mean.
“What I mean” is that it seems obvious that most of our actions are intended to benefit ourselves. This is not a trick. The truth of this seems obvious. You claim to disagree, but I am unsure as to whether you are disagreeing with this. The opposite of my proposition would be “Most of what we do is meant primarily to benefit others.” Do you think that is true. Please help me out by elaborating a bit more. Thanks.
My problem is that I think that it’s very difficult to parse what words like “benefit” and “self” actually mean.
I think that there is probably a sense in which most of our actions are seen by some sub-system in our cognitive economy as beneficial. But this might not be accessible to conscious awareness, and is very likely seen by other sub-systems as harmful. So if some part of me wants to do A, and other parts don’t, but I am not particularly aware of either of these desires on a conscious level, am I acting in my perceived self-interest when I do A? I feel like this is a borderline meaningless question.
Even on a straightforward interpretation of what you’ve said (without including my worries above), this is not true. The opposite of your proposition would be “Most of what we do is not meant primarily to benefit ourselves.” That could be the case without it being meant to benefit others. (E.g. considerations of benefit might not enter into the generation of these actions at all.)
Enkidum
Would it help to limit the question to our conscious understanding of our intent when we act?
Or let’s us take your suggestion for the opposite of my statement: “Most of what we do is not meant primarily to benefit ourselves.” Can you agree or disagree with this statement? (Restricted to conscious doing?)
Restricted to unambiguously consciously-chosen actions, I’d agree with you, but I’d say that those are greatly outnumbered by other types of action.
ETA: I’d agree with your original statements that most of what we do (consciously) is for our own (perceived) benefit.
That being said, I think relatively unambiguously consciously-chosen actions are very important in our lives, and I more or less think that our ability to choose in this way constitutes one of the most important differences between humans and other animals.
Hey, I agree with your position the way you have stated it here; I don’t think that most of what we do is meant primarily to benefit others. However, I think it is not the same as what you wrote in your OP, which I disagree with. Probably others will have the same reaction.
Disagree
To frankistgeorgist
Any further elaboration on your stance would be appreciated.
I bungled the question a bit so the responding commenters have expressed some confusion. In spite of that, the score so for is 5 agree to 1 disagree (not counting Enkidum whom I have asked for clarification). How I rate the answer is below, so let me know if you think I am misinterpreting:
Agree: Eri, ECD, Radu, quanta14, Dacyn
Disagree: Frankistgeorgist
I said disagree and meant it, regardless of the clarification provided.
You are correct. You are also correct that I fumbled the question. If you think that most actions are not intended to benefit the actor, I would appreciate anything further you could share regarding your reasons for this stance.
I agree with the statement “Most of the time, people act in a way that is consistent with their (narrow) self-interest.” I.e. most of the time self-interest is one of the things that motivates people, and this motivation is almost always a relevant consideration, even if in a large minority of times it is overruled. It is not at all clear to me whether this is what you were trying to assert, or if you were trying to assert something else. If it was something else, I would want clarification on what that is before putting my name on the “Agree” list.
Also, my impression is that all of the others on the “Agree” list should probably be on the “Disagree” list unless they say otherwise.
It depends…
1. A lot of actions are habitual, impulsive, or otherwise not thought about.
2. We don’t optimize for best, we merely tend to select good enough or better than what we have now
3. We can easily be mistaken about our actual best interests.
That said, actions that don’t make sense can very often be explained by considering potential benefits to the actor.
OTOH, when actions do make sense, the sense they make may well have nothing to do with at least one of (a) actual best interests and (b) perceived best interests.
So I agree with you – or not – depending on context.
And if you mean your statements literally – i.e. completely without context, and claiming only that (a) at least 50% of the time, +1, of the time actions are in the actor’s best interests and (b) at least 50% of the time, +1, actions of in the actor’s perceived/believed best interests – I’m inclined to say it’s probably true, but effectively meaningless.
And on the third hand, if you really mean “best”, then maybe not. I just ate – being hungry – but I can guarantee that there exists some other menu that would have been at least marginally better for my health. I exercised today, but I’m sure there are more efficient potential exercise choices, and probably also more pleasurable choices. I spent some enjoyable time with family, but there was doubtless something more enjoyable we could have done. The novel I read this afternoon was quite pleasant, but I’m sure there exists some novel I would ahve enjoyed even more. Etc. ad infinitum.
I think you’ve raised all the objections I had as well.
The proposition might be true if you consider people at different time slices different people, though.
Sounds substantially similar to Rational Choice Theory. Perhaps the best argument for it is that while it’s probably not completely true as a theory, it’s extremely useful as one, in the sense that it has lots of predictive power.
I think it’s a good economic model, but a poor model for one’s personal interactions. It kind of implies that everyone’s either a selfish a-hole, or a conniving selfish a-hole pretending to be nice for Machiavellian reasons.
When I drive through the gate at the Military base where I work, the gate guard looks at my laminate/badge, hands it back, and inevitably says ‘Have a nice day’. I almost always reply ‘Thank You’, instead of “You, too”.
I decided to take this course of action this based on the following reasoning:
I consider the exchange just an exchange of pleasantries. If I am right, then he has said something polite, and I have responded with something polite, and our interchange is complete.
But I might be wrong! Perhaps, by wishing me to ‘have a nice day’, he can improve the quality of my day, and vice versa. By not responding in kind, I am choosing not to improve his day. Except that, this guy has this exchange with, say, 500 people per day. Surely someone will respond in kind, and his day will be marginally improved, regardless of what I say.
But perhaps the effect of wishing someone a nice day is cumulative! Then I still could improve his day further by responding in kind. But if so, now I’m contributing to something that might be a problem for him. All of the nicest days of his life will be spent standing up at his little guard shack, checking IDs and waving through cars, while 500 or so people keep making his day better and better. His daughter’s wedding? Unless he works that day, not going to be one of the nicer days of his life. So I won’t contribute to that. His nicest days should be his days off. Sometimes on a Friday, I respond to ‘have a nice day’ with ‘have a great weekend’ based on the theory that, since most of the gate guards are off on weekends, the guard I’m interacting with will also be off.
So, without regard as to whether this this is logical or well thought out, on whose behalf have I come to this conclusion? Why did I alter my behavior from thoughtlessly responding to making a more considered response? Did I do it for me, or did I do it for him (them)?
Presumably mine, ’cause I laughed.
Try, “Have a nice someday,” and let him redeem it when needed.
I’m reminded of somepony….
In all seriousness—if you put this much thought into your social interactions, then proximally you’re doing it for your own peace of mind, but fundamentally it’s because you care too much about other people. A fun kind of case for Howard to consider.
Not sure why the relative rather than the absolute quality of the wedding day should matter. Also, we usually evaluate the marginal effects of actions rather than the cumulative ones, and even according to your logic it seems like the marginal effects are good.
If someone was having a really good day, would you say to them “I hope your day gets a little worse, so that your daughter’s wedding day will be better by comparison”? If not, I don’t see why you would object to wishing someone a nice day (for that reason at least).
If someone was having a really good day, would you say to them “I hope your day gets a little worse, so that your daughter’s wedding day will be better by comparison”?
I definitely wouldn’t wish a ‘bad day’ on anybody, though I do notice when people with lazy pronunciation wish me to ‘have a gray day’ on the regular. I definitely wouldn’t want to impart any negative effect on anyone if they were having a single good day, but if someone’s workdays were generally improved so much that every day they don’t work was going to suck in comparison, then that might be sucky.
But you’re objecting to me refusing to add approximately 1/500th of the total effect of having a better day on these guys, assuming the effect is real and cumulative, which probably neither of us believes.
I don’t object to you not wishing others a good day, in fact it’s not something I often do myself. I was just questioning your logic, since I thought it raised some interesting points.
Ah right 🙂
Matt
It is possible that you acted because you are interested in viewing yourself as a nice person and also want others to view you this way. Since (in my assumption) you care far more for yourself than others, it is then far most likely that this (above) is the correctly explanation for your actions.
Definitely true. I mean, I’m interested in being a nice person.
Probably not relevant to this action. I started doing this years (8-10, maybe) ago. I told my wife about this when she noticed my non-standard answer one day when we were going through the gate together, and told this forum today. Other than that, I’ve told nobody and consider the whole thing kind of an embarrassing example of how over-analytical I can be. If anything, some of the gate guards, upon receiving my nonstandard reply, probably think I’m a weirdo.
Agree.
That’s pretty close to my definition of economics as that approach to understanding behavior that starts with the assumption that individuals have objectives and tend to take the actions that best achieve them. My assumption is a little stronger than yours, since it includes assuming the people’s view of how to achieve their objectives tends to be correct.
Keen observation. You are correct that I think people know what they want, but I also think they are clueless on how to get it. People want satisfaction. What they fail to realize is that wanting is a synonym for dissatisfaction. They cannot obtain satisfaction by wanting to have more/be better. They can only obtain satisfaction by abandoning wanting. In general, this is not known.
So, suppose what you say is true. And say you want satisfaction, but you also want to have more/be better. If you abandon these wants, then you will gain satisfaction, but you will lose your drive so you will not have more/be better. On the other hand, if you keep these wants, then you may be able to have more/be better, but you will lose satisfaction. It seems that which choice you should make depends on whether you value satisfaction or other things more highly. Personally, satisfaction is not that high on my list of priorities.
There is no such thing as more/better. It is an illusion. That is why we spend a lifetime trying to get more/better and it never gets there. Why get something else if it is not better than what you have? Of course, you do not believe me, and I have no way to convince you. You will always, always think that getting more/better will make you “more” satisfied. It will not. If you are not trying to get more/better for the purpose of being satisfied with what you get then why are you trying to get them?
@HowardHolmes:
Yet you seem now to be second-guessing my own assertions of what I want. This seems contradictory.
This is simply false, I don’t think this at all. That’s why I contrasted satisfaction with other, competing, goals.
Regarding your main points: As an emotivist, in a sense I agree that “there is no such thing as more/better” because I think the word “better” mostly just has valence rather than meaning. But in another sense that makes “There is no such thing as more/better” into a meaningless sentence, that nevertheless carries a certain nihilistic valence. So then you are a nihilist and I am a… maybe “humanist” is the best word for this context… and though we have different values, it is not clear that we disagree on anything factual.
So then the purpose of discussion would not be to resolve disagreement, but rather to allow the natural (and unpredictable) process of value change to potentially unfold.
@Dacyn
I was not questioning the fact you appear to want more/better. I was asking why you want more/better. How do you expect to benefit? Do you expect to benefit? My assumption is that if you did not expect to benefit, then you would already be satisfied and not want more/better.
I was using satisfaction as being what we seek when we seek more/better, not as some alternative goal.
I can only still wonder why you seek more/better if there is no such thing. My honest guess is that you have never been satisfied. I wanted more/better for 65 years and have been satisfied for 6. I have experience. My life is no better and no worse. There is no happiness and no suffering. There is satisfaction.
Edited to finish since it posted in the middle of my work.
@HowardHolmes:
If I say I want a thing X, and you say that X doesn’t really exist and is just an illusion, it seems to me that you are denying that I know what I want.
But you also wrote
or in other words, satisfaction is the absence of wanting anything. I was saying, I don’t care all that much about that. I don’t set out to not want anything; rather, I set out to do particular things, and if I succeed at doing something then this happens to cause me to want one fewer thing, but “I will be wanting one fewer thing if I succeed at doing this” is not generally part of my motivation for doing something.
I certainly have never been in the state of having no unfulfilled desires. It’s fair to say that if I meditated and so on I might end up with different views than the ones I currently have; however, that doesn’t currently motivate me to change my views.
I never really said that I seek “more/better”; the things I seek are more like:
– More people
– People experiencing more positive emotions
– Things I find aesthetically pleasing
– People having correct beliefs more of the time
And these things certainly exist, so hopefully that’s one less reason for you to wonder about it.
Dacyn
I appreciate your analysis. I was thinking of this issue earlier and comparing it to eating. When I am hungry, do I want to eat, or do I want to not be hungry? Your point is that I want to eat. This has validity. On the other hand I agree with Buddha that desire is suffering. Wanting is suffering. Only humans suffer and it all relates to wanting. So do we not want to be free from suffering (want)?
In a sense I never want to eat. When I am hungry, I eat, but the available of food prevents it from ever being suffering. I consider myself currently as having no unfilled desires. This does not change the facts that I have a full day of activity planned.
Bottom line, it is a fine line. However, from this view it is a broad line and a real line can only be understood from the other side.
@HowardHolmes: Well, eating is a complicated example because while I don’t really value it for its own sake (there are some who do), I want to avoid the deleterious health effects of malnutrition. In addition, there is some pleasure in the act itself. But I don’t think of this pleasure as being related to the satisfaction of desires — we might disagree here. For example, I could be eating while doing something else like reading SSC, it’s kind of silly to say that I “desire” to eat because I’m basically just doing it mechanically, that’s not where my focus is, but it still tastes good. And moreover, tasting food is qualitatively different from the experience of merely not being hungry.
I don’t know how much I can say about your own experience since I don’t really know you. One thing that makes me curious: if you don’t have desires, then on what basis do you make your plans? That is, what kinds of things would make you more likely to select one plan rather than another? I’m interested in planning in particular because it seems like a more intellectual activity than e.g. eating.
I am not sure what you are saying about lines in the last paragaph.
Dacyn
How does a tree decide to send roots in direction Y rather than Z? We have a hard time talking about it without saying the tree desires more moist soil, or desires to stabalize itself against the west wind. But the tree has no emotion, the outcome is not “important” to the tree, the tree doesn’t care. The tree doesn’t suffer if none of its desires are met. All are equally true of me
@HowardHolmes: Looking back through the discussion I find a spectrum of words/phrases “desire”, “want”, “objectives”, “interests”, “expect to benefit”, “goal”, “seek”, “care about”. I think in ordinary discussion these are all to a large extent interchangeable. Now you are talking about trees, and I think I would say a tree has goals, it seeks certain things, it has objectives, it can expect to benefit from certain things, and it certainly has interests. I agree “want”, “desire”, and “care about” sound a little more awkward in that context. But if you start making that distinction important then some previous parts of the thread become awkward, and in particular your response to DavidFriedman appears to be a bait and switch.
Maybe you could clarify what you perceive to be the difference in meaning between some of these terms.
Dacyn
I don’t see a problem with viewing those terms as you do. I think they are all related. I do not see where that relates to my attempted answer above to how I make decisions without desire. What I was trying to say is that the desire that equates to suffering is emotional, it cares, its sees its object as important. I am not claiming we can postulate that living things have nothing that might be called desire or wanting, goals or intention. I am saying that there is a vast difference between having a desire which informs you that the obtaining of the desire is important, and having a desire where there is no caring whether one fulfills the desire or not.
Another different way of looking at it is from a timing standpoint Consider the word want and it connection to the idea of lacking. One can say I do X because I want Y or something like that. If Y is not immediately available (nor is the doing of X), the this “lack” continues and I might have desire or want. However, if Y is immediately available (do you want cheerios or eggs for breakfast) there is simply a choice…one can have either. There is no wanting or lack. This is the way I make decisions. I decide what to do today based on what is available to do. Some of that might have longer terms consequences that I am aware of, but I am not attached to those consequences. If I trim the grass today (which I did) I expect the effort to show at least for a few days. if I wake us tomorrow and the effect is totally gone…I do not care at all. Trimming the grass just becomes an option I can do today (again) among other things. None of which has any importance. I realize I am not explaining myself well, but I am trying to say that there is a big difference when one has no emotion.
@HowardHolmes: Sorry, it was not directly related, but the way you were talking caused me to be confused about the previous parts of the conversation. We don’t have to talk about the previous parts if you are more interested in the current topic.
Anyway, I think impassivity is a good thing to strive for, we should all try not to be at the mercy of our emotions. I’m not exactly sure if you’re claiming anything more than that. I mean, your descriptions don’t exactly sound like they would be false if applied to me, I just wouldn’t naturally describe my own life like that.
Regarding the word “important”: It seems similar to “better” to me, so again as an emotivist I think it has more valence than meaning. People do sometimes want to communicate in such a way, though.
Dacyn
There is no such thing as “a good thing” (or a bad thing). There is also nothing worth striving far since nothing makes life better or is important. Impassivity is just what one has when he realizes these truths.
@HowardHolmes: I think you are getting too caught up on terminology. I consider it an objective of mine to be in control of my emotions and for others to also do so. Sometimes the fact that I have this objective causes me to say things like “I think it is good to be impassive”. In these cases my intention is not to communicate facts but rather to do something else, which I might describe as “collective planning” regarding the objective. When communicating with you, I am not as successful at that, and this causes me to try to avoid such language when talking to you. But it is difficult to avoid language that you’re used to using.
There is actually still one instance of “normative” language in the above paragraph; I am leaving it in to see whether you can identify it. (I’m pretty sure I got the rest though!)
“too”
@HowardHolmes: Yep!
So, if you cut out the normative language, it looks like we agree on quite a lot (though there are some issues to be sorted out upthread). And yet we seem to react to this knowledge in very different ways. Do you have any hypotheses on why that might be? Or do you view the differences between us as still significant enough that you would expect them to cause differences in behavior?
Dacyn
Sorry to fail to respond earlier. You were asking about how we differ. It is difficult for me to answer. The first thing that jumps out is your claim to have objectives. This implies wanting something to change. I don’t believe this is part of my experience. You talk of wanting to be less of this and others to have less of it (emotion?) Again, it seems to me that my experience of the world seems to have no interest in anything changing (or no interest in it staying the same). You seem to think things could be different (even though you do not commit that they could be different normatively or qualitatively). I see no way for things to be different. You seem to value others having correct beliefs. I do not care what others believe and do not feel that how they believe has any affect on anything. You think there are positive and negative emotions. I think there are emotions which is synonymous with stress…no difference between positive and negative…exactly the same effect (or lack of effect for that matter). If I do not have emotions it is because there is nothing to be emotional about, not that there is any benefit or harm to emotions.
One difference is that I do not think I could make this statement in any meaningful way “I think you are getting too caught up on terminology.”
@HowardHolmes: Remember the tree. It doesn’t want anything, or have desires about anything, or care about anything. But we can say that it has objectives, and other things like that. I was a little sloppy about my terminology at first but I think my later posts should be clearer about the difference between these.
Actually, my statement is a paraphrase of a statement you made in a different context:
However, I agree that it is possible to have a discussion about facts without saying these kinds of things. As I noted in the post where I made that statement, I left it in only so that you could catch it; I believe my subsequent comments to you have avoided normative language.
Dacyn
I think I get your point here. Excellent insight. Using the concept of objectives is clarifying. I think I get what you mean.
I’ll try to pay more attention. One doesn’t see. that often..or, at least, I do not notice it.
@HowardHolmes: At first I thought you were being sarcastic again, because I assume you don’t really think there’s any such thing as an “excellent” insight. But it looks like you said something similar above to VoiceOfTheVoid which appears to have been serious, so I’ll assume you’re serious here as well.
I think I understand your perspective now better than at the beginning of this conversation. It sounds like it’s possible you also understand mine better.
Regarding normative language, in the future I do plan to continue using it when talking to other people. You can assume that when I do this I am basically just making meaningless noises.
dacyn
You’ll do a better job of avoiding normative language than will I, as you are more careful with your speech. I now have as an objective to be more careful. I would be interested in your thoughts on my most recent response to Voice at 44.75 on the subject of good/bad.
@HowardHolmes: It might be instructive to look for correlations between your thought processes and saying these kinds of things by accident. I actually don’t know what you’re likely to find if you do that.
I have responded in the other thread.
Dacyn
In the one case, with your help, I found that my thought processes aline with the idea of objective as opposed to want or desire. I had previously tried to use language suggesting the idea that if wants were stretched over a time greater than the immediate, that the later want was not important and only existed as a goal which affected my current actions, but the current actions weren’t wants since there was no lack of ability to do them. At any rate it was convuluted, and objective seems more descriptive of what goes on.
Appreciate the suggestion of thinking about what use of normative language means. I thought I did that a lot, but ….
@HowardHolmes: You’re
welcome 😛Imagine a popular constitutional amendment passes in America looking to turn the Executive branch into more of a collegial/cabinet government. The model is Switzerland’s Federal Council and the French Directory (because that went well). It has to have 13 Members for American Civil Religious reasons – they’re going to sit at a big Arthurian round table with the Betsy Ross canton at the center. The Vice President still exists with all the traditional powers but now is the Head of State throwing all the parties as well as first among equals on the council. The other 12 members head the various executive departments and are elected by the states according to the Electoral College.
Now USA.gov shows 15 executive departments currently, so first off who’s getting swallowed up or otherwise deprecated? Which departments remain?
How should vetoes be handled? Remain solely with the (vice-ish) President? Be a straight majority vote of the council? Should council members have a veto only on bills within their domain? In which case, how are Bills assigned a domain (big omnibus bills presumably pose a problem)? Who controls pardons?
How do you think Americans would vote if they could vote for the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Education, etc? How would the parties respond to having to vie for their agendas in more granular elections. Would the whole council be elected fresh every 4 years, or cycle somehow? (I suspect all-in-one elections would ultimately resemble our own, with few people splitting their votes but maybe this would encourage independents who like a little of column A and a little of column B).
I’m not claiming any of this would work or be good, just wondering how the whole checks-and-balance-divide-and-limit approach to governance might shake out in the Executive.
Vetos should be by a majority vote simply because, as you say, you can’t assign bills to a department by anything except human judgment.
As for which get merged: Transportation gets merged with Commerce; Education gets merged with Health and Human Services to recreate the old Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; and Veterans’ Affairs gets divided up between Defense and the new HEW.
Do you think in the case of majority veto vote one party would be advantaged? Or is America sufficiently split across all issues to turn all departments at least occasionally?
I would do this with the Thirteen elected by proportional representation; then they work out among themselves who gets to be President and who gets which departments. Might be a good idea for the President to get the State Department. If proportional representation is too far outside How We Do Things, maybe every ten years we assign states to thirteen regions of roughly equal population.
If one of the Thirteen doesn’t finish the full term, the others choose a replacement with the advice and consent of the Senate.
No Vice President; thirteen people in the White House is plenty. Have the Senate elect one of their own as President of the Senate.
All the powers of the executive branch (including veto and pardon) belong to the Thirteen collectively, but they can delegate any of these powers to individual members.
I don’t like this just because we already have too many things to vote for already. I think most folks would just vote for a party slate because too much work to research. Not sure if that would be a different result than voting for a President only.
TIL there are more than a hundred thousand Jews in Germany today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country
That’s an oddly large number. You’d think everyone with any options at all after 1945 would have gone anywhere anywhere else. And once Israel was up and running, they all had at least one option.
It’s hard for any group to say no to higher wages…
A lot of those Jews are from the Soviet Union mass emigration wave. Israel was an option, but not all Jews are comfortable with Israel, and Germany was a not-Israeli country with affirmative action for Jews.
In the Soviet Union, even the GDR was envied and considered a good place, much less Western Germany. It’s no surprise Soviet Jews chose to go to Germany.
I’ve never heard of affirmative action for Jews in germany and google doesn’t turn up any relevant results. Do you just mean that people are extra careful not to discriminate against Jews?
It’s outside the edit window, so I can’t correct it, but Germany had a kind of affirmative action for Soviet Jews.
As you can see in the Wikipedia article, the German government had special quota immigration law (Kontingentsflüchtlingsgesetz), which, from what I’ve heard, favored Soviet Jews.
I haven’t found any English sources on Kontingentsflüchtlingsgesetz (I read the Russian version of this German article). According to it, Soviet Jews were accepted as refugees. And Germany, unlike many other countries, allows refugees to work legally.
Thanks, that’s interesting.
Before 1933, Germany was one of the more Jew-friendly countries in the world. The Jewish population was much more integrated and tolerated than in Poland, let alone Russia. I visited Austria and Germany recently, and as a Jew I found the history utterly heartbreaking – we had achieved so much there, intellectually, economically, socially, and it was all taken away in the blink of an eye. Whereas under the Czar, the history is just of pogroms and official repression and discrimination, we had nothing so we expected nothing.
So I can understand it as wanting to rebuild what once was. That and, of course, what Alexander Turok said.
There are of course lots of good reasons why Jews would want to live in Germany. But also, there are lots of Jews in tons of other places where you might not expect Jews, such as online anti-Jewish forums. I’ll never forget browsing Stormfront and finding at least a couple threads of people there complaining about how many Jews seem to be part of their movement.
The best Nazis are AshkeNazis.
The trouble with being an Ashkenazi is that unless your crematorium is top-notch Ken won’t burn, just melt down to a glob of plastic. (Source: ‘Barbie, She-Wolf of the SS’.)
“I’m an AshkeNazi. Ashk me anything.”
Tried reading a low fantasy (grittier type ‘down among the peasants in the mud’ style) novel recently but was jolted out of it within the first few pages by one sentence:
The what stink, now? I don’t know what kind of turf they’re burning to get that kind of result! Though, judging by the preceding sentence, if they’re burning it “still-damp” then they’re definitely not footing it right 🙂
The writer is an American; does anyone know if around the Appalachians or wherever they do have peat bogs and burn peat? Because the whole description sounds more like “writer grew up around swamps and is translating his experience of those onto bogs, which are quite different things”. I certainly do not believe this person knows the first thing about turf fires! If a turf fire resulted in that kind of smell, you wouldn’t have nostalgic threads like this one about the whole experience. (Turf ash is beautifully soft and silky-fluffy, completely different from coal ash, for one thing).
Now, if American peat bogs result in a completely different product which does have an oily stink, then fine. But this is an example of how writing about something that you think fits the kind of image you want (pseudo-mediaeval or earlier dirt-poor peasants scrabbling in the muck, so plainly their fuel sources would be crude and smelly too) doesn’t actually bear that much resemblance to reality. Anybody trying to burn still-wet turf is an eejit and I don’t care if this is a fantasy novel with magic and gods in.
Dagnabbit @Deiseach, I did a web-search of those lines to try to suss out the novel and all I found was this thread!
Anyway, yeah it’s extrapolating from swamps.
And on that note…
Missippi Queen by Mountain (trigger warning: lust)
Born on the Bayou by Creedence Clearwater Revival (trigger warning: actually Californians)
Jack on Fire by The Gun Club (trigger warning: actually Californians, language, lust, and murder)
Got My Mojo Workin‘ by Muddy Waters (trigger warning: the real deal)
If you have to know, Plumber, it’s The Bone God by Hawkings Austin. Was disappointed because I read his Manly Wade Wellman pastiche novels and found them acceptable. Probably should have known better that something vaguely based on Fir Bolg/Formor/Irishy mythology by an American writer would be a step too far.
If I’m griping about Americans trying (and failing) to write Old World, then to be fair I should do the same backwards as per your links and show an Irish musician (born in Donegal, reared in Cork) doing likewise – the late Rory Gallagher and Daughter of the Everglades.
Rory Gallagher?
I love his “Bullfrog blues”!
Let’s see his ‘swamp’ interpretation:
“…Down in the smoky ground
Where snakes crawl you don’t cheat…”
Checks out.
Best trigger warning ever.
It’s amazing how much canonically great “southern” music was composed and performed by non-Southerners.
I can’t think of a more brilliantly executed southern song than “The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down” whose trigger warning is even more absurd (actually Canadians)
@Matt M,
“The Band” were Canadians?
Sweet lord that’s hilarious!
Thanks!
Oh, when Jeffrey Lee Pierce sang : “I am like Jack, I am from southern land
I’m holding your happiness in my hand…” it was totally legitimate, ’cause Los Angeles is in southern California!
Typing of “The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down” I was familiar with the Joan Baez version (it was on the radio a lot in the ’70’s) and it’s amusing that such an (older) “Blue-Tribe” (born in Staten Island) icon would have a hit with such a “Red-Tribe” song (“cultural appropriation” used to be called “folk songs” and “homages”)!
On that note Jimmy Witherspoon recorded a blues version for an album called “California 99”, which seems improbable yet also inevitable and appropriate in a way, a few years later Johnny Cash did his version (and after Cash did your song it was now his song!).
And typing of blues, country-western, and “folk” music, I’ve been toying with the idea of asking “What’s the difference?” for a while, but the examples that most came to my mind were arguably another category “gospel”, but I came up with (admittedly very cherry picked by me) pair of what I think are a good blues song and a good county song: The Rock by Etta James, and The Rock by Lee Roy Parnell (yeah it’s the same damn song!).
Next, please explain to me the difference between the “hardcore punk” and the “thrash metal” of the ’80’s (besides hair and footwear)?
The R&B charts used to be the “Race” charts, which were literally just the charts that black musicians were on. So there was a strong institutional pressure to artificially separate black and white music, even if there was a great deal of overlap between the two, and in many cases (like you’ve mentioned) there were songs in one genre that could easily have played in another.
Frequently the same session musicians played on tracks for country/folk/blues/R&B artists. A great example would be the brilliant (white) drummer Jim Gordon, who is notorious for, well, having a psychotic breakdown and murdering his mother, and has been institutionalized as a result for the past 40 years. But he played with Gordon Lightfoot (folk/country), Derek and the Dominoes (blues/rock), and even on the funk/soul/R&B track “Apache” which would have been forgotten except for that it’s become the single most sampled track in history, forming the beat for literally thousands of rap songs (e.g. “Fuck tha Police”) and the entire basis for drum n bass.
So yeah, a lot of fertile cross-collaboration and messy boundaries between those categories. Hell, Muddy Waters had an album called The Real Folk Blues and Ray Charles had Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, B B King talked about how influential country music was to him, etc etc etc.
The Band formed in Canada, and Robbie Robertson (who wrote “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”) is Canadian. But Levon Helm was from the South (not sure about Danko or Manuel off the top of my head), and specifically made Robertson change some lines of “Dixie”.
No. Appalachia is rich in wood and coal. The US in general has never used much peat as fuel. There are some bogs but Americans tend to use bogs for farming rather than peat production. For example, the largest bog in West Virginia was used for cranberry farming. If they use them at all: sometimes they’d just stay away from the muck.
They don’t have an oily stink. I would say they are different but it’s subtle and definitely not oily. Eejit interpretation is correct.
As seen here, the United States really doesn’t do peat. Erusian is right that we’ve always had too much wood and coal to bother, and the parts of the US that do have peat (south Florida and Mississippi) are on the extreme wet and swampy edge of the “bog” distribution. We’ll leave it to the Scots and Irish to master the fine art of burning dirt.
But, having mastered that art, by all means heap ridicule and scorn on lazy American writers who don’t do their homework.
I agree with all this except for one small quibble: this understates how much peat the US does have. We just don’t use it because (as you say) wood and coal is preferred. But there’s massive peat bogs in the US that map misses. The boggy territory in Canada doesn’t just stop at the border but extends into the US. There’s a reason the US has more bog agriculture than even Canada.
We’ll leave it to the Scots and Irish to master the fine art of burning dirt.
Hey, we have to find something to pass the time in between eating seaweed and raw limpets off the rocks while waiting to be drowned in the torrential rains as authentically delineated in this true autobiographical tale! 🙂
Flann O’Brien! I’ve never read that one, but his The Third Policeman is quite good.
You probably never saw it because it was originally written in Irish (An Beál Bocht) and later translated into English. Amazon has only hardback or paperback versions, no Kindle version.
It’s a farcical, rollicking mockery-cum-celebration of the genre of Irish Misery Literature (which existed long before ever Frank McCourt and Angela’s Ashes appeared on the scene) as well as things such as the Language Question, Irish national identity, the foundation myths of the state and so on. It takes the established tropes of the Authentically Authentic Experiences of the Pure Native Gaels Living Out Wesht biographies and turns them up to eleven. It’s also written in excellent Irish by somebody who could indeed speak the language, instead of what the effort to revitalise and reintroduce the language on a broad public scale had degenerated into – a handful of stock phrases everyone learned and used when required to prove their mastery of the tongue:
I won’t say you have to be Irish to get it, but you really need some idea of the inspiration behind the book and the literary genre and tropes he was satirising to get the most benefit. It’s still very funny without that if you can lay your hands on the English translation.
Looking around online, I see a hilarious essay which quite plainly is one of those “written by numbers, I paid a skeezy website for a copy of this as I needed to do a report and couldn’t be bothered actually reading the book” efforts as it flails about saying a great deal of nothing in particular and getting the few bits it quotes wrong e.g. this interpretation of the unusual names the Gaeilgeoirí from Dublin adopt (and also plainly the writer is desperately slinging the bullshit to work in a few topics and themes they learned in class in order to get the teacher to give them some marks for this abomination):
Nah honey, it’s got nothing to do with signified and signifiers, it’s a pisstake of the names adopted by the Irish Language Revival types, who ended up calling themselves such things as An Seabhac (The Hawk) when choosing pen-names. It’s also mocking the level of fluency in the spoken, as distinct from the written and learned not natively-spoken, Irish some of these enthusiasts may have had, for example in the sample above “Yours Respectfully” would be Mise le meas (literally “I am, with respect”), a standard closing phrase for letters the same as “Yours sincerely”. “le meas” means “with respect”, but it also sounds like the surname Lemass, and I have no idea if O’Brien was punning/mocking the politician of the same name (it’s entirely possible). So “Yours Respectfully” could also be read as “I am Lemass”, which is a reasonable surname and a plain statement of identity (if the ostensible language enthusiast was indeed surnamed Lemass) rather than the fancy and exotic assumed pen-name that it satirises.
“Oily peat” isn’t a cliche. I have no idea where the author got it from.
Pete may be oily, especially if he’s trying to sell you still-damp turf!
Reading this thread was a mistake. Tonight really isn’t the night to have me reaching for the Laphroaig.
Yeah, the effect our author was going for would be completely different if he said the fire smelled like good quality Scotch whisky 😀
It’s really amazing how many different words for/types of marginal land there are. It’s something I need to read up on in more detail, that is, what’s the difference between a bog, swamp, wetland, moor, marsh, fen, glade, quagmire, etc.
Modded Minecraft has all of these as distinct biomes, funnily enough.
In some parts of Canada there are a lot of bogs and peat harvesting is definitely a going concern, but it’s mainly for horticultural media rather than fuel as far as I’m aware.
Also, peasants usually can’t afford beef.
How does one change their mentality/way their view the world?
For example, you want to stop thinking that you have to do either A or B when in reality there are always compromises or ways to satisfy both if you look hard enough.
Or you want to stop being a pessimist.
Or you want to stop treating people as if they’re rational and start treating them like the emotional creatures they are.
How does one change the way they think about things like these?
@zeno1 >
Beer or coffee do the trick for me.
More beer and I lean more politically conservative, more coffee I lean more liberal-progressive.
Other personality changes as well.
If you drink tea, do you become a monarchist?
Yes, but for only for the great, magnificient, and terrible Arch-Duchess/Czaress/Empress/Queen.
Still a republican when it comes to Czars, Dukes, Emperors, and Kings.
No love for Emperor Norton I?
@Garrett,
The Imperial crown of San Francisco has adorned an Empress since 1964
(I don’t even have to make this stuff up on my own!)
Also, is this a cunning ploy to get political operatives to send you free beer and coffee in the run-up to elections?
If my vote counted for anything, I’d use that ploy. 🙂
@Tatterdemalion,
I wrote truly, ‘sides my cunning plan has the flaw of my congressional district, county, and state aren’t remotely ‘battleground’
I’d field the scheme to @A Definite Beta Guy in Wisconsin, but I suspect he’s already well supplied with beer there, and I don’t know if he’s interested in coffee.
If my area does become ‘battleground’ please have Jim Everyman Mohammed ring me up!
Seriously please have candidate Jim Mohammed Everyman emigrate to here, he’s the kind of devoted public servant we desperately need (for a pint!).
Your mentality is just a collection of mental habits and you change them like any other habit.
Remember the four R: tRigger, Routine, Reward and Reinforcement.
1. choose a trigger, in this case a specific mental state like choosing between A and B or thinking about possible outcomes or interacting with people
2. choose a routine, in your case mental exercises like creating different alternatives, taking more effort to detail possible positive outcomes and trying to gauge the emotional state of other people.
3. reward yourself every time you do it by focusing on the positive emotion associated with doing what you wanted to do.
4. reinforce the connection between trigger and reward by thinking back on the trigger while you reward yourself.
And if you ever find that you didn’t follow your new chosen routine never feel disappointed, but instead be happy that you did notice it and be confident that next time you’ll notice just a little bit earlier and that is progress.
This is extremely helpful! I especially like your point that mentality is just many habits at its core.
On a separate note, why are some habit/behavior change so easy and quick to internalize while others require extended effort?
For example, “tips” are usually quick and easy to implement for the rest of your life; for example, if your colleague tells you that your emails have huge blocks of text and should be separated into paragraphs, then this is something that you’d probably remember every time you write an email and won’t do again.
On the other hand, improvements like speaking slower during meetings would require much more effort to create change that lasts.
Why is this? Is it just a matter of effort or is it something more than that?
You need Jesus
Does anyone have experience with a home security system (“smart” locks and security cameras), preferably an open source one or one where I’m in control of the data?
In an Open Thread a ways back (I think probably more than a year) someone asked for everyone to list their “most conservative, their most liberal, and their most libertarian opinion” (or maybe it was “left, right, and libertarian”, whatever).
The answers were interesting and/or amusing (I recall one commenter did plausible opinions for all three that were still libertarian), so let’s do it again, but this time with four categories:
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion and
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
(and if you don’t like those categories please just make up some, the basic idea is four political “sides”, go with two or three if you can’t think of four).
Okay, for me;
Most strongly held social conservative opinion: That parents of minor children getting divorced became a lot more socially acceptable in the ’70’s did more harm than good.
Most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion: Affirmative-action to benefit African Americans is still praiseworthy.
Your most strongly held social-demicratic/economic statist opinion: Strongly pro-labor union, recreation of the government-backed tailwinds supporting the unionization of the mid-20th century would be a good thing. and
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion: Not much on an individual level, city governments should be more self ruling without as much interference from higher levels of government, the country-side should be more free of rules that are more for cities.
You should work for a living. I think this counts as both social and economic. (yeah, I know, Stalin agreed. Even that commie had some conservative opinions)
Your station in life should not be determined by the class of your parents.
∅
Legalize drugs! And model aircraft!
Most strongly held social conservative opinion:
Societies in which the fundamental unit is not a stable nuclear family are inherently dysfunctional and in terminal decline.
Most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion:
Our military spending should be cut by at least 50%.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion:
Climate change demands a government capable of solving the collective action problem to override veto points and establish a large scale nuclearization of power generation.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion:
Freedom of association requires freedom to not associate or it is meaningless.
Does your criticism of non-nuclear families include extended family systems? Or only things smaller such as individualism and single-parent?
You have misread me, I have absolutely no criticism of people living in non-nuclear families nor do I have criticism of anyone else in any different living situation.
I have no criticism for anyone. Please don’t attribute negativity or judgement to me when I have not processed said belief.
“inherently dysfunctional and in terminal decline” sure reads like criticism to me, though of the society, not its individual members.
Sorry, I meant non-nuclear family based societies as DinoNerd says. I don’t want to attribute malice just wondering on where the borders of “nuclear family” are for you because in my mind that rules out a lot of arrangements that are larger as well as smaller.
Response to Dino:
Yes, I have no criticism of anyone or any family arrangement. I support everyone equally. But this isn’t semantics, it’s the whole ballgame. I’m not an antagonist to anyone.
Yes, I criticize any society in which the majority of children are raised without fathers. It’s dysfunctional.
Celebrating dysfunction is literally not sane.
Social conservative:
A traditional lifestyle (get married, have kids and raise them, be involved in a church and your community, own a house, etc.) is probably the best path to happiness available for most people, and as a society, we should encourage that instead of tearing it down. (Government can’t and shouldn’t do all that much here other than refraining from messing things up.)
Progressive:
Lots of our outcomes are driven by luck, genes, what kind of childhood we had, etc., in ways that have nothing to do with what anyone deserves. As a result, we should be willing to even out outcomes to the extent we can without breaking society, and we should be looking for ways to forgive screw-ups and let people come back from them. (American bankruptcy law has plenty of problems, but it’s a good example, IMO, of one way this can work.)
Social democratic/statist: Libertarian:
[Both at once]
The more freedom we allow people, the more potential upside there is for the world. Many people will wreck themselves with lots of freedom, but some will find ways to do amazing new wonderful things, think thoughts nobody else ever would have gotten to, and innovate in amazing ways.
On the other hand, the cost of that freedom is that people will wreck themselves, and do societal damage in the process. The more we clamp down and decide what kind of life people may live and what kinds of things they may read and work on, the more we protect the foolish and unlucky from wrecking themselves, and the more we block the path toward all kinds of innovation in everything from art to religion to lifestyles to technology.
This is a painful tradeoff, and while I prefer one end of it, I recognize that all points on that tradeoff are painful in different ways.
To summarize: you’re pro-nuclear.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion:
I’m between (a): There are important social pathologies that are basically cultural and cannot be solved by any amount of welfare or government intervention. (b) Work is important and we, as a society, should demand everyone who can contribute does as determined by the market.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinions:
Immigration, while not without risks, is a positive both economically and culturally when done correctly. Even if they change the makeup of a local neighborhood. And there’s an unfortunate tendency to emphasize their Latin status in anti-immigration rhetoric.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinions:
Corporate consolidation, the lack of resources in certain communities, and the strangling of new businesses is a serious issue. The government should be acting to lower barriers and encourage competition, including breaking up large corporations if necessary.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinions:
Capitalism with relatively limited intervention is the best economic engine the world has ever seen. There is no credible evidence that the Marxist hypothesis has any legs. While it may be justified on other grounds, any move away from free market capitalism will result in a net economic decrease and should be treated with care.
Wow, that sounds interesting.
Most strongly held social conservative opinion: Modern architecture and city planning is terrible. We need to go back.
Most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion:
At this point, we can leave the concept of ‘marriage’ to churches. Instead, we can implement ‘partnership’ as a form of a legal contract that allows all the benefits (overwriting heritage priorities e,tc.) but does not require anyone to be in a relationship. Or even to be two persons.
(Not really an opinion on the current state of affairs, so I’ll write it as a bonus: genetic engineering on humans must be allowed. Not yet: we don’t know enough about all possible side effects. But at some point, it will become a necessity.)
Most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion: Consumerism is a significant problem that actively harms many of us and needs to be fought against.
Most strongly held libertarian opinion: We all see that the copyright system does not work as intended. It needs to be seriously rewritten if not abolished altogether.
Most strongly held social conservative opinion: Work is necessary for human dignity and flourishing, at least the way our culture exists today, and it’ll be easier and better to make sure people have (and are incentivized to keep) jobs than to change the culture to eliminate that.
Most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion: American culture as it currently exists is set up specifically to oppress and exploit non-white people, and we are morally obligated to change that.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion: The primary goal of our health care system should be to make sure everyone has affordable access to health care, and single-payer health care is the most efficient way to achieve that.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion: Does marijuana legalization count here any more? It’s becoming increasingly universal.
Wow, specifically set up? Could you please expand on this? It sounds so totally wrong to me, so maybe I am misunderstanding.
Especially given the “as it currently exists” qualifier. With that bad boy in there, I’d argue the exact opposite.
I’d argue that American culture was set up specifically to oppress and exploit non-white people, and is in the process of being reworked specifically to change that. I think we’re currently closer to “people of any race have as good a life as a white person of similar standing” than “slavery literally exists”, but we’re not quite there yet.
This could be read two ways
1. The purpose of America–what it was set up to do–is exploitation.
2. The exploitation in America was/is deliberate, but incidental to it’s purpose.
The second is much more defensible; presumably this is what you mean?
The southern plantation system was set up to oppress and exploit non-white people. That’s not all of America, and it hasn’t existed for over a century.
@The Nybbler
The Southern plantation system was set up to exploit non-Cavaliers, both white and black. That they needed to be oppressed in order to be exploited was mostly just an unhappy side effect.
The southern plantations were only a part of the larger economy in which northern factories would manufacture textiles, often for export. This was the largest industry in the USA, and the #1 export, in the decades after the cotton gin and leading up to the civil war, and led to the great expansion of slavery during this period. So I don’t think you can fairly separate “the southern plantation system” from the USA as a whole like that.
The Southern plantations were also part of a global trade system. You have to draw the line somewhere, or you end up with Syndrome syndrome (“If everyone is responsible, no one is”). And I think drawing the line around the plantation system is more defensible than drawing it around the US as a whole. The Northern factories did not need the plantation system.
Thankfully the Northerners did not, in the end, agree with you about where to draw this line — deciding, at last, that the constitution of their own government should forbid slavery in all of that government’s territory.
Yes, much like the plantation owners, what they really wanted out of the plantations was not slaves, but cotton. Slavery was how they actually did produce the cotton, not how they “needed” to.
Do you consider it acceptable, today, to purchase import products that are made by slaves in foreign countries?
Which does not support the claim that “American culture [as a whole] was set up specifically to oppress and exploit non-white people”.
@The Nybbler
Do you consider it acceptable, today, to purchase import products that are made by slaves in foreign countries?
…because what happened in 1865 has no bearing on how it was “set up” originally.
But FYI: it was set up originally so that the government did not prohibit slavery.
Can we tie this together with the below conversation in which we declare nearly all non-millionaire workers to be slaves?
I don’t consider this a meaningful question, for the reason Matt M is hinting at. There’s someone to tell me the 14-year olds in Indonesia making shoes are slaves. Someone else will tell me they’re fine but the 16-year-olds in China making electronics are slaves.
“Did not prohibit slavery” and “had a culture based on the oppression and exploitation of non-whites” are not the same thing.
You said that for the Northern states to base their primary industry on slave-made cotton, didn’t make them responsible for slavery, since you can’t be responsible for everything in the world.
What I’m asking is whether you apply this same standard to modern people in the modern global economy. Or do you hold modern people to a different (higher) standard.
During this whole conversation it seemed like you had no problem drawing a conclusion about the slave status of the southern slaves and how it was not the same as what was going on in the north, so it seems a bit convenient to suddenly be unable to see a “meaningful” distinction there.
Annoying for you to say this when I didn’t imply that these were the same thing.
Even in most states where slavery was illegal, black men didn’t have the same rights as white men until after the Civil War, and as far as I can tell certainly weren’t seen as equals by most people. (Let alone black women.) I’d say that’s pretty solidly a “culture of oppression”.
This is a poor definition, if you are saying something is a culture of X the X has to be the most dominant factor of that culture or you are just cherry picking. The fact that large segments of the population viewed blacks as equals but still refused to allow their enslavement is a major point against the argument that it was a culture of oppression. The Northern states rejected a system of oppression despite not valuing them as equals indicates that they had higher values than those of just oppression.
This isn’t even true. The plantation system was set up to make profits growing stuff. Exploiting Black people was a necessary part of this system, but that doesn’t mean it was set up to do that. I think it is important to have precise language.
I think people are getting mixed up (or possibly intentionally mixing) the two possible meanings of “set up” here
“set up” as in “established for the purpose of”
vs.
“set up” as in “configured to result in” (does not make it the sole purpose, primary purpose, or even a purpose, it can simply be a result)
Most of my opinions are very weakly held, but I can commit to these with a vengeance:
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion: Public transit is good. It should be available wherever reasonable, and strongly funded as a public good as opposed to a make-work program.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion: Density zoning is the work of the devil. If I own a plot of land I should be able to build the Equitable Building on it no matter what the neighbors say.
I don’t drive. I like not driving. I’d like to never drive again.
+1 for public transit. I probably hold that almost as strongly as the opinions I actually listed – it’s merely less important/urgent to me, because I can drive, can afford a car, and frankly never expected anything better from anywhere in the US. (I.e. being forced to drive everywhere was a price I paid knowingly when I moved to the US.)
Hmm, I’m not sure these categories are quite right for me, but let’s see:
Most strongly held social conservative opinion
People are responsible for what they do; you can sympathize with mitigating circumstances etc. and perhaps reduce sentences accordingly, but people shouldn’t get a free pass because their upbringing/mental illness/etc. “made them do it”. That said, killing a truly abusive spouse/parent etc. ought to be rewarded, and/or classed as self/other defence, even if premeditated – assuming better alternatives would not have been seen as viable by a truly reasonable person.
Most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
Men and women should not be treated diffrently based on their gender, however construed or constructed. (But it’s fine to treat e.g. a person who choses to be a house spouse different from a person who chooses to be a brick layer. and it’s fine if more women choose the former and more men choose the latter.)
Note to pedants – I’m not concerned about e.g. languages having gendered pronouns.
Most strongly held libertarian social opinion
It’s not OK to ban anything if it harms no one, or no one but the person doing it, with limited exceptions regarding self-harm for people who are truly incompetent (small children), and perhaps for those not really mature enough to make good long term decisions (e.g. teens and addictive drugs).
Most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
Most strongly held: We are rich enough that we can afford to provide minimum living standards for everyone. The absence of a viable social safety net in a country is a mark of shame.
Most characteristic: Government is the best way to handle market failures of all kinds, including tragedies of the commons. Without decent (dare I say morally motivated) regulation, capitalism becomes a monster that harms everyone, albeit while generally harming the rich less than it harms everyone else.
Most strongly held libertarian economic opinion
In general, the invisible hand of the market works better than just about any kind of central planning.
This is not to say that it works well, particularly in cases of monopoly, or of a limited number of “competitors” who know each other socially. They will collude for their own common benefit, at the expense of both their workers and their customers, and if disruption happens at all, it generally won’t do it on a time scale that’s useful for whatever workers/customers they have at any given time.
But with lots of small competitors, and a government preventing egregious externalities, it will work reasonably well.
No this is the anthesis of progressive thought:
“Men and women should not be treated diffrently based on their gender, however construed or constructed”
No, you’ve eliminated strength, endurance, and performance under pressure from the test for infantry officers ( for women only.)
So it’s not equal. It’s equal passing rates, even for pull ups.
As one said, affirmative action is the most Important value.
I have not. Some other people using similar labels may well have done so; that doesn’t mean I agree with them. Indeed, unless these eliminations are applied to men and women equally, they violates the principle I actually stated.
The one thing worse than arguing with a person who identifies as a <whatever> about whether they get to define that <whatever> to exclude you, is arguing with a person who clearly does not identify as a <whatever> about the proper boundaries of that <whatever>.
In any case, the category was social liberal-progressive – and even if there were consensus that “progressive” is a synonymn for the most extreme version of SJW ever proposed by a conservative, the opinion stated still would fit within the liberal umbrella.
If the categories aren’t a good fit for you, what are your strongly held political opinions that don’t fit in the categories?
I approve of this question; it should be on the main list.
For me, it would be: “The threshold between childhood and adulthood should be determined by an exam rather an arbitrary number of years lived. Possibly, even several exams would be appropriate for different kind of legal rights.”
Depending on the point of view, it is either progressive or reactionary.
I would like that if there could be a relatively-objective set of exams. But under any plausible system, I see the exams quickly becoming a political football used to keep the Outgroup in perpetual childhood.
On the other hand, it’d be a great setting for a sci-fi novel.
Eri, we already have that in place, it’s just that there’s a presumption of adulthood/mental capacity that needs to be revoked through examination, rather than a presumption of mental incapacity.
@Andrew Cady: No, there is only a presumption of capacity for those above a certain age; for those below it, the reverse is true. And getting rid of these presumptions would be a big change.
@Dacyn: That, and most of the time, people go with the standard threshold instead of a custom one.
@Evan: I was going to suggest something in the lines of a simplified school exam, but I see how that could quickly become problematic. Still, there is a certain trade-off here.
Also, I believe that there are one or two novels that mention this idea (though I only came across them later). I doubt they were ever translated into English, though.
@Eri: I think that’s true for most defaults.
My strongest uncategorizable political opinion is probably that lying is wrong. Also that the term “lying” should be fairly broadly construed.
This ties into a belief that seeking the truth is good, and suppressing the truth is bad – but that part is slightly more categorizable (=? libertarian or liberal).
I don’t care whether it’s a government bureaucracy pushing a “just say no” campaign against some drugs using statements not supported by any known research, or a bunch of activists using over-the-top rhetoric to push their favourite batch of policies.
Also related would be a strong belief that policies already known not to work (for their alleged purpose) should not be implemented. (This usually gets phrased with some term like “data driven”, but that term seems to have acquired connotations I don’t want to encourage.)
Another uncategorizable political belief would be “equality before the law” and the related “government of laws, not of people”. These both used to be clearly liberal, but the goalposts and definitions have moved too much; they also can’t be placed in the libertarian 2-coordinate scheme (economic/personal, freedom/control).
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
The social, intellectual and behavioural norms promoted by social justice activists have an immense amount wrong with them, and the replacement of liberalism by social justice activism as the dominant left-wing ideology was a Very Bad Thing.
or possibly, if you count is as social conservative
Everyone is entitled to the protection of the law, even if they are unsympathetic and the person harming them illegally is sympathetic.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
I found this the toughest of the four questions, because there were so many to choose from. Discrimination on grounds of race, sex, orientation etc should be illegal, except in very narrow contexts where they’re genuinely relevant to the job, like casting for a movie (these are all special cases of “discriminating on grounds other than ability to do the job should be illegal”); abortion and divorce should be not merely legal but easy to obtain; prisons should be humane and we should try not to send people there for too long.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion and
Health care and education up to 18 should be free at point of use and funded from general taxation, at least de facto.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
The state should aggressively defend a fairly extreme interpretation of the right to free speech.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
There is always a state religion, and the best justification for imposing one on citizens is that it’s True.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
The best society has strongly progressive taxation.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
The state should phase out coal by subsidizing large numbers of nuclear reactors (and dams, which have the benefit of being renewable/clean, but that’s mostly tapped out as a resource in the First World).
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
Freedom of association is a right under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
What do you mean by “religion” here?
I know this is a take that Scott himself is on the record as pushing back against, but:
Catholicism, Islam, Marxism, whatever you call the dogmatic belief system that the Powers and Principalities are imposing on citizens of the EU, Canada and US these days…
I take it as an empirical matter that there is no such thing as the Open Society. Society is always held together by a dogmatic exclusive belief system that the state needs to punish you for dissenting from. Even Karl Popper’s main example of an Open Society, democratic Athens, punished Alcibiades with exile for Hellenism’s equivalent of celebrating a Black Mass (hosting mock Eleusian Mysteries).
I think folks have a tendency to overgeneralize the lesson of Is Everything A Religion. Scott himself admits in II that Chinese communism really does seem to have become a religion, and causes like environmentalism are more religious than others like gun control. Arguing that progressive parts of the country have become less Open Society and more integralist sounds fair game to me provided that, you know, your argument is good.
That doesn’t seem like a strong indicator of a state religion to me: taking something others hold sacred and making a mockery of it runs against both people’s natural instincts and their practical interest in a quiet life.
I’d exile the creator of “piss christ” too if I had a chance. -speaking as an atheist
You have a point: Hellenistic states were relatively pluralistic, and the line is fuzzy between “mocking the Eleusian Mysteries or vandalizing icons of Hermes are punishable offenses because…” “… they’re our state religion” or “… bashing what most people hold sacred is disturbing the peace.”
Granting you’re correct, I think it’s an open question deserving empirical examination if any governments today are such Open Societies. Certainly it’s almost impossible to exile or legally punish someone in any way, shape or form for blaspheming Christianity and calling it art… except in Russia.
You’re claiming “as an empirical matter” that “citizens of the EU” are “punish[ed] for dissenting from” a “dogmatic exclusive belief system.”
Is this “exclusive belief system” exclusive of Marxism, Catholicism, and Islam? So the EU punishes people who dissent from its own religion by being Catholic or Marxist or Muslim?
It seems you’re claiming this, yet it’s so completely absurd, that you surely are not. But … ???
The Authorities in 21st century Europe are blatantly imposing beliefs on their population, I just don’t know what the correct term for the Authorities’ ideology is. Criticizing Christianity is protected speech, but the police monitor social media for criticism of Islam and show up at your door if you’re guilty of such. Many states have laws against Holocaust denial but denying Soviet atrocities is protected speech. We had a whole thread in a previous OT about how belief in certain Bible verses is “unworthy of protection in a democratic society” according to UK judges because they contradict transgenderism.
You tell me what this adds up to.
Is this “exclusive belief system” exclusive of Marxism, Catholicism, and Islam?
@Andrew Cady: It’s certainly exclusive of Catholicism and all other forms of Christianity. As for the rest, you tell me what’s going on with the Authorities.
@Andrew Cady: It depends on how seriously you practice them.
Not true at all.
Also not true. Most countries’ laws against Holocaust denial refer to genocide denial in general. Most of the ones that specifically refer to the Nazis are Eastern European countries that explicitly ban denial of Soviet atrocities as well. Very few countries (possibly none) explicitly ban Holocaust denial, don’t also mention the Soviets, and aren’t either Germany, Austria or Israel (which have clear reasons to care about Nazis in particular).
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2013 that denial of the Armenian Genocide is protected freedom of speech, but ruled in 2019 that Holocaust denial is not covered by freedom of speech.
There doesn’t seem to have been a ruling on Holodomor denial or such.
In my country, there is no explicit law, but a court decided that Holocaust denial is discrimination, but there is no such ruling about other genocides.
Thanks, Aapje. This is just the kind of case law I was looking for.
IMO, the social-progressive one sounds more like an economic statist one.
I am reading everyone’s “social democratic” responses, because while there are a lot of things where my policy position is for “mainstream US Democrat” over “mainstream US Republican,” I could not think of anything where my policy position was for “Bernie Sanders” over “mainstream US Democrat.”
But if I can put “government builds nuclear in places where most locals agree, screw any minority who tries to veto” into this camp? Yeah, sign me up.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Traditional lifestyles are superior for the majority of people to untested alternatives, and most of the social changes of the past century have been on net bad for the majority. (I am in the minority here, as I excel in a more libertine framework.). Divorce, for instance, has been a total disaster for most people, although it has improved things for the subset of people who make good decisions anyways. Basically, social progressivism has been a continual process of removing the safety rails of society because those of us who don’t need them end up in charge of society due to the same set of virtues that make them unnecessary.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
People are all basically the same.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
Capitalism is an alien intelligence that really should not be trusted with any significant degree of control over society, and there should always be mechanisms available to shut down any part of it as it becomes necessary.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
Nobody, and no collection of people, are any more trustworthy than capitalism, and no individual or collection of individuals can be trusted to control it, or to hold the mechanisms to shut it down.
Epistemic status: devil’s advocate
Do you ever worry that our mechanisms for controlling capitalism end up being an even more terrible alien god? Unkillable bureaucratic regulatory agencies that keep inventing purposes for themselves, for example.
Yes. Hence my libertarian answer. The two are in a fundamental tension; you cannot trust capitalism, and you cannot trust anything that could control capitalism.
Ah, I see the complementarity now.
I strongly agree with the last two. At the same time, I find this pair of statements quite depressing.
It is just a reflection of the idea that systems cannot not evolve.
I’d find it depressing if there was a solution.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Opposed to legal abortion for all but life of the mother and fatal deformity.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
I would like to eliminate the very wealthy as a class, but cannot see a practical route to doing so that would not make the situation worse. I don’t believe this on fairness grounds; I think extreme accumulations of wealth constitute extreme accumulations of power, and are as noxious and dangerous as all other extreme accumulations of power, public or private. Would be a distributist if distributism offered any meaningful road map.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
This’n’s a head-scratcher, mostly because I don’t know where the boundaries of the category lie. I have a bunch of miscellaneous opinions, but I don’t know that a lot of them involve large government programs.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
In spite of everything I posted above, I agree with the libertarians on a lot of things; I just think they’re wrong on first principles. I’ll go with “freedom of expression, association, and belief must be aggressively protected, with only the narrowest possible exceptions.”
Given that you’re pro-life in general (I am too), I assume you hold that an unborn baby has a right to life at least similar to that of any other human. So, since you support abortion on the grounds of fatal deformity, do you also support euthanasia for fatal illnesses in general? If not, why the discrepancy?
To push the analogy even further, suppose there was a five-year-old with a fatal illness. Do you support letting his parents choose to have him euthanized?
I think it’s important to pick analogous situations; I don’t think of a fatally deformed fetus as analogous to a terminally ill person. More like a brain-dead person on life support. If the baby’s got a two-chambered heart, he’s basically dead already. His tissues might be alive (not a doctor, IDK), but the moment he comes out he’s going to die. Making the mother birth the corpse seems needlessly cruel.
By contrast, a terminally ill person can linger for a looooong time, having meaningful life experiences the whole time. I know multiple people who stayed on home hospice care for months (I work in their pharmacy), and one lady with cancer got a make-a-wish trip to Disney only to live for something like five years after.
I’d worry about perverse incentives as well; if simply killing them is on the table, can we be certain that they won’t feel guilt or pressure for not doing so promptly and burdening others, or that insurance companies won’t try some bizarro weasel tactics? Etc. And I don’t know how bright and clear the line is to mark the edges of “terminally ill.” If you’re elderly and get pneumonia in the hospital after breaking your hip, you’re not doomed per se, but your outlook is not good. Concept creep could be an issue.
With that said, it’s not something I feel passionately about.
I definitely share your concern about concept creep and perverse incentives. That’s my big concern about legalizing euthanasia in general – otherwise, my libertarian impulses would push me toward legalization even though I’m morally against it and would advise others against it (which’s been a remote but live concern for me thanks to elderly grandparents.)
I hadn’t really considered, though, that some fetal deformities really are at the point where they’d be better analogized to brain death. Morally, I don’t think the analogy works because a two-chambered heart (to use your example) still seems compatible with a human soul and moral worth. But it still might be a good enough analogy for legal purposes, at least if we can get a clear demarcation line. I’ll need to chew on it.
I didn’t mean the parallel to be exact in that the fetus has no brain activity–I’ve no notion if it would, possibly the defective heart wouldn’t supply enough pressure to nourish the brain, IDK. Only that such a fetus would have no hope whatever of a normal, conscious life, like the brain-dead person. It might, if not aborted, have some months of sort-of-consciousness in the womb, then come out and immediately die.
I didn’t enter the soul into it at all. My religious tradition (Orthodox Christian) distinguishes between actively killing the terminally ill and withdrawing support to let them die; I don’t know how that distinction would apply to a fatally deformed fetus. For the purposes of law, however, I see no just interest in compelling the birth when the child will die more or less instantaneously all the same.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Takes two parents to raise good children.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
To my significant surprise, either the term got corrupted or I just don’t hold any progressive opinions. Some come to mind, but are better classified as social libertarian (like I think we’re still too hang up on sex). In the sense of helping minorities of any kind… I stop at being [minority]-blind, and I don’t think that’s progressive anymore these days. Ah, ah, I got one – poor children should have cheaper education. But that has an overall positive ROI at the level of society, so it’s probably better put as “statist opinion”.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion and
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
Those two come together. I think that the best guiding principle is to not have any regulation or state intervention – unless you have to. I.e. have a libertarian default, but with the (rather big) caveat that many commons issues are much easier solvable by the state, and this can include quite a lot of stuff.
My most strongly held social conservative opinion:
Government should be a not just representative monarchy. There should be a single person in charge and it should be hereditary.
My most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion:
The right to your own identity is up there with the right to bodily autonomy. I.e. transwomen are women and a fetus is not a person.
My most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion:
There need to be government run houses where everybody can just check in, no questions asked, and receive a room, food, clothing and free health care. This should also double as a low security prison to
facilitate reformation.
My most strongly held libertarian opinion:
I find it a severe moral failure on our part that we do not recognize a right to secession as a fundamental human right.
And defying these categories:
I don’t think there should be a police force. Just like no standing army. There should be a general military
service and likewise a general law enforcement service both in parallel to your normal life.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion:
Single-parent households tend, on average, to have notably worse outcomes for children. While this effect is exacerbated at the lower socioeconomic levels (or rather, wealth can buy more time away from work or contracted caregivers and educators to help provide extra childcare and rearing), the outcomes cannot be corrected with wealth transfers, even arbitrarily large ones. Therefore, societies should encourage, praise, and preference multi-parent household arrangements.
I probably lose social conservative points for being equally ok with househusbands as with housewives, and two-dad / two-mom households (with some caveats that it’s probably pretty important to have SOMEONE around as a same-sex role model and mentor at various points in a child’s development), but that’s probably my biggest opinion in this quadrant.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion:
This is hard, as most of what I think of as socially liberal opinions are now apparently moderate to conservative ones, like “sexual identity and orientation is the result of a complex mix of environmental/developmental, genetic, and idiosyncratic intellectual factors, and as such should be viewed as something to be respected and allowed for as a personal choice and preference unless it results in distress and dysfunction for the individual”.
I’ll keep thinking about it, but I think “socially liberal” left me behind a decade or two ago.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion:
There are issues such as some forms of pollution, some safety issues (product and worker), monopoly/cartel practices, and the like that may be best resolved through state intervention in the marketplace.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion:
It’s a toss-up between:
“The right of individuals to keep and bear arms is the only real guarantor of individual liberty.”
and
“The only legitimate grounds for restriction of freedom of speech are incitement of imminent lawless action (imminent meaning ‘immediate’. Whipping up a mob or crowd on the spot, not inspiring an act the next day/week/month/etc) and national security, and the latter restriction is only acceptable as a temporary measure, and should be defined as narrowly and skeptically as possible to prevent abuse.”
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion Monogamy is good for stability in a society and leads to overall more happiness.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
People (consenting adults) should be allowed to associate sexually (or not) in whatever ways they see fit.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion Less inequality is overall good for stability and happiness, and a strong government maintaining the rule of law, market regulation, and economic redistribution is desirable.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion Government should only interfere where it is absolutely necessary, and leave the rest to the market.
I don’t know if any of these are my “most” strongly held opinion for any of these categories, but they’re things I usually believe. Also I’d like an anarchist category as well.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
I don’t know if this qualifies, but traditions can have value in and of themselves.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
There are no morally-relevant distinctions between races.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
Given the current world, a large number of areas of economic and social activity benefit from massive state involvement, all the way up to nationalization. These include (but are not limited to) health care, public transport, and most utilities. (I suppose that’s just to say that I am a social democrat, practically speaking.)
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
I think only those guilty of extreme violence should be in prison. Plus bankers, when I’m feeling snarky.
Social Conservative: Immigration should be almost entirely skills based, with scaling incentives for immigration based of desirability of said skills.
Socially Liberal/Progressive: There is nothing ennobling about work per se, and gains from increasingly sophisticated automation/robotization should be used to free people from the necessity of labor, through something like a basic income guarantee. (I do think idleness is negative, but forced to choose between people being compelled to work when their faculties could be employed creatively/towards particular passions and some people not taking advantage of their freedom to the fullest, I choose the former.)
Social Democratic/Statist: Would a desire for universal conscription into military/civilian services of some type for a couple years between the ages of 18-26 go here or in the social conservative section?
Libertarian: Organ sales between consenting adults should be legal. Unlike, say, a wealthy woman using a poor woman’s hair as a wig for vanity’s sake, rich and poor alike have need of functional kidneys. So long as the sale isn’t coerced, this seems like a massive welfare gain all around.
Social conservative:
Even though luck is a major and often overwhelming determinant of life outcomes, a strong sense of individual responsibility is nonetheless justified because it is so important to both individual human flourishing and cultural flourishing.
Social liberal-progressive:
Traditionalist religion is a deadly enemy of most of what is good in modern civilization. Public expression of religious belief by government officials or even major corporate leaders should be socially stigmatized, and evidence that a law was enacted for religious reasons should be sufficient cause to strike it down as unconstitutional.
Social democratic:
The vast differences in resources available to kids depending on accidents of birth are an urgent and serious injustice and also a giant waste of human potential. Many of these differences are infeasible to remedy at all, or infeasible to remedy without doing even worse injustices, but many are feasible and worthwhile to remedy, especially those that are the product of previous coercive and unjust state action. Childhood poverty reduction is probably both the most efficient and the equitable use of the welfare state, and deserves more attention to both promising spending targets (e.g. child allowances) and more just funding methods (e.g. Georgist land value taxation).
Libertarian:
Individual bodily autonomy is a moral absolute. As a consequence, forced labor or enslavement of any kind is always wrong; this includes everything from forced childbirth (i.e. restrictions on abortion rights) to military conscription to jury duty to even forced prison labor. The punishment exception clause in the 13th Amendment should be removed.
most strongly held social conservative opinion
Addictive drugs are bad, and should remain illegal (though I’m not convinced prison is the most effective punishment)
most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
Marriage is ultimately a technology to determine the father of a child. With the invention of the DNA test, it is obsolete, and we should normalize certain other relationship models.
most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
Global warming is a big enough problem to merit government economic meddling (though it should be sunsetted).
most strongly held libertarian opinion
Free speech is not just a legal principle binding governments, but a moral principle that individuals and institutions should respect.
Strongly held social conservative/social liberal position: more people, particularly young people, in the United States would be good! The social conservative expression of this is that people should generally have more kids and should do it at a younger age than is now typical – sadly I only came around to this view in my late thirties. The social liberal (and I suppose libertarian) expression of this is that we should vastly increase legal immigration.
(I also have lots of other social liberal opinions but they’re mostly boring and predictable)
Strongly held statist opinion: 1) pollution is really bad and should be strongly suppressed by government (though I’m okay with market-based mechanisms for doing this). 2) Redistribution from rich to poor is necessary and just.
Strongly held libertarian position: government does lots of things it shouldn’t! The government is generally far too eager to regulate things (noting that the worst offenders here are often state and local governments). The military should be much smaller.
Conservative vs liberal: I think I might be burned out on culture war, because I try to think about this and all I get is that everyone involved is awful and I wish they’d all stop.
Actually here’s an opinion: twitter, as a social media platform, allows small numbers of rude people to have an unfairly disproportionate impact on our society. We should try turning it off for six months and see if the culture war dies down.
Statist: health care is badly underregulated. Employer-paid health care should be banned. Health care providers should be required to get payment in advance of treatment. Health care providers should be required to publish all prices on the internet for ease of price comparison.
Libertarian: housing is badly overregulated. If I want to rent out a studio apartment to six people with sleeping bags who would otherwise be homeless, I should be allowed to do that. If I want to buy some houses and replace them with an apartment building, I should be allowed to do that too.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Traditional education, architecture, city planning, literature, and music was in many ways superior to what we have now, and emphasis should be placed in reviving some of these traditions. (The periods I am most fond of differ but I am mainly thinking of pre-WWII 20th century traditions in most cases.)
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
The sexual revolution, feminism, and racial and sexual civil rights are some of the most important victories of the 20th century, and their achievements should be celebrated and built open.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
There should be state investment in and ownership of public infrastructure where competition is limited (roads, rail, public transport, utilities, etc).
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
The market is the strongest engine for economic growth and human prosperity that we have come across yet, and where competition is robust it should be allowed to flourish with minimal state interference.
The erosion of traditional sexual morality is the single most damaging current societal effect.
Affirmative action to African-Americans is a good thing and should be directly implemented, rather than opaque nonsense like “disparate impact”.
National parks are an unalloyed good and more government improvements should be made to them to make them accessible to people who aren’t ultra rich and/or fit.
Modern American policing has gone completely off the rails and should be dramatically scaled back. The modal policeman should be unarmed and on foot.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Stable families are critical for social health. Single parenthood and divorce should be stigmatized.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
‘Psychoactive substances should be legal unless they have significant harmful effects unrelated to their psychoactivity. (So heroin is fine, but cocaine and toluene might not be.)
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion and
The government should make a basic level of necessities freely available to everyone, including direct provision of highest-value portions of health care.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
Freedom of association is what makes a diverse society tolerable. The government should in no way advantage or disadvantage any group or institution based on its choices of who to associate with in what ways.
Socially Conservative opinion:
Marriage is a religious institution and the government has no business regulating it
Socially Progressive opinion:
People can do whatever they want in the gender/sexuality sphere and that’s ok.
Social-democrat economic opinion:
Working to survive is slavery.
Libertarian:
Puritanical laws like prohibiting drugs or flavored vape juice are wrong and create more problems than they solve.
Wouldn’t this imply that basically 99% of humans who have ever lived (basically everyone *except* the heirs of the landed aristocracy) were/are slaves?
More or less, yes. And I would say that’s probably accurate.
+1
Do you believe that it is possible to significantly reduce this percent with the current level of technology?
Not OP, but I think it has been possible to significantly reduce the proportion of everyone’s individual lives spent working to survive at literally every moment in human history. We have just chosen not to, in many cases.
I have more than enough money to survive for the rest of my life. I work so that I can have nice things. Am I a slave? If so, to whom?
Right. Mark Zuckerberg is worth billions and still works. My aunt lives on disability and hasn’t worked in years. Is he her slave?
I am not saying that working = slavery. I am saying “Having to work to survive is equivalent to slavery.” Mark Zuckerburg works because he wants to, not because he has any need to. Sally working at waffle house must work or else she is unable to have shelter, food, clothes, etc. That is essentially slavery. Sure she doesn’t need to work at Waffle House, in particular, but she absolutely needs to work somewhere.
Is there some fuzzy line at which working moves from a need to a choice? Sure. I am firmly opposed to working ever being a need, however. It is my opinion this stifles society and creativity.
@woah77: It seems like there’s still a distinction between working to survive and what was going on in the US prior to 1861. Do you have a replacement word for when we need to refer to it?
I suppose “serfdom” is probably pretty close. Or “Wage Slaves”. I don’t really have good distinctive terms to describe my complaint outside of slavery because all of the terms related are loaded in one way or another. I am not an economist nor a philosopher and don’t make a habit of trying to invent my own words when an established term does well enough, as a general rule.
As a moderately artsy-fartsy person, I’m rather glad creativity is being stifled. Every creative medium is cluttered with crap entries as it is; remove lack of spare time as a barrier to entry and noise will drown out signal completely. It’s better than people should be forced to use their spare time to create.
Also, if technology ever advances to the point where most people do not have to work, the great mass of not-working people will become a superfluous annoyance to whoever’s maintaining the robots.
You mistake my stating creativity as just art. I’m including innovative inventions. A new 3d printer. A new way to archive movies that is like good reads, but for movies. A new way to play RPGs over the internet. etc.
Armies of unschooled ten year olds following around technicians asking, “What’s this do? What’s that do? What happens if I press this?”
I don’t think most people are brilliant that way either; the few enabled by leisure would be lost in the crowd, same as now, and meanwhile much of the idle mass would turn malignant from boredom or just dick around till death. Much of the evil we attribute to work is rooted in human social pathology, IMO.
@theredsheep
As opposed to today’s society, where some people stock shelves at Wal-Mart for 40 hours a week and spend the rest of the time dicking around, until death?
Yes, but they’re too busy/tired to turn malignant. I don’t think our current labor situation is anywhere near good–like I said, social pathology is the root of most things we find hateful about work–but I don’t think the end of work would produce tremendous dividends either. The people who are driven to produce extraordinary things probably have the skillset to produce anyway, and idle hands really are the devil’s playthings.
Yeah. I mean, we *do* have people today who don’t work. The idle rich, the retired, the chronically unemployed, the disabled (both legitimate and fake), etc.
I would submit that most of the people in those groups aren’t really doing socially useful things. And many of them are doing socially unuseful things…
To me this argues for having them stock shelves rather than not. But dicking around may not translate well.
But at least with a demanding job, they get out of bed in the morning, practice hygiene, greet colleagues in a civil manner, have someone inquire after them in case of an absence.
I’m not so certain of this that I would want to force someone into the situation, of course (indeed, let me be clear, would not), and it’d probably be better to cut the drudgery down to a few hours a day, if that. But I worry about the state of a populace that is able to live down to a complete lack of expectations and requirements.
And I’m not necessarily excepting myself from that.
@Randy M
I can’t recall anyone ever discussing this, but it seems to me that just as there are work virtues, so there are leisure virtues. Maybe idle man* isn’t flourishing by being uncouth, unshowered, and uncalled upon.
*needs a Latin name. Homo otiator?
I know EY once wrote a treatise on optimal fun. Might be a lark to reread.
I don’t think you would disagree that there aren’t really leisure virtues, but that the application of virtue to leisure are different. Perhaps less vital, but more difficult. Once my sustenance, and that of those who depend on me, is honorably attained, screwing up will be less cataclysmic to others, but given time will degrade my own humanity, at least if one believes we are more than the configuration of neurotransmitters.
Where do we draw the line between cultivating habits that create a particular kind of character, and performing steps in an antiquated rain-dance of cargo cultists?
I have resolved of late to attempt to focus my actions on things that in some way matter. Unfortunately, I have Witcher III waiting for in the mail.
I guess this viewpoint is fundamentally alien to me. When I have nothing in particular to do, I just… don’t do much. And I think that’s true of most people. Sounds good to me.
It was commonplace among the Greek philosophers and others that a life worth living was essentially impossible without extensive leisure. Which meant, of course, that the vast majority of people were incapable of living lives worth living.
I don’t fully agree with that view, but I see its appeal.
Yeah, but this is in the context of a guy who runs a neuroscience lab or something, isn’t it? There’s a big difference between sometimes doing nothing and never doing something.
Was this because otherwise one didn’t have time to be a philosopher, and in that case what’s the point of life? 😉
Though, the Stoic Epictetus was a slave himself, so either some philosophers disagreed, or slaves had sufficient leisure.
I’m a researcher in a neuroscience lab, not the PI (and not a professor). But I take your point.
That being said, if someone never does anything… why should I worry? I guess I might find it personally distasteful, but no more so than I do people having to live lives of drudgery. In general I think people would be better off with a lot more nothing, and a lot less drudgery.
Scott had a few paragraphs to this effect in some of his posts about UBI, and I remember similar discussions then. I just don’t get it, why can’t we just let people sit in their own filth if they feel like it?
@Enkidum
I think the fundamental question is, do you think they’re happy that way?
Can’t speak for everyone, but many of us have been there at some point in our lives, and we weren’t.
I don’t think there’s reason to hassle people you don’t know about it.
I care about the person doing nothing in three cases:
-the net effect of large numbers. A general degradation of skills across generations that could make large numbers on the margin more a net drain should the economic gains slow or reverse and they become needed. How this kind of lifestyle might contribute to increased criminality or just less civic engagement, and make society in general less pleasant. Doing something here isn’t confined to stocking shelves at WalMart, mind, helping the neighbors rake their leaves or singing in the church choir or going for a run around the block are varying shades of doing something.
Secondly if it were someone I know and care about personally, I would care about them living a life where they get satisfaction and not just enjoyment; where they feel accomplished and enmeshed in a network of supportive relationships.
And thirdly for myself, similarly but also developing character.
FWIW, this is a theme in my fiction in the context of a society of a star ship where all the important work is done automatically. (But probably no more profoundly addressed than here, so.)
That’s fair, applies to me too (more recently than I’d care to admit… well, not in literal filth, just doing nothing in a highly problematic way).
But (and I think you agree with me) that this kind of approach to leisure is at least largely a consequence of the way our work lives are structured. At any rate, if it makes them miserable, I don’t think it would be any worse than the misery of working a shitty job.
Let me put it this way: if work vanishes, human psychology, with all its deficiencies, will remain. People will have time to do all the things they wanted to do before, whatever those things were. Most of the bad things people do are not done out of material need, strictly speaking–most aspiring con artists could probably make comparable or greater money honestly–and constructive behavior often requires discipline and long-term planning, which a lack of employment would tend to atrophy.
@Randy yeah I can see all that, and I mostly agree when I’m not being needlessly combative. But I don’t think any of the problems you describe are worse or more pressing than the over-worship of work.
Needless? Come now, this is the most
productiveinteresting part of my afternoon.@Nick > “…Maybe idle man* isn’t flourishing by being uncouth, unshowered, and uncalled upon.
*needs a Latin name. Homo otiator?”
If “idleness” is spent playing games, may I suggest Homo Ludens?
A (sometimes) example:
I’ll note that if the “play” brings joy to other people it’s praiseworthy, a bunch of folks playing Dungeons & Dragons together may not be as meritorious as volunteers re-building houses but compared to someone just watching television they deserve some praise.
On the other hand the television viewing hermit may use an automobile less, and if you believe driving is harmful?
Voila!
The solitary binge watcher is the saint!
No. Neither Mark Zuckerberg nor cassander are working to survive, as OP specifically specified.
By that standard, then, virtually no one in modern america is working to survive. You don’t have to bank a lot to be able to afford a lifetime of beans and rice.
You need quite a bit in the bank to survive a lifetime in a permanent residence.
I was under the impression that the majority of Americans owe more than they own.
At any rate, your comment is obviously against both the spirit and the letter of OP, and you know this. So I don’t know that it’s worth debating further.
Someone has to work for e.g. you to survive. If you use “slavery” for the condition when the person who has to work for you to survive is you, then what’s the word for the condition when the person who has to work for you to survive is not-you? Because those do seem like different circumstances that call for different words.
And then there’s the one where your survival has already been assured, and someone else has to work just so that you can have nice things. There ought to be a word for that as well.
I can agree that there probably should be a different word. I lack the wit or linguistic talent to construct a term that appropriately captures the concept I’m describing.
I’m curious about those who have read over the previous responses: what is the viewpoint you see expressed forcefully/often in them that you disagree with the most strongly, and the one that you agree with the most strongly?
For me:
Disagree with work being an intrinsic good/necessary/virtuous/etc. Actually if we were using Hannah Arendt’s definition of work as opposed to labour, I might somewhat sympathetic. But I think the supposed virtue of hard work is mostly something that is perpetuated because it helps very powerful people and systems maintain their power. My position is that unless you are creating or doing something that is good in and of itself, work is actively bad and should be avoided at all costs, and most of what qualifies as “work” in our society produces things that are at best neutral, and usually not. (Of course, “surviving and supporting oneself and one’s family” are important consequences of work, and necessary given our society. But they shouldn’t be.)
Agree with: libertarianism about drugs. I think others have argued this as well as I could.
?!
I don’t understand what you mean here. It’s not society that dictated we have to work to survive, it’s nature.
The work that supports our survival and flourishing is good.
But how much do we have to work to survive and flourish? How often?
The gap between that and the amount we actually work is massive, and primarily bad for us. (For that matter, the kind of work most of us do, in a physical sense, is bad for us in fairly direct ways.) And those who preach the virtues of work in and of itself are preaching poison.
At least that’s what I’m arguing. I probably won’t be defending this viewpoint, other than to clarify it, but hopefully that makes sense?
That makes a lot more sense, yeah. To an extent I agree with you; I think a lot of our work goes to waste, and I’m especially amenable to Graeber-esque “bullshit jobs” arguments.
I think there are virtues to work, though. Don’t you think those virtues are separable from the 40 hour work week? If I consider a labor of love from a hobby, for instance, I still need discipline, resolve, etc. to ever see it to completion. And I’m closer to flourishing by seeing it to completion than, say, starting and leaving unfinished a hundred projects. Not everything can just never feel like work, I guess.
Yes, I think I agree entirely with this. It’s just from my perspective, our culture of work-worship not only doesn’t support this kind of work getting done, it is usually actively harmful to it.
I mentioned Hannah Arendt above, I think she’s really onto something. Most of what we call “work” she called “labour”, and saw it as something to be tolerated, at best. (I may be greatly mis-remembering her though, it’s been a long time since I read The Human Condition and I hated it at the time.)
Okay, I don’t think we substantially disagree, then. And thank you for the reminder that I ought to read Arendt.
I found reading her a horrible slog, but it was literally the first book of serious somewhat-traditional philosophy that I ever read (as part of an entry requirement for my undergrad), so I suspect I would have a different opinion if I read her now. At any rate, I still think about the basic concepts a few times a year, and everything else that I come across about/by her makes me view her positively.
I’ve only read her Totalitarianism. I’m very glad I did, but horrible slog is right. Great thinker, tedious writer.
I suspect part of the problem is that she’s coming from a Heideggerean background, and of course by his standards she’s boringly straightforward. I have gotten a lot out of continental philosophy, but almost always only after a lot of banging my head against the prose.
As I have from time to time mentioned, the average real wage in the U.S. at present is twenty to thirty times the average real wage of the world over most of history.
That suggests that if everyone in the U.S. worked a tenth as much as at present, we could probably all survive — at a standard of living that most modern Americans would regard as intolerably low, far below what is commonly described as a living wage.
Is that the sort of thing you were thinking of?
It’s a better-quantified and thought-out specification of my vague intuitions. I also have a probably-unjustified faith that given a slightly less manic lifestyle, productivity would increase, and production of the things that actually matter to most people would increase more.
So perhaps you could do things like cut work by a third, or a half, and increase the quality and relevance of that work, and greatly increase overall happiness.
I realize that this is idealistic, naive, and runs directly counter to the intuitions of probably most of the posters here. It’s probably a good thing I’m not a dictator.
That’s a great mental image, a dictator who forces his people to not work.
Jackbooted thugs sitting at the entrance to every office, who sweep it at 2 and escort everyone out of the building. One man attempts to smuggle a laptop out of the building. Once it’s found, he’s beaten.
Intrusive software installed on everyone’s computer to ensure they’re searching the Internet for only frivolous things.
Nice!
“YOU WILL RELAX AND YOU WILL ENJOY IT! OR YOU WILL BE SENT TO THE RE-EDUCATION CAMPS!*”
*The re-education camps have mandatory saunas and massages for all, and public confession sessions which consist of forcing you to dance in public to fusion jazz.
I actually had a brigade commander do this–well, not the jackbooted thugs part. His theory was that we were going to be spending an entire year deployed, so when back in garrison people should be getting home at a reasonable hour to spend time with their families.
He’d start going through the brigade area at 1730 looking for people still at work. It was a bad time for a battalion commander if he found somebody, and if you were a company commander at work and you still had subordinates at work it was a super bad time.
He wasn’t doing anything like trying to keep people from teleworking (though he definitely didn’t encourage it); the failure mode he was trying to avoid was the one where the boss is working late so everybody feels like they don’t want to leave before their boss. By ensuring that the company commanders and lieutenants were kicked out of the office, you would free everybody just killing time to avoid being seen as “that guy” leaving earlier than everybody else.
I think he’s imaging other societies wherein work has been made inessential via redistribution and technological progress.
I’m not proposing eliminating all work, just most of it. I think that’s been possible, more or less, for most of the history of organized society.
I am open to the idea that a lot of work is counter productive and would be good to eliminate, and also worry that we won’t evolve a more humane system to replace it.
Most people (in the developed world at least, less sure about undeveloped places) could almost certainly reduce their output of labor hours and still earn enough money to purchase semi-adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical supplies, etc.
Most people choose not to.
Who are you to tell them they’re wrong?
@Matt M
Not Enkidum, but it’s one thing to say, “I know what’s best for you, pleb, so stop working Or Else,” and quite another to say, “It’s your choice and I respect that, but your reasons for it are bad and you should reconsider.”
Fair enough.
For the record, I probably agree that most people value money too much and free time/independence too little (that is to say, I think in terms of how people value free time relative to money, I value free time more and money less than the average person).
@Nick – yes, this.
Also to further weaken my original statements, I agree with what I take to be both @Randy and @Matt’s suspicions about many of the people/groups that have said similar things to what I’ve said. People have obviously done terrible things in the name of eliminating the kinds of exploitation I’m describing (and utterly failed at doing so, for the most part).
I think you are wildly mistaken. For most of the history of organized society, most of the population of the world was not much above literal subsistence, and if the work done in agriculture, which was most of the world’s work, had been cut in half most of the population would have starved to death.
Could you explain why you believe the opposite?
@Matt M
Can they really? In my experience, working fewer hours for lower salary is often not an option, and when it is, the difference in salary is disproportional to the difference in time (for example, you can work 80% of the time for 50% of the salary). It’s because “not wanting to work full-time” is bad signalling — it screams that spending most of your waking time at job isn’t your true dream, which is the opposite of what most people pretend at the job interview.
So if I make more money than I need, but 50% is slightly less than I need, I don’t see a good option here. (Other than “work for two or three years, be unemployed for one, repeat”. Which also makes people curious at the job interviews.)
If people had the chance to reduce their working hours slightly without disproportional penalty, I would expect more people (of course, not everyone) to take this option. Someone at the office would start with e.g. leaving on Friday at noon, and gradually more people would decide it is a good idea.
@Viliam > ““…work for two or three years, be unemployed for one, repeat”…”
As an “A” hand journeyman union construction worker plumber in San Jose I could do precisely that, as long as I worked enough hours in a five year period I had first dibs on new calls for jobs (two lists “A” hands, and “B” hands, the “A” hands out of work longest got the calls first, if the union liked you they let the phone ring longer before moving to the next guy, if no “A hands” answered the phone and took the job, they’d start calling the “B hands”. As long as there was enough construction jobs it was easy to take a year off and get work again afterwards, 2008-10 though jobs were scarce and you were far less likely to get a call, so if you took 2007 off you’d lose “A” status and have to wait for a boom to get work.
The advice I heard as an apprentice was “Construction is feast or famine, save enough to take a year off every ten years”, which was good advice for when the recession came and there was little work for three years, and I only had work for half of each year.
Sorry, my post was poorly phrased. Yes, this is obviously correct. I was speaking in more of a hypothetical aggregate sense and not considering practical limitations.
What I should have said was something like “assuming a perfectly flexible and linear correlation between hours worked and money earned, most people could reduce hours worked and still live comfortably…”
Social Conservative:
Abortion should definitely be legal
Social Liberal:
Most of these positions are just entirely alien to me. Marriage is obsolete? Cut the military by 50%? People are the same? Eliminate the wealthy? America is set-up to exploit non-white people? Publicly religious people should be socially stigmatized?
I agree with the poster above that said modern social liberalism left me 10 years ago, possibly 20 years ago
Statist:
Pretty much all the health care ones. They strike me as “screw it, the problem seems too complex: just have the government run everything and it will be easier.” I suspect this will end poorly.
Libertarian:
Most of the common ones I don’t have a problem with. Some people have specific ones that I disagree with, like density zoning abolition or the right to secession (since secession is a right that’s afforded to communities, not individuals).
I assume, based on context, that you mean abortion should be illegal?
I think not. He’s describing his objections to the views that several people expressed in this thread.
No, I think he’s responding to Enkidum’s question here:
His response to the top-level questions is down below.
… okay, I see. I got lost in the comment nesting. Thanks.
The bit about marriage being obsolete strikes me as the kind of thing people say when they have no significant experience with children and no plan to bear or raise any. It takes at least twelve years–bare minimum in exceptional cases–to make a human child self-sufficient, and more realistically fifteen or twenty. They’re programmed to model their behavior on adults. You’re not going to raise children with robot nannies, and institutional day care provides distinctly inferior results–hell, even single parenting, with a loving parent, seems pretty bad. Marriage is a sane and sensible social arrangement, and to the extent it is being degraded society is suffering.
What about social arrangements that include family-like communities of more than two adults?
Uncommon for a reason; the ones I’ve head of strike me as inadequate, unstable, dangerous, or simply inferior. Can’t elaborate b/c typing one-handed w/sleeping baby. Give example & I will give input later?
Now the wife has the baby. I can’t cover every possible family alternative, but broadly, marriage has advantages over alternatives I can think of in that:
* There are only two people. When you’re functioning as a household, it’s important to be able to make decisions. Bigamy “worked” pretty well back when women were effectively property; multiplying the number of adults under one roof with decision-making rights is a recipe for conflict. Note also that people are a lot more mobile than they used to be, so you need all parties involved to have no reason to move to another city for work, etc. Easier with two than any larger number.
*Those two people are (hopefully) having sex, which tends to encourage them to like each other, and they’re generally both parents to all children. Yes, there’s polyamory, etc., but that brings jealousy and politics into the picture. Households with, say, three adult women working together to watch their respective kids (arbitrarily chosen alt scenario) will have tensions because every woman has an obvious reason to care more about some kids than others.
*Since there’s one of each sex, broadly implemented marriage tends to leave most of the population matched with few loose ends. This is important because young, single men commit the substantial majority of crimes, especially violent crimes. Marriage is nice for giving young men a reason not to do something stupid. Uncommitted babydaddies are bad news, and the live-in boyfriends who replace them are worse. Having one of each sex also guarantees an adult role model for any kids.
This is not to say that some alternative arrangements can’t work, and I realize that sometimes alternative arrangements have to be made because marriage just isn’t in the cards. But hopefully that answers your question.
I’d say those that look like extended families work; probably, across human societies, having a grandparent in the household was pretty normal.
I haven’t seen “all the adults are peers” models that worked well for either adults or children long-term.
I wasn’t thinking of parents + one or more grandparents or the like as an alternative to marriage–more of marriage plus a supplementary caretaker. I suppose one parent plus a grandparent would be an alternative, but I’d imagine that usually happens when daddy dies/goes to jail/runs away, not as a planned arrangement.
This scenario sometimes works when it’s the grandma, mother and daughter watching the daughter’s kids. But there is still kinship there. There’s also sisters and mother, or other options, but having a blood connection makes it a bit more workable.
Yeah. That’s the sort of common fallback I think we see more and more of as marriage declines (for a mixture of cultural and economic reasons). It’s certainly better than many alternatives–but still obviously worse than it would be if grandpa, dad, and son-in-law were still in the picture.
@theredsheep says: That’s the sort of common fallback I think we see more and more of as marriage declines (for a mixture of cultural and economic reasons). It’s certainly better than many alternatives–but still obviously worse than it would be if grandpa, dad, and son-in-law were still in the picture”
On your larger point I agree with you, but since nitpicking is so much fun I’ll point out that while marriage rates dropped after 2008, unwed births have dropped since the ’80’s, and married women’s birthrates have actually gone up compared to a few years ago.
If trends continue (a big if) I could imagine it may shake out so that the children of those born in the past few years will follow their parents examples more and the example of the general culture of the last few decades less, and so have both greater birth and marriage rates than today.
As the person who originally said that, that’s a fairly accurate characterization of me. I don’t have kids, and I don’t want them, simple because I don’t want to precommit to spending one quarter of my life on what is essentially a charitable endeavor that I would feel honour-bound to ensure does not benefit me in any way. In response to your criticism, I’m willing to walk back my initial statement. Marriage being portrayed by society and culture as the one true correct relationship format and extensively favoured by the government is obsolete. Marriage a a technique for child-rearing is still state-of-the-art, though we should still be investigating alternatives, just in case we’re missing something.
Why would you feel this way? There’s no reason a parent/child relationship can’t be mutually beneficial, even if it’s probably not financially beneficial on net (though it might be by the time you die!).
What? Enjoying your children is basically a pre-requisite for raising them reasonably well. Why would you have a relationship that doesn’t benefit you in anyway? Parenthood isn’t slavery, and even slaves received some tiny benefits.
There are windfalls. Aside from kids being awesome, my eldest has acquired (from his mother and mine, certainly not from me) an enthusiasm for craft work. He amuses himself building stuff in his little workshop. We just got him an impact driver for his eighth birthday. Guess who’s going to be doing pro bono handy work when I’m old?
ETA: As somebody who’s very much for traditional marriage, I’d appreciate it if they emphasized the having kids aspect of it more, since I see that as the main point and the government’s primary reason for promoting it. I don’t feel much concern if two people are humping; I feel rather more concern if they’re raising a maladjusted child with a rotating cast of dubious boyfriends.
@Randy M, @baconbits9 Besides a general dislike of ever using “connections” to better myself? Any misstep in your upbringing can cause irreversible damage throughout your life. Any uncertainty about my own motives would be intolerable for me. This attitude probably has something to do with the fact that my own parents cared too much about keeping me comfortable in the short term and trying to get me to like them and not enough about getting me ready for life.
Most strongly disagree:
The ones that make me somewhat annoyed are the statist statements on healthcare & education regulations. Most of the problems in these fields come from overregulation, not under-.
Some simply bemused me as they seem too alien. I know that monarchists exist, as well as pro-lifers, but I never meet them in my social circle. Although it is nice that there are so many varied points of view on SSC.
Most strongly agree:
There’s a lot. Equal treatment of both genders (which includes same physical tests), anti-climate change and anti-monopoly government action, almost any libertarian point listed above.
Generally, I agreed more often than disagreed. But many of those points didn’t feel that important to me. For example, I disagree if someone says that divorce should be forbidden. At the same time, I agree that less divorce is generally a good thing. That’s an opinion, not a policy.
Similarly, I don’t know if I’ve picked up any strongly held progressive beliefs (other than obvious and banal ones like “all people have inherent worth), but I have some strongly held agnosticism where I used to be firmly opposed to progressive beliefs, for example in regards to socialized medicine or climate change.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Men and women are different, they enjoy being different, and it’s good they are different. Different does not mean better or worse.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
The 1960s revolutions are achievements not much further behind the American Revolution and the abolition of slavery.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
Market failures aren’t exceptions, they are the norm, and government regulation has been successful in fixing many of these failures.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
Right to bear arms is an individual right, it encompasses “assault” weapons, it means concealed carry, and it’s just as essential as the right to worship or speak freely
And you don’t think they are the norm on the political market?
Market failure comes from situations where an individual does not bear most of the net cost of his actions, hence what is in his interest is not what is in our interest. That sometimes happens on the private market. But it almost always happens on the political market.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Religious freedom is the most important American value, and I am willing to let it supersede virtually all other values. (I think many progressives would claim this as one of their values, but would disagree with my view of Masterpiece Cakeshop so I put this in this category.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
Discrimination by employers based on any immutable characteristics is bad, and should be illegal, unless the employer can demonstrate that they cannot perform the essential functions of their job.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion and
Taxes should be progressive.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
Occupational licensing is net harmful, rent seeking behavior, and we should get rid of all of it except for medical professionals, then revisit and see if we can get rid of those, too.
Can you talk about how you reconcile points 1 and 2? It seems that discrimination based on immutable (or barely-mutable like sexual preference) characteristics has been one of the largest flashpoints related to religious freedom over the past 50 years.
Back when I was young, “religious freedom” meant freedom to practice one’s religion – and (usually) freedom not to practice a religion at all. It didn’t mean freedom to impose one’s religion’s idea of right and wrong on anyone, not even members of one’s own church – who were always free to leave, just as your church as free to expel them.
This happened anyway – a watered down mostly-Christian monotheism was pushed down people’s throats in both the US and Canada. People and organizations too far from the pseudo-Christian standard were deemed “not really religions” and/or otherwise pernicious. And soppy interdenominational (i.e. Christian, with a nod to Judaism) events were often mandatory, particularly for children. And of course things like polygamy (OK in some religions and cultures) were banned (see “otherwise pernicious” above). But arguments against (some of) this, when they occurred, were often based on “religious freedom”.
It’s only recently that “religious freedom” has come to mean such things as the right (and duty?) to offend people by calling them “she” when they insist on “he”, and vice versa. Or, for that matter, the need to defend the boundaries of “marriage” – that defence was previously based on a combination of mushy-monotheist-consensus and science/medicine (queers of all kinds were pathologized, by the consensus of just about everyone else).
It’s only recently that this was even an issue on the radar for most people. And yes, freedom of religion includes the freedom to offend people, e.g. by adopting and displaying symbols of the Adversary.
You’d think simple freedom of speech would cover the right to offend people all on its own.
@The Nybbler
Yes, and if various groups would shut up about it, it would probably stop being an issue for almost everyone. Most people who care about their pronouns will attempt to move heaven and earth to make their appearance correspond to their identity, and you’d have to know their personal history to have any inclination to use their birth label.
Obviously this isn’t true for those still working on changing their appearance, and already past puberty. And many MTFs wind up looking a little odd. (But probably not any odder than my mother, with small breasts, and a butch style – every year or so someone would tell her she was in the wrong washroom, and be mortified when she responded with her obviously female voice.)
But for most of us, most of the time, it’s a non-issue. Or it’s a non-issue until/unless it directly affects one of our friends or relatives.
@Nybbler and @Jaskologist
Precisely.
Also, I thought I knew the Bible really really well, but I can’t find the part where G-d says “thou shalt not address a male as ‘she’ or a female as ‘he'”. That wouldn’t matter for some Christians, let alone for other religious groups, but a lot of the people with religious freedom objections seem to me to belong to sola scriptura sects.
Sorry, I know too many exceptions. Hazard of being in big tech. You’ve got the ones who insist on plural pronouns, the ones who insist on novel pronouns, the ones who make no effort, and the ones who make a serious effort but are obvious.
Maybe the last group wouldn’t be obvious if transgender wasn’t such an issue (a “square” religious conservative might just assume they were mannish women, or at least pretend to), but since it is, they are.
It takes a certain degree of mental sophistication (some might say sophistry) to justify stating what you believe to be objectively false via recourse to the social construction of language.
It is not hard to derive a belief in a dichotomous gender essentialism being divine plan from halfway through the first chapter of the book.
That said, unless someone made a big deal about it, I’d be one of those Nybbler references who would politely acquiesce on the grounds that I hadn’t and have no cause to judge the dispositive evidence myself, and there’s a sometimes unfortunately wide range in secondary sexual characteristics.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 5:2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.
Mark 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
+
Matthew 5:37 But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.
I actually had that thought while writing it. First half of reconciling it, is that I limit it to employer employee relationships. Masterpiece Cakeshop is about customer ordering a custom product, so that is different enough to defer to religious values. In other words, the state can order me to work with someone I morally consider a sinner, if I have more than 25 employees, but it can’t order me to do something I find morally objectionable.
The second half is that perform essential functions, can do a lot of work, if you define it broadly. A women cannot perform the essential functions of the Pope, by religious definition of the Catholic Church. That is appropriate discrimination, and covered in the current ministerial exception. However, ministerial exception is under review right now in St. James School v. Biel and a companion case on whether Catholic school teachers should be exempt from disability and age discrimination law. My view is the court should define a standard that would allow the plaintiff teachers to win in this case, since there is no religious justification for firing old teachers or not giving LWOP, but still give the school leeway in not hiring a teacher that is currently in a homosexual marriage.
These two intuitions bump into each other, and I like to find a middle ground, but if I can’t, I would have religious freedom trump non discrimination.
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion
Media and Education in the US has a very strong bias to the Left. This results in many people (especially the young) never hearing good arguments from the Right.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion
Trump is stupid and reckless
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion
Government should provide welfare for all to bring all up to the poverty line, regardless if they jump through various hoops such as looking for work, going to school, etc.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion
All victimless crimes such as with drugs and prostitution should be legal.
Interesting – I grew up (decades ago) believing that the media bias was in the other direction.
This didn’t mean that I was hearing good arguments from the media – they preferred to invoke the normal human habit of believing whatever those around them appear to believe ;-( And while the media wasn’t quite as sound-bite dominated as currently, they still didn’t tend towards producing much of anything long enough to contain a decent argument ;-( But perhaps any decent arguments were in the education system, not the media.
So, did things change [perhaps as a result of the 60s generation growing up and taking senior positions], or is it just that unless you are at the exact midpoint of any spectrum, you will see more people on one side of you than the other – so if you are left of the midpoint, there are more people to your right, and vice versa? (My family was left of centre even in Canada, making them extremist left by US standards ;-() Or am I just a really poor judge?
I think the established media has always been and still is in favor of the status quo, just because they are part of the establishment. I don’t know if this stance in the ’60’s was necessarily right wing, but it may have seemed that way when most of the radicals of the time professed left wing causes. Perhaps there were a number of radical right wingers in the ’60’s but we never heard of them because of the natural left wing bias of the media? Pure speculation on that. But I do remember that journalists of the ’60’s were fascinated by left wing radicals and hippies, even if they officially disapproved of them. I am pretty sure that the radicals made a very large impression on our generation growing up then because journalism paid them a lot of attention.
So why is the status quo much more obviously left now? I think a large part is indeed that Baby Boomers growing up in the ’60’s and ’70’s are now running things. Maybe partly so many college kids these days. Pretty much everyone in power went to college, which tends to turn many kids left. I bet most of the journalists in the ’60’s didn’t have college degrees.
For some reason journalism majors are about the most left group of students there are. For sure the left has a much greater fascination with politics and government than the right, so that might be it. That is also probably why the left is so dominant on Internet forums, outside of SSC. And in fact that might explain why the status quo has turned left in the last several decades. The left is simply a lot more interested in guiding the debate, and people have more leisure than they did 50 years ago or 100 years ago, so the leftists have time to indulge their passion.
Most strongly held social conservative opinion: Children do better with two parents than one (in the common case of no child abuse) and therefore society should be careful not to create incentives for single parenthood.
Most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion: War is wrong; a nation should retain a military force for defense only (and by “defense”, I mean specifically conflict within the borders of that nation or a nation with whom there exists a mutual-defense treaty).
Most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion: People should be welcome to accumulate as much wealth as can provide for a lavish, profligate lifestyle for the rest of their lives. The excess should be removed by tax (this principle also implies a 100% estate tax).
Most strongly held libertarian opinion: Variance in gender expression and sexual behavior is normal and should be celebrated as a way of optimizing human happiness.
In practice, this would just result in the creation of elaborate trusts and gifts to children heirs.
Sure, law is hard. I’m not nearly enough of a legal expert to carefully draft laws that would have the result I want, but I don’t think that means that nobody could do it.
nobody could do it.
A 100% tax means that literally any loophole, however inefficient, is better than letting the government take all the money.
That, or old people would waste all their money.
Yeah, but then what’s the motivation for those people to work harder? Instead of Bill Gates spending 100 billion on charity you have the US government spending 100 million, because it’s unlikely you’ll convince him to work for free for more than that.
Over a certain level people specifically see money as power – to build stuff, to change things or yes, power for power’s sake. I know I do – I don’t really have dreams of buying a 100 room house, but of testing 10 startup ideas at a time. That’s what keeps me working. And the beauty of free market is that every cent you make for yourself makes at least another cent for society in positive externalities – well, unless you work in advertising or tabacco.
A 100% tax means that the “hire of a bunch mercenaries to massacre the legislature and install you as dictator” loophole is also in play.
I can’t guarantee these are my most strongly-held overall, or simply what’s most salient to me right now, but here goes:
Your most strongly held social conservative opinion:
There’s no point in fighting patriarchy too hard, so we may be better off making peace with a modified version of it. This goes beyond kids doing best with a stably-married mom and dad (which I do think is true), into accepting that even those who want egalitarian marriage and childrearing can understandably find it impractical to achieve. Childbearing and nursing does tend to divert women into a more domestic role, at least temporarily, and people who never have their career interrupted have more to lose by even one interruption than people who already have had, or can reasonably expect, such an interruption. So, there’s something to be said for tending to let the men of the family off the hook when any kind of family caregiving need arises: it’s good for someone in the family to have an uninterrupted career, if possible.
Your most strongly held social liberal-progressive opinion:
Whether or not current trans advocacy is helpful or harmful, it is immoral to treat people as defective or irrational for wondering whether transitioning might improve their lives.
Your most strongly held social-democratic/economic statist opinion:
This is a tough one… Maybe that the folks who say unpaid caregiving should receive an allowance from the state are correct when they point out our culture devalues unpaid labor in a socially-harmful way. I think creating such an allowance would create more problems than it solves, though, and the best solution may be to simply accept the devaluation of unpaid work as part of life’s unfairness.
Your most strongly held libertarian opinion:
Heh. Potentially several of these. But my strongest might be that non-anarcho-capitalists should listen to anarcho-capitalists like David Friedman, because a mostly-consequentialist anarcho-capitalist perspective like his provides a lot of insight into non-anarcho-capitalist systems, too. (DF’s “Law’s Order” is a great example of this.)